Chapter 9
SAFE ZONE
JACE
Mom's lasagna smelled exactly like it always did—garlic, oregano, that slightly burnt edge where the cheese crisped up against the pan. The scent hit me the second I walked through the front door, and something in my chest unclenched for the first time in days.
“Jace!” Mom appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her whole face lighting up the way it only did for me and my sister. “You're early! I thought you said six.”
“Traffic was lighter than I expected.” I dropped my bag by the door and let her pull me into a hug. She was small, barely came up to my shoulder, but she squeezed hard enough that I felt it in my ribs.
I hugged her back and tried not to hold on too long. I tried not to let her feel how much I'd needed this.
She pulled back and gave me that mom look. “You look tired.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're not sleeping.”
“I'm sleeping.”
“Jace.”
“Mom.” I grinned at her, deflecting the way I always did. “I smell lasagna. Are you trying to fatten me up? Coach is gonna have my ass if I show up overweight.”
She swatted my arm but smiled, and just like that the interrogation was over. For now. “Your father's in the living room. Go say hi. Dinner's in twenty minutes.”
I found Dad in his usual spot—recliner kicked back, baseball game on the TV, beer sweating on the side table. He looked up when I walked in, and his face did that thing it always did. Not quite a smile, but close enough.
“Jace. Good drive?”
“Yeah. Easy.” I dropped onto the couch and gestured at the screen. “Who's winning?”
“Mariners, seventh inning.”
We watched in comfortable silence for a few minutes. This was us. This was how we worked. Mom asked questions and fussed and made sure I was eating enough. Dad just... existed in the same space, solid and steady, and somehow that was enough.
“How's the season going?” he asked during a commercial break.
“We're doing good so far.”
“Saw the highlights. That third period goal was pretty.”
Something warm settled in my gut. Dad didn't give compliments easy, but when he did, they stuck. “Thanks. Rook set me up perfect. I just had to bury it.”
“You looked good out there.”
I nodded and tried not to think about how I'd felt like shit all week. How I'd been playing fine on the ice but couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, couldn't stop my brain from getting into places it had no business going.
Places that involved Coach's hands and the way his voice went rough when he was frustrated and what it might feel like if he ever looked at me the way I kept catching myself looking at him.
I shoved that thought down deep and focused on the game.
Dinner was exactly what I'd needed without knowing I needed it.
Mom had made enough lasagna to feed the entire Wolves roster, plus garlic bread, salad, and those roasted vegetables she knew I actually liked even though I'd spent most of my childhood claiming I hated them.
She served me a portion that could've been two meals, then added more garlic bread to my plate when I wasn't looking.
“Ma, I'm gonna be sick.”
“You're too skinny.”
“I'm 6'2” and 205 pounds.”
“Exactly. Too skinny.” She pointed her fork at me. “You need to keep your strength up. All that skating and hitting, you're burning calories like crazy.”
Dad snorted into his beer. “He's fine, Marie.”
“You stay out of this,” she said, but she was smiling. “When's the last time you had a home-cooked meal, Jace?”
I thought about the protein shakes, the meal-prep chicken and rice I'd been rotating through all week, the pizza I'd ordered at midnight two nights ago because I couldn't sleep and needed something to do with my hands. “Uh...”
“Exactly.” She served herself a much smaller portion and sat down across from me. “So eat.”
I ate. Because arguing with Mom was pointless, and because the lasagna was perfect, and because something about being here made me feel like I could breathe properly for the first time since last Tuesday's practice when Coach had put his hand on my shoulder to adjust my positioning and I'd felt it everywhere.
We talked about safe things. Mom's book club. Dad's golf league. My sister's new job. The weather. Hockey, but only the surface-level stuff—wins and losses, not the mess inside my head.
Then Mom said, “Did you hear about that baseball player who came out? Tyler Morrison?”
My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.
“The pitcher, right?” I said carefully, keeping my voice neutral. “I saw something about it online.”
“It was very brave of him,” Mom said, and I couldn't read her tone. Approval? Discomfort? Something in between? “I can't imagine how hard that must be, with all the attention.”
I set my fork down. My appetite had vanished. “What do you guys think about it?”
There was a pause. Just a beat too long.
Dad took a drink of his beer and didn't say anything. His eyes stayed on his plate.
Mom dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Well... I think it's his life, isn't it? Who he loves is his business.”
It wasn't a condemnation. But it wasn't exactly acceptance either.
“But what do you think?” I pressed, hating how my voice sounded. “Like... if someone you knew came out. Would it bother you?”
Mom looked uncomfortable now. She glanced at Dad, but he was studying his lasagna like it held the secrets of the universe. No help there.
“I don't know, honey,” she said finally. “I suppose it would depend on the person. I mean, I'd want them to be happy, of course. But it's... complicated, isn't it? With family, and church, and what people think...”
What people think.
I picked up my fork again and shoved lasagna into my mouth so I wouldn't have to respond. It tasted like cardboard now, but I chewed and swallowed and reached for my water.
“Why do you ask?” Mom's voice was careful, and when I looked up, she was watching me with that expression that said she was trying to figure out if this was about something specific.
“Just curious,” I lied.
“Well, I think it's very brave,” she said again, like saying it twice would make it more convincing. “I'm sure his family is very supportive.”
I wondered if that was true.
Dad finally spoke up. “Pass the garlic bread.”
And just like that, the conversation was over.
I helped Mom with the dishes because that's what I always did, and because the routine of it was soothing. Wash, rinse, dry, put away. Simple. Manageable. No room for thoughts about coming out or what my parents would say or whether I'd still be welcome at this table if they knew.
“You sure you're okay, honey?” Mom asked quietly while Dad was in the bathroom. “You seem... off.”
“I'm good, Ma. Just tired.”
“You're working too hard.”
“It's hockey season. It's supposed to be hard.”
She dried her hands and turned to face me, and I saw the worry in her eyes. The same worry that had been there when I was twelve and got into my first fight on the ice. When I was sixteen and broke my collarbone. When I was twenty-one and signed my first contract and moved away.
“You'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?”
“Of course,” I said, and kissed her forehead. “I'm fine. Promise.”
I left around eight-thirty with a container of leftover lasagna and Mom's instructions to “get some sleep, for God's sake.” The drive back to my apartment took twenty minutes, and I spent all of it replaying that conversation at dinner.
Some part of me had always known that this was how it would go.
Mom wasn't cruel. She'd never kick me out or disown me.
But she'd worry. She'd ask what people would say.
She'd make it about her, about how it reflected on the family, about what the neighbors and the church ladies and her book club would think.
And Dad... Dad would say nothing at all.
I needed to move. Needed to hit something or run until my lungs burned or do literally anything other than sit in my apartment and think.
I changed into gym clothes and grabbed my bag.
The facility gym was open at all times for players, and I had my key card. But when I'd walked past the offices on my way there, I'd seen the light spilling out from under Coach's door.
I stood in the hallway for a second, debating whether to just keep walking. I should go to the gym. Should ignore this. Should maintain distance.
Instead, I knocked on the doorframe.
“Yeah?” Coach's voice came from somewhere low. Behind the desk.
I pushed the door open and found him on his back, half under his desk, surrounded by cables and what looked like a power strip.
He was still in gym clothes—short black shorts that barely reached mid-thigh and a fitted t-shirt that had ridden up, exposing a strip of his stomach and the line of dark hair disappearing into his waistband.
His thighs were thick and powerful, slightly damp with sweat like he'd just come from working out himself.
I absolutely did not stare at that.
“Hartley.” He tilted his head back to look at me, upside down from this angle. “What are you doing here?”
“Was heading to the gym. Saw your light on. What are you doing?”
“IT installed new monitors today and fucked up all the cable management. Now nothing's plugged in right and I can't get my computer to recognize the third screen.” He gestured vaguely at the tangle of wires above him. “Been trying to fix it for an hour.”
“You want help?”
He paused, clearly weighing whether this was a good idea. “You know anything about cables?”
“Enough. Used to help my dad wire his home office when I was a kid.”
“Sure. Yeah. That'd be good.”
I dropped my gym bag by the door and moved around the desk. The space was tight—barely enough room for one person, let alone two. I crouched down and got a better look at the disaster zone of cables.
“Jesus. They really did fuck this up.”
“Told them I could do it myself. They insisted.” Coach shifted, trying to get a better angle. “Problem is I can barely fit under here. Keep hitting my head on the underside of the desk.”
“I can get under there. I'm smaller.”