Chapter 26
JACE
I parked three houses down like I was in a spy movie directed by someone with anxiety and poor impulse control.
Then I sat there for two full minutes because I’d forgotten what I was supposed to bring.
Not forgotten exactly. More like my brain had opened seventeen drawers at once and none of them had labels.
Phone. Wallet. Keys. Overnight bag.
Food?
No, Declan said dinner.
Wine?
Bad idea. Also I didn’t drink much during the season. Also showing up at my married coach’s house with a bottle of wine felt like committing a crime with gift wrap.
Tiny.
I looked at the passenger seat.
The ridiculous stuffed duck I’d bought at the pet store stared back at me with dead plastic eyes.
“Right,” I muttered. “Bribe.”
I grabbed the duck and my bag, locked the car, checked that I’d locked it because the beep hadn’t processed, then forced myself not to go back and pull the handle.
Once was enough.
Twice was okay.
Six times was me spiraling in a driveway.
I made it to the porch before Tiny started barking.
Not normal barking. Not a dog announcing a visitor. This was full-body betrayal that I had spent the entire day outside his reach and had some nerve showing up now like I hadn’t ruined his life.
The door opened before I knocked.
Declan stood there barefoot again, jeans low on his hips, black T-shirt stretched across his chest, beard trimmed but not too neat. He looked less like Coach Reid and more like the man whose bed I had slept in, which made my brain drop three files and misplace my name.
His gaze landed on the duck.
“What is that?”
“An offering.”
Tiny shoved around his leg and nearly took out the umbrella stand.
“Back,” Declan said.
Tiny did not go back. Tiny saw the duck and lost whatever small connection to civilization he’d been maintaining.
“Jesus.” I held it up. “You want this?”
Tiny’s tail hit the wall hard enough to rattle a framed photo.
Declan stepped aside. “Inside before he breaks the porch.”
I got one foot over the threshold before Tiny launched.
Not at me. At the duck.
He snatched it from my hand with surprising delicacy, then immediately whipped his enormous head sideways and slapped Declan in the thigh with it.
Declan looked down at him. “That was unnecessary.”
Tiny pranced into the living room, duck squeaking with every step.
I shut the door behind me, and the sound of the lock turning hit differently this time.
Less like a panic alarm.
More like permission.
Declan noticed anyway. Of course he did. “Color?”
“Green.”
“Truthfully.”
I dropped my bag by the entry table. “Green with a yellow border.”
His mouth moved, not quite a smile. “Specific.”
“I’m evolving under pressure.”
“That Roman’s phrase?”
“Unfortunately.”
Declan came closer and took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, not hard, not soft. Enough that my body got the message before my head could make a spreadsheet of consequences.
“You ate today?”
“Define ate.”
“Jace.”
“Yes. Protein shake, bagel, half of Milo’s fries because he forgot they were his while holding them.”
“That counts badly, but it counts.”
He kissed me once. Brief. Warm. Like he was allowed to do it in this house. Like I was allowed to receive it.
I stood there after he pulled back, annoyed by how much one simple kiss could reorganize me.
He brushed his thumb along my jaw. “Come cook with me.”
“I should warn you I can follow a hockey system at full speed while getting cross-checked, but recipes are where ambition goes to die.”
“I’m aware.”
“Mean.”
“Accurate.”
His kitchen looked different now that I wasn’t trying not to fall apart.
Lived in, but orderly. A cast iron pan sat on the stove.
Chopped vegetables waited in bowls because Declan was apparently the type of person who prepped ingredients before turning on heat instead of discovering the onion still had skin while smoke filled the room.
There were parts of him everywhere once I let myself look.
A chipped mug beside the coffee maker with a faded team logo from his playing days.
A stack of coaching notebooks on the far end of the counter.
Tiny’s leash hanging from a hook near the back door.
A photo on the fridge of Declan and two guys who had to be his brothers, one of them grinning with an arm locked around Declan’s neck while Declan looked irritated and secretly pleased.
And Olivia.
There were pieces of her too.
A sleek travel mug. A magnet from Santa Fe. A note stuck beneath it in neat handwriting: dry cleaning, batteries, call plumber.
Nothing romantic. Nothing dramatic.
Just evidence.
My stomach pinched.
Declan followed my gaze. He didn’t move to hide anything.
“She gets in tomorrow evening,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m talking to her.”
The words settled between the cutting board and the stove.
I nodded, picking at a loose thread on my sleeve until I caught myself and stopped. “Okay.”
“Not because of pressure from you.”
“I didn’t think that.”
“You might later.”
I looked at him. “I ended things with Vanessa. You’re allowed to make your own choices without me turning it into a scoreboard.”
His expression changed in that small way it did when I surprised him.
“I mean, I’ll be a mess about it internally,” I added. “But maturely.”
That got the almost-smile again.
He handed me a knife and pointed at a bell pepper. “Strips.”
I stared at it. “You’re trusting me with a blade?”
“I trust you with a stick at twenty-two miles an hour.”
“Different skill set.”
“Strips, Holloway.”
That tone slid down my spine and settled low in my body.
I cut the pepper.
Badly at first. Too thick, then too thin, then I got annoyed because the pieces didn’t match. Declan didn’t correct me right away. He moved around me, heating oil, seasoning chicken, bumping his hip against mine when he needed the sink.
Normal touching.
Not a scene. Not a crisis. Not a stolen second in a hallway.
His hand rested briefly on my lower back when he reached past me for salt. His fingers closed around my wrist to shift the knife angle. He kissed the side of my head while checking the pan, casual enough that my chest hurt.
Tiny lay in the middle of the kitchen floor, duck trapped between his paws, blocking every efficient route available.
“Your dog is a speed bump,” I said, stepping over him for the third time.
“He’s supervising.”
“He’s drooling on a duck.”
“Management style varies.”
I moved around Tiny, forgot the cabinet door was open, and clipped my shoulder on it.
“Fuck.”
Declan turned. “You okay?”
“Cabinet attacked me.”
“You opened it.”
“Victim blaming.”
He came over anyway, checked my shoulder with two fingers, then shut the cabinet. “One task at a time.”
“I was doing one task.”
“You were carrying plates, watching Tiny, talking, and thinking about Olivia.”
I hated that he was right. “That’s invasive.”
“That’s observation.”
“Still invasive.”
His hand stayed on my shoulder. “Set the plates down. Then get the glasses.”
Simple. Clear.
I did it, and the buzzing under my skin eased.
Dinner was chicken and vegetables over rice, which tasted better than anything that healthy had a right to taste.
We ate at the island because the dining table felt too formal and maybe too married.
Tiny stationed himself beside my stool and rested his chin on my thigh, leaving a wet patch on my jeans.
“No,” Declan said without looking up.
Tiny sighed with theatrical despair.
“I didn’t give him anything.”
“You thought about it.”
“I think about a lot of things.”
“That’s the problem.”
After dinner, I helped clean because standing still made my head louder. Declan washed. I dried. Tiny murdered the duck in the living room with squeaks that became increasingly deranged.
My phone buzzed twice on the counter.
My whole body reacted before I touched it.
Declan looked at me. “Check it.”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“Then check it and know.”
I picked it up.
Roman: Your wallet is not at the smoothie place. Progress.
Roman: Also Rachel says if you are pretending to be fine she’ll know because women have satellites.
I breathed out. “Roman.”
“Answer him.”
I typed, Wallet currently in my possession. Tell Rachel her satellites are invasive.
Three dots appeared immediately, then disappeared.
Good enough.
I set the phone down, but the restlessness stayed in my fingers. I dried the same plate twice before Declan took it from me.
“Stay tonight.”
My hands stopped.
The water ran in the sink. Tiny squeaked once in the other room, then thumped against something, probably furniture with a grudge.
I looked at Declan. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Olivia is back tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“That makes this feel…”
“Real?”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
He turned off the water and dried his hands slowly. “It is real.”
The sentence landed clean and heavy.
I didn’t have a joke ready. My brain reached for one, found nothing, and left me standing there with my heart doing stupid, visible things in my throat.
Declan stepped in. “You can say no.”
“I’m not saying no.”
“Then come here.”
I went.
The first kiss was controlled until it wasn’t. His mouth opened over mine, and I grabbed the front of his shirt because I needed something to hold. He backed me into the counter, hands gripping my hips, then slid lower to my ass and pulled me hard against him.
The sound I made was not dignified.
Declan lifted me like I weighed nothing and set me on the counter. My legs wrapped around him on instinct. He kissed me deeper, tongue pushing into my mouth, beard scraping my skin, hands kneading my ass through my jeans with enough force to make heat pool between my thighs.
I rocked against him and felt him hard against me.
“Bedroom,” he said against my mouth.
“I want to taste you first.”
His fingers dug in.
I pulled back enough to look at him. “I mean it. I want that.”
For once, his control showed a crack.
“Then upstairs.”
We barely made it.