Chapter 15
JACE
Not here.
I carried those two words out of the fundraiser like a bruise under my shirt.
Declan went back into the ballroom. I followed three minutes later because I could count those, because counting gave me something to do with my hands besides grabbing him by the front of his suit and asking what the hell he wanted from me.
Not here.
Not no.
That was the part making me insane.
If he had said no, I could have hated him. I could have thrown myself into being angry, loud, impossible, a nightmare in skates, whatever version of myself people were already comfortable believing in.
But he said not here while his fingers were still warm from fixing my tie.
He said it like he had to force the words out.
He said it like there was a place.
Vanessa touched my arm when I made it back to our table. “Where did you go?”
“Needed air.”
“You didn’t take your phone.”
“I know.”
Her mouth pressed together, then softened. “You okay?”
There was still a camera pointed in our direction from the sponsor wall, so I smiled because I knew how. “Yeah. Long day.”
She didn’t believe me.
That was new. Or maybe she’d been not believing me for a while and I’d been too busy not looking at her to notice.
The argument waited until the next morning, which was worse.
I woke late, missed my first alarm, dismissed the second without memory, and came out of the bedroom in yesterday’s sweatpants to find Vanessa sitting at my kitchen island with coffee, her laptop open, and a weekend resort page on the screen.
“I was thinking Aspen,” she said.
My brain was still trying to sort toothbrush, meds, breakfast, practice schedule, where the fuck did I put my keys. “For what?”
She looked up slowly. “For us.”
“Oh.”
“Next weekend. You’re home Friday after practice, Saturday off, Sunday morning optional skate. I checked.”
Of course she had.
Vanessa looked beautiful in the morning in a way that didn’t seem accidental. Hair in a loose knot, soft sweater slipping off one shoulder, gold earrings already in. Not camera-perfect, exactly. Just composed. I had no idea how people woke up and became arranged.
“I thought we could get away,” she said. “No appearances. No tables. No events unless you count room service.”
Guilt made me meaner than I wanted to be. “You hate room service. You always say the lighting is depressing.”
“I’m trying, Jace.”
That shut me up.
She closed the laptop halfway. Not hard. Not dramatic. Careful.
“I know things have been off,” she said. “I know your season is intense, and the coaching change has been a lot, and maybe I haven’t been great about asking what you actually need.” She swallowed. “So I’m asking now. Come away with me for two days.”
My keys were on the counter beside the fruit bowl. I picked them up, then put them down because I didn’t need them yet. Then picked them up again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
Her face changed.
Not happy.
Tired.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to want to come.”
“I said I’d come.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
The fridge hummed. Somewhere upstairs, my neighbor dropped something heavy enough to shake the ceiling. My skin felt too tight, my thoughts already sprinting ahead, Aspen, practice, Declan, Olivia, flight schedules, Vanessa in a hotel bed, my mouth remembering beard burn.
Vanessa watched me with quiet hurt, and it landed in a place I’d been trying to keep numb.
“Are you even here anymore?” she asked.
I had no answer.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked at the coffee mug in front of her, the one with my number on it that she’d bought as a joke before she ever knew how little I liked seeing myself on things in my own apartment.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
Her eyes went shiny, but she didn’t cry. Somehow that made me feel worse.
“Is it me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Is that honest?”
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead. Too hard. “It’s not you doing something wrong.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Then answer what I asked.”
The problem was there were too many answers, and none of them fit in my mouth without destroying everything.
“You like the life,” I said, and regretted it before the sentence finished.
She flinched. “Wow.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Vanessa.”
“No, don’t smooth it over because you feel bad.” She got off the stool. “I do like parts of your life. I like going places with you. I like dressing up. I like the photos. I like that people know who you are. I’ve never pretended otherwise.”
“I know.”
“But I also learned your pregame food order. I know you can’t sleep after West Coast games, so I don’t start serious conversations when you get home at two in the morning.
I know you forget laundry in the washer and then get mad because it smells weird.
I know you need me to text twice if something matters because the first one disappears into whatever hurricane is happening in your head. ”
My throat closed.
She wiped under one eye with her thumb, annoyed at the tear more than anything. “I’m not perfect, Jace. I like attention. I like nice things. I’ve built a career around being seen. But I have been here.”
“I know,” I said again, uselessly.
“Do you?”
I looked at her. Really looked, which I had been avoiding because if I saw her clearly, then I had to see what I was doing.
“I’ll go to Aspen,” I said.
Her mouth twisted. “Don’t do me favors.”
“It’s not a favor.”
“You just agreed like I asked you to schedule a dental cleaning.”
“I’m trying to say yes.”
“I want you to know why you’re saying it.”
I couldn’t give her that. Not honestly. Not kindly.
She nodded once, like that was answer enough, and grabbed her bag from the chair. “I have a call. I’ll text you the booking if I make it.”
“Vanessa.”
She paused by the door.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” Her voice wasn’t cold. That was the worst part. “I just don’t know if sorry is going to be enough.”
When she left, the apartment became too quiet and too loud at the same time.
I was late to the rink.
Not by much. Enough.
Roman caught me before I made it to the locker room, leaning against the hallway wall with his coffee and the expression of a man who had been waiting long enough to get dangerous.
“You look like shit.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“It’s eleven-thirty.”
“Time is fake.”
“Your calendar isn’t.”
I tried to pass him. He shifted just enough to block me.
“Move, Vega.”
“No.”
I stared at him. “I am really not in the mood.”
“That has become your entire personality this week.”
That hit sharp.
I laughed once, no humor in it. “Great. Another person with notes.”
Roman’s face didn’t change. “You’re somewhere else all the time.”
“I’m tired.”
“Everyone’s tired.”
“I’m dealing with stuff.”
“No kidding.”
My fingers started picking at the edge of my hoodie sleeve. I shoved my hand into my pocket.
Roman saw. Of course he did. “You’re snapping at guys for breathing wrong. You’re forgetting meetings you used to be early for if there was video you cared about. You stare through people, then act pissed when they notice.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.” He leaned in slightly. “You’re becoming difficult to be around.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
Roman didn’t look triumphant. He looked like he hated saying it.
“I’m not telling you that to be a dick,” he said. “I’m telling you because I love you and no one else in this building is going to say it without making it about hockey.”
I looked away.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
His sigh was quiet. “That scares me more than you yelling.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Then stop disappearing while standing right in front of me.”
Before I could answer, a familiar voice drifted from the parking lot entrance.
“Jace, wait.”
Vanessa.
I turned.
She came in carrying the tie I’d forgotten at home, the dark one Tessa wanted for travel day media. She’d changed clothes, sunglasses pushed up in her hair, phone in one hand, my tie in the other. She looked embarrassed to be there but determined.
“You left this.”
“Thanks.” I reached for it.
She didn’t let go immediately. Her eyes searched my face, softer than they’d been when she left. “I booked the room. We can cancel if your schedule changes.”
“It won’t.”
“Okay.”
She stepped closer, fixed the collar of my hoodie where it had folded under my jacket strap, then smoothed the tie against my chest before handing it over. It was such a normal girlfriend thing. Intimate in public without being sexual. Familiar. Earned by time.
Across the entrance hall, Declan had stopped walking.
I felt him before I looked.
He stood near Tessa and Benny, travel coat over one arm, phone in his hand, gray eyes on Vanessa’s fingers at my collar.
He looked away almost immediately.
Not fast enough.
Something hot and ugly moved through me, not guilt this time. Recognition.
He didn’t like seeing her touch me.
Good.
Then I hated myself for thinking it.
Vanessa kissed my cheek. “Text me when you land?”
“Yeah.”
She left, and Roman’s gaze moved from me to Declan to the door Vanessa had used.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing I want to say in a hallway.”
Team travel had a special kind of chaos that usually helped me. Bags, buses, check-ins, security, noise layered over noise until my brain could surf it instead of fight it. Today every sound arrived with teeth.
At the airport, I forgot which pocket my ID was in three times.
Milo talked nonstop about a documentary on deep-sea creatures until Brooks threatened to leave him at gate B12.
Tessa handed me a folder with media notes, then took one look at my face and said, “Read the highlighted parts only or you’ll absorb none of it. ”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I’m too young and too tired to be insulted like that.”
On the plane, I ended up three rows behind Declan.
Close enough to hear when his phone rang before takeoff.
“Hey,” he said, voice low.
I knew immediately.
Olivia.