Chapter 15
Abbott
I told Jamie on Tuesday at a coffee shop equidistant between our apartments.
It was already a departure from our normal—we didn't meet at neutral locations. We met at his place or the facility. We normally saw each other enough anyway.
Neutral ground meant this was different. He knew it when I texted the address.
He was already there when I arrived. He sat at a corner table, a coffee in front of him and one waiting for me. He'd ordered mine black. He knew me. The mug was institutional white—nothing like my blue one at his house.
"Hey," he said with an easy smile. It was the full Jamie Hayes performance.
"Hey." I sat down. I wrapped my hands around the mug to make the next part easier. "I need to tell you something."
His smile didn't change, but his eyes did. Jamie Hayes could read a room, and right now he was reading me with his entire attention.
"Denver made a formal offer," I said. "Two years, starter, three point five million per. NMC for the first year."
He nodded slowly. The smile was gone now, replaced by a more serious look. "That's an incredible offer."
"It is."
"You've been sitting on this since the road trip."
"I've been sitting on this since before the road trip. The formal offer came during."
"During the trip." He processed this. I watched the realization that the phone call in the hotel room, the 11:47 PM interruption, had been this. "That was the call."
"That was the call."
A flicker of the wanting I'd seen in the hotel room crossed his face. Then it was gone.
"Clay." The weight of my first name on his lips hurt. "This is a real opportunity. You deserve to be a starter. You proved that. Thirty-one saves, first star—that's the kind of game that reminds people who you are. Denver is getting a generational steal at that number."
He was building me up, naming my strengths, making me feel seen and valued and worthy of what I was being offered. That's what Jamie Hayes did.
"I wanted you to hear it from me," I said. "Before I made any final decisions."
"I appreciate that." He took a sip of his coffee. His hands were steady. His voice was steady. Everything about him was steady. "Whatever you decide, we're good. You know that, right? We're good."
Whatever you decide, we're good.
I sat with that for a moment.
His response was so wrong. It was too supportive. He said the right thing without saying anything. Jamie Hayes had just been told that his best friend was considering leaving, and his response was to make sure I knew he was okay with it.
He wasn't okay with it. I'd seen his face. I knew what was underneath the performance.
But this was the only thing he was willing to show me.
"Thanks," I said. "That means a lot."
"Of course." The easy smile returned, the one that managed people and made them feel like family. It showed absolutely nothing of the real Jamie.
We finished our coffee. We talked about the schedule. We talked about Mikkola's development and Volkov's latest prank and the mundane. He walked me to my car and tapped the roof twice.
I drove home. I sat in my apartment—the minimal, functional space that had started, over the last few years, to show small signs of another person.
A second mug that had appeared in the cupboard.
A book Jamie had left on my shelf that neither of us had mentioned returning.
Coffee in the pantry that I didn't drink.
Whatever you decide, we're good.
It was the wrong answer because it meant he decided not to fight. He'd assessed the situation and concluded that the generous, supportive thing was to let me go. He would rather lose me than risk our friendship by asking me to stay.
I'd known Jamie Hayes for years. He was doing what he always did—taking care of me, being what I needed, putting my comfort above his own want.
He was wrong. What I needed was for him to ask.
I picked up my phone and called Marty.
"Tell Denver I'm leaning toward accepting."
Marty was quiet for a beat. "You sure?"
Was I sure? I was sure that Jamie Hayes wasn't going to ask me to stay. I was sure that the face I'd seen in the hotel room was real and the response in the coffee shop was a performance.
I was a man who had spent his entire life choosing easier. Choosing Denver was easier.
I wasn't sure I was making the right decision, but I was sure that Jamie had made his. He'd chosen the friendship. I couldn't wait for a door that wasn't going to open.
"I'm sure," I said.
"Okay. I'll let them know."
I hung up. I looked at the book Jamie had left on my shelf. It was a dog-eared paperback with the spine cracked, the kind of book you left in someone else's space because the space was yours, too.
I went to bed with the knowledge that I had just set in motion the thing that would break both of us, and I had done it because the man I loved couldn't ask me to stay.