Chapter 23 #2
The parking lot lights were too bright. A couple walked past laughing, and the sound scraped across my nerves.
My phone screen lit up with notifications I couldn’t process.
Maybe Vanessa had already posted something.
Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe people knew. Maybe nobody knew.
Maybe Tessa would have a crisis plan in her drafts by morning with her calm face and spreadsheet voice.
Maybe Declan would look at me at practice tomorrow and I’d crack open in front of the whole team.
Too many tabs.
Too much sound.
Too much me.
I opened Declan’s contact.
My hand shook hard enough that I hit the wrong letter twice.
Then I typed one word.
Amber.
I sent it and dropped the phone onto the passenger seat like it had burned me.
The call came before I managed one full breath.
Declan.
Not a text.
A call.
I stared at his name while my heart slammed around in my chest.
I answered. “Hey.”
Normal was not even in the same zip code.
Declan didn’t bother pretending otherwise. “Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. No. I’m not fine, but I’m not red. Amber. I’m parked. I’m in my car. I haven’t driven anywhere, so I didn’t do anything stupid. Vanessa and me, we did it. It’s done.”
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Not enough.”
That almost made me laugh, except it came out broken.
“She knew,” I said. “Not everything, but enough. She asked if there was someone else, and I said yes. Then she asked if she knew her, and I said no, and that’s technically true, but it feels like lying with a different jacket on. She looked so tired, Dec. Like being with me had worn her down.”
He was quiet for a few seconds.
Not empty quiet. Not the kind that left me scrambling. The kind where he was there, taking it in before giving me the next thing.
“Where are you?”
I told him the restaurant name and the cross street before I could talk myself out of it.
A deep bark sounded in the background, followed by a thud and Declan saying something low away from the phone.
Then he came back to me. “Come here.”
I stopped moving completely.
“What?”
“To my house.”
My hand tightened around the phone. “I’ve never been to your house.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
“I’ll give you the address.”
His house.
Not the arena. Not a hotel. Not some half-lit place with neutral walls and exits neither of us had to name.
His actual house. Where his actual life existed.
Where Olivia’s things might be. Where Tiny, who had already flattened me with one meeting and several phone-call interruptions, lived.
Where neighbors knew his truck and might recognize my face.
“I don’t know if that’s smart,” I said, even while the part of me that needed him grabbed onto the offer with both hands.
“It isn’t careful,” Declan said. “It’s still what I’m choosing.”
My breath shook.
“Color?”
“Amber.”
“Can you drive safely?”
I closed my eyes and checked for real instead of answering because I wanted him.
Hands unsteady, but manageable. Vision clear. Breathing rough, but not gone. No urge to speed. No urge to do anything stupid with two tons of car and a head full of noise. Just the need to get there and keep both hands on the wheel.
“Yes.”
“Put me on speaker. I’ll text the address, and I’m staying on the line.”
“Okay.”
The word came out smaller than I liked.
His text appeared a second later. An address in one of those neighborhoods you knew because teammates bought houses there and then complained about property taxes like anyone was going to feel sorry for them.
I set the phone in the cup holder and pulled out of the parking lot.
For a while, he didn’t make me talk. He stayed with me. Breathing on the other end. Giving directions before the GPS did, his voice low and certain.
“Left at the next light.”
“I know. GPS says.”
“Listen to me anyway.”
So I did.
That was the part that scared me sometimes. Not the sex. Not the wanting. Not even the risk, though it should have scared the hell out of me.
It was how much easier my body listened to him than it listened to me.
“Right lane,” he said.
I put on my signal.
“Don’t force the merge.”
“I’m not.”
“You considered it.”
“I considered seven things. The merge was one of them.”
“Then cut it down to one.”
I breathed out, rough and long, and let the car settle where it needed to be.
The city moved past in headlights and dark glass.
My brain kept trying to split. Vanessa walking away.
Olivia’s name sitting where I had no right to touch it.
Roman’s face when I told him. Tessa’s inevitable message.
Practice. Tape. Did I leave my good tape at the rink?
Why the hell was I thinking about tape right now?
“Jace.”
“Yeah.”
“Name five things in the car.”
I swallowed. “Steering wheel. Phone. Cup holder. Receipt. Gloves.”
“Four things you can feel.”
“The seat. My jacket sleeve. The wheel. My teeth because I’m clenching my jaw.”
“Fix that.”
I unclenched.
“Three things you hear.”
“Engine. Your voice. Some guy honking behind me because five over the speed limit isn’t enough for his personal growth.”
Tiny barked again in the background.
“That counts too,” I said.
“It does.”
My chest loosened by a small, embarrassing amount.
The roads got quieter after a while. Houses sat farther apart, porch lights glowing against snow piled neatly along driveways. Everything looked calm and expensive and far removed from people making terrible choices in parked cars outside restaurants.
“Next right,” Declan said.
I turned.
“Third house on the left. Brick front. Porch light’s on.”
My fingers flexed on the wheel.
“I’m parking on the street.”
“I figured.”
“I know that’s paranoid.”
“It’s aware.”
That helped.
I pulled up across from the house and put the car in park.
For a few seconds, I just sat there.
His house was bigger than I expected and less showy.
Brick and dark trim. A wide porch. One truck in the driveway.
Curtains drawn. Porch light on. A married man’s house.
A coach’s house. A place I had no business entering after ending things with my girlfriend while his wife existed somewhere else, real and unaware of me sitting outside with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
My body refused to move.
“I’m here,” I said, although he obviously knew.
“I see you.”
My head turned toward the house. A curtain shifted near the front window.
The call ended.
A second later, my phone buzzed.
Declan: Door’s unlocked. Come in.
I stared at the message.
Come in.
Not knock. Not wait on the porch. Not stand there while he decided whether to let me into this part of his life.
Come in.
Another bark boomed from inside. Then came the unmistakable scramble of claws on hardwood and a heavy thump like furniture had lost a fight.
I got out of the car.
The cold slapped me hard enough to remind me I’d left my gloves on the passenger seat after naming them like an idiot. My sneakers sounded too loud on the sidewalk. Every step toward the porch felt like crossing a line that would not erase cleanly behind me.
What if Olivia came home early? She wasn’t supposed to be back until Thursday, but flights changed.
Plans changed. People changed their minds.
What if a neighbor looked out? What if someone from the organization lived nearby?
What if this was the moment our secret stopped being a secret because I couldn’t sit alone in my own damn car without short-circuiting?
Tiny lost his mind on the other side of the door.
A huge, frantic bark. Nails skidding. Another thump.
Despite everything, my mouth twitched.
Then my eyes burned, because that ridiculous dog sounded excited I existed.
I climbed the porch steps.
My hand hovered near the knob.
For one second, fear pinned me there.
Not fear of Declan.
Fear of being too much now that he had me somewhere real. Not the locker room. Not a hotel. Not borrowed minutes and locked doors with excuses waiting outside them. Here, in his house, with his walls around us and consequences in every room.
The door opened before I touched it.
Declan filled the doorway in black sweats and a gray T-shirt, hair damp like he’d showered too fast, beard dark at the jaw, bare feet planted on the hardwood. One hand was hooked in the collar of the biggest dog I had ever seen.
Tiny was absurd. A wall of muscle, jowls, drool, and mournful brown eyes, with a tail beating so hard his whole back half moved. The second he saw me, he tried to shove through Declan’s legs.
“Back,” Declan said.
Tiny made a wounded noise like no one in history had ever suffered more.
I stared at him. “That’s still a ridiculous name.”
Declan’s attention stayed on my face. “He disagrees.”
“He looks like he could repossess my car.”
Tiny whined and strained toward me like we had unfinished business from another life.
Declan looked me over once. Fast, but thorough. Not checking me out. Checking me. Face, hands, breathing, shoulders up around my ears, fingers opening and closing at my sides.
He didn’t ask if I was okay.
He knew.
He didn’t look past me to scan the street. He didn’t start naming risks. He didn’t remind me he was married, or my coach, or that I’d just left one wreckage and walked straight toward another.
All of that was already standing there with us.
He opened the door wider.
“Inside, Jace.”
My name in his voice nearly took my legs out.
Not Holloway. Not a color. Not an instruction for traffic or practice or keeping myself stitched together.
Jace.
I crossed the threshold.
Tiny immediately pressed his massive head into my thigh with a groan so happy it punched a cracked laugh out of me. He shoved his full weight against my leg, tail thudding into the wall, and I put a hand on his head because he didn’t leave me any choice.
“Hi, man,” I said, my voice rough. “Yeah. Okay. You’re a lot.”
Declan shut the door behind me.
The lock clicked.
Small sound. Huge consequence.
I looked up from Tiny and met Declan’s eyes.
The house was quiet except for the dog breathing against my leg like a bellows.
I didn’t let myself look around. Not much.
If I saw framed photos or a pair of women’s shoes by the door or any proof of the life I was stepping into, I wasn’t sure I’d stay upright.
But I felt it anyway. The weight of where I was.
The fact that he had given me the address. The fact that I had come.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing happened.
Declan released Tiny’s collar and came closer.
Not fast. Not dramatic. He didn’t ask me to explain. He didn’t tell me to calm down. He didn’t make me earn the comfort I had asked for with one word from a parking lot.
He lifted his hand and set it against the side of my neck.
His palm was warm. His thumb rested beneath my jaw, firm enough that my body finally had something simple to understand.
Pressure.
Stillness.
Him.
Everything I’d been holding together since Vanessa looked at me across that table broke open in my chest.
A sound came out of me, ugly and cracked.
Declan’s other arm went around my back before I could apologize.
I folded into him in the entryway of his house, cold still clinging to my jacket, Tiny pressed against my leg, and Declan held me like staying on my feet was not something I had to do alone.