Chapter Twenty-One Jamie
(I Saw My Number in the Rafters)
"What about your flight?" Mateo asks.
"I changed it. I'll be taking the red-eye tonight. It means I'll more or less drag my ass to the press conference, but I couldn't run out of here this morning. Like you said, we need to talk."
"You're staying all day?"
I shrug. "Yes and no. Now that I'll be around, I want to spend more time with Harper and Simon, too. They don't leave for their honeymoon until tomorrow."
"But me first."
"You first. Yeah."
Mateo takes a long sip of what I assume is the coffee I left behind, and then he stares at the ocean.
He always does when we're here. I guess I do, too.
Something about its power reminding us that we're small.
That we're more significant to each other than we are to the world itself.
The waves soothe me, and my heartbeat only stutters when he speaks.
"I wanted to tell you I'm done waiting. I can't keep—"
"You don't have to—we didn't wait. We—"
"Jamie, please. Let me finish," he says, his voice steady enough to suggest he's thought about this for a while.
"I'm one of the two loves of your life, but I can't keep giving up my share of you.
And I can't make you choose, because I'm afraid you'll never pick me over hockey, and I don't think it's fair to expect you to.
Hockey had you first. So, I want you to love us both, but it's okay if the world doesn't know.
The only thing I'm asking is that we tell my family.
That's it. Because Kai and Sophie know, and Harper and Simon know, and Taylor knows, and if my parents and sisters and their families know—that's everyone who matters.
I'm—me. I won't be back in the closet. Nobody really cares about me that way.
I'll be your friend, and I'll visit you, and we'll have more of what we had last night.
Slow and loud and private. Once you've retired from coaching, maybe we can be us, but until then, we can be you and me.
I'm okay with that. I'm more okay with that than I am with waiting anymore. "
I reach for his free hand and pull it into my lap, our fingers entwined. "It's not true, though."
"Not exactly, no. And I know we've spent all these years saying we didn’t want to lie, but—"
"No, not that," I interrupt again. "The part about never picking you over hockey.
I'm picking you. I have picked you—or us, really.
I've picked us, and it's not exactly over hockey, but it'll be different because it's not—" I growl because I don't think I'm as good with words when I'm not giving shit to reporters.
Mateo kisses me because he knows, and I'm so completely undone by it that I take a deep breath.
He returns to his coffee and lets me try again.
"Tomorrow's press conference—it's not about a trade or a retirement.
It's about me. I had a contract option and I—I didn't renew it.
I won't be an NHL coach this season. I won't go back to being an NHL coach at all. "
"But—" Mateo's mouth closes. Opens. Closes. Opens. "Training camp starts next month. Can you do this now? There's no breach?"
"There's no breach because I'm not really doing it now—we're just announcing it now.
I told Taylor and the front office weeks ago, but I asked them to keep it quiet until after Harper's wedding.
There was some back and forth about that, but Taylor put some pressure on them to agree as part of his contract extension, and we pointed out that they could still hire someone and not say anything.
Generally, assistant coaches don't make headlines unless they're Jameson Sinclair. "
"You love it. I know you love me, but you've loved being there. Why would you leave it behind?"
"Because I'm done waiting, too," I tell him. "I'm not okay with you being a friend who visits. I'm not okay with only being you and me, when we deserve to be us. I don't need the world to know—I won't hold a press conference for that—but I don't mind if they find out. I'm not going to hide."
"But you'll quit to put distance between you and the league," Mateo says. "It'll save them the trouble of having to decide how to handle the fallout later."
"Yes."
He combs his fingers through the hair he never put back into a ponytail last night. He's more restless than he usually is when we're here together. Maybe it's been different the times he's sat here alone. Or with my kid. It's been so fucking long since I've been the one sitting next to him.
"What about all the cheers?" he asks.
I smile, and I think it must look kind of sad. It feels kind of sad. "The cheers aren't for me anymore. They haven't been for a while."
"You haven't said anything about that."
"I haven't said anything about a lot of this."
"Should I be mad?"
"I hope you aren't," I say. "I didn't—there have been so many pieces of so many things that needed to be put into place—in New Jersey and here. It's not all official, but I wanted to have some answers before this conversation."
He tilts his head. "What's happening here?"
"Well, I was saying I didn't exactly pick us over hockey.
As the crowds got quiet, it became easier to focus on things that weren't about me or how I could perform for my team.
I spent a lot of time with the younger guys—or the ones who won't be MVP—and I tried to teach them what they could do for their team.
I watched them develop those skills and get rewarded for them. "
"So, you adjusted to not being the star, and then realized you don't need to coach the stars either."
"Yeah, and I remembered all the other things I loved about the sport.
" I stop and sigh, feeling my age. "There's the steady hum of anticipation when everyone's taping their sticks or lacing up their skates.
The scrape of a blade against the ice or the clack of a puck against a stick.
The genuine affection and pride that follow someone's first goal.
The shared exhaustion, but then the shared playlists and inside jokes and embarrassing pictures, too.
And those things aren't unique to professional hockey.
Some of them aren't even unique to hockey, so I know you get it. You understand."
"I do," he says.
I think he's still afraid of something, so I hurry to explain. "Anyway, one of my old teammates works with an elite youth hockey program near here. And I've been talking to him about joining their staff. Working with kids."
"Youth hockey. God, you'd be incredible with kids, but is there a chance of fallout there? I'm around teenagers enough to know how often slurs get thrown around, and parents aren't much better."
"There's definitely a chance, yeah," I huff.
"But I—other than Taylor, nobody in New Jersey knows why I'm leaving.
I mean, they know I want to be closer to Harper, but that's it.
I don't plan to say more than that. They're equipped to deal with whatever questions they get later.
But I told this former teammate about us.
I wanted him to know before I got hired.
So, he knows, and someone above him knows, and we're gonna see how it goes.
We'll see whether parents have a problem with their kids being coached by someone like me, and I'll leave if I have to. "
Mateo frowns, the crease between his brows deepened by the suggestion that I'm not good enough. "Fine. Okay. What's the backup plan?"
"Some guy I know runs a soccer clinic for a week each summer," I smile, waiting until he smiles, too.
"If coaching doesn’t work out, I figure I can do something like that for hockey kids.
Private, small-scale player development stuff.
Year-round. Nothing requiring the support of an entire group at once.
It means I'd lose out on some of the team vibes I love, but I'd still get to go to games and watch them succeed. "
"So, step one is the press conference, and moving you home. Step two is you coaching youth hockey. Step—"
"Step two is asking you to move in with me.
And holding your hand in public. And sex—but probably not in public.
Step three is coaching youth hockey. And hopefully I don't need step four.
Hopefully, my being Jameson Sinclair will be more important to them than anything else. Hopefully, my name still matters."
He kisses me again, furious and fond, his tongue there to sweep away all the things he doesn't want to hear me say out loud.
I'm as smooth as Mateo is, and I take the coffee from his hand as I crawl into his lap, just like I have all the times we’ve believed in tomorrow.
His arms wrap around me in response, but he breaks the kiss to demand eye contact that blurs as soon as he speaks.
"Jamie, your name will always matter."
The press conference is easy, my lack of sleep notwithstanding.
Journalists push for answers about whether Taylor and I have had any sort of falling out.
Or whether I'm in talks with other teams, including and especially the one I played for my entire career.
Or whether I'm finally settling down with some special woman.
Once there's no real gossip to be had, and every answer is a simple no, they get over it. When the news breaks nationwide, even quietly, I get a call from my parents. They don’t get over it for a while.
Mateo probably would’ve helped me pack and move back to California. And it’s the sort of stupidly domestic thing I’d love to do with him, but his school year is about to start, and I’m okay with hiring strangers.
As soon as I’m back, I help him move into my house because my new job doesn’t start for another week.