Page 23 of Blind Side
"Yeah."
"I'm glad you're my roommate on these trips."
"Booking error."
"Sure. Booking error." He paused. "I'm glad anyway."
I turned my head to see him looking at me.
The distance between us was so small. I could see the color of his eyes in the low light, burning with intensity. He'd stopped pretending he wasn't looking at me..
His hand moved half an inch toward mine on the blanket.
I didn't move away.
He didn't reach for me. He let his hand rest there, half an inch closer, and looked at me with an expression that I would remember for the rest of my life—not wanting, not pleading. Just open. For one unguarded moment, he stopped hiding.
I could have closed it. I could have put my hand on his and what we'd been building toward for nine nights—for years—would have been real and tangible, existing in the physical world instead of the private one where I kept it.
One of us shifted, the distance falling away. His face was right there, close enough to read every microexpression. Close enough I could feel his breath against my mouth.
My phone rang.
The screen lit up on the nightstand. MARTY. 11:47 PM.
Jamie blinked. His open expression held for two more seconds. Then he pulled back.
I looked at the phone. I looked at Jamie. I looked at the phone.
"You should get that," Jamie said. His voice was strained.
Our connection vanished.
I answered.
"Clay." Marty's voice was alert. He wasn't apologetic about the hour. Agents didn't apologize for phone calls that changed careers. "Denver's formalizing the offer. Two years, three point five million per. Starter guaranteed. NMC for the first year. They want an answer before you fly home."
I said the right things. I asked the right questions—cap implications, bonus structure, the trade mechanics from Chicago's end. My voice was as steady as my hands. I was a goalie and goalies kept their hands steady.
Jamie sat next to me on the bed, listening to my half of the conversation. I could feel him there, his warmth and stillness, his undivided attention when he was listening.
I hung up and put the phone down. I stared at the blank screen.
The room was silent. Two minutes ago, we'd been close enough to feel each other's breath. Now we were sitting on a bed in a hotel room in a city neither of us lived in, and the distance between us was the widest it had ever been.
"Congratulations," Jamie said, his voice steady. "That's an amazing offer."
"Yeah."
"You deserve it. You know you deserve it. After what you did two nights ago—thirty-one saves, first star—any team in the league should want you."
"Yeah."
"Starter money. A contender, Abbott. Denver has a window. You'd walk into that building and you'd be the guy." He wasdoing his thing, building me up, saying the right words—using his social skill to make me feel seen and valued and supported. He was doing it perfectly. "That's everything you wanted."
He was looking straight ahead, at the muted TV, where a late-night show was playing. He wouldn't look at me. He was composed, being perfectly supportive because that's what Jamie Hayes did.
But I had seen his face.
