Page 105 of The Fall

Fifty-Two

Pittsburgh is a million scattered lights spread out below Blair’s hotel window, a river of blurred gold and crimson.

Blair is propped against the headboard and my head is in his lap. Bags of ice rest on us both, his on a bruised shoulder, mine on a sore thigh.

This team is so close to making it, and I look at him, the way his shoulders carry the team as if tailored for him, the pride shining from him when he speaks of the guys.

In a different life, I might wonder what drove him to choose leadership again.

He carries the ghost of his brother on his shoulders and rebuilt his heart from ruin, but he’d grind his knuckles bare before ever asking for mercy from the universe.

We’re here because he willed us to be here.

Every win is a nail hammering to this loop, and each victory brings us closer to the end.

How many times have we climbed this mountain together? Has he looked at me like this before, with those eyes full of hope?

The ice on my thigh has gone warm. Water droplets slide down my skin, pooling on the sheets beneath us. Does some part of him remember? When he touches me, is there an echo of all the other times, all the other versions of us that have existed in this endless spiral?

No. The burden of memory is mine alone.

“Remember when this all felt impossible?” The vibration of his voice travels from his chest, down his arm, and into my scalp where his fingers work through my hair.

I catch his hand and drop a kiss to the callused skin of his knuckles. He kisses my fingers in return and goes back to drawing patterns on my scalp.

“I think we’ve got a shot,” he says.

To change this, I would have to betray this.

I would have to play with less than everything I have, throw games, sabotage their future.

To steal this chance from him would be a betrayal beyond words.

How do you refuse fate when it wears the face of everything you love?

No, I will not dishonor him by giving him less than the man I have become.

However much time resists or repeats itself, I can’t be the one to quit first.

“We do,” I breathe.

For you, I think. I will win this for you. I will do anything for you.

A fist slams against the door.

The sudden violence of it tears through the quiet of our room, and Blair’s fingers freeze mid-stroke in my hair. The muscles of his thigh beneath my head tense and then he’s moving, off the bed and striding to the door.

He pauses halfway to the door, one hand already reaching for the handle. “Who is it?”

There’s a muffled reply, and concern flashes across Blair’s face before he rips the door open.

It’s Hayes.

His face is pale, eyes darting from Blair to me and back again, as if he’s still catching up with reality. All that bravado he wears has slipped clean away. “I… Can I come in? I need to talk to you guys.”

Blair grips his arm, steadying him as he drags him into the room. “What happened? What’s going on?”

Hayes stands with his hands laced behind his head, his lips parted, chest heaving as if every breath is a struggle. Blair keeps a hand anchored at Hayes’s elbow. The quiet is thick enough to choke on.

Then Hayes exhales in a jagged rush and blurts, “She… Erin… We…” He stumbles over his words. His hands shake as he runs them through his hair. “Fuck, guys, Erin’s pregnant. ”

For a second, nobody moves.

Blair lets out a sound halfway between laughter and disbelief. Hayes paces a short line by the bed, stopping only when Blair pulls him into a hug so fierce it knocks the air from both their lungs. If joy could shatter walls, there’d be nothing left but sky.

“The doctors said she couldn’t…” Hayes is babbling now. “We thought Lily was it, you know? But we always wanted a big family, and now…”

Why does it ache, watching them?

Hayes clings to Blair as if letting go means he’ll fall straight through the world. “She just called. She couldn’t wait to tell me. Oh my God, oh my fucking God!”

Bright, relieved laughter bursts out of Blair. Hayes is trembling, face wet, half-grinning and half-crying as Blair holds him up. All their history and hope curls in the space between their bodies, golden and blinding. But inside of me, a cold river runs.

Hayes pulls back, wiping at his cheeks. His eyes catch mine, and he pulls me into a vise-tight hug. “Torey, man… what you did for us. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. I can’t ever thank you enough.”

The dampness of his tears soaks through my shirt as I hug him back. He thinks I saved his future; he cannot know I am staring at the ghost of my own.

He squeezes once more, then lets go. I grip his hand, our fists locked. “Congrats, man.”

Hayes beams. He is so open, so unguarded, stripped bare by happiness. “Guess we’ll have to celebrate properly back in Tampa, huh?”

Blair nods. “We’ll have lots to celebrate.”

A look passes between them, understanding that flows around me but does not include me. “Oh, I’m sure we will,” Hayes says. “Lots of big things coming, right?”

Blair drags Hayes into another embrace. His cheeks are flushed as he mutters something in Hayes’s ear, and they hold each other for a long moment, two friends sharing a summit.

They both are so profoundly happy, and their shared joy paints me into a corner.

Hayes’s elation radiates outward, and Blair shines with it too.

“Sorry for bursting in. I was going to explode. I had to tell you guys. I couldn’t wait. ”

“Dude, I’m so glad you told us.” Blair squeezes Hayes’s shoulders and shakes him.

Hayes wipes his face with the back of his hand and laughs. “Seriously, I couldn’t keep it in. Not from you guys.” He backs toward the door, still grinning, still floating on this impossible news.

Then he’s gone, taking with him all that brilliant happiness about tomorrow.

Blair stays by the wall, watching me. Hayes’s exhilaration still rings in the air, and his happiness seems to have slipped into Blair, too.

His eyes tell me I’m the reason for that happiness. He looks at me and sees a man who nudged his friend toward a miracle, but that I’ve seen this happiness shatter and fall. The cycle demands its due, and here I am, letting it happen.

What kind of man does that make me?

“Torey.” Blair pushes off the wall. Each step shrinks the distance between us and expands the pressure inside of me. I’m about to collapse or explode; I can’t do this anymore. “You okay?”

Am I okay? Hayes is walking toward a future I’ve seen in ruins and Blair believes I’ve done something noble when all I’ve done is fail to find what might save them both. Impossible futures stack up behind my eyes, and I?—

I don’t know what to do.

What if this is all there is?

No. I won’t give up, or give in. I love him for a million tiny reasons, all of them adding up and up to infinitely greater than the sum of each part and piece.

I have mapped him with my kisses and my touch, crawled inside his quiet, tender places, and worshipped at the fault lines of his soul.

His wounds speak to mine, and mine turn soft in his hands.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I’m good.”

He steps closer, close enough that his breath warms my face, close enough that I can see the lights reflected in his irises like small stars.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” His voice drops to barely above a whisper, and his hand on mine sends fractures through me, hairline cracks spreading through my soul.

“You look like you’re carrying the world. ”

I am; I’m carrying his world, Hayes’s world, and our futures that might crumble to dust. But, with his hand cupping my face, those futures feel distant and changeable. I can save you. I will save you.

He is proof that love can build a man, and rebuild him if he falls apart. He taught me the worth of persistence and of hope that does not wither or rot, and he taught me that love isn’t a word, it’s lived day by day.

I lift my head and meet his eyes. The blue there runs deeper than any ocean I’ve ever imagined, and God, how many times have I fallen into those exact eyes?

Infinite times. A number that stretches out behind me and before me, a constant in a universe of variables.

Every version of him I’ve loved has been real.

Every kiss, every whispered word in the dark, every morning where he’s reached for me before his eyes even opened.

The loop can steal our tomorrows, but it cannot erase what we’ve already been to each other.

His thumb moves along the line of my jaw. How can touch be both question and answer? How can one person hold all your breaking points and all your reasons to stay whole?

“Whatever it is,” he says, voice low and steady, “we’ll handle it together.”

He means playoffs, championships, the thousand small victories that build a life; he doesn’t know he’s promising me something the universe keeps taking back.

I hold on to him and say, “Together.”

Blair’s lips sear a path along my neck. “You ruin me. Every part of you.”

I remember this. I remember this feeling, this specific adoration, this prelude to a fall.

His tongue grazes my lips, coaxing them apart. Then he’s inside, deepening the kiss. I pull him closer, and Blair slots himself between my thighs, hands clamping down on my hips. My legs hook around his waist, tethering him, because no matter how near he is, it’s never enough.

“I need you,” I plead.

His gaze meets mine, dark as a storm-swept sea. Our noses graze, a fleeting softness before he vows, “You will always have me.” His mouth claims mine, stealing my oxygen and feeding me his.