Chapter 19 Cabin Fever
CABIN FEVER
JACE
One week in and the cabin had stopped being a refuge. Now it was just a cage with better lighting and no cameras.
I sat up slowly, testing the shoulder. Still hurt. Not as bad as it had been a week ago, but the ache was constant, a low throb that reminded me with every movement that I was broken. Useless.
Benched.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood, favoring the left leg without thinking about it. The hamstring pulled tight, a warning I'd been ignoring for months that had finally caught up with me.
Good fucking job, Hartley. You played yourself right off the ice.
I limped to the kitchen, made coffee I didn't want, and stared out the window at the snow-covered trees like they held some kind of answer. They didn't. They just stood there, cold and indifferent, which felt about right.
The routine was the same every day. Coffee.
Limp around the cabin. Stare at the snow.
Scroll my phone and torture myself with updates I shouldn't be reading.
It was a cesspool of speculation about my injury, about whether the team could make it without me, about whether I'd ever come back the same.
The comments section on every article was worse.
Some fans defending me, some calling me soft, some saying I was faking it for attention.
I closed the app and hated myself a little more.
Then I'd do it all over again. Coffee. Snow. Phone. Self-loathing. Repeat.
The walls were closing in. The silence was suffocating.
And the worst part? I knew why. It wasn't the cabin.
It wasn't the injury. It was the fact that I was alone, and I'd been alone before, but this time it felt different.
This time it felt like I'd been cut off from the one thing—the one person—who'd made me feel like I wasn't just a fucking asset with skates.
I turned on the TV like I was picking a scab.
The game was on. Wolves versus the Ironvale Reapers, and the broadcast opened with the usual hype package: shots of the crowd, the players warming up, the energy crackling through the arena. Then the camera cut to the bench, and there he was.
Grant.
Standing behind the bench in his usual black suit, arms crossed, face unreadable.
I sat down on the couch and stared at the screen, hating how badly I wanted that presence aimed at me again.
That focus. That weight of being seen by someone who actually gave a shit instead of just seeing dollar signs and highlight reels.
The puck dropped, and I watched the team play without me.
Rook won the opening faceoff and fed it back to Volkov, who moved it up ice with that calm precision he always had.
Mercer battled in the corner, came out with the puck, and sent a pass to.
.. Benny. Benny, playing my spot on the top line.
He took the shot—wide, but close—and I felt my jaw clench so hard it ached.
They were compensating. Adjusting. Moving on.
The camera cut back to the bench during a whistle, and I found myself fixating on Grant again.
He was talking to one of the assistants, gesturing toward the ice, probably correcting some gap in coverage or timing issue I would've noticed if I'd been there.
His face didn't give anything away. No frustration.
No panic. Just that maddening calm that made you want to either trust him completely or punch him in the face.
I didn't know which one I wanted more.
The play resumed, and the commentary started up—smooth, professional voices filling the cabin with observations I didn't want to hear.
“...Wolves adjusting well to the absence of Jace Hartley, who's been sidelined with an undisclosed injury. No word yet on a timeline for his return, but Coach Sutherland has been tight-lipped about the details, which has raised some questions around the benching decision...”
I grabbed the remote and turned the volume down. Then I kept watching anyway, because I didn't know what else to do with the need clawing at my chest. The need to be there. To be useful. To be wanted for something more than what I could do with a stick and a puck.
The Wolves scored midway through the first period—Finn, of all people, burying a rebound off a scramble in front of the net—and the arena erupted.
The camera showed the bench celebrating, guys tapping helmets and fist-bumping, and Grant just nodded once like he'd expected it. Like it was all part of the plan.
I wondered if he missed me at all.
I wondered if he thought about me the way I thought about him—constant, invasive, impossible to ignore.
I wondered if he regretted any of it.
The period ended, and I muted the TV entirely. I couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't watch the team move on without me. Couldn't watch Grant be fine while I was sitting here alone, broken, and so fucking angry I didn't know what to do with it.
I limped over to the small table in the corner where I'd left the resistance bands and rehab instructions Tess had sent me before I'd left Toronto.
I stared at them like they were a test I was destined to fail.
Then I picked up the bands and started the exercises anyway, because sitting still was worse.
The first few reps were fine. Then the shoulder started to burn, and the leg pulled tight, and I felt the anger rising again—hot and acidic and aimed at my own fucking body.
I threw the bands across the room and stood there breathing hard, fists clenched, hating everything.
I thought about the lie I'd built. Hiding the old hamstring tear. Hiding the panic attacks. Hiding the pills. Hiding the relationship with Grant. It was all one tangled mess now, threads I couldn't separate, and every time I pulled on one, the whole thing threatened to unravel.
Night fell and the cabin got darker, quieter, colder despite the fire crackling in the stone hearth.
I turned the TV back on for the postgame analysis, more out of habit than interest, and listened to commentators dissect the Wolves' performance without really hearing them.
The team had won. Good for them. I should've felt relief. Instead, I just felt empty.
Then the knock came.
My body reacted before my brain could catch up—adrenaline spiking, heart pounding, breath catching in my throat.
I stood up too fast and my shoulder protested, but I ignored it and limped toward the door, telling myself it was Owen.
It had to be Owen, because no one else knew where I was.
Maybe Leah, but she wouldn't drive up here without calling first.
I reached for the door handle and hesitated, hand hovering. Then I opened it.
Grant.
Standing there on the porch like he'd materialized out of my thoughts, coat dusted with snow, hair windblown, eyes too steady to be casual. He looked exhausted. Looked like he'd been driving for hours. Looked like he'd come here because he had to, not because he wanted to.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
We just stood there, staring at each other across the threshold, and I felt everything I'd been trying to bury for the past week slam into me all at once.
Anger. Hurt. Longing. Fear. The urge to slam the door in his face.
The urge to pull him inside and never let him leave.
“What are you doing here?”
“Owen told me where to find you.” Grant's voice was rough, like he'd been talking too much or not enough. “I needed to see you.”
I stepped back, creating space, because if he got too close I'd break. “You shouldn't be here.”
“Probably not.” He didn't move. Didn't step inside uninvited. “But the team's on a week break. I need to take you back to Toronto.”
“I'm fine here.”
“You're not fine. You're isolated and —”
“You don't get to tell me what I am. You lost that right when you benched me.”
Grant flinched. Barely, but I saw it. “I know you're angry—”
“Angry? You think I'm just angry? You destroyed everything, Coach. You told the world I'm broken. You made me feel like—” I stopped, jaw clenching, because finishing that sentence would give him too much power.
“Like what?”
“Like I matter less than your fucking principles.”
I watched something shift in Grant's expression. “That's not true.”
“Isn't it? You made your call. You chose my health over my career without even asking me what I wanted.”
“Because if I'd asked, you would've chosen wrong.” His voice was steady, infuriatingly calm. “You would've kept playing. Kept hiding the injuries. Kept destroying yourself until there was nothing left to save.”
“That's not your decision to make!”
“It was when you have gotten yourself hurt during that game.” Grant's control cracked slightly, voice roughening. “I'm not watching you ruin your career for short-term wins. I'm not watching you become another cautionary tale.”
“So instead you made me one anyway. Benched star. Damaged goods. The guy who couldn't handle the pressure.”
“That's not what happened.”
“That's exactly what happened.” I felt my throat tighten, frustration and hurt bleeding together. “And now you're here, what, to check on me? To make sure I'm not doing anything stupid? To remind me that you're still in control?”
“I'm here because I care about you. And I needed to know you were okay.”
I wanted to throw it back in his face. I wanted to tell him to leave, to go back to Toronto without me, to stop pretending this was about anything other than managing his asset. But I couldn't. Because the way he was looking at me—exhausted and raw and too fucking honest—made it impossible to lie.
“I'm not okay,” I said finally. Quiet. Defeated. “But I don't know how to fix it.”
Grant's expression softened. “Let me help.”
“You already helped. Look where that got us.”
“Jace—”
“I hate you for benching me. I hate you for being right. I hate you for making me feel safe enough to fall apart and then pulling the ground out from under me.” I paused, swallowed hard. “And I hate that I still want you anyway.”
“I know,” he said quietly.