Chapter 19
Abbott
Light filtered through the window, the warm October light of a Chicago morning coming through curtains I hadn't bothered to close. It fell across Jamie Hayes, who was asleep on his stomach with his face turned toward me.
I'd been watching him sleep for eleven minutes.
This was different from the hotel room. In the hotel room, watching Jamie sleep had been something I had to do covertly—a stolen observation that I put away and tried not to examine.
This morning, lying on my side with the sheets around my waist and the apartment quiet around us, I could watch him sleep—the attention that I had spent years directing at this man, finally without the filter of pretending it was something else.
He was beautiful this morning. The rumpled, honest version of Jamie Hayes that nobody got to see, just a man sleeping in a bed that wasn't his, in an apartment he'd shown up to last night to say the two words that changed everything.
Don't go.
I traced the line of his shoulder with my eyes.
The left one, the one that got tight—I'd kissed it last night after tracking its tension for three years.
His skin was warm in the sunlight. I could see the fine details now allowed me—the small scar on his right forearm from a skate blade, the density of muscle across his back, the way his hair fell across his forehead when he wasn't pushing it back.
He stirred, opening one eye.
"You're watching me," he said, his voice rough with sleep.
"I'm always watching you."
"I know." He smiled. It was a slow, unguarded smile. "I've always known."
He reached for me. His hand found my hip under the sheet and he pulled me closer. We lay there, face to face in the morning light. I let myself look at him.
"How long?" he asked quietly. It wasn't the first time he'd asked—he'd asked last night in the dark, but this morning, the question was different.
I considered. "Do you want the real answer?"
"I want the real everything." His finger traced a lazy circle on my skin.
"The first year I knew something was different. The second year I accepted it. By the third year I'd stopped counting and started just—being in it. Living with it the way you live with gravity. It was there. I worked around it."
"That was three years ago."
"At least." I put my hand on his jaw and turned his face so I could see his expression in the light, without shadows. "When did you know?"
He closed his eyes. "I didn't—not consciously. I knew I couldn't put your mug away. I knew your car being three spots from mine made me feel something I didn't examine. I knew car rides with you were the only place I felt quiet. But I didn't really get it, if that makes sense."
"And now?"
"Now I know." He opened his eyes. "Now I'm here."
He kissed me, without the urgency of last night. This was different. Last night had been the dam breaking, years of tension releasing in a rush. This morning, it was the unhurried exploration of two people who had all the time in the world.
I took care of him. That was the only way to describe it. I knew his left shoulder was tight, so I worked it with my hands until I felt the muscles release. He made a low, involuntary sound, the release of a man who had never been touched by someone who knew exactly where he held his tension.
"How do you know how to do that?" he asked, half question, half accusation.
"I told you. I've been watching."
"And taking notes, apparently."
"Comprehensive notes."
I learned his body in the light—the places that made him gasp and the places that made him go still. The map of his body that I'd been constructing in my imagination for years, I could now confirm with my hands and my mouth. He was responsive and open in a way that undid me.
His hands touched me back, exploring me with a fervor that told me he'd been holding back as long as I had.
He found the scar on my shoulder and kissed it.
He found the sensitive spot below my ear and memorized it.
He paid attention with the same instinctive, comprehensive skill he brought to reading rooms.
Being the focus of Jamie Hayes's full attention in this context was the most overwhelming experience of my life.
"Clay," he said, my name in his mouth. Not Abbott—Clay. "I can't believe I get to have this."
"You've always had it." I pressed my forehead to his. "You just didn't know."
An hour later, we lay in the tangled remains of the morning. The apartment was warm. Jamie Hayes was in my bed with his head on my chest and I was running my fingers through his hair.
"I have to call my agent," I said. "I'm going to withdraw the acceptance."
"I know."
"Jamie."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for asking me to stay."
He lifted his head and looked at me with an expression I would carry for the rest of my life.
"Thank you for staying," he whispered.