Chapter 7 #2
Dinner still good? I made a reservation at Marlow.
I stood, because now I had a reason to move and if I didn’t take it, I didn’t know what that made me.
“Dinner?” Coach asked.
“Vanessa.”
Just her name. Normal answer.
His expression didn’t change, but the air did. Or maybe I changed and blamed the air.
“Don’t be late,” he said.
I snorted. “For my girlfriend?”
“For anything.”
There it was. Short. Direct. A line.
My mouth opened around three possible jokes, one explanation about traffic, and one stupid urge to ask if he cared.
He cut across all of it.
“Holloway.”
I stopped.
Not dramatically. Not like yesterday. But the response was immediate enough that I felt it. He felt it too. I could tell because his face went careful in a way that made my skin prickle.
“Leave now,” he said.
No anger. No audience. No hockey reason, really.
My phone was still in my hand. Tiny leaned against my leg. Coach stood two feet away, leash looped in his fist, and neither of us said anything for one beat too long.
“Yeah,” I said finally. My voice came out lower than I meant. “Okay.”
I left.
Dinner with Vanessa was nice.
That was the worst part.
She looked beautiful, hair smooth over one shoulder, gold earrings catching candlelight.
She told me about a brand trip she might take to Scottsdale, about a creator she liked who had copied a campaign concept, about how her agent thought she should pivot into more wellness content because engagement was trending that way.
I listened.
I really did.
I asked questions in the right places. I remembered not to check my phone every time it lit up. I told her about practice without mentioning the parts that mattered. She laughed when I told her Milo wanted to survive in the wilderness.
Her hand rested near mine on the table.
Nothing was wrong.
That made the guilt sharper.
Because ten minutes in an arena hallway with Declan Reid and his criminally disloyal dog had felt more present than an entire dinner with the woman I was supposed to love, or at least love better than this.
Vanessa wasn’t doing anything wrong by talking about her life.
She had a life. Goals. Stress. People who expected things from her.
I knew how it felt to be reduced to the parts other people could use.
And still, while she talked, I caught myself thinking about Winnipeg in February and inefficient affection.
“Jace?”
I blinked. “Sorry. What?”
Her face fell a little before she fixed it. “I asked if you could come to the Scottsdale thing if the schedule works.”
“Maybe. Send me the dates.”
“I did.”
“Right. Sorry. Send them again?”
She took a sip of wine. “Sure.”
No fight. No scene.
Just the small exhaustion of being let down in a familiar way.
By the time I got home, my head felt crowded and sour.
Roman called as I was kicking off my sneakers.
“What?” I answered.
“Charming.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re never busy when you say you’re busy. You’re usually standing in one sock thinking about opening the fridge.”
I looked down at my one sock.
Damn it.
“What do you want?”
“To ask what is going on with you lately.”
I stopped moving.
Roman’s voice lost the lazy edge. “You’re distracted. Not normal distracted. Different.”
“There are categories?”
“With you? Many.”
I sat on the couch. “I don’t know.”
That was the truth, and it felt strange enough that I didn’t dress it up.
Roman was quiet for a second. “Is it Vanessa?”
“No. Maybe. Not like that.”
“Hockey?”
“Also maybe.”
“You see how helpful this is.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t have an answer.”
He let out a breath. “Okay. When you do, don’t wait until it’s on fire.”
“Very motivational.”
“I’m a leader of men.”
“You yell at people for getting too close to your crease.”
“That is leadership.”
After we hung up, I sat there with my phone in my hand.
I opened Vanessa’s texts. Looked at the Scottsdale dates she’d resent. Added them to my calendar. Set a reminder to check the travel schedule. Responsible. Normal.
Then I opened Coach Reid’s thread.
I stared at it until the screen dimmed.
There was no reason to text him. None. I had tomorrow’s sheet. I knew the schedule. I had confirmed media. My equipment was handled. My life was not currently on fire.
I typed anyway.
On that neutral-zone clip from yesterday, if Lowell pulls F1 low but Milo is late middle, do you still want me underneath or can I delay and let the weak side develop?
Hockey. On the surface, it was hockey.
My thumb hovered before I sent it because some last sane part of me tried to step in front of the train.
I sent it.
The reply did not come immediately.
That was worse. I got up, put my plate in the sink, forgot I had no plate, opened the fridge, closed it, checked the phone, hated myself, checked the notebook, then checked the phone again.
Finally, his name lit up.
Underneath first. If Milo is late, you become the delay. Do not chase the option before support is established.
I read it twice.
Then another message appeared.
You knew that.
My breath caught somewhere uncomfortable.
I typed, Wanted to make sure.
Three dots.
Then: No. You wanted contact.
The apartment went very quiet.
My first instinct was to deny it. Joke. Deflect. Send something about his ego needing supervision. Anything to put the wall back where it belonged.
But my fingers didn’t move.
A full minute passed before another message came through.
I’m answering the hockey question. That’s all.
That’s all.
It should have shut the door.
Instead, it showed me exactly where the door was.
I typed, Understood.
He replied: Goodnight, Holloway.
I stared at those two words until my phone locked.
Three times.
I had looked for him three separate times today without needing to. After practice. In the hallway. Now, from my own couch, with my girlfriend’s dinner conversation still sitting heavy in my chest and Roman’s concern still in my ear.
The scariest part wasn’t that I wanted instruction.
It wasn’t even that I liked how fast I listened when he gave it.
It was that tonight, when everything got quiet and there was no excuse left to hide behind, the thing I reached for wasn’t structure.
It was Declan.