Chapter 4 #2
I could have reassured him. Told him one mistake didn’t define him. Maybe another coach would have.
Instead, I gave him something useful.
“Then don’t give them proof. Give them a pattern they can’t ignore.”
His gaze came back to me.
“Today, you fix it,” I said. “Right now. Get the correct sheet. Be ready for the first drill. Media at one-fifteen. Confirm with Tessa before noon. Tomorrow’s sheet goes in your notebook before you leave.”
He breathed in through his nose, slow enough that I knew it took effort. “Okay.”
“Say it back.”
His eyebrows drew together.
I waited.
He looked annoyed. He also looked steadier when he said, “Correct sheet now. Ready for first drill. Confirm media with Tessa before noon using actual words. Tomorrow’s sheet in notebook before I leave.”
“Good.”
The word slipped out before I thought better of it.
Jace went still for one fraction of a second, as if it had hit somewhere unexpected. Then he nodded, too fast, and turned toward the door.
“Holloway.”
He stopped.
“This was private for a reason. I’m not interested in embarrassing you.”
His grip on the doorknob tightened. “Yeah.”
“I mean it.”
He looked back. Whatever smart answer he reached for didn’t make it out. “Thanks.”
Then he was gone.
I stood there after the door shut, irritated with myself.
Not because I’d handled it wrong. I hadn’t. The correction was clean. No humiliation. Clear expectation. Immediate solution.
But his reaction had been disproportionate.
So was my awareness of it.
Practice confirmed what the office had started.
Jace was ready for the first drill. Not just with the right sheet, but early in line, helmet on, stick taped, eyes moving between the board and the ice.
He didn’t joke through the explanation. He didn’t spin his stick or drift into Milo’s conversation.
When I gave the first whistle, he moved like someone trying to outrun the pressure inside his own skin.
Too hard, at first.
His first pass snapped off Lowell’s blade.
“Less proof, more read,” I called.
He looked over.
I tapped two fingers against the practice sheet in my hand. “First option.”
He nodded once, reset, and ran it clean.
Roman noticed. Of course he did.
During water, I caught him standing beside Jace at the bench, mask pushed up, expression dry.
“What exactly are you trying to prove today?” Roman asked.
Jace drank from his bottle, too fast, water dripping down his chin. “Nothing.”
“Convincing.”
“Maybe I enjoy excellence.”
“You once forgot your skates for an optional skate.”
“I remembered eventually.”
“You were in the parking lot.”
“Still counts.”
Roman’s gaze flicked briefly to me. Not suspicious. Measuring. He had spent enough years around Jace to know when the kid was running from something.
I blew the whistle before he could dig deeper.
The rest of the session was the best I’d seen Holloway in three days. Focused, prepared, responsive. Still impulsive in flashes. Still mouthy when Milo botched a two-on-one and blamed the pass. But he caught himself faster. Came back quicker. He listened like my words had hooks in them.
That should have pleased me.
It did.
It also concerned me.
Influence was part of coaching. If a player didn’t care what you thought, you were just a man in a tracksuit holding a whistle. But this felt delicate in a way I didn’t like. Jace wasn’t simply adjusting to instruction. He was trying to erase the earlier mistake from my mind.
At eleven-forty-six, Tessa appeared beside the glass and held up her phone.
Jace saw her.
He skated over without being called, leaned on the boards, and said something I couldn’t hear through the glass. Tessa’s eyebrows rose. Then she gave him a thumbs-up.
He’d confirmed.
With words, presumably.
I looked away before he caught me watching.
After practice, the locker room noise spilled into the hall while I reviewed notes with my assistants.
Milo was arguing that the team needed a better coffee setup because “morale is a measurable performance factor.” Lowell asked if extra reps after practice made him look eager or desperate.
Sokolov informed everyone he would rather be hit by a bus than attend another media workshop.
Tessa told him she could arrange both if he missed his slot.
The team was alive around me. Messy, talented, exhausting. Mine to shape for as long as management let me.
I found Tiny near my office wearing a Blizzard towel like a cape.
Benny had vanished.
“Traitor,” I told the dog.
Tiny wagged his tail and looked past me.
I didn’t have to turn to know.
Jace came down the hall with his notebook tucked under one arm and the correct drill sheet sticking out of it. His hair was wet from the shower, and he looked tired in the particular way that came from sustained focus, not conditioning.
Tiny abandoned me so quickly the leash nearly burned my palm.
“Wow,” I said. “No loyalty at all.”
Jace dropped into a crouch and let Tiny shove that enormous head against his chest. “He’s got instincts.”
“He has crumbs in his beard and no shame.”
“Relatable.”
For the first time since the office, Jace smiled without it looking like armor. Tiny leaned into him so hard he had to brace a hand on the floor.
“You confirm media?” I asked.
Jace looked up. “Yes.”
“Tomorrow’s sheet?”
He patted the notebook. “In here. Old one recycled. Very environmentally responsible.”
“Good.”
This time I chose the word deliberately.
His smile faltered at the edges, not disappearing, just turning private for a second before he looked back down at Tiny. “Your dog’s embarrassing you.”
“He does that.”
“He can come live with me if he wants.”
“He’s high maintenance.”
Jace scratched under Tiny’s chin. “Again. Relatable.”
There was humor in it, but not only humor. I heard the echo of his earlier words. I hate giving people more proof.
I wanted, unexpectedly and inconveniently, to tell him that high maintenance wasn’t the same as not worth maintaining.
I didn’t.
I tugged Tiny’s leash. “Let the man go to media.”
Tiny refused to move.
Jace laughed and stood, brushing dog hair off his pants. “See you tomorrow, Coach.”
“You’ll see me in video first.”
He made a face. “Threats already?”
“Schedule.”
“Cruel.”
He walked away toward the media room, notebook still under his arm.
Tiny watched him until he turned the corner.
“So did I,” I realized, a second too late.
That night, the house was quiet again.
Olivia texted from Atlanta to say her flight had been pushed to the morning.
She added a frustrated string of emojis, then a photo of a hotel salad that looked worse than my chicken.
I replied with appropriate sympathy and a picture of Tiny lying across the couch with the stolen towel still around his neck.
She sent back, He misses me.
I typed, We both do.
I stared at it.
Then I deleted the sentence and sent, He’s dramatic.
Her reply came with a laughing face, then nothing.
I worked until my eyes burned. Practice notes. Media schedule. Power-play adjustments. A message from Owen asking whether I had “emotionally bonded with Denver yet or just intimidated it into submission.” I ignored him.
At 10:18, my phone buzzed.
Holloway.
Coach, on the second breakout option for tomorrow, if their F1 cuts low, do you want me underneath support or stretching weak side?
I read it once.
Then again.
It was a hockey question. A reasonable one. Something he could have asked in the morning, or asked Roman, or brought to video. Nothing inappropriate. Nothing personal.
Still, I sat there with the phone in my hand longer than necessary.
Because he’d asked me.
I replied: Underneath if Lowell is pressured on first touch. Weak side only if he has clean possession. Start with support. Earn the stretch.
The response came almost immediately.
Got it. Writing it down so I don’t turn it into interpretive dance tomorrow.
A reluctant laugh left me.
I typed: Appreciated.
Three dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared again.
Then: Also confirmed media for Thursday already. With actual words. Tessa looked suspicious.
I looked at that message until the screen dimmed.
Professional. Harmless. A player updating his coach because that coach had given him a standard.
That was all.
I answered: Good. Keep doing that.
This time, there was a pause before his reply.
Will do.
I set the phone face down on the table.
Tiny lifted his head from the couch and looked at me.
“Don’t start,” I said.
He sighed and dropped his head again.
I sat in the quiet house, with Olivia delayed in another city and tomorrow’s practice plan open in front of me, and admitted something I couldn’t put in any player file.
Jace Holloway cared what I thought.
Worse, I was starting to care how carefully I handled that.