2. Jamie #2
Now, sitting alone at this bar with my drink barely touched and my phone buzzing at steady intervals against the wood, I can already see the shape of my life changing in ways I’m not entirely ready to look at directly.
I can see phone calls squeezed between road trips and time zone math I’ll have to do in my head before I dial.
Video chats that freeze at the worst possible moments, right in the middle of someone’s face when they are trying to tell me something that matters.
Holiday flights that route through at least one connection and leave me too exhausted to be present by the time I make it through my parents’ front door.
I will do all of it because they are worth it and because staying connected matters more to me than convenience ever will.
It doesn’t mean I am looking forward to learning how to love people from a greater distance.
Eventually, I will convince them to spend more time in Seattle. I will make the case slowly, carefully, the way I approach most things. Maybe I will even convince them to move there, eventually. It’s not entirely impossible.
The idea earns the first real smile I have managed all day, because I know exactly how my mother will respond the first time I float it.
She will call me ridiculous before I finish the sentence.
She will say she has a life in New York, a whole life, and she’s not going to pack up everything she has built here because her grown son misses her company.
She will remind me that she’s definitely not dismantling her kitchen because I can’t figure out how to make my own macaroni and cheese.
Then she will probably spend three weeks quietly looking at houses and trying to act like she isn’t.
There is absolutely no chance I am surviving years without my mother’s cooking. We both know it. She knows it better than I do.
The smile fades as quickly as it came.
The bar around me hums with low conversation and the kind of soft background music that is designed to fill space without demanding attention.
The crowd is steady but not loud, the lighting warm and amber-tinted in a way that makes everything feel slightly removed from the rest of the world.
Nobody bothers me, which is exactly how I like it tonight.
Most people don’t recognize hockey players outside of a rink, and even fewer recognize Black hockey players when we are sitting in hotel bars wearing suits instead of jerseys, looking like anyone else who has had a difficult week and come somewhere quiet to sit with it.
Tonight, I am grateful for that particular invisibility.
I don’t want questions. I don’t want opinions. I don’t want someone sliding onto the stool beside me to tell me Seattle is a great opportunity while looking at me with the expectant expression people get when they think gratitude should be met with a grateful look.
I know it is a great opportunity. I also know I am allowed to grieve the life I am leaving behind without being required to perform excitement about what comes next.
For tonight, all I want is a few quiet hours before everything changes.
The glass doors to the bar open pulling me from my thoughts.
I barely glance up at first because people have been coming and going all evening, and I am too tired to invest attention in anyone else’s entrance. The doors have opened enough times tonight that the sound has become background noise.
A man stepping in front of the doorway catches my attention anyway.
He’s not loud or drawing attention to himself.
He simply stops just inside the entrance with his phone pressed to his ear, entirely absorbed by whoever is on the other end of the call, and something about his rigid stance makes me look twice.
For a brief moment, the expression on his face looks so close to the thing sitting inside my own chest that I find I can’t look away from it.
There’s a tiredness in him that goes beyond the physical, a weight settled somewhere behind his eyes that I recognize because I have been carrying it for three days.
He is dressed in a navy suit that looks expensive enough to have been chosen by someone with a clear opinion about how clothes should fit.
The jacket sits perfectly across his shoulders, tailored in a way that suggests it was made with him specifically in mind, and the crisp white shirt underneath makes the deep brown of his skin look even richer beneath the warm amber glow of the hotel lighting.
His hair is cut in a clean fade with edges so precise they look deliberate down to the last millimeter.
Every part of him is polished in a way that reads as practiced.
His tie ruins the image, and for some reason, the corner of my mouth lifts before I can stop it.
It is hanging loose around his collar, one end flipped back over his shoulder as if he’s done pretending to give a fuck. The tie has clearly declared its independence and is operating on its own terms.
He is beautiful. It is the first honest word that comes to mind, and I don’t bother arguing with it. I can appreciate a good-looking man without it becoming an event.
Beautiful in a masculine way. He is too tall and too sharply built for the word to carry any softness in it. He has the kind of beauty that makes a person look twice. He also looks like his day has been riding him hard enough to leave marks somewhere behind his eyes.
For a second, I think he is heading toward one of the tables near the window.
Instead, he crosses the room and drops onto the empty stool beside me, exhaling a weary breath. The way he lands on that seat is the way a person sits down when they’ve been holding themselves upright through a sheer act of will.
I understand that particular kind of tired immediately and without explanation.
The bartender appears in front of him within moments.
“What can I get you?” he asks.
The man rubs a slow hand across the back of his neck, tilting his head slightly to one side.
“Jack and Coke.”
The bartender nods and moves away.
The stranger exhales, long and deliberate, and I watch the way his shoulders drop as the breath leaves him, as if simply sitting down has finally given him permission to stop bracing against whatever the day has been throwing at him.
I look down at my drink. Then I glance at him. Then I make a conscious effort to return my eyes to my glass because the last thing I need tonight is to make myself somebody else’s problem, and staring at strangers in hotel bars is an excellent way to become exactly that.
Mind your business, Maxwell.
The instruction holds for approximately three seconds.
Maybe it is the trade. Maybe it is the fact that he looks exactly as lost as I feel, like someone set us down on adjacent barstools because the universe thought we deserved a witness tonight.
Maybe I’m just tired of sitting alone with my own thoughts while the entire internet argues about whether I should be thrilled to have my life turned upside down on a dime.
Whatever the reason, I turn slightly toward him before I can finish talking myself out of it.
“Jack and Coke’s a good choice.”
The stranger turns toward me.
Up close, he is even more handsome than I registered from across the room.
Smooth, dark brown skin, Deep brown eyes with something sharp and assessing moving behind them.
Cheekbones that look architectural. Full lips that carry the specific tension of someone who spends a significant amount of time trying not to smile when they want to.
His gaze drops briefly to the glass in my hand, then travels back up to my face with a kind of unhurried ease.
“That’s reassuring,” he says. “I was worried I’d accidentally ordered something embarrassing.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it, short and genuine. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
He arches an eyebrow. “You’ve clearly never watched a grown man order a strawberry daiquiri with extra whipped cream.”
“Fair point,” I reply, and the corner of his mouth lifts.
My God, he smiled. His first smile. Small, not entirely committed, but real. It changes his whole face when it arrives, loosening something in the set of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes. I didn’t know I need to witness it, but the wait for it was absolutely worth it.
I find myself smiling back before I’ve made any conscious decision to do so.
“Tough day?” I ask.
His laugh is quiet this time. It carries more exhaustion than amusement, more recognition than humor. “That obvious?”
I glance at the tie hanging over his shoulder and bite back a full grin.
“You look like you lost an argument with your suit.” I keep my expression mostly neutral.
He glances over his shoulder at the wayward tie, then exhales another tired laugh, the sound a little rougher around the edges than the first one.
“That’s probably the nicest thing anybody has said to me all day,” he replies with a shrug.
I frown at that. One look at this man and nice things are all I can produce. Whoever has been making his day difficult has a lot to answer for. “Your day was worse than I thought.”
“You have no idea.” He shakes his head once.
Something flickers across his face for a moment. Exhaustion, yes, but this is something else weighing heavily on him. Whatever it is, he pushes it back almost immediately, smoothing it over with the practiced ease of someone who has learned to push it down and away from prying eyes.
I recognize the move. I’ve been doing it myself all evening.
“Let me guess,” he says, redirecting his attention toward me with an expression that sharpens slightly. “You’re one of those annoyingly optimistic people.”
I arch a brow and purse my lips. “Not even close.”
“No?” he asks, studying me with a hint of skepticism.
“No.” I give him my full attention, which feels surprisingly easy to do.