Chapter 11
JACE
I woke up angry.
Not at anything useful. Not at my alarm, which I had forgotten to set and therefore could not blame.
Not at the sun slicing through the gap in my curtains like it had a personal vendetta.
Not even at the laundry basket I had kicked over sometime during the night, leaving socks and compression shorts scattered across my bedroom floor like evidence from a crime scene.
I woke up angry because my brain had apparently decided sleep was optional and replaying the same three things for seven straight hours was essential.
Because I knew you would take care of it.
The closed door.
The way Declan had looked at me.
Not yelled. Not begged. Not softened the edges for me. Just looked at me like he saw every moving part inside my head and had already decided he wasn’t impressed by the chaos.
I had stood there like an idiot after he shut the door. Stood in the hallway with my skin too tight and my dick half-hard and my pulse doing something embarrassing, trying to convince myself it was adrenaline.
It wasn’t adrenaline.
Adrenaline didn’t make me remember the exact weight of his voice. Adrenaline didn’t make me think about his hand on the door, the way his shoulders filled the frame, the calm certainty in him when he told me what to do.
Adrenaline definitely didn’t make me wake up with my body wound so tight that touching myself in the shower felt less like relief and more like losing an argument.
I tried anyway.
It didn’t help.
By the time I got out, I was irritated, unsatisfied, late, and thinking about my head coach while my girlfriend sat in my kitchen wearing one of my shirts.
Vanessa looked up from her phone when I came in. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head, makeup softer than usual, bare legs crossed on one of the stools. She had made coffee. Actual coffee, not one of those iced things that tasted like dessert pretending to be productivity.
That should have made me feel something warm.
It made me feel guilty.
“Morning,” she said.
“Hey.”
Her eyes moved over my face. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks. Love waking up to compliments.”
“I’m not being mean.” She set her phone down, which I noticed because Vanessa didn’t set her phone down unless she wanted me to notice. “You sleep?”
“Some.”
“You were tossing around all night.”
I opened the fridge, forgot what I was looking for, closed it, opened it again, then grabbed a carton of eggs like that had been the plan. My thoughts kept skipping. Food. Practice. Declan. Door. Vanessa asking something. Eggs. Did I have clean socks? Because I knew you would take care of it.
“Jace.”
I turned. “What?”
Her mouth tightened a little. “I asked if you wanted to go to that dinner tonight after practice. The brand thing. I told you about it.”
Right. The dinner. Influencers, a steakhouse, cameras pretending not to be cameras, men in expensive jackets asking me how the season felt while looking over my shoulder for someone more famous.
“I have video after practice.”
“You always have video.”
“It’s my job.”
“I know that.” She slid off the stool. “I’m trying to include you in things, that’s all.”
That was the part that stopped me from being an asshole immediately.
She was trying. Not in the way I always wanted, maybe, not in a way that fixed whatever was thinning between us, but she had made coffee and stayed off her phone for almost five minutes and asked me to come somewhere instead of just assuming I wouldn’t.
I cracked an egg too hard. Shell broke into the bowl.
“Shit.”
“I can do it.”
“I’ve got it.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
The edge in her voice made me look at her. She was standing by the island now, arms tucked around herself, not dramatically, not like a performance. Just defensive.
I hated that I had put that look there.
“Sorry,” I said, forcing my hand to slow down as I fished shell out of the bowl. “I’m not awake.”
“You’re awake. You’re just not here.”
That landed too close.
“I’m standing in the kitchen.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it a joke when I’m trying to talk to you.”
I set the egg down. My fingertips were wet and sticky. The overhead light was too bright. The dishwasher was humming too loud. My phone buzzed on the counter and every part of me wanted to look at it even though I knew that would make this worse.
I didn’t look.
“I’m listening.”
“Are you?” Her voice stayed quiet, which somehow made it harder. “Because lately it feels like I get whatever’s left after hockey, and your family, and Roman, and whatever fight you’re having with Reid this week.”
My stomach gave one sharp twist.
“I’m not having a fight with Reid.”
Vanessa watched me for a beat too long. “Okay.”
“It’s work.”
“I said okay.”
“No, you said it like you didn’t believe me.”
“Maybe I don’t.” She exhaled and rubbed at her forehead. “I don’t know. You come home wired and distracted, or pissed off, or quiet in that way where if I ask one question you act like I’m interrogating you. I’m not trying to be your enemy, Jace.”
“I never said you were.”
“But you treat me like I’m in the way.”
That shut me up.
The worst part was that I wanted to argue. My body wanted it. My brain had already loaded ten defenses, ten corrections, ten examples of how that wasn’t fair. But underneath all of it was a colder, uglier knowledge.
Sometimes she was in the way.
Not because she had done anything wrong.
Because I was trying to keep pieces of myself separate, and she kept standing where the seams were.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, and it sounded thin even to me.
Vanessa looked tired suddenly. “I don’t want another apology you forget by tomorrow.”
“I don’t forget.”
Her expression said I absolutely did.
Fair.
I pressed my palms against the counter and made myself stay still. “I’ll try to be better tonight.”
“Dinner?”
I hesitated.
There it was. The little pause. The one that said everything before I did.
Her face closed by degrees.
“I have to see what time video ends,” I said.
“Sure.”
“Vanessa.”
“No, it’s fine.” She picked up her phone. “I’ll tell them maybe.”
The conversation was over, but not fixed. Nothing had exploded. No slammed doors. No tears. Just another hairline crack running through something we kept pretending was solid because neither of us wanted to be the first one to admit the foundation had shifted.
At the rink, Roman took one look at me and said, “You look like you got haunted by a tax audit.”
I shoved my bag into my stall. “Good morning to you too.”
“It’s almost nine.”
“Then regular morning.”
He sat two stalls down, already half dressed, tape wrapped around his sock. Roman had the kind of stillness goalies got from letting pucks fly at their faces for a living. Most days it annoyed me. Today it made me feel pinned in place.
“You sleep?” he asked.
“Why is everyone obsessed with my sleep?”
“Because you look like garbage and you’re vibrating.”
“I’m always vibrating.”
“Worse than usual.”
I grabbed my shoulder pads. The tag scratched the back of my neck. I yanked it too hard and nearly smacked myself in the face.
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“I was about to ask if you ate.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“Jace.”
I slammed the pads down harder than necessary. A couple guys glanced over. Milo, from across the room, paused with one skate in his hand.
Roman didn’t move.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “I don’t need you doing the divorced dad routine before practice.”
The room quieted just enough for me to hear myself.
Roman’s face changed. Not hurt exactly. He’d known me too long to bruise that easy. But something shuttered.
“Got it,” he said.
I hated that tone.
“Ro.”
He stood, picked up his mask, and gave me a look that was all flat goalie patience. “Handle your shit before it handles you.”
Then he walked away.
Milo’s gaze bounced between us. He wasn’t subtle on his best day, and this was not his best day. “Everything good?”
“Great,” I said.
He wisely looked down at his skate. “Cool. Love that for us.”
Practice should have helped.
Usually the ice stripped everything down. Skate. Puck. Breath. Angles. Timing. I could pour all the noise into movement and let the boards hold the rest.
Today the ice made it worse.
Because Declan was everywhere.
Not physically. He wasn’t crowding me, wasn’t singling me out every second. He stood behind the whistle and the board with that same controlled presence, black tracksuit, beard dark against his jaw, eyes tracking the drill like nothing escaped him.
Nothing did.
Especially me.
“Holloway, tighter on the turn.”
I corrected.
“Again.”
I went again.
“Your stick’s late.”
I fixed it.
“Don’t drift. Drive through.”
I drove through.
Every instruction hit with too much force. A normal correction felt like a hand at the back of my neck. A glance felt like pressure. When he nodded once after I threaded a pass through traffic, the approval lit up in my chest so fast I almost missed my next route.
It pissed me off.
It made me want more.
Declan noticed, because of course he did. His coaching changed. Less explanation. No long breakdowns. No softening around the edges.
“Reset.”
“Faster.”
“No. Do it properly.”
“Hold your lane.”
“Again.”
The more direct he got, the quicker I responded. No argument. No wasted motion. My body obeyed before my mouth had time to ruin anything.
That should have scared me.
It did.
It also burned through me in a way I had no category for.
Roman noticed from the crease. I felt it every time his mask turned my way.
Tessa noticed too, standing near the tunnel with her tablet, media lanyard around her neck, eyes too sharp for a woman pretending to check practice clips.
Milo definitely noticed something. He kept shooting looks at me, then at Declan, then back at me like he was trying to solve a math problem with missing numbers.
Nobody knew what.
I barely knew what.