Chapter 12
JADE
The smell of roasted beans and damp wool hits me as I push into the small café. The air hums—porcelain clinking, steam hissing, students murmuring. It’s the opposite of the sterile silence that covers Cayden’s villa like a bell jar.
Hailey is in a booth, coat collar up, typing on her phone. She beams when she sees me. I squeeze past a chair and slide onto the worn wooden bench.
My fingers reach for the black leather sketchbook in my bag. It’s my anchor. When the world is too loud, I draw. Hard pencil strokes, precise shading—things I can control.
“You look like you’ve been trying to keep a stadium from collapsing single-handedly,” Hailey greets me, sliding a latte across the table.
“That’s exactly how it feels.” I open the sketchbook but keep the pencil still.
“And? Has he kicked you out yet?” she asks, watching me with that familiar, piercing look. “Or did he try to impress you with his new helicopter?”
I shake my head and smirk. “He confessed to the Sir Archibald statue story. Flamingo floatie and all.”
Hailey’s eyes widen. Her spoon clatters against the saucer. “He admitted that? Jade, that’s a miracle! He swore to Mom and Dad he was in his room. He’s guarded that secret like a bank vault.”
“We laughed about it,” I say, my heart tightening at the memory. “For a moment, he was just Cayden. The boy who wasn't afraid of anything.”
Hailey’s laugh fades. She stirs her coffee thoughtfully. “That’s the problem with him, isn't it? You see that flash of the real him, the core you want to love, and then he pulls up the drawbridge before you can even take a breath. He hides behind this deal like a fortress wall.”
“Why is this project so important to him, Hailey?” I ask, leaning forward. My pencil starts tracing the outline of the sugar shaker. “Hayes is crushing him. He’s risking his liquidity, his reputation, everything. Why not just renovate the old arena? Why this billion-dollar glass palace?”
Hailey sighs. She stares out at the street.
“Cayden doesn't build buildings, Jade. He builds monuments for his own redemption. He thinks if he gives Montreal the most modern building in the world, no one will ask what really happened in Banff. He’s trying to cover the stains on his bio with polished steel.”
“But he’s hurting himself,” I argue, shading the shaker with quick strokes. “Hayes wants a perfect image, or he pulls the funding. And Cayden responds by barricading himself deeper and pushing everyone away.”
“He’s terrified of someone seeing who he really is,” Hailey says softly. “That he’s still the boy from Thunder Bay who doesn't know what to do with all his ambition and pain.”
She shakes her head and changes the subject. “How are your parents, Jade? How’s your dad doing at the home?”
I stop drawing. The weight of reality pushes me back into the bench. “Good days and bad. On the bad ones, he doesn't know me. My mom is wearing herself out. The care costs are eating us alive. If I don't get the bonus for this profile, we’ll have to move him, and that would break his heart.”
Hailey puts a hand on my arm. “You know you can ask me anytime, Jade. I’ll help.”
“I know,” I say quickly, stifling the panic. I can’t take her money. I can’t let Cayden’s sister fund the man Cayden actually gave a grandson to. “We’ll manage.”
“And Tim?” she asks, shifting tactfully. “How’s your big brother? Still in his self-discovery phase?”
“Tim is Tim,” I smile. “He just started another startup. Something with recycled surfboards on the West Coast. Don’t ask for a business plan; he probably doesn't have one. He lives on air and chronic optimism.”
“At least he burns for something,” Hailey laughs. “That’s more than I can say for the men I’ve met lately.”
Hailey’s husband, Josh, passed away years ago. While she’s raised her twins, Luke and Liam, with incredible strength, it’s only human that she isn't done with her own life.
I raise an eyebrow, sketching the contours of Hailey’s cup. “Speaking of burning. How’s the love life? You mentioned that guy who googled the nutritional value of his salad on the first date.”
Hailey groans into her hands. “Don’t. Please. I’m officially cursed. I only meet men who are in an unhealthy symbiosis with their mothers or whose greatest emotional depth is a fantasy football game.”
“Maybe change your criteria. My brother is single again and looking for surfboard investors,” I joke, sketching an exaggeratedly large fork next to the cup.
Hailey snorts, sipping her coffee. “Tim is a sweetheart, but no thanks. Besides, we have our pact.”
My pencil stops mid-stroke. The lead digs deep into the paper and snaps with a tiny, sharp crack.
“The pact,” I repeat. My mouth is suddenly dry.
“We don’t date each other’s brothers,” Hailey quotes solemnly. It’s a rule we sealed at sixteen, sitting on her bedroom carpet with cheap wine and a bag of nachos. “Family is taboo. It saves the drama at Thanksgiving and protects the friendship.”
The latte in my stomach rebels. The pact.
That silly, childish, almost sacred rule between best friends.
My mind races. I didn't just break that pact; I pulverized it.
I tore it into a thousand pieces that night in a hotel suite after the Cup victory.
I burned it with sweat and whispered promises, and from the wreckage, I raised a son.
You lie to her every single day, Jade.
And last night, when Cayden was so close—when I felt the rhythm of his heavy breath on my skin and the fire cast shadows over our faces—I was millimeters away from betraying the pact a second time.
I wanted him. I wanted to close the distance and hurl myself into a catastrophe I know would destroy me.
“Hey, Earth to Jade. You okay?” Hailey’s voice pulls me from the spiral. She’s watching me, concerned. “You’ve gone completely pale.”
I force myself to set the broken pencil aside. I rub my thumb over a harsh line on the paper to hide the trembling in my hands.
“Everything’s fine,” I manage, forcing a smile that feels like a mask made of clay. “I was just thinking how Tim would react if you actually showed up. He’d probably try to sell you a board made of pressed seagrass.”
Hailey laughs again, guileless and free of suspicion. She goes on about a gallery opening and a new restaurant, but her words reach me as if through deep water. I look down at my sketch. The cup, the fork, the hard, broken shadows. It looks like a still life on the verge of collapse.
Just like my life.