Chapter 15 Off Day
OFF DAY
GRANT
Iwoke first, and the first thing I registered was warmth.
Not just the ambient warmth of the hotel room or the blankets we'd kicked halfway off the bed sometime during the night.
This was body heat. Jace's body heat, specifically, because he was pressed against my side with his head on my chest and one arm draped across my stomach like he had every right to be there.
And the terrifying part was, it felt right.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the panic to hit. Waiting for the guilt, the horror, the bone-deep certainty that I'd just destroyed both our careers. Waiting for the universe to punish me for crossing a line I'd sworn I'd never cross again.
But the panic didn't come.
What came instead was quieter. More insidious.
Contentment.
The word settled into my chest and made itself at home, and that was worse than panic. Panic I knew how to handle. Panic meant action, meant damage control, meant locking everything down until the threat passed.
But this? This warm, settled feeling that whispered this is what I've been missing—I had no idea what to do with that.
Jace stirred against me, his breathing changing from sleep-deep to something closer to waking.
His fingers flexed against my stomach, and I felt the exact moment he realized where he was.
His whole body went tense, and I knew he was deciding whether to pretend to still be asleep or face this head-on.
He chose head-on.
He lifted his head slowly, blinking against the morning light filtering through the curtains, and met my eyes.
His hair was an absolute disaster. There was a mark on his neck from where I'd bitten him last night.
His eyes were still soft with sleep, and he looked younger like this.
Vulnerable in a way he never let himself be when he was playing.
“Morning,” he said quietly.
“Morning.”
I made myself say it before I could talk myself out of honesty.
“Last night shouldn't have happened.”
His face shuttered immediately, and I saw him start to pull away.
“But it did,” I continued, softer this time. “And I'm not going to pretend it didn't.”
He stopped moving. “What are you saying?”
“I'm saying I don't regret it.”
He studied my face for a long moment, and I forced myself not to look away. To let him see whatever he needed to see.
“Was it a mistake,” he asked finally, “or are you just scared?”
The question hit like a blade between my ribs.
“Both,” I admitted.
“But?”
“But I'm also scared as hell.” I exhaled slowly. “I'm scared of what it means. What it costs. What it does to my control and my ability to do my job.”
His expression softened. “Okay. So what do we do?”
“For now,” I said slowly, “we don't make any big declarations. We don't punish ourselves for what happened. And we don't pretend it was nothing.”
“For now,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means one day at a time. It means we figure this out as we go, and we're honest with each other about what we can and can't handle.” I met his eyes. “It means I stop being a bastard to everyone just to create distance between us.”
His mouth quirked slightly. “The team would appreciate that.”
“I imagine they would.” I paused. “I owe them an apology.”
“You do.”
“I know.” I ran a hand over my face, feeling the exhaustion settle into my bones. “I've been cruel. To them. To you. Trying to force distance because I didn't know how else to handle this.”
“And now?”
“Now I try something different.” I pulled him back down against my chest, and he came willingly. “Now I stop trying to control something that's already out of my control.”
We lay there in silence for a while, and I felt something in my chest unclench. Not resolution—we were too far from that. But acceptance, maybe. Or at least the beginning of it.
“We should get up,” I said eventually. “Team's probably wondering where we are.”
“Probably.” But he didn't move. “Five more minutes.”
“Five more minutes,” I agreed.
We took ten.
I called a team meeting in the hotel conference room at ten AM, and the confusion was immediate.
Guys filtered in slowly, most of them still looking half-asleep, coffee in hand and expressions wary. They'd learned over the past few days that when I called meetings, it usually meant someone was about to get their ass handed to them.
Rook was the first to arrive, because of course he was. Captain responsibility. He took one look at my face and his eyebrows went up slightly.
“Coach.”
“Rook.”
“Everything okay?”
“We'll see.” I nodded toward the chairs. “Have a seat.”
By the time everyone had arrived and settled, the tension in the room was thick enough to cut. Hartley sat near the back, carefully neutral expression in place, but I caught the flicker of curiosity in his eyes when they met mine.
I stood at the front of the room and waited until I had everyone's attention.
“I'm giving you all the day off,” I said without preamble.
Dead silence. Then Callahan's voice: “Wait, what?”
“Explore Seattle. Get coffee. See the sights. Do whatever you want, as long as you're not dead or arrested by the time we fly out tomorrow morning.” I paused. “Consider it an apology for the past few days.”
More silence. This one confused.
“I've been a dick,” I continued, and several guys exchanged glances.
“Riding everyone hard for no good reason.
Making practice miserable. Treating you all like you're failing when you're not.” I met Rook's eyes, then moved around the room.
“Tough love has its place. But what I've been doing isn't tough love. And you didn't deserve it.”
Callahan looked like he might actually faint. “Did Coach just... apologize?”
“Don't make me regret it, Callahan.”
“No, sir. Not making you regret it, sir.”
Rook's mouth twitched. Then he nodded once, and I saw the respect there. The acknowledgment. “Appreciate that, Coach.”
“Don't get used to it.” I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair. “Enjoy your day. Bus leaves for the airport at eight AM tomorrow. Don't be late.”
I walked out before anyone could ask questions, and I felt the room erupt into noise behind me.
I found Jace twenty minutes later in the hotel lobby, standing near the windows and staring out at the Seattle skyline like he was trying to memorize it.
“Figured you'd be halfway to Pike Place by now,” I said, coming to stand next to him.
He glanced over, and something flickered across his face. Relief, maybe. “Was thinking about it. You?”
“Same.”
“Want company?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
Seattle was one of those cities that was easy to get lost in—coffee shops on every corner, narrow streets that wound through hills, the smell of salt water and rain even when it wasn't raining. We grabbed coffee first from a place that looked like it had been there since the seventies.
It felt weirdly normal. Like we were just two people exploring a city, not a coach and his player trying to navigate something that could destroy them both.
“You ever been to Seattle before?” Jace asked as we walked past a busker playing guitar on a corner.
“A few times. When I was playing, we'd come through here once or twice a season.”
“Did you like it?”
“It was fine. Never really saw much beyond the hotel and the rink.” I took a sip of my coffee. “You?”
“First time.” He looked around, taking it in. “It's different than I expected. Quieter, somehow.”
“Give it an hour. Pike Place gets loud enough to make a penalty kill feel peaceful.”
He glanced at me. “You've been to Pike Place?”
“Once. Years ago. A teammate dragged me there at seven in the morning because he wanted to watch them throw fish.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoyed my coffee. The fish were fine.”
Jace laughed, and I let myself listen to it. “So what you're saying is you've been to one of the most famous markets in the country and your review is the fish were fine.”
“They were throwing them at each other. I don't know what else I was supposed to feel about that.”
“Delight. Wonder. The simple joy of watching men hurl salmon.”
“I'll work on that.”
He shook his head slowly. “You know what your problem is?”
“I'm sure you're about to tell me.”
“You experience things the way you run practices. Like there's a correct outcome and everything else is inefficiency.” He took a sip of his coffee. “A man throws a fish at another man and instead of laughing, you're in there somewhere going, poor arc on that throw, needs to work on his release.”
“That's not—” I stopped. Thought about it. “That's not entirely inaccurate.”
“I know.” He grinned, pleased with himself in a way that was irritating and not irritating at all. “It's actually a little bit endearing. In a deeply concerning way.”
“Endearing.”
“Don't let it go to your head.” He side-stepped a puddle on the pavement, and his shoulder came back against mine briefly in the process. “You ever just do something because it's fun? No outcome. No optimization. Just because?”
“The cinnamon roll this morning.”
He stared at me. “That's your answer.”
“It was a good cinnamon roll.”
“Grant.” He said my name with the patient exasperation of a man dealing with a very specific kind of lost cause. “A cinnamon roll is not a personality.”
“It was from a good bakery.”
“Oh my God.” He pressed his free hand over his eyes briefly. “Okay. New project. By the end of today, I'm getting you to do one thing that has no practical purpose whatsoever. Something completely pointless.”
“Define pointless.”
“Something you can't put in a coaching report.”
“That's most things.”
“Then this should be easy.” He dropped his hand and looked at me sideways. “Don't worry. I'll think of something.”
“That's what worries me.”
We walked for a bit, the city doing its morning thing around us, and then Jace said, “So I may have done some research.”
I glanced at him. “Research on what?”
“You.” He grinned, not even trying to look innocent. “Your playing days. Stats. Highlights. There's some footage online.”