Page 13 of Blind Side
"Can I ask you something?" I asked.
"You're going to regardless."
"Is something going on with your contract?"
Silence. It was the weighted pause of a man choosing between deflection and truth. I knew Abbott's silences the way I knew his humor: by texture, by duration, by what they held.
"What makes you ask?" he said.
"Because you've been off for two weeks. Not in a way most people would notice, but you've been checking your phone more than usual, and you get this look when you put it away. Like you're thinking."
He was silent longer this time.
"I'm in my last year," he said. "There's always interest."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer I have right now."
I should have pushed. I was good at pushing, the gentle kind that didn't feel like pushing because I genuinely cared. I should have said,You can tell me,orI'm here if you need to talk,or any of the things I said to teammates when I sensed something sitting underneath the surface.
I didn't push—because the dark hotel room, a single bed with Abbott a foot away from me, was not the same as the locker room or the dinner table. This was the stripped-down version of a space with no room to manage, no social temperature to read, no performance required for an audience of zero.
It was just us—whatever we were when nobody was watching.
"Okay," I said.
"You're not going to push?"
"Do you want me to push?"
He was quiet for a long moment. "Not tonight."
"Then not tonight."
We lay there in the dark. I could hear him breathing. I was aware of how close his hand was to mine on the mattress—not touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin. Close enough that a shift of two inches would close the gap.
"Hayes."
"Yeah?"
"What you asked me in the car, about being good at something that doesn't get you what you want…"
My pulse kicked, a single thud that I felt in my throat. "What about it?"
"Were you talking about ice time?"
The dark made it easier, not having to manage my expression. I just laid there and felt the question, letting the answer come to the surface when it was ready.
"I thought I was," I said.
He didn't respond. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence—Abbott's silence never was. It held space like his presence held space, with attention and with patience, but no need for resolution.
"What did you think I was talking about?" I asked.
"I don't know." His voice was quiet. He was so close to me. "But it didn't sound like ice time."
My chest was tight—not painful, just full, the way a room gets when you've been filling it for years without noticing. I stared at a ceiling I couldn't see.
