Chapter 2 #2
There were staff notes going back years. Some fair. Some lazy. Difficult appeared more than once. So did immature. One assistant had written, brilliant when he decides to care.
I didn’t like that.
Not because Holloway had made a sterling first impression. He hadn’t. He’d been late, distracted, reactive, and clearly capable of turning any instruction into a fence to kick.
But he had also seen the weak-side seam instantly. He’d apologized to Tessa without being cornered into it. Not performatively either. A quick, guilty sorry from a man who knew he’d created extra work for her.
He’d panicked when he thought he’d lost his phone while holding it, which could have been carelessness or overload. Maybe both.
In the parking lot, when I gave him a clear expectation, the defiance had stayed on his face, but his attention had changed. Not obedient. Focused. As if the shape of the thing mattered.
Eight-thirty. Players’ lounge. Notebook. Phone away before you walk in.
Clear.
The report called him a management headache. Maybe he was.
Or maybe everyone kept handing him fog and getting angry when he couldn’t carry it.
Tiny groaned in his sleep, paws twitching.
I stared at Holloway’s file longer than I should have.
Not because I cared more. I told myself that.
Because he was complicated. Because a player that talented could tilt a season if handled right or poison a room if handled wrong.
Because coaching meant solving the hard ones, not coasting on the easy ones.
At 12:41, I shut the laptop.
At 5:38, I woke before my alarm, irritated by the fact that my first coherent thought was Holloway better not be late.
The arena was nearly empty when I arrived. Security lights. Cleaning crew. The low hum of a building before it filled with noise. I had coffee in one hand, practice plan under my arm, and Tiny’s hair on my black pants despite having used a lint roller twice.
Old habit took me past the players’ lounge before my office.
I expected darkness. Empty chairs. Maybe Roman already there if he’d decided to make a point.
Instead, Jace Holloway sat alone at the far table.
It was 8:04.
He wore a black hoodie, hair damp like he’d showered too fast, notebook open in front of him.
A pen spun between his fingers, stopped, spun again.
His phone sat face down on the other side of the table, deliberately out of reach.
There was a paper cup of coffee beside him and another untouched cup across from him, as if he’d bought one too many or forgotten he’d already had one.
He looked up when I stepped inside.
For once, he didn’t lead with a smart remark.
“Morning,” he said.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at him. “You’re early.”
His shoulders shifted. Not quite a shrug. “Alarms.”
Plural.
I looked at the notebook. On the top of the page, in blocky handwriting, he’d written:
8:30 Meeting
Notebook
Phone away
Don’t argue before coffee
Below that, a crooked line had been drawn under don’t argue.
I had to look away before my expression gave me away.
“Coffee helping?” I asked.
“Not noticeably.”
That sounded honest.
I nodded toward the second cup. “That yours too?”
He looked at it, then frowned. “I think I panicked at the counter.”
I took the seat across from him, setting my own coffee down. “Panic buying coffee is better than panic buying a motorcycle.”
His mouth twitched. “That happen to you?”
“My brother Owen. Twice.”
“Same motorcycle?”
“No.”
Holloway huffed a laugh, small and tired.
The lounge settled around us. No cameras. No teammates. No performance required yet.
I opened the practice plan but didn’t start. “I noticed yesterday that when instructions are broad, you push at them.”
His eyes narrowed a little, defensive on instinct.
I continued before he could swing. “When they’re specific, you process them faster.”
He said nothing.
“I’m going to give you specifics when I can. You’re going to tell me when something isn’t clear before it becomes a problem.”
His fingers tightened around the pen. “That an order?”
“It’s a way to make the day easier.”
He looked down at the notebook, at his own messy list, then nodded once. “Okay.”
One word. No grin. No challenge.
I felt an unexpected satisfaction, quiet and solid.
Not because he’d done what I told him. That was the job. Players followed instructions or they didn’t play.
This was different.
He had tried. Set alarms. Arrived early. Put the phone away. Written the expectations down where he could see them. It was more effort than the file gave him credit for, and it had probably cost him more than most people would understand.
Footsteps sounded down the hall. The day was coming. Soon the lounge would fill with voices, chirps, coffee, equipment staff moving through, the normal machinery of a team.
Holloway flipped his pen once, caught it badly, dropped it, and muttered, “Shit,” under his breath.
I picked it up from near my shoe and set it back on the table.
His eyes flicked to mine. “Thanks.”
I nodded and stood before the moment could become anything larger than it was.
In my office, I closed the door, set the practice plan on my desk, and stood there longer than necessary.
I had reviewed twenty-three players last night.
I had notes on systems, personnel, chemistry, conditioning, travel schedules, staff responsibilities, injury risks, and media obligations.
Yet the detail sitting sharpest in my mind was Jace Holloway at 8:04 in the morning, fighting himself hard enough to show up early.
I took a drink of coffee gone bitter in the cup.
Then I admitted, with some discomfort, that I had spent far more time thinking about one player than any coach reasonably should.