Chapter 36
JACE
I got to the rink forty-two minutes early because my brain had decided there were only two possible settings today: catastrophically late or suspiciously early.
The parking lot was half empty. Staff cars near the side entrance. A delivery truck idling by the loading dock. Gray morning light sitting low over the building like even the sky hadn’t slept.
I turned the engine off and didn’t move.
My practice bag sat in the passenger seat because I had put it there on purpose, directly in my line of sight, after waking up twice convinced I’d forgotten it.
My phone was in the cup holder. My keys were in my hand.
I had eaten half a bagel in the car and then lost the other half somewhere between my apartment and the rink, which meant it was either in the seat crease or I had thrown it away without noticing.
Great. Excellent. Professional athlete with object permanence issues prepares to disclose career-threatening relationship to ownership.
I checked my phone.
No message from Declan.
Good. Correct. Annoying.
We’d agreed. No unnecessary contact before the meeting. No impulse texts. No one-liners that looked innocent until a lawyer with a highlighter found them. I understood the reasoning. I supported the reasoning. I wanted to throw the reasoning into traffic.
I opened my notes app instead.
One page. Tessa’s rule.
I had written it the night before after staring at the cursor for twenty minutes and then reorganizing my sock drawer because apparently emotional avoidance loved cotton blends.
The statement was short. Too short. Then too long.
Then short again after I cut three paragraphs of explaining, defending, and accidentally sounding like I was applying for a grant.
I read it for the thirty-seventh time.
I am here to disclose a consensual relationship with Declan Reid.
We understand the professional conflict created by his role as head coach and my role as a player.
We are disclosing voluntarily before external discovery because the organization deserves transparency and an opportunity to address the conflict.
I understand this may create consequences for both of us.
I will cooperate with the review process and any reasonable measures required to protect the team and the integrity of hockey decisions.
I hated every word because every word was true.
A knock hit my passenger window.
I flinched so hard my keys flew out of my hand and hit the floor mat.
Roman stood outside with two coffees and the expression of a man who had seen me do dumber things and was saving them for later.
I unlocked the door.
He opened it, looked at my bag, then at me. “You living in here now?”
“Thinking about it. Rent’s lower. View’s terrible.”
He handed me a coffee and leaned against the open door. “You’re early.”
“I’m redefining my brand.”
“You look like you fought a dryer and lost.”
“I slept.”
“No, you lay down and practiced anxiety horizontally.”
That was annoyingly accurate, so I took a drink of coffee instead of answering.
Roman watched me over the rim of his cup. He wasn’t dressed for practice yet. Hoodie, ball cap, sweatpants, no goalie weirdness in sight. He looked tired too. Not my kind of tired. Divorced veteran goalie tired. The kind that lived in the shoulders and judged younger men before breakfast.
“You want to sit in here pretending you’re fine,” he said, “or are we walking?”
I looked at the building. “Walking where?”
“Around the lot. You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where if I put you in a hallway, you’ll ricochet off six walls and apologize to a vending machine.”
“I apologized to a cabinet yesterday.”
“I believe that completely.”
I got out.
Cold air hit my face and helped. Not enough.
Some. I grabbed my phone and shoved it into my hoodie pocket, then locked the car twice because I couldn’t remember if I’d done it the first time even though I had heard the beep.
Roman didn’t comment. He started walking, slow, coffee in hand, cutting a path along the edge of the lot where nobody from media would bother us.
For a minute, neither of us said anything.
That was one of the reasons Roman was my best friend. He knew quiet wasn’t empty just because I kept trying to fill it.
Finally he said, “Today?”
I nodded. “Afternoon. They moved it from nine. Counsel wanted everyone in person and one ownership rep was flying in.”
“Who’s in the room?”
“Ownership, Whitaker, hockey ops, HR counsel, Marlene. Our lawyers on call, not in the room unless it turns ugly.” I kicked a tiny piece of gravel and watched it skitter across the asphalt. “Tessa will probably be nearby with a fire extinguisher and a list of my crimes.”
“Long list.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Roman sipped his coffee. “You got your statement?”
“Yeah.”
“You memorizing it?”
“Trying not to. If I memorize it, then I’ll mess up one word and my brain will declare the whole thing unusable.”
“Good. Read it if you need to.”
“I hate reading off my phone like I’m giving a wedding toast.”
“This isn’t a charm contest.”
“I know.”
He glanced at me. “Do you?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it.
The thing about Roman was that he didn’t ask questions to fill space. He asked them because he’d already seen the answer leaking out of me.
“I know,” I said, quieter. “I’m just used to being able to make people laugh when they’re mad. Or skate hard enough that everyone forgets the other stuff. Or talk fast until the room moves on.”
“This room won’t move on because you’re entertaining.”
“Yeah. That’s the problem.”
We reached the far end of the lot and turned back.
The building looked bigger from a distance. Stupid thought, because buildings did not grow just because your life might implode inside them, but there it was.
Roman walked beside me, shoulder close but not touching. “How’s he?”
I didn’t pretend not to know who he meant.
“Controlled,” I said. “Which is sometimes how you know he’s bad.”
Roman nodded.
“He talked to his attorney yesterday. They told him suspension is possible. Review. Maybe changing who supervises my discipline or evaluations. Maybe more than that.” My throat went dry. I took another drink. “He said he’s willing to make professional sacrifices.”
Roman made a low sound. “Of course he did.”
I looked at him. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s being noble and I should just accept it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it with your goalie face.”
“My goalie face has saved this franchise from several defensive collapses and one mascot lawsuit.”
“Roman.”
He stopped walking.
So did I.
A truck beeped somewhere behind us. A door opened near the loading dock and shut again. The normal morning business of the rink kept happening without permission.
Roman looked at me for a long second. “I think he’s a grown man who gets to decide what he can live with. I also think you’re a grown man who gets to say you don’t want to be carried like a wounded bird.”
My chest squeezed. “I’m not a wounded bird.”
“You are the loudest wounded bird I’ve ever met.”
“Fuck off.”
“There he is.”
I rubbed my thumb over the coffee lid until the plastic edge bent. “I don’t want him to lose his job because of me.”
“If he loses something, it won’t be because of you alone.”
“That’s not better.”
“No,” Roman said. “It’s just truer.”
I hated that too.
He shifted his cup to his other hand. “You told your dad?”
I nodded.
“How’d it go?”
“He asked if Declan was good to me before he got mad about anything else.”
Roman’s face softened in a way he would deny under oath. “Sounds like Cal.”
“He also said not to let guilt make every decision and not to let Declan take all the damage because I’m scared.”
“Smart man.”
“Annoying family trait.”
“You call Harper?”
“Not yet. I couldn’t. I will.” I stared at the coffee in my hand. “I needed one more day before she verbally removed my organs.”
“She’ll put them back.”
“Probably in the wrong order.”
Roman snorted.
Then the humor thinned out. He watched me with that steady, irritating patience that made it impossible to keep dodging.
“What are you dealing with right now?” he asked.
The question was simple. Too simple. It slipped past all the prepared answers.
I looked away.
My thoughts were loud again. Not words exactly.
More like every possible consequence trying to happen at once.
Declan walking out of an office with a box.
My name trending beside his. Vanessa finding out through somebody else and feeling humiliated all over again.
Olivia’s face, even though I had only seen photos.
The locker room splitting into awkward silences and side conversations.
My dad watching sports media discuss my private life like it was a bad penalty call.
Harper pretending she wasn’t hurt that I waited to tell her.
And under all of it, smaller but meaner: what if this is the moment everyone decides I’m too much?
I exhaled, but it snagged halfway.
“I’m scared they’ll look at me and only see the problem,” I said.
Roman didn’t interrupt.
“Not the relationship. Not both of us. Me. The impulsive player who can’t follow rules.
The guy who pushes too far. The idiot who slept with his coach and now wants everyone to build a policy bridge under him before he falls.
” My voice got rough, and I hated that, so I stared harder at the ground.
“I know I’m not a kid. I know I made choices.
I’m not trying to dodge that. But there’s this part of me that keeps waiting for someone to say, yeah, this is exactly why you need handling.
This is why you’re difficult. This is why people leave. ”
Roman was quiet long enough that I started regretting every word.
Then he said, “Look at me.”
I did, because it was Roman, and because my coffee lid was about two seconds from total structural failure.
He didn’t soften the way people did when they were about to lie kindly. “You are difficult.”