Chapter 18 No Response
NO RESPONSE
GRANT
My phone was on the nightstand. No missed calls. No new messages. Just the same three texts I'd sent yesterday, all marked delivered but unanswered.
The last one made me feel pathetic. I'd stared at it for ten minutes before hitting send, knowing it would land like a plea and hating myself for it. But I'd sent it anyway, because the alternative—doing nothing—felt worse. Still nothing.
I sat up, dragged a hand down my face, and told myself it was fine. He was angry. Injured. Embarrassed that I'd benched him, that I'd seen him break.
Of course he was ignoring me. Logic didn't stop the tightness in my chest.
I got up, showered, dressed in the same grey suit I'd worn a hundred times, and drove to the rink on autopilot.
The roads were quiet, the sky that flat winter grey that made Toronto feel like it was holding its breath.
I parked in my usual spot, grabbed my coffee from the cupholder, and walked into the building like I had my shit together. I didn't.
The rink felt wrong the second I stepped inside.
I stopped outside the locker room door and listened. Usual pre-practice noise: chirping, the metallic click of gear being adjusted, someone's playlist bleeding through a phone speaker. Normal. Except it wasn't. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The guys glanced up. A few nodded. Most went back to taping sticks or lacing skates.
But I caught the way a couple of them looked at Jace's stall—#19 stenciled above it, his name plate still bolted to the wood—and then looked away like they were waiting for him to materialize and fix whatever the fuck this was. He wouldn't.
Rook was sitting in his stall, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
Volkov was silent beside him, jaw tight, already in game mode even though this was just practice.
Mercer was adjusting his tape job for the third time, hands moving too fast. Finn kept glancing at Jace's empty spot like a kid waiting for his favorite teacher to walk in. No one said anything. I didn't either.
I walked to the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and started sketching out the drill structure.
Forecheck pressure, breakout timing, neutral zone regroups.
Clean, efficient, no room for slop. If I kept my hands busy, maybe my brain would stop circling back to the fact that Jace was gone and I had no fucking idea where he was or if he was okay.
“Alright,” I said, capping the marker. My voice came out steady. Professional. “Let's get to work.”
They moved. Slowly, but they moved.
I ran them harder than usual. Not because they needed it. Because I did. If I loosened my grip, if I let the structure slip, the worry would show. And I couldn't afford that.
I blew the whistle and called a line change. Rook's line skated in, and I watched them execute the breakout I'd drawn up. Textbook. Clean. But there was a hesitation in the passing—a half-second delay where Rook looked right, found no one, and had to adjust. Because Hartley wasn't there.
“Again,” I called.
They did it again. Better this time. But still wrong. I kept my jaw tight and didn't say what I was thinking: You're compensating for a ghost.
The whistle blew for a water break, and the guys drifted toward the bench.
I stayed at center ice, arms crossed, scanning the tunnel entrance like I had been for the past hour.
Expecting the door to open. Hoping he'd show up with crutches and that stubborn fucking glare, too pissed to stay away, too competitive to let the team practice without him haunting the ice.
The door didn't open. I turned back to the drill and forced myself to focus.
By the time practice ended, my patience had snapped. Not outwardly. But internally? I was done.
The guys started filtering off the ice, voices low, movements slower than usual.
I caught Mercer muttering something to Finn, who shook his head and looked back at the empty tunnel like he was mourning.
I stayed on the ice until the last skate blade scraped away, and then I followed them into the locker room.
Rook was sitting in his stall, helmet off, hair damp with sweat, staring at nothing. I walked over and stopped in front of him. “Rook.”
He looked up. Wary. “Coach.”
“Where's Hartley?”
His jaw tightened. “Don't know.”
“Bullshit.” I stepped closer. “I'm the coach,” I said, voice low. “If he's off the grid with an injury, I need to know.”
Rook exhaled through his nose, hard. “He texted me last night.”
“And?”
“Said he needs time alone. Wished us good luck with practice.” He paused, then added, quieter, “I think he went to the cabin.”
“Where?”
Rook shook his head. “Don't know. He never told me.”
I felt the frustration crawl up my spine, but I kept my voice even. “Who would know?”
“His best friend. Owen.” Rook met my eyes. “Works at a bar downtown. That's all I got.”
I nodded once. “Thanks.” I turned to leave, but Rook's voice stopped me.
“Coach.”
I looked back.
“You gonna bring him back?”
There was something in his tone—not accusation, not hope. Just exhaustion. Like he was tired of watching this team fracture and didn't know how to stop it.
“I'm going to make sure he's okay,” I said.
Rook held my gaze for a beat, then nodded. “Good.”
I didn't leave the rink right away. I should've walked straight out, found Owen's bar, and gone after Jace before he did something stupid. But I had to address the room first.
I stood in the doorway of the locker room and waited until every head turned my way. “I know you're angry,” I said. No preamble. No sugar-coating. “You think I benched Hartley too soon. You think he could've played through it. You're wondering if I made the wrong call.”
Silence. I let it sit for a second, then continued. “I didn't. I'm not watching a man destroy his body for your entertainment,” I said, voice harder now. “If you're angry, be angry at me. But it was necessary.”
Mercer spoke up, voice rough. “We need him, Coach.”
“I know.” I met his eyes. “And you'll have him back when he's healthy. Not before.”
No one argued. I let the silence settle, then turned and walked out.
I sat down at my desk, pulled up the schedule on my laptop, and stared at it without seeing a damn thing.
The playoff push was real. We had two weeks until prelims, and our best winger was benched.
The media was going to eat this alive. The front office was going to start asking questions I didn't want to answer. And Jace was gone.
The knock on my door came five minutes later. “Come in.”
Paul stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and sat down without being invited. “Grant, we need to talk.”
I leaned back in my chair and waited.
“You benched Hartley.” Not a question. An accusation.
“I did.”
“Without consulting me first.” His voice was tight, controlled anger underneath. “Without a single fucking phone call to your GM.”
“I made a coaching decision.”
“That's not how this works.” Paul leaned forward, hands flat on my desk. “You don't bench our franchise player—our star—without running it by me. That's not protocol. That's not how we operate.”
“Hartley needed to be benched. I benched him.”
“And I needed to be in that conversation!” His voice rose slightly. “Do you have any idea what you just did? We're fighting for a spot. And you just took our best scorer off the ice without so much as a heads-up to the front office?”
I kept my voice level. “Would you have said no?”
“That's not the point—”
“It is the point.” I sat forward. “If I'd called you, what would you have said? Play him anyway?”
“I would have said we discuss it. We weigh the options. We make the decision together.” Paul's jaw was tight. “That's what management means, Grant. You don't get to make unilateral calls that affect the entire organization.”
“I'm the coach. Player health is my call.”
“Player availability affects contracts, playoff positioning, revenue, media—all of which falls under my jurisdiction.” He stood up, pacing now.
“You think this is just about hockey? It's not.
There are a dozen moving parts you don't see. Sponsorships. TV deals. Ticket sales. And you just made a decision that impacts all of it without a single conversation.”
“So what did you want me to do?” I kept my tone flat. “Call you from the hospital? Get your approval while Hartley was getting scans? Ask permission to protect a player?”
“Yes!” Paul spun to face me. “That's exactly what you should have done. That's your job. You report to me, Grant. Not the other way around.”
The silence that fell was charged.
I stood slowly. “Let me be very clear about something, Paul. When it comes to what happens on that ice, when it comes to my players' safety—I don't report to anyone. I make the call. That's what you hired me to do.”
“I hired you to coach—”
“And that's what I'm doing. Coaching means protecting players from themselves when they're too stubborn or too desperate to see they need help.” My voice went harder. “Hartley wasn't fit to play. I made the call. If you have a problem with that, fire me.”
Paul's eyes flashed. “Don't tempt me.”
“I'm not tempting you. I'm telling you how this works. You want a coach who's going to ask permission every time he needs to make a tough call? Find someone else. But I'm not going to stand here and apologize for doing my job.”
“Your job is to win games—”
“My job is to build a team that can win sustainably. Not burn through players for short-term results.” I stepped around the desk.
“You want to argue about whether Hartley should be benched?
Fine. But don't come in here acting like I undermined you by protecting a player.
That's coaching. If you don't like how I coach, you know where the door is.”
Paul stared at me, and I could see him working through it—the calculations, the politics, the risk of pushing this fight further.