So I kept every wall up. Pushed back twice as hard for every inch he took. Made everything a joke, kept the armor on, made it stronger this time. I told myself I was protecting myself.
But I was punishing him.
I know that now.
I took everything Marcus did and I handed Jamie the bill and I made him pay it every single day and called it survival. But here's what I know about Jamie Nash that Marcus Hale never was. The way he passed me the puck in that last minute when everything was on the line when he could have taken the shot himself, because he was so busy trying to fight whatever this is.
Marcus would never have passed me the puck. Marcus would have taken the shot and let me watch from the wing and then apologized for it.
The way Jamie forces himself to say the real thing, except the one thing he can’t, Marcus could never. Jamie tries. It physically hurts him to be vulnerable and he’s so fucking weird about it, but he tries. Whereas Marcus had the sweet tongue, where every lie flowed so easily, painted in such a pretty picture, wrapped up in a perfect bow. Who knows what he actually felt, what he actually meant.
Jamie Nash is not Marcus Hale and I have wasted months treating him like he is and I don't know how to undo it. I don't know if the damage is already done or if there's still something left to salvage or if I even deserve to try after everything.
I just know I'm tired.
I'm so tired of being afraid of the wrong thing.
I'm tired of being the person who learned all the wrong lessons from the worst year of his life and built a whole identity around never being hurt that way again and then wondered why everything still hurt.
It still hurts.
I don't want to be alone anymore.
I don't want to be alone now.
But I’m not doing that again.
Not for anyone.
Not even for him.
Chapter 40
Rhys
Film session. Saturday. Just us.
I have been in this room with Jamie Nash a million times before and it has never felt like this. Something has shifted since the morning sessions started again — something that has been building in every session since, in every text, in every moment of proximity that we keep finding and neither of us keeps walking away from.
We’re twenty minutes into the tape. I’m watching the screen. I’m mostly watching the screen. I’m also acutely aware of exactly where Jamie is relative to me — six inches to my right, forearm almost touching mine on the armrest between us, close enough that I can hear him breathing whenever the room gets quiet enough.
“Jamie.”
“Mhm,” he murmurs, obviously distracted by the tape.
"Can I ask you something?”
"Depends."
"Have you ever—" I stop. Try again. "Is there anyone—has there ever been anyone else? Before?"
He thinks on it for a moment and then turns to give me his full attention.
"Here and there," he says cautiously. "But never anything real. Nobody I let close."
"Why not?"
He looks at his hands.
