Chapter 6 #2
Jace grinned. “He’s made a decision.”
“He’s bad at those.”
“Relatable.”
I should have walked away.
Instead, I said, “Video at two. Ten minutes. Just you.”
His fingers paused in Tiny’s fur. “Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“You keep saying that before extra video.”
“Because you keep asking.”
A faint smile, then he nodded. “I’ll be there.”
At home that night, Olivia made pasta because she said hotel food had ruined her relationship with vegetables.
We ate at the kitchen island instead of the dining table. Tiny lay between us like a rug with breathing problems. Olivia had changed into leggings and one of my old team sweatshirts, hair twisted into a clip, face clean of makeup. She looked familiar in a way that hurt if I let it.
“How’s Denver treating you?” she asked.
“Cold.”
“You always say places are cold.”
“Most places are.”
She smiled. “How’s the team?”
“Talented. Undisciplined in manageable ways. Young in inconvenient ways.”
“That sounds like every team you’ve ever described.”
“Some more than others.”
She twirled pasta around her fork. “Anyone stand out?”
I should have said Roman, because he was the spine of the room. Or Lowell, because his development mattered. Or Milo, because if someone didn’t keep him from accidentally becoming a PR incident, Tessa might quit and take the organization’s common sense with her.
Instead, I said, “Holloway.”
Olivia nodded. “The star.”
“One of them.”
“I’ve seen his face everywhere. Vanessa follows me, I think. Or maybe I follow her. We met at that charity thing in Miami, didn’t we?”
“Probably.”
“He’s the one everyone says is brilliant and difficult?”
My fork scraped the plate. “People overuse difficult when they don’t want to be specific.”
She looked at me then, mildly surprised.
I took a drink of water.
“What is he specifically?” she asked.
“Fast. Impatient. Better when instruction is direct. Gets ahead of the play because he sees it early. If you correct the behavior instead of making a character judgment, he responds.”
Olivia’s mouth curved a little. “That was a scouting report.”
“It’s my job.”
“I know.” She wasn’t teasing now, not exactly. “You sound invested.”
I set my glass down. “He matters to the team.”
“So do they all.”
“Yes.”
She waited, giving me room to say more.
I didn’t know what more there was. That Jace had started listening with an immediacy I could feel in the room.
That I was aware of his effort in a way I should have spread evenly across twenty-three players.
That when he got something right, I had to be careful with my approval because he absorbed it like it cost him something.
None of that belonged at dinner with my wife.
“He’s been mishandled,” I said finally. “I’m trying not to repeat that.”
Olivia’s expression softened. “That sounds like you.”
It should have comforted me.
We watched television after dinner, some crime show Olivia liked where everyone was too attractive to work that many homicide cases.
She leaned against the far end of the couch, feet tucked under her, laptop open even though she claimed she wasn’t working.
I sat with Tiny’s head on my knee and answered an email from my assistant coach.
Now and then Olivia laughed at the show. I asked what I’d missed. She explained. We were easy together in the way people became after years of shared space.
Easy was not the same as close.
When we went to bed, she kissed me softly and said, “I’m glad to be home.”
I said, “Me too.”
Both of us meant it.
Neither of us reached for more.
The next afternoon, Holloway arrived for private video three minutes early with his notebook, two pens, and a protein bar sticking out of his hoodie pocket.
Tiny, who had spent the morning acting devoted to Olivia, immediately lumbered to him and planted himself across Jace’s sneakers.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
Jace looked down. “He respects greatness.”
“He respects crumbs.”
“I do have crumbs.” Jace pulled the protein bar out. “Not for you, big man. Coach will murder me.”
“I’ll make Benny do it. He has experience betraying me.”
Jace laughed under his breath and stepped carefully around Tiny, then sat at the small table facing the monitor. He bounced one heel, opened his notebook, closed it, opened it again.
I let him settle for a moment.
“Second-period clips from last game,” I said. “We’re looking at controlled patience through the neutral zone.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“It will be survivable.”
“Barely.”
I played the first clip. He followed. Answered well. Jumped too far ahead once, then corrected himself before I had to. On the third clip, his energy began to scatter. He leaned forward, talking faster.
“If their F2 pinches and the D gaps up, then I can cut underneath, unless Milo’s late, which he will be because he loves drama, but if I pull the weak-side D toward me, Lowell has the lane, except if Lowell does that thing where he hesitates because he thinks too much about thinking, then maybe I should just carry it and force them to decide. ”
“Holloway.”
He didn’t hear me. Or heard and didn’t stop. His pen moved across the paper in short, jagged marks that might have been notes or just pressure given ink.
“And if I change speed before the blue line, I can get their feet crossed, but the issue is timing because if I go too early you’ll tell me again, and I know, I know, support first, but sometimes the window is there for half a second and if I don’t take it, it’s gone, and then everyone acts like the safe play was smarter just because it was safer, which is not always the same thing. ”
“Stop.”
The word landed flat.
Jace stopped.
Not gradually. Not with one last sentence dragging behind him. His mouth closed. His pen froze against the page.
The room went silent except for Tiny’s breathing near the door and the low hum of the monitor.
Jace stared at the screen, then slowly turned his head toward me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
I had stopped hundreds of players. On ice, in rooms, in hallways, in the middle of arguments. Stop was one of the first tools in the job. Stop the drill. Stop the mistake. Stop the spiral before it became contagious.
This was not that.
His attention came to me so completely that it changed the air in the room. Not fear. Not resentment. Something cleaner and more unsettling. As if the noise in him had been cut by my voice, and both of us had heard the absence.
I kept my expression neutral because I did not trust anything else.
“Back up,” I said. “One read.”
He swallowed. “Puck carrier.”
“Good. Pressure.”
“F2 pinching.”
“Support.”
His gaze flicked down to his notebook. “Lowell wide. Milo late middle.”
“Your job.”
“Hold underneath until the pass is earned.”
“Write that.”
He did.
His handwriting was rougher than usual.
I waited until the pen stopped. “Again. From the beginning.”
He drew in a breath, then looked at the screen. “Puck carrier. Pressure. Support. My job.”
His voice was quieter now.
Steadier.
We finished the clip. Then the next. The session lasted ten more minutes, and neither of us mentioned the moment where the room had narrowed to one word and his instant response.
When it was over, Jace packed slowly. Tiny rose and shoved his head under Jace’s hand, demanding goodbye like a tax.
Jace scratched him automatically, eyes not quite meeting mine. “Anything else?”
“No.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
At the door, he paused, fingers around the strap of his bag. For a moment I thought he might say something. Make a joke. Ask a question neither of us could answer.
He didn’t.
“See you tomorrow, Coach.”
“Tomorrow.”
He left, and Tiny watched the empty doorway with tragic disappointment.
I stayed where I was.
The clip had ended. The screen had gone dark enough to reflect the room back at me, my own face set and unfamiliar in the glass.
I should have been thinking about practice plans. About Olivia’s dinner reservation later that week. About the power play, the roster, the thousand obligations waiting to be handled by a man trusted because he did not let things slip.
Instead, I replayed one word.
Stop.
And Jace Holloway obeying before either of us had time to decide what it meant.
I sat back, rubbed a hand over my beard, and admitted the part that made my stomach turn with warning.
I was beginning to look forward to those moments.
Not the mistakes.
The quiet after.