Chapter 89 Back in Clemson (Patreon)

Greenville-Spartanburg Airport was not the kind of airport where it takes long to find someone waiting in arrivals, mainly because the arrivals area was small enough for anyone standing anywhere in it to be visible from any other point. Blaire was standing at the spot closest to the domestic arrivals exit, wearing her winter coat, her hair loose, holding her phone in hand without looking at it because her eyes were fixed on the doors.

Wyatt saw her before she saw him.

It took him a moment to reach her through the small crowd, carrying his suitcase alongside the document bag Rosenhaus had handed back before they parted ways at the Indianapolis airport—and moving through a crowd with two bags is never fast, regardless of how much of a hurry you're in.

Blaire spotted him when he was four paces away.

"How was it?" Blaire asked before he even finished those four steps.

"Good," Wyatt said, stepping up to her and giving her a quick kiss.

"How much time do you have to tell me everything before I put you to work back at the apartment?"

"In the car," Wyatt said.

"In the car," Blaire agreed, and they turned together toward the exit.

The drive from Greenville to their apartment in Clemson normally took forty minutes under standard conditions, and Wyatt spent the better part of that drive telling Blaire everything that had happened throughout the week. He kept to the order she preferred—chronological, with enough granularity for her to form a complete mental picture without having to constantly interrupt, though she asked questions continuously anyway, as that was simply how she engaged with stories that mattered to her.

He recounted the flight, Drew waiting at the airport, the hotel, and the Wonderlic test, along with Rosenhaus's reaction to his score.

"I would have done better," Blaire said.

"You already told me that."

"Because it's true."

He went over the physical measurements, the medical evaluation, and Saturday’s field drills, including his forty-yard dash time—which Blaire received with a look of quiet smugness that Wyatt correctly translated as I told you so. He described the deep ball passes and the audible reaction in the stands, which had been noticeable even from the field.

"And the executives?" Blaire asked. "The meetings."

Wyatt detailed the meetings.

First came Snead, with his question about why Wyatt should be the number one overall pick given the Rams' specific transition back to Los Angeles, and the answer Wyatt had given about not needing perfect conditions to function. He explained how Snead had absorbed that answer—like a man testing whether what he was hearing was coherent with an opinion he had already formed.

"And was it?" Blaire asked.

"I hope so," Wyatt said.

"And the Eagles?"

He told her about Pederson claiming that the primary reason he had accepted the Eagles' head coaching job was the possibility of drafting him—a detail Blaire absorbed with the look of someone processing unexpected news that, in hindsight, she probably should have seen coming.

"That's a lot of pressure," Blaire remarked.

"For me or for him?"

"For both of you," Blaire said. "Because if it doesn't work out, you both take the fall."

"If it works out, we both get the credit too."

"That too," Blaire conceded.

He recounted the meeting with the Chargers, which had been the shortest of the three and carried the least pressure. Rosenhaus had been right: with Philip Rivers locked in as their starter, the Chargers were gathering contextual information rather than seeking a specific commitment. Wyatt had operated on that exact wavelength, and Tom Telesco, the Chargers' GM, had taken it in like an executive receiving precisely what he anticipated from such an interview, with no reason to ask for more.

"And what does Rosenhaus think?" Blaire asked once Wyatt finished summarizing the three meetings.

"Either pick one or pick two," Wyatt said. "He says pick three is impossible given how the Combine went and what was already set in stone after the championship."

Blaire stared forward through the windshield for a moment with the look of someone processing the real-world weight of information she had previously understood only in the abstract.

"Los Angeles or Philadelphia," Blaire said eventually.

"Most likely one of those two," Wyatt said.

Blaire fell silent for another moment.

"Los Angeles has too much sun," Blaire observed.

Wyatt looked over at her.

"It's sunny three hundred days a year in California," Blaire said in the tone of someone who had researched something that genuinely concerned her and wanted the other person to know the results of that research. "Three hundred days of constant sunshine without any significant climatic variation for months on end. That isn't weather; that's atmospheric monotony."

Wyatt laughed.

"'Atmospheric monotony,'" Wyatt repeated.

"It's a valid term."

"I'm sure it is."

"Philadelphia at least has winter," Blaire pointed out. "Philadelphia has all four seasons, as corresponds to a city that respects the planet's natural cycles."

"Philadelphia has brutal winters."

"They build character," Blaire argued. "They make spring actually mean something when it arrives. Which doesn't happen in California, where spring, summer, and autumn all look identical because the sun never goes away."

"We don't even know where we're going yet," Wyatt said.

"I know," Blaire said. "But I'm already mentally preparing for the possibility."

"For which of the two?"

Blaire looked at him.

"For the one without the sun."

Wyatt kept driving with a quiet smile—not an exaggerated one for anyone else's benefit, as Blaire was looking forward again, but a smile for himself. It was the kind of smile that comes when events unfold exactly as expected.

They reached the apartment in the late afternoon. Wyatt set his suitcase down in the hallway with the familiar intention of unpacking later—an intention he had held every time he returned from a trip over the past few years, and which historically materialized at some point over the next two days, but never immediately.

Blaire put a kettle on to heat water in the kitchen without anyone asking, as it was simply what you did when someone arrived home from a multi-day trip. Wyatt walked into the spare room to drop his document bag on the desk among the items still awaiting organization since their move. When he returned to the living room, Blaire was already curled up on the sofa with her legs folded under her body and a closed book resting on the armrest, holding back something she clearly wanted to say before the rest of the evening got underway.

"I'm glad you're back," Blaire said softly, without looking up at him yet, her eyes resting on the closed book.

Wyatt sat down beside her.

"Me too," Wyatt said.

Blaire looked up at him then with that expression Wyatt had come to recognize over the two and a half years they had known each other—not pure joy, but the quiet composure of someone who had been waiting and could finally stop waiting.

Wyatt leaned in for a quick kiss.

Blaire held him, making it longer.

Her hands began to move with a clear intention that had nothing to do with the brief greeting they had started with, and Wyatt laughed softly against her mouth as he registered the difference between the two versions of the same moment.

"Again?" Wyatt whispered against her lips.

"Blame the hormones," Blaire said, her voice carrying that distinct mix of dry humor and absolute sincerity. She kissed him again without waiting for an answer, because an answer wasn't what she was looking for at that moment.

Wyatt didn't argue the hormone argument.

He lifted her easily with his hands at her waist, and Blaire wrapped her legs around him with the natural ease of someone who had already calculated that this was what was coming, even if she hadn't calculated it consciously. Together, they disappeared down the hallway toward the bedroom, leaving the kettle heating on the stove in the kitchen—which nobody turned off, because neither of them was thinking about the water at that moment.

The next day.

The Clemson practice field at nine in the morning carried the distinct atmosphere typical of fields in January, when players remaining in the program for their final semester before graduation mix with those preparing for the draft and the new recruits Dabo had signed for the upcoming season, all still learning exactly where they needed to be at every given moment.

Wyatt arrived fully dressed with his helmet in hand ahead of most of the squad, maintaining a habit he had kept since his freshman year—one he saw no reason to change now that it was likely one of his final times using that field with that team in that way.

Laquon arrived two minutes later, bringing the same high energy he always brought to practice, though today it carried an extra layer Wyatt recognized immediately because he felt it himself: the heightened focus of someone who knows there are people in the stands who weren't there before, present for very specific reasons.

The bleachers weren't full, but scattered individuals sat with tablets, notebooks, and the understated casual attire of NFL scouting departments—devoid of team logos, yet instantly recognizable to anyone who had just spent a week at the Combine.

"There are scouts," Laquon noted, stepping up to Wyatt as he stretched, making no effort to hide what he had just spotted.

"Yeah," Wyatt said.

"How many do you think are here for me?"

Wyatt glanced toward the stands discreetly, mindful of the rule learned during Combine week that staring directly at scouts was poor form.

"At least three," Wyatt estimated.

Laquon nodded with the contained satisfaction of someone who expected that number and felt precisely what he anticipated feeling upon confirming it.

"And the rest are for you," Laquon said.

"Some," Wyatt replied. "And some for Gallman and the other draft-eligible guys."

"Mainly you, though."

"Drew says teams with high picks always send scouts to the pro days of prospects they're targeting, just to gather extra intel before the draft."

Dabo emerged from the access tunnel with a whistle around his neck, a tablet tucked under his arm, and the signature orange beanie he wore for any practice with temperatures below fifty degrees. He gestured toward the players gathered on the turf—a signal everyone in the Clemson program had understood since their first day of freshman practice.

The team gathered around Dabo.

"Alright," Dabo began, scanning the players one by one with the rapid headcount habitual to every practice. "You all know there are scouts in the stands today, and I'm going to ask one specific thing from you: forget they're even up there."

Nobody said a word.

"They aren't here to see if you can run or throw better than you ran and threw at the Combine," Dabo continued. "They're here to see how you work when practice isn't a performance. What I want from you today is the exact same thing you gave before the Combine existed in your lives: get out on that field and do your job."

Wyatt listened as Dabo wrapped up, shooting a brief glance at the stands before locking eyes back on his head coach.

Dabo was right.

He always was when it mattered most.

"Let's move!" Dabo barked, blowing his whistle.

Practice erupted into its familiar noise and rhythm. Receivers worked route trees at one end of the field with their position coach, running backs worked on timing at the other, and the offensive coordinator circulated between groups holding the same tablet he had carried all season long.

Wyatt kicked off his progressive warm-up throws—a routine he had executed thousands of times on that exact field in that exact orientation. With scouts observing from above, the warm-up served the exact same function it always had: preparing his shoulder for the work ahead, nothing more.

When positional drills began, Laquon lined up wide left. Wyatt surveyed him from under center, making the exact same pre-snap read he would in a game. Laquon broke his route with the same crisp precision he had shown in the national championship—because Laquon ran routes with the exact same intensity in practice as he did on game day. That consistency was precisely why scouts were in the stands that morning, and they weren't only there for Wyatt.