Chapter 5
JACE
Vanessa stood in front of me holding two shirts like the fate of Western civilization depended on cotton.
“Black,” she said, then looked at the shirt in her left hand and frowned. “No. The other black.”
I looked down at myself. “This is already black.”
“That’s faded black.”
“It’s a shirt, V.”
“It photographs tired.”
I opened my mouth, decided nothing good lived there, and shut it again.
Her apartment had better lighting than mine.
That wasn’t hard because mine currently had one lamp that flickered if the washing machine was running, but Vanessa’s place looked like somebody had designed it to make real life feel underdressed.
White couch. Gold side tables. A vase full of flowers that were either very expensive or very fake.
A full-length mirror positioned near the window where she filmed half her morning routines.
I stood in front of it while she tugged at my collar.
“Don’t do the slouching thing tonight,” she said.
“I don’t have a slouching thing.”
“You do when you’re bored.”
“I’m not bored yet.”
She glanced up, one eyebrow lifting with practiced patience. “Jace.”
“Sorry.”
I meant it. Mostly.
She smoothed the front of the shirt she’d chosen, then reached up to fix my hair.
Her fingers were careful. Gentle, even. There was nothing cruel about it.
Vanessa liked things to look right. She liked plans and angles and posts scheduled at the exact time her analytics told her people were most likely to care.
She worked hard, harder than people gave her credit for, and tonight mattered to her.
A sportswear brand was launching some lifestyle line, which meant athletes, influencers, cocktails nobody drank because everyone was filming them, and a step-and-repeat wall with lights bright enough to interrogate a corpse.
Vanessa had been invited as a partner creator. I was there as boyfriend, hockey star, and visual proof she had access to a world people liked watching from their phones.
“Can you post the arrival story before we go in?” she asked. “Not once we’re inside. It gets messy.”
“I can do that.”
“And tag them. The brand account, not the regional one.”
“Yeah.”
“And please don’t make that face in photos.”
I looked at her in the mirror. “What face?”
“The one where you look like you’re waiting for someone to say something stupid.”
“That’s just my face.”
Her mouth softened. “I know this stuff drains you. I’m not trying to be annoying.”
That took the fight out of me.
“I know,” I said.
She leaned up and kissed the corner of my mouth, careful not to smudge her lipstick. “Just be present tonight. Two hours. Then we can leave.”
Two hours was nothing.
Two hours was also an entire season when my skin already felt too tight and my phone had buzzed twelve times in five minutes and I was trying to remember if I’d put tomorrow’s drill sheet in my notebook before I left the arena.
I had. I thought.
No, I had. I’d done it in the locker room. Old sheet in recycling. New sheet in notebook. I’d even checked it twice and Roman had asked if I was preparing for a court deposition.
Vanessa stepped back and smiled at us in the mirror.
We looked good.
That was the weird part. We always looked good.
At the event, I did what I was supposed to do.
I smiled for photos. I put my hand on Vanessa’s lower back at the right time.
I posted the story and tagged the correct account after checking the handle three times because my brain kept trying to swap two letters around.
I shook hands with men in expensive jackets who talked to me like I was both a person and a product, depending on who was listening.
The room was loud in layers. Music under voices under laughter under camera shutters under my phone vibrating in my pocket.
The lights were too white. Someone’s perfume had a sugary chemical bite that caught in the back of my throat every time she walked past. My collar sat wrong no matter how many times I tugged at it, and every time I shifted my weight, Vanessa’s fingers brushed my sleeve like a reminder to stay still.
A woman from the brand team appeared with a headset and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“We’re going to get a quick couple shot by the logo wall, then maybe one of you holding the product bag,” she said to me. “More relaxed, less athlete. Think supportive boyfriend, not franchise centerpiece.”
I nodded like that sentence had not made my molars ache.
“Perfect,” she said. “And if you could avoid looking too intense? We want approachable.”
Vanessa laughed lightly. “He tries. He’s impossible, but we love him.”
Everyone laughed because it was the kind of joke people were supposed to laugh at.
I laughed too.
Or I made a sound close enough.
Impossible.
It was small. It was nothing. Vanessa said things like that all the time and most days I fired back because that was how we worked in public. She didn’t mean it like a diagnosis. She meant charmingly difficult. Boyfriend content. A little rough edge to make the polish feel real.
But my head was already crowded, and the word landed in the mess like a puck fired into traffic.
Impossible.
Difficult.
Disruptive when disengaged.
Brilliant when he decides to care.
My smile stayed on. My hand stayed on Vanessa’s back. I turned toward the camera and angled my shoulders the way Tessa had drilled into us during media training. I didn’t snap. I didn’t embarrass her. I didn’t become the headline everyone was half waiting for me to be.
But the room narrowed.
Too hot. Too loud. Too many people watching. Someone touched my elbow, and I moved before I thought, stepping back hard enough that Vanessa glanced at me.
“You okay?” she asked under her breath.
“Yeah. Need water.”
“After this?”
“Now.”
I hated how clipped it came out.
Her face tightened, not angry exactly, more disappointed. She covered it fast for the cameras. “Okay. One minute.”
I got through the photo. Barely.
Then I left.
Not dramatically. I didn’t storm out or knock over a display of seventy-dollar hats.
I walked down the hallway past the bathrooms, past a staff door, and out through an exit that dumped me into a narrow service area behind the venue.
Cold air hit my face. Denver night, dry and sharp.
I braced my hands on my knees and breathed until the buzzing under my skin loosened its grip by half an inch.
My phone was in my hand before I decided to take it out.
Roman’s name sat near the top of my messages.
I almost tapped it. He’d answer. He’d call me a dumbass and ask if I’d eaten and tell me to leave before I combusted. He was good at that. He’d been doing it for years.
Instead, I opened the thread with Coach Reid.
That was a bad idea.
So obviously I did it.
Coach, if this runs late, does missing recovery tomorrow screw the schedule? I’m still coming. Asking before it becomes someone else’s problem.
I stared at the message after I sent it and immediately wanted to throw my phone into traffic.
It wasn’t emotional. It was practical. Recovery mattered. Schedules mattered. He had said to communicate early if something was going to become a problem. I was communicating. Like a professional. Like a person who did not need one specific man’s voice in his head to tell him where the edges were.
Three dots appeared.
Then his reply.
No. Recovery stays. Leave by 10:30. Eat before you sleep. Be on time tomorrow.
I read it once.
Then again.
Leave by 10:30. Eat. Be on time.
No sympathy. No why are you texting me from a brand event. No long paragraph about stress or coping or whatever. Just a line drawn cleanly through the night.
My breathing changed before I noticed.
The hallway stopped spinning out into twenty-seven tasks. There was a next thing. Then another. Then another.
Leave by 10:30.
Eat.
Be on time.
My face heated with something that felt too close to embarrassment. I was standing behind a venue in a shirt Vanessa picked because mine photographed tired, calming down over a text from my coach like he’d handed me instructions on how to be a functioning human for the next twelve hours.
I typed, Got it.
Then, because apparently I couldn’t leave anything alone, I added, Already posted the tag correctly. Medal ceremony pending.
His reply took longer.
Don’t push your luck.
It should not have steadied me more.
When I went back inside, Vanessa was near the bar with two other creators, her smile bright and effortless. She saw me and excused herself.
“Where did you go?”
“Needed air.”
“You disappeared.”
“For five minutes.”
“At an event where people are asking for you.”
The guilt hit because she wasn’t wrong. “I’m sorry.”
She studied my face. “Are you on your phone with someone?”
“No. I mean, yes, I texted Coach about tomorrow.”
“Tonight?”
“It was schedule stuff.”
Her lips pressed together. “Can you just be present for one night?”
The words stung because I had been trying so hard I could feel the effort in my teeth.
“I am,” I said, then caught myself. My voice had gone sharp. I softened it, badly. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” She looked tired suddenly, and younger than she usually let herself appear. “But sometimes it feels like I get whatever is left after hockey and your moods and everything else.”
That shut me up.
Because there were a dozen things I could have said. Some fair. Some not. That she liked the parts of my life that came with followers and VIP sections more than the parts that needed patience. That I didn’t know how to be easy for her. That I didn’t know how to be easy for anyone.
Instead I said, “I’ll stay until ten-thirty.”
Her brows drew together. “Why ten-thirty?”
“Because I have recovery.”
She looked at me for another second, then nodded. “Fine. Ten-thirty.”
I stayed until ten-twenty-eight.