Chapter 7
Abbott
Game night. City two.
I sat on the bench in full gear, pads heavy on my legs, blocker and glove resting on the boards, and watched the Storm play hockey from the only angle a backup goalie ever sees it—close enough to read the play, far enough to be irrelevant.
The arena was loud. Columbus was having a good season. Their fans showed up with an energy that pressed against the glass. The boards shook with every hit. The ice was choppy by the second period, the surface punishing lazy skating and rewarding players who read the angles.
Hayes was having a game.
He was on Luca's wing, running the cycle so beautifully it made the media say things like the Moretti-Hayes connection is becoming one of the premier partnerships in the conference.
They were. Luca's vision and Jamie's instinct created lanes that didn't exist until the puck was already in them.
I tracked each shift from the bench, reading the ice and processing the pattern, seeing the game unfold two moves ahead.
Except with Jamie, I was watching something else too. The way his legs drove through a turn. The breadth of his shoulders inside the jersey. The controlled explosion of his skating stride, all power, confident without being flashy. He was effective without demanding attention.
Second period. We were up 2–1. Hayes won a board battle in the corner.
I could describe to you exactly how he did it, using his lower body to seal off the defenseman, and the exact moment he shifted his weight to win the leverage battle.
I had been watching Jamie Hayes play hockey for years with an attention that bordered on devotional.
He stripped the puck with a move that was pure skill and fed Theo for the secondary assist on what became a 3–1 lead.
He came off the ice grinning, his helmet loose, sweat darkening the collar of his jersey.
He tapped the boards as he slid onto the bench.
Eriksson said something to him that made him laugh. The sound carried over the arena noise and settled in the center of my chest.
Third period, 8:47 remaining. Hayes carried the puck through the neutral zone on a transition rush, head up, reading the lanes. Their defenseman, six-four and 220, lined him up from the blind side.
I saw it happening before Jamie did. His trajectory and the angle of his approach left a split second where his focus on the passing lane left his left shoulder exposed.
The hit came at full speed. It was clean, shoulder to shoulder. The collision sent a boom through the arena and made the crowd gasp. Jamie's stick went one direction and his body went the other. He hit the boards at full velocity.
Four seconds.
That was how long it took Jamie to pop back up, recover his stick, and skate to the bench under his own power. Four seconds.
He was fine. He'd taken a thousand hits like that in his career. He was already shaking it off, rotating his shoulder, making a joke to Eriksson on the bench.
Four seconds was also how long it took me to experience something I had no professional framework for.
My hands went numb inside my gloves. It was the adrenaline-numb of identifying a threat and responding before the brain could intervene. My vision narrowed to the point of impact and stayed there even after Jamie was up and skating. My stomach dropped entirely disproportionate to what had happened.
A hockey player got hit during a hockey game. It happened. This was the sport. I'd watched hundreds of hits. I understood bodies and ice and the physics of collision.
This was not detachment.
This was four seconds of pure, animal terror, bypassing every rational system I'd spent my life building and went straight to a place in my chest.
I sat on the bench and recovered my breath. I watched Jamie Hayes joke with Eriksson about the hit while my hands slowly regained feeling inside my gloves.
Backup goalie math. I'd been doing it for years. The formula accounted for starts and save percentages, contract values and career trajectories. It never accounted for the way your body responded when someone you loved got hurt in front of you.
Someone you loved. There it was. Someone I loved had gotten hit. I had experienced four seconds of terror. Now I was sitting on an NHL bench pretending to watch a hockey game while my pulse slowly returned to normal.
I looked at my hands.
They were goalkeeper's hands, thick-knuckled and tape-calloused, designed for exactly one thing.
I'd spent my entire career training them to react without thought, to process information at the speed of a slap shot, and to respond before consciousness could interfere.
Tonight they responded to Jamie Hayes hitting the boards as involuntarily as they responded to a puck.
The Storm won 4–2. Jamie got a point.
He was fine.
Back at the hotel in our room, the post-game ritual was as familiar as anything in my life—room service ordered and jackets tossed on the desk chair, shoes kicked off, and the slow unwind coming down from the adrenaline of competition.
Jamie sprawled on the bed. He was still in his travel suit from the arena, his tie loosened and his shirt untucked. The lamplight was warm against the white sheets.
"Good game," I said.
"That hit in the third rattled my fillings." He rolled his shoulder experimentally. "Their kid can skate. I'll give him that."
"You didn't see him coming."
"I saw him coming. I chose the pass."
"Over self-preservation."
"The pass was a primary assist. Self-preservation doesn't show up on the scoresheet." He grinned. The grin faded into something softer as the adrenaline finished draining. "You look tense."
"I'm a goalie. I'm always tense."
"You're more tense than usual. You've been more tense than usual on this trip."
He was watching me with that warm, perceptive attention. He was focused entirely on me.
"It was a good game," I said again. Repetition was safer than honesty.
"It was. You know what was weird? I could feel you watching me from the bench."
I went still. "You could feel me watching you?"
"I was working the boards and I just—I knew. I could feel your eyes on me." He said it casually. "You watch differently than other people."
"I'm a goalie," I said again. It was becoming a deflection pattern he was going to notice if I used it a third time. "Watching is my job."
"Yeah." He yawned and stretched. The shirt pulled taut across his chest. I looked at the ceiling. "But you don't watch everyone the same way."
I couldn't respond to that. What was I going to say? You're right, I don't. I watch you the way I've watched you for years. You got hit tonight, and I was so afraid for four seconds. That told me everything.
"You're falling asleep," I said instead.
"I'm not falling asleep."
He was falling asleep. His eyes were closing and his head tilted back against the headboard. His breathing evened out.
I sat in the desk chair and watched him sleep for five minutes. Ten. The room was quiet except for the distant sound of the city and the steady rhythm of Jamie's breathing.
He looked different, asleep. The social side of him shut down, and what was left was just the man—broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and a softness around his mouth that appeared when he stopped smiling and let his face rest. He was beautiful. Jamie Hayes was beautiful.
I let myself look for thirty more seconds, then I stood up and crossed to the bed. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"Hayes."
He startled, the jolt of being dragged back from the edge of sleep. His eyes opened and for one unguarded second, they focused on my face.
"Get under the covers," I said. "I'll take the chair for a while."
"Don't be stupid." He grabbed my wrist. His grip was warm. His thumb rested against my pulse point. I knew he could feel my heart rate, which was racing. "The bed's big enough. We're adults."
"You said that yesterday."
"Still true today." He let go of my wrist. I felt his absence immediately. "Come to bed, Abbott."
I turned off the lamp and lay down beside him in the dark on the right side—which was my side because the left side was his side.
Because we had sides of the bed.
He was asleep again within minutes.
I lay in the dark and thought about those four seconds of terror.
And I thought about the feeling of his thumb against my pulse and the devastating, casual way he'd said, Come to bed, Abbott.
As if that sentence didn't contain the entire shape of everything I'd ever wanted and had never asked for.
Denver was offering me a starting position with my name on the back of a jersey that mattered.
Jamie Hayes was asleep beside me, his hand resting on the mattress between us.
I thought about Kieran's question. What are you waiting for him to do?
I knew the answer. I was waiting for him to ask me to stay.
The problem was that Jamie Hayes had never, in his entire life, asked anyone for anything.