Chapter 10
DECLAN
I knew because I checked the security feed in my office after hearing the side entrance open and close, then hated myself for checking it.
He came in with his bag over one shoulder, hair damp and half-styled like he had run wet hands through it in the elevator, coffee in one hand, notebook tucked under his arm. He stopped just inside the hallway, looked at the clock on the wall, and stood there for a second.
Not smug.
Not triumphant.
Relieved.
That did more to me than it should have.
I left him alone for six minutes.
Partly because I had work to finish. Mostly because I needed the space between seeing him and speaking to him. I had spent too much of last night awake beside my wife, thinking about a text message that contained no emotion and somehow carried too much of it.
Be at the rink at seven.
Don’t be late.
He had listened.
That mattered in a professional sense. A player took direction. A player showed commitment. A player proved he could be trusted with more than talent.
It also mattered somewhere lower and more dangerous, where I had no business giving it a name.
At 6:55, I walked down to the video room.
Jace was already inside.
He had not sat in my chair. I noticed that first. He sat in the second row, not the back where he could sprawl and pretend he did not care, not the front like he was trying to make a point. His coffee sat untouched beside him. His pen moved between his fingers in tight, quick rotations.
He looked up when I entered.
“Morning,” he said.
“You’re early.”
“Wasn’t sure about traffic.”
“There was no traffic.”
“I prepared for imaginary traffic.”
I put my laptop on the table and connected it to the screen. “That’s still preparation.”
He blinked once, like he had expected a correction and the absence of it threw him off balance.
Good.
Not good.
I started the clips before either of us could step into the silence.
“Your question last night,” I said. “Low support drill. Weak-side D cheating up.”
He leaned forward immediately, pen stilling. The change in him was almost physical. Restlessness narrowed into attention. His shoulders dropped a fraction. His eyes locked on the screen.
I played the first clip.
He watched. Really watched. Not the way some players watched video, waiting for their turn to explain why the camera was wrong. Jace tracked movement two passes ahead, lips parting slightly, one foot braced under the chair like his body wanted to skate the read.
“Pause,” he said, then caught himself. His gaze cut to me. “Sorry.”
I paused it.
“Talk.”
He pointed with the pen. “If Lowell secures there, I can come across. But if I go before he has body position, I drag their center into his hands and kill his outlet. So I have to stay low until Lowell gets the angle, then I become the second layer.”
“Correct.”
He wrote something down too fast to be legible.
I went to the next clip. “What if Milo curls early?”
“Milo curls early if he gets bored, offended, or sees a camera.”
Despite myself, my mouth threatened to move. “Hockey answer.”
“He screws the timing. If I come across anyway, we stack the lane. If I hold lower, he can recover above me or at least not turn it into a three-man traffic jam.”
“Good. Next.”
He did not react to the word the way most players did. No smile. No preening. His focus sharpened harder, like approval was not the reward, only proof that he had one more standard to meet.
I showed him four more clips. He got three clean. On the fourth, he chased the shiny option.
“That seam is there,” he said before I could ask.
“It is.”
“So if I delay and draw F2, Milo has the backside.”
“Does Milo know he has the backside?”
Jace opened his mouth. Closed it. Watched the clip again when I rewound it.
His fingers tightened around the pen. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never showed low. I went straight into the delay, so their center doesn’t bite, and Milo thinks I’m still the first option.”
“Again.”
This time he caught it before the clip reached the turnover.
“Shit,” he said quietly. “I do that a lot.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me, and there was no anger in it. Frustration, but not at me. At the pattern. At the fact that the evidence existed on a screen where instinct had nowhere to hide.
“I hate video,” he muttered.
“No, you hate being slowed down long enough to see the mistake.”
His eyes flicked up.
I should not have enjoyed how quickly the room tightened when I said things like that to him.
I should not have noticed his breathing change.
I should not have noticed the rough stubble along his jaw, the faint pink mark at the side of his neck from his hoodie collar, the way his throat moved before he answered.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Not maybe.”
His gaze dropped to the notebook. “Yeah.”
I let that sit. Then I closed the clip.
“On the ice,” I said, “you’re running the first progression.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“With the group?”
“With Lowell’s line.”
He stared at me like I had handed him a live wire. “You want me to run a drill.”
“I want you to set the timing. Explain the low hold and the release. If they miss it, stop it and correct it.”
“I’m not an assistant coach.”
“No. You’re the center responsible for making that line function.”
His knee started bouncing. He pressed his palm hard over it, stopped the movement, then started tapping the pen against his notebook instead. “Why?”
“Because you see it.”
“That doesn’t mean I can explain it.”
“You just did.”
“To you.”
“Yes.”
His jaw worked. “Lowell overthinks if too many people talk at him.”
“Then don’t be too many people.”
That landed. I watched it go through him, watched the argument fail because I had given him something he could not turn into rebellion.
Responsibility.
Not a lecture. Not a pat on the back. Not a punishment.
A task that mattered.
He looked toward the screen, then down at his notes, then back at me. “What exactly do you want said?”
I slid a printed sheet across the table. “Three points. No speech. Show low first. Release only after possession. If Milo curls early, reset him above the puck, don’t chase behind him.”
Jace took the sheet.
His hands were steady now.
That was the part I noticed. He had come in buzzing at the edges, wired from lack of sleep or nerves or whatever else lived under his skin. The second I gave him a defined responsibility, something in him organized around it.
Not fixed. Not calm in any permanent way.
Directed.
“I can do that,” he said.
“I know.”
He went quiet.
The words were not praise. I did not soften them. I did not make them warm.
His reaction still hit the room like I had touched him.
He looked down quickly, but not before I saw it. The flash of hunger. Not for me, not exactly, or not only. For being believed without being coddled. For being handed something fragile and expected not to break it.
It moved through me with uncomfortable force.
I liked giving that to him.
I liked watching him take it seriously.
I liked that he wanted to get it right because it came from me.
That realization had teeth.
On the ice, he was careful for the first five minutes.
Too careful.
He explained the progression to Lowell and Milo with the sheet folded in his glove, though he never looked at it. He kept his voice lower than usual, stripped of performance.
“Lowell, don’t rush the first touch. If you don’t have the angle, I’m still there. Milo, if you curl before he’s secure, I’m going to make you do it again.”
Milo put a hand over his heart. “From anyone else, that would feel aggressive.”
Jace did not take the bait. “Then don’t curl early.”
Roman, stretching near the crease, looked over at me.
I ignored him.
The first rep fell apart because Lowell rushed and Milo anticipated the wrong lane. Jace blew it dead before I did.
“Again,” he called.
Milo looked toward me on instinct.
I gave him nothing.
Jace skated closer to Lowell, not crowding him. “You’re trying to make the play before you own the puck. Get your hip inside first. I’ll stay available.”
Lowell nodded, absorbing it.
They ran it again. Better.
Third rep, clean.
Jace’s head turned toward me before he could stop himself.
I did not nod. I did not say anything.
I held his gaze for half a second, then looked back at the group.
His next rep was the sharpest one all morning.
That was when the problem became impossible to deny.
He was not performing for the team. He was not showing off because I had given him a little authority. He was seeking the next sign, the next confirmation, and using it like fuel. Every time I withheld, he tightened. Every time I let him keep the responsibility, he rose to it.
I had coached talented men before. I had coached difficult men, proud men, insecure men, reckless men. I knew the satisfaction of finding the right lever in a player and using it to make him better.
This was not only that.
By the time the optional skate ended, Lowell had stopped looking apologetic after every touch. Milo complained less, which for him was nearly reverent. Jace stayed with them through the final rep, corrected one spacing issue, and only then skated off.
He did not look triumphant.
He looked lit from the inside and terrified of how much it mattered.
Roman caught him near the bench while the others peeled away.
I was close enough to hear without meaning to.
“You running practice now?” Roman asked.
Jace pulled off his gloves. “Jealous?”
“Concerned.”
“About my leadership potential?”
“About whatever makes you look like you’re waiting for a grade from the principal.”
Jace’s face shut down too fast. “Don’t start.”
“I’m already started.”
“Then stop.”
Roman’s eyes moved to me, then back to him. He said something too low for me to catch. Jace shook his head once and walked toward the tunnel.
Roman stayed where he was for a second.
I had a meeting in twenty minutes. I used sixteen of them pretending not to think about that look.
The rest of the day did not improve.