Page 39 of Blind Side
"I've been making you coffee for three years, Abbott. I'd be embarrassed if I got it wrong."
"Clay."
"Clay." I was still learning the sound of his first name from my lips. It felt different, more intimate. It belonged to him as a person rather than just the player. "Clay. Are you sure? This is your career. This is what you've been working toward."
He set the mug down. He put his hands on my waist, his thumbs resting against my hip bones, and looked at me with an intensity that spoke volumes.
"Jamie. I've been sitting in the backup net watching you play hockey for years. I've been riding in cars with you and stealing your protein bars and sitting in your kitchen drinking from thatdamn blue mug. I've been watching you take care of every single person on that team while nobody takes care of you." He pulled me an inch closer. "I'm not going to Denver. I'm not going anywhere. This is where I want to be."
"Backup money. Backup role."
"I don't care about the money. I care about the net." He paused. "I care about you. The net is secondary."
I kissed him.
I kissed him because I could. He was standing in his kitchen telling me he was staying. His hands were on my waist and his coffee was getting cold.
I had thought this was impossible.
"We should tell the team," I said.
"The team already knows."
"The team suspects. That's different."
"Hayes." He said my name the affectionate way he said it in locker rooms and parking lots. "Bishop has had money on this since the Minnesota series. Theo has been vibrating about it for weeks. Luca looked at me in the locker room yesterday like he was going to drag me to your apartment himself."
"Luca knew?"
"Luca always knows."
I leaned against the counter. Abbott leaned against me. We were done pretending.
I was, for the first time in my adult life, someone's person.
The man who had been watching me for years had decided, when it came down to it, that watching was not enough.
I was enough.
21
Abbott
The team found out on Tuesday.
Not through the group chat. Not through an announcement.
Through the natural, organic osmosis of a locker room that had been watching two people orbit each other for years and had been collectively and individually betting on the outcome.
Jamie walked into the facility with me. That wasn't unusual; we'd shared rides before.
But we walked in together differently—his shoulder against mine, his hand brushing the small of my back as we went through the door. It was the little things that, in a locker room full of men trained to read body language at competitive speed, weren't little at all.
Theo saw it first. Theo always saw things first.
He was at his stall, lacing up for morning skate, and looked up when we walked in. His golden eyes tracked from Jamie to me to the space between us.
"FINALLY." He said it loud enough for the entire room to hear. He stood up, one skate on, one skate off, and pointed at us with the energy of a man who'd been waiting for an overly long time. "FINALLY. Do you have any idea— I've been WAITING—"
