Chapter 8 #2
“I don’t know,” he said finally, and the admission sounded dragged out of him. Not soft. Rough. “Because if I see it and don’t take it, it feels like I’m wasting it.”
“The play?”
“The chance.” His eyes flicked away, then came back because I had told him to look. I watched him realize that, and his face hardened in self-defense. “You asked.”
“I did.”
“And now you’re doing the staring thing.”
“The staring thing.”
“Like you’re pulling apart tape.”
I leaned back against the desk. “I’m trying to understand how to coach you.”
“You benched me.”
“For two rotations.”
“You removed me.”
The word landed with more force than he meant it to have.
Removed.
Not benched. Not corrected.
Removed.
Something in me recognized the distinction before I wanted to.
“You were out of control within the drill,” I said.
“I wasn’t out of control.”
“You were making decisions without regard for the instruction.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
He looked thrown by the agreement.
I let the silence sit for a moment. Not to punish him. To let him feel the shape of it without my voice filling every corner.
Then I said, “When I give you a boundary on the ice, I expect you to hold it. If you disagree, you bring it after the rep. Not during. Not with your skates. Not by turning the drill into a vote.”
His hands flexed on his thighs. “And if I think I’m right?”
“You still hold it.”
“That easy?”
“No.”
His stare sharpened.
I did not look away. “I don’t think it’s easy for you. I think sometimes your head is three decisions ahead and your body follows before the rest of the ice gets there. I think when someone slows you down, you hear doubt even when that isn’t what’s being said.”
His expression closed by inches.
I should have stopped. I didn’t.
“But I also think you know when you’re testing me.”
The office went quiet again.
This time, it was not clean. It had edges.
Jace stood too fast. “Testing you?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m doing this for attention?”
“I think you’re looking for the line.”
He laughed once, humorless. “That’s convenient.”
“It’s accurate.”
“You know, not everything I do is some psychological puzzle for you to solve.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He took a step closer to the desk. Not threatening. Too restless to stay still. “Maybe I saw a better play. Maybe I’m tired of having every instinct treated like a problem because it doesn’t fit clean on a whiteboard.”
“Stop interrupting.”
His mouth shut.
Again.
This time, neither of us had the luxury of pretending not to notice.
His chest rose and fell under the hoodie.
Mine did the same, slower, controlled only because I had spent a lifetime making control look natural.
There was nothing sexual in the moment, not in any way I had language for.
Still, it was intimate enough to be dangerous.
One command. One immediate response. A silence afterward that did not belong in a coach’s office between a married man and his player.
I straightened. “You’re done for today.”
He stared at me. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No speech?”
“You heard me.”
His laugh came out quieter this time. “Yeah. I did.”
He turned for the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob.
I should have let him leave.
Instead, I said, “Tomorrow, you hold the structure until I tell you otherwise.”
He didn’t turn around. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll sit again.”
His shoulders went tight.
After a moment, he nodded once and left.
I stood in my office until the hallway sounds returned, footsteps, voices, Milo complaining about someone stealing his recovery drink, Tessa telling him she would sell him for office supplies if he made one more accusation near her media backdrop.
Normal team life.
Normal noise.
Nothing in me felt normal.
That evening, Olivia was in the bedroom packing for a three-day trip to Dallas. I sat at the small desk by the window with my laptop open, practice notes untouched for twenty minutes.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
I looked over. “What?”
“Working without working.”
I closed the laptop. “Long day.”
She folded a blazer carefully. “Player issue?”
“Yes.”
“Same player?”
I didn’t answer quickly enough.
Olivia’s hands paused, then continued. “You get like this when you think someone is a problem you can solve if you just find the right angle.”
“He’s not a problem.”
She looked at me with mild surprise.
I rubbed a hand over my beard. “He’s a player who needs consistency.”
“That sounds less catchy.”
I managed a faint smile.
She came over and kissed the top of my head, a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache. “Don’t forget that you’re allowed to come home from work, Dec.”
“I know.”
But after she went back to packing, my mind was in my office again.
Sit.
Look at me.
Stop interrupting.
And Jace obeying each time like the command had found a place in him no one else had reached.
Across town, I knew nothing about Jace’s night.
I did not know that Vanessa sat across from him on his couch with takeout containers on the coffee table, watching him miss half of what she said.
“You’re somewhere else,” she told him.
He blinked at her, guilt already rising because she was right. “Sorry.”
“Is it practice?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “Coach got on me.”
“You always say that like you hate it.”
He didn’t answer.
Vanessa’s expression shifted, not suspicious, just tired and a little hurt. “I’m not asking for secrets. I just want to know where you go when you leave the room but your body stays here.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. “I don’t know.”
It was the second time in one day he had said it, and meant it.
Later, after Olivia’s suitcase was zipped and Tiny had given up trying to climb inside it, after the house went dark and quiet, I lay awake beside my wife and stared at the ceiling.
My phone was on the nightstand.
I did not touch it.
I told myself that was discipline.
The truth was less comfortable.
I didn’t touch it because I knew if there was a message from Jace, I would answer.
And if there wasn’t, I would feel the absence.
Neither option was acceptable.
Beside me, Olivia slept turned away, breathing evenly. Tiny huffed from the floor. The house was steady, organized, exactly the kind of life I had built after my body had betrayed me and the game had taken my first future away.
I had rebuilt myself on control.
Today, in my office, Jace Holloway had sat because I told him to, and some part of me had wanted to test what else my voice could make quiet.
That was not coaching.
Not anymore.
I did not know what it was yet.
I only knew that tomorrow, when he stepped onto the ice, he would look for the line.
And I would be waiting to draw it.