Chapter 14 Overtime
OVERTIME
JACE
The second game was a carbon copy of the first, except this time we won by three goals and Coach was somehow even more pissed about it.
We dominated from the opening faceoff. I scored twice—one on a wrist shot from the circle that went top shelf, clean as fuck, and another on a rebound that I jammed through the goalie's pads.
Rook had a goal and two assists. Volkov shut down their top line so completely they might as well have not shown up.
And Coach looked like he wanted to murder all of us.
The entire game, his voice from the bench had that edge to it—harsh, cutting, never satisfied. When I scored the first goal and the guys mobbed me, I looked toward the bench automatically, looking for that nod, that acknowledgment.
He was already turning away.
Second period, Finn took a stupid penalty—hooking, completely unnecessary—and Coach benched him for two full rotations.
When Benny made a perfect defensive play to break up a two-on-one, Coach called him over and ripped into him about positioning like he'd just cost us the game.
Tate missed a shot by an inch and got pulled immediately.
By the third period, the whole team was skating like they were being chased by something invisible and vicious.
We won. Should've been a celebration. Should've felt good.
Instead, the locker room after the game was tense and quiet. Guys stripped off their gear without the usual chirping, without the energy that came after a dominant road win. Even Finn was subdued, which was fucking unheard of.
I sat in my stall and tried to disappear into my phone.
Rook stood in the middle of the room, still half in his gear, and his voice cut through the quiet. “Alright. What the hell is going on with Coach?”
Silence.
“I'm serious. That's two practices and two games where he's been riding everyone like we're last in the standings. We just won by three and he looked ready to bury us in the parking lot.” Rook's eyes moved around the room. “So what is it? Anyone know?”
More silence. A few guys glanced at each other. Mace shrugged. Volkov stayed quiet, which was typical, but his jaw was tight.
Then Rook's eyes landed on me.
“Hartley. You've been with him more than anyone. You got any idea what's eating him?”
My stomach dropped.
Every eye in the room turned toward me, and I felt my face go carefully blank. “No fucking clue, Cap.”
“Fine.” He turned back to the room. “Whatever it is, we deal with it. We're a team. We show up, we play, we don't let his shit get in our heads. Got it?”
A chorus of agreement.
By the time we got to the hotel, I was wound so tight I thought I might snap.
The team filtered into the lobby, and I grabbed my key without looking at anyone, without waiting to see if anyone wanted to grab food or hang out.
I just needed to get to the room and breathe for five fucking seconds without feeling like I was suffocating.
Coach was already at the elevator when I got there, standing with his hands in his pockets, face carefully blank. We rode up to the fourth floor in silence, the tension so thick I could barely breathe through it.
We walked down the hallway side by side but not touching, stopped at our room, and he unlocked the door.
Neither of us moved to go inside.
“Hartley—”
“You can't keep doing this.” My voice came out quieter than I expected. Tired. “Whatever you're trying to prove, it's not working.”
His jaw tightened. “Get inside.”
“Why? So you can ignore me some more? Pretend nothing's happening and let the team suffer?”
“Inside. Now.”
I walked in. He followed and shut the door behind us with a quiet click that sounded deafening.
The silence stretched between us, but it felt different than this morning. Less angry. More exhausted.
“I know what you're doing,” I said finally, keeping my back to him. “You think if you're cruel enough, I'll back off. That I'll hate you enough to make this easier.”
“Jace—”
“But here's the thing.” I turned to face him. “It's not working. So whatever wall you're building right now, you're building it for yourself. Not for me.”
Something moved across his face. He looked away.
I waited until he looked back. “You're not just scared of what could happen. You're scared of something that already happened. Something you haven't told me.” I stepped closer. “So stop running from it and just say it.”
“It doesn't matter—”
“It does to me.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “You want me to walk away? Fine. Give me a real reason. Not the job, not the rules, not the optics. The actual reason.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and I watched something war across his face — the urge to shut down, to deflect, to keep it locked somewhere it couldn't hurt anyone.
Then something in him gave. Not dramatically. Just quietly, like a door he'd been holding shut finally swinging open on its own weight. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat down, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor.
“There was a player,” he said. “Young. Struggling. I tried to help him.”
My chest went tight. “Help him how?”
“The way a coach is supposed to.” He ran both hands through his hair. “Extra ice time. Film sessions. Checking in when he seemed off. I thought I was doing my job. Thought I was being a good coach.”
“What happened?”
“He spiraled anyway. Started missing practices, showing up drunk, picking fights. And people saw us together too much. Saw me staying late with him. Saw the closed-door meetings. Started talking. Started assuming.”
“Assuming what?”
“That I was sleeping with him.” He said it bluntly. “That I was the reason he was falling apart instead of the reason I was trying to keep him together. It didn't matter that nothing happened. It didn't matter that I never touched him, never crossed that line. What mattered was how it looked.”
I stared at his back. “So you got fired for something you didn't do.”
“I got fired because perception is reality in this business.” His shoulders were rigid.
“Someone saw something—him leaving my office late, maybe, or me with my hand on his shoulder. Something innocent that looked like something else. And once the whispers started, the organization had to act. So they buried it. Fired me quietly. Traded him. Made it all go away.”
“But you didn't do anything wrong.”
“I got too close.” He finally turned to face me, and his eyes were haunted.
“Maybe I didn't cross the line, but I got close enough that people could draw their own conclusions. And in the end, that was enough to destroy everything.” His voice cracked slightly.
“So I swore I'd never let myself get close to a player again. Never create that appearance. Never give anyone a reason to whisper.” He paused. “And then I met you.”
The silence that fell was different now. Heavier. Full of all the things we'd been avoiding.
“So that's why,” I said quietly. “That's why you've been such a bastard. Because you think I'm going to be another mistake.”
“You're not a mistake.” He turned to face me, and the look in his eyes was so raw it made my chest ache.
“That's the problem. If you were a mistake, this would be easier.
But you're not. You're brilliant and talented and you're breaking yourself trying to be perfect, and every time I look at you I see him and I can't—” His voice broke. “I can't do that again.”
I stared at him, and something in my chest cracked open.
“I'm not him,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. “I'm not whoever that player was. I'm not going to fall apart because of this.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” I stepped closer, and he didn't move away. “You want to know why I've been a mess? It's not because of you. It's because I've been lying to everyone—including myself—for years.”
His eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”
“I'm gay, Coach. And I've been hiding it since I was fifteen because being gay in hockey is a fucking death sentence.
You think you're protecting me by staying away? You think distance is going to keep me safe?” I laughed.
“I’ve been unsafe my entire fucking career.
Every time I step on the ice. Every time I do an interview.
Every time I smile for the cameras and let them sell the image of the perfect golden boy who definitely fucks women and definitely isn't a problem.”
His face had gone pale.
“You want to know what keeps me up at night?” I continued. “It's not you. It's the thought that someone's going to find out. That one picture, one rumor, one fucking screenshot is going to end everything. My career. My endorsements. My family's pride. Everything I've worked for since I was a kid.”
“Jace—”
“And the worst part?” My voice cracked. “The absolute worst fucking part is that I can't even have this.
Can't even have you. Because you're right—if anyone found out, it wouldn't just end your career.
It would end mine. The media would eat us alive.
' They'd make me the villain and you the predator, and we'd both be done.”
Tears were burning at the corners of my eyes, and I was so fucking tired of holding them back.
“So yeah, Coach. I know why you've been an asshole. I know why you're trying to push everyone away. I know why this can't happen.” My voice dropped to almost a whisper. “But I'm so fucking tired of pretending I don't want you. I'm tired of lying. I'm tired of being alone.”
The silence that fell was absolute.
Then he moved.
He crossed the space between us in two steps and pulled me into his arms, and I broke.
I fucking broke.
My face pressed into his shoulder and I shook with the force of everything I'd been holding back—the fear, the loneliness, the exhaustion of performing every single day of my life.
His arms tightened around me, solid and warm and steady, and he didn't say anything.
Didn't try to fix it. Just held me while I fell apart.