Chapter 5
OFF ICE
JACE
Idrove to Queen West and parked three blocks away from my actual destination like I was conducting a heist, then pulled on the disguise I kept in my trunk for exactly this purpose.
Black beanie pulled low. Sunglasses even though it was overcast. A hoodie from a university I didn't attend.
The goal was to look generic enough that people's eyes would slide right past me.
It worked about sixty percent of the time. Better odds than going out as myself.
The place I'd picked was a coffee shop that’s also a bookstore tucked between a vintage clothing store and a Thai restaurant, small enough to feel intimate but busy enough that I wouldn't stand out.
The bell chimed when I walked in and warm air hit me immediately, thick with the smell of coffee and old paper.
There were maybe a dozen people scattered around, most of them on laptops or reading, doing whatever people did when their entire identity wasn't wrapped up in a sport.
I ordered a black coffee because anything fancier felt like trying too hard, then wandered toward the back where the bookshelves were.
Fiction. Poetry. History. Cookbooks. I pulled a random book off the shelf and pretended to read the back cover while actually scanning the room to see if anyone had clocked me.
So far, so good.
I found a corner table half-hidden by a bookshelf and sat down with my coffee, opening the book I'd grabbed without really looking at the title. Something about urban farming. Good enough. I could pretend to be interested in urban farming for an hour.
I made it maybe ten minutes before someone approached.
“Excuse me.”
I looked up. A guy in his twenties, wearing a Northgate jersey. My jersey. Number nineteen.
Of course he was.
I could've lied. But the jersey made it pointless, and lying just made things weirder.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling off the sunglasses because wearing them inside while talking to someone was psychopath behavior. “That's me.”
His grin widened. “Dude, I knew it. My buddy said it wasn't you, but I was like, no way, that's definitely him.” He pulled out his phone. “Could I get a picture? My dad's gonna lose his mind.”
“Sure,” I said, standing up.
He handed his phone to someone nearby—a woman who looked mildly annoyed at being drafted into photographer duty—and positioned himself next to me.
I put on the smile. The one I'd perfected over years of practice.
Warm but not too friendly. Confident but not cocky. Approachable but still aspirational.
The camera clicked. Once. Twice. Three times because people always took multiple shots like I was going to look significantly different in the span of two seconds.
“Thanks, man,” the guy said, checking the photos. “This is awesome. Good luck this season. We need the Cup this year.”
“We're working on it,” I said, automatic and hollow.
He walked away, and I sat back down, and the hangover hit immediately.
That's what I called it—the hangover. The emotional exhaustion that came after performing for strangers.
They were the people who bought my jersey and stayed up late watching road games and genuinely gave a shit whether I scored or not.
I loved them for that. I always had. The fans were the reason any of this meant anything at all.
But lately, when someone recognized me, I couldn't find the place inside myself where that love used to live. I smiled and I meant it in the abstract—grateful, really, genuinely grateful—but the moment always felt like it was happening to someone else.
I stared at the book about urban farming and tried to remember why I'd thought leaving my apartment was a good idea.
A crash from the counter snapped me out of it. I looked over. A kid, maybe seven or eight, had dropped a cup of hot chocolate. The ceramic mug had shattered, and brown liquid was spreading across the floor in a puddle that was absolutely going to stain someone's shoes.
The kid looked horrified. Close to tears. His mom was scrambling for napkins, apologizing to the barista, and the whole thing had that frantic energy that made everyone in the shop stop and stare.
I stood up without thinking, grabbed a stack of napkins from the counter, and crouched down next to the spill.
“Hey,” I said to the kid. “Happens to everyone. I once dropped an entire tray of food in front of my whole team. Way more embarrassing than this.”
The kid looked at me, eyes gone wide. “Really? The whole team was watching?”
“The whole team. And they made fun of me for weeks.” I started soaking up the hot chocolate, and the mom joined me, still apologizing.
“I'm so sorry,” she said to me, to the barista, to the universe. “He was so excited, and then he just—”
“It's fine,” I said. “Seriously. No big deal.”
The barista came over with a mop, and between the three of us we got the mess cleaned up in under a minute. The kid was still staring at me, and I realized he'd probably recognized me but was too shocked by the hot chocolate disaster to care about it.
I handed him a napkin. “You good?”
He nodded, then blurted, “My dad says you're scary.”
I laughed. “Scary?”
“He says you look mean on TV.”
“Well, I'm not mean. I just focus really hard.” I ruffled his hair without thinking, and he grinned. “Next time you're nervous, just remember even hockey players drop stuff. Makes us human.”
His mom looked at me like I'd just performed a miracle, and I realized I felt better than I had all day. Not because I'd been recognized. Because I'd done something useful. Something real.
I went back to my table and sat down, and for the first time in months I felt like a person instead of a brand.
I lasted another twenty minutes before Owen showed up.
He walked in like he owned the place, spotted me immediately despite the disguise, and dropped into the chair across from me with zero ceremony.
“Nice hat,” he said. “Really selling the incognito vibe.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“You texted me the address three hours ago and said, and I quote, 'If I'm not home by six, assume I've been kidnapped by overly enthusiastic fans.'”
“I did not say that.”
“You absolutely did.” He flagged down the barista and ordered something complicated with oat milk and extra espresso. “So. How's your attempt at being a normal human going?”
“Great until you showed up.”
“Liar. You look miserable.” He leaned back in his chair, grinning. “You got recognized, didn't you?”
“Within ten minutes.”
“Classic. The disguise makes it worse, by the way. You look like you're about to rob the place.”
“It usually works.”
“No it doesn't. You just tell yourself it does.” His coffee arrived and he took a sip. “So. What's the verdict on the new coach?”
“Good, I think. He knows what he's doing. Doesn't take shit from anyone.”
Owen leaned forward, eyes gleaming with the specific kind of mischief that meant trouble. “Is he hot?”
“What?”
“The coach. Is he hot?”
“He's my coach.”
“That's not an answer to the question.”
I stared at my coffee. “He's fine. Normal looking. I don't know, I'm not thinking about whether my coach is hot.”
“You're definitely thinking about it now.”
“Owen.”
“I'm just saying, if you're gonna develop a crush on someone, at least make it interesting. How old is he?”
“Forty-one.”
Owen's grin widened. “Oh, this is perfect. You've got a thing for the silver fox coach. This is like a bad romance novel.”
“I don't have a thing. I have respect for someone who's good at their job.”
“Sure. And I'm the Queen of England.” He took another sip of his coffee. “Does he do the whole stern-but-fair routine? Because I feel like that's your type.”
“I don't have a type.”
“Everyone has a type. Yours is apparently authority figures who can tell you what to do.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me. And you're deflecting, which means I'm right.” He switched topics before I could argue. “So my roommate is convinced the people upstairs are running a fight club. Like, actual fight club. There's just thumping at all hours.”
I latched onto the subject change gratefully. “Maybe they're just having really aggressive sex.”
“For six hours straight? I don't think anyone has that kind of stamina.”
“Maybe they're training for a marathon.”
“At two in the morning?”
We spent the next half hour like that—trading increasingly ridiculous theories about Owen's neighbors, dissecting his latest dating disaster with a bartender who turned out to be married, complaining about the price of rent in Toronto. It felt good. Better than good.
Owen had this gift for making everything lighter, for reminding me that the world kept spinning even when I was drowning. We'd been friends since we were fifteen, and he was one of the few people who'd seen me at my worst and hadn't treated me differently after.
When he finally left to head to his shift at the bar, he clapped me on the shoulder. “Text me if the coach thing gets weird.”
“It's not a thing.”
“Sure it's not. Love you, man.”
“Love you too, asshole.”
I sat alone for a few more minutes, finishing my coffee and actually looking at the book I'd grabbed.
Urban farming. Growing food in small spaces.
Not exactly riveting, but there was something weirdly calming about reading words that had nothing to do with me or my performance or what I was supposed to be.
I bought it on my way out. Probably wouldn't read it, but buying it felt necessary.
The air outside was cold and I pulled my hood up against it. The street was busy, people moving in and out of shops, living their lives without cameras or commentary or the weight of twenty thousand expectations sitting on their shoulders.
I started walking toward where I'd parked, hands shoved in my pockets, and that's when I nearly collided with someone coming out of the Thai restaurant next door.
I stepped back and looked up.
It was Coach, two bags of takeout in his hands, wearing jeans and a dark jacket with no Northgate branding, no coach persona.
Just a guy picking up dinner. His hair was slightly messy, like he'd been running his hand through it, and there was something softer about him outside the rink. Less contained. More human.
“Hartley,” he said, and there was surprise in his voice. Not displeasure. Just surprise.
“Coach.” I pulled off my sunglasses because wearing them at dusk was objectively ridiculous. “Didn't expect to see you here.”
“Apparently.” His mouth curved, dry and unhurried. “You might want to start watching where you're going. This is the second time you've nearly taken me out. At some point that stops being an accident.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “The hallway was a blind corner.”
“And this?”
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Urban farming,” I said, and held up the book.
He looked at it. Looked at me. Something flickered behind his eyes that I was almost certain was amusement. “Right.” He shifted the bags. “I live two blocks over. Thai food is a weakness.”
“Same.” The word came out before I could stop it. “The green curry here is insane.”
“You in disguise?” he asked, nodding at my beanie and hoodie setup.
“Trying to be. Didn't work.”
“Never does. People recognize the way you move more than your face.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Athletes move differently. Posture. Gait. Even when you're trying to blend in, your body gives you away.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was analyzing game footage instead of me. “It's the shoulders. You carry tension in your shoulders even when you're relaxed.”
“That's creepy.”
His mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Hazard of the job.”
I laughed, and it surprised both of us. “You always this intense off the clock, Coach?”
“Pretty much.” He shifted the bags again. “You live around here?”
“No, I drove in. Needed to get out of my head for a bit.”
“I get that.” He glanced back at the restaurant. “This place has been here fifteen years. I've been coming since I moved to Toronto.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Nearly a month.” His mouth twitched. “But I mean before. When I played. Used to live a few blocks north.”
And just like that, we were having an actual conversation. Not coach and player. Just two people who happened to exist in the same city at the same time with nowhere urgent to be.
“The green curry really is the best,” I said, because I didn't know what else to say and talking about food felt safer than anything else I could think of.
“Their pad thai's better. But you have to ask for it spicy or they make it for tourists.”
“Good to know.”
He studied me for a second.
“You've got a bruise on your neck,” he said finally. “From that board battle with Mace. You ice it?”
I reached up automatically, touching the spot. “Yeah. Tess made me.”
“Good. You favor that side when you're tired. Don't want it getting worse.”
The man didn't miss a goddamn thing.
“I'll be careful,” I said.
“You won't. But at least ice it.” He glanced at his bags, then back at me. “I should get this home before it gets cold.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
He started to walk past me, and I should've let him go. Should've said goodbye and gone to my car and kept the interaction exactly where it needed to stay.
Instead I said, “Coach?”
He stopped and turned back. “Yeah?”
“Thanks. For yesterday. I know it was against your rules.”
His jaw tightened slightly. “It was just a drill. Nothing more.”
“Right. Still. Thanks.”
He held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, long enough that I felt it in my sternum, and I couldn't read his expression at all. Then he nodded once and walked away, disappearing into the evening crowd.
I stood there on the sidewalk and something clicked into place in my head.
Oh.
Fuck.
I walked back to my car in a daze and tossed the urban farming book onto the passenger seat, then sat there gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
I'd spent the afternoon trying to figure out who I was outside of hockey. Trying to find something that felt real.
And then I'd run into Coach and felt more real in five minutes than I had in months.
That should've terrified me. It did terrify me. But it also made me feel alive in a way I hadn't felt since before the playoff miss, since before the panic attacks and the pills and the constant grinding fear that I was one mistake away from being exposed as a fraud.
Coach didn't treat me like I was fragile. He treated me like I was fixable. And somehow that was worse—because fixable meant there was hope, and hope was the most dangerous thing I could hold onto.