Chapter 25 #2
Milo threw both arms up. “Exactly how I drew it up.”
“Your leg has better hands than you,” Benny said.
Jace coasted toward the boards, breathing hard. His gaze found mine before he could stop it.
I kept my expression even.
“Better,” I said. “You waited. That’s the difference.”
That was all.
One correction. One piece of praise.
His next breath left him slower than the last.
“Run it again,” I said, looking away before anyone with eyes and instincts put the wrong pieces together and made them right.
After practice, the players filtered off in damp, loud clusters. I stayed on the ice with Grant to talk through tomorrow’s schedule until the last group disappeared down the tunnel.
Tessa waited near the bench when I came off.
She wore a camel coat over black trousers and held her tablet against her chest like an elegant weapon. Her expression suggested I was about to be handed a problem she had already measured, labeled, and found irritating.
“Coach,” she said.
“Tessa.”
“Quick media note.”
I stepped onto the rubber. “How quick?”
“Depends how much patience you have for breakup discourse.”
“Less than required, probably.”
“That’s usually the case.” She tapped her tablet awake. “Vanessa posted her statement this morning. Clean. Mutual respect, difficult schedules, no bad blood. Very polished.”
I kept my face neutral. “Okay.”
“Jace reposted it with a heart. No comment.”
That sounded like Vanessa. Controlled even when hurt. Protecting herself without setting the room on fire. I respected it, which only made the whole thing sit heavier.
Tessa scrolled. “Most of the comments are standard. Sad fans. People projecting. A few claiming they knew it was coming because she wore beige last week or whatever nonsense they’ve decided is evidence.”
“Beige is incriminating now?”
“Apparently.” Her mouth twitched, then flattened. “There are also a couple mentions from people who saw him upset leaving the restaurant last night. And one person says they saw him at the team hotel earlier this week.”
My head turned.
Tessa met my eyes.
The team hotel. Not a surprise location. We had been there for the away game. Half the roster, staff, trainers, and assorted traveling personnel had been in and out of that place for two days. Jace being seen there wasn’t suspicious on its own.
But the internet didn’t need suspicious.
It needed a sentence it could bend.
“That’s where we were staying,” I said.
“I know,” she replied. “Which is why it’s not getting traction as a scandal. It reads like someone trying to make a normal sighting sound interesting.”
“Does Jace know?”
“I texted him not to engage with anything today.”
“Will he listen?”
Tessa gave me the look that question deserved.
“Right,” I said.
“I’ll tell Roman to keep an eye on him if it gets louder.”
That comforted me more than it should have.
Tessa tucked the tablet under her arm. “For what it’s worth, Vanessa handled it well. No subtweets. No vague captions. No dramatic airport selfie.”
“She’s not stupid.”
“No,” Tessa said. “She isn’t.”
There was weight in the way she said it. Not accusation exactly. More like a reminder that the women in this weren’t props we could step around without bruising them.
Her gaze flicked toward the tunnel. “Jace looks better today.”
I didn’t answer.
“Not fine,” she added. “Better.”
“He had a hard night.”
“I assumed.”
Of course she had.
Tessa Moreno never asked questions she couldn’t answer herself. She also didn’t waste warnings. If she was standing here saying any of this to me, she wanted me aware without forcing either of us to name what she suspected.
“I’ll monitor the comments,” she said. “You monitor your room.”
“My room is fine.”
“Your room contains Milo Danvers, who tried to microwave a foil packet of electrolyte chews last week.”
“That was handled.”
“By the smoke alarm.”
“Tessa.”
Her smile was small and unbothered. “Just doing my job.”
She walked away before I could decide whether I’d been warned, protected, or both.
The rest of the afternoon blurred into meetings, video, injury updates, and the constant pressure of behaving like my life still fit inside its old lines.
Olivia texted from Chicago.
Flight moved. Back tomorrow night instead of Thursday. Can we talk this weekend? Feels like we need an actual night home.
I read it once.
Then again.
The right answer was yes.
The honest answer had to become more than that.
I typed, Yes. We need to talk.
I didn’t add anything to soften it.
For several seconds, I watched the delivered mark sit beneath the message and felt the old shape of my marriage press against the new shape of my life.
Neither gave way cleanly.
By the time I made it back near the locker room, most of the players were gone. A few showers still ran. Someone laughed in the training room. Tape balls dotted the floor despite the bins being three feet away, because professional athletes were raccoons with contracts and worse hygiene.
Jace came out in dark jeans and a Blizzard hoodie, hair damp again, backpack slung over one shoulder. Roman walked beside him, saying something that made Jace shake his head.
“You are not putting a tracking tile on my wallet,” Jace said.
“I absolutely am,” Roman replied.
“That’s invasive.”
“You left it in a smoothie place twice.”
“People keep saying that like I abandoned an infant.”
“A wallet is an infant with your driver’s license and credit cards.”
Jace saw me.
Only for a second.
His expression didn’t change in a way anyone else would catch. But I saw the work it took for him not to stop. Not to step closer. Not to let the morning follow us into the hallway and put its hands all over us.
Roman saw me too.
His eyes held mine a fraction longer than usual.
Not suspicion.
Concern with a blade tucked behind it.
“Coach,” he said.
“Vega.”
Jace adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”
“Holloway,” I said.
Professional. Plain.
He nodded and kept walking.
I let him.
That was the work now. Not just the secrecy. Not just the rules. Not the nights that felt dangerously close to a life neither of us had earned yet.
Letting him leave in public.
Trusting he would choose to come back.
An hour later, I sat alone in my office. The building had quieted. My laptop was shut. My notes were stacked neatly beside my mug, because control still mattered, even when it no longer solved a damn thing.
I picked up my phone.
I could’ve written something careful. Something weighted. Something about how I’d watched him carry pain through the day without letting it make every decision for him.
Instead, I gave him what had helped him most from the beginning.
A plan.
Dinner. 7pm. Tiny’s already waiting.
I stared at the message after I sent it.
My phone buzzed almost immediately.
Jace: He knows I’m not bringing him anything, right?
Me: He refuses to accept that.
Jace: Relatable.
I sat back and closed my eyes.
Outside my office, someone rolled a gear bag down the hall. Farther away, a door shut. The rink settled into its evening creaks and hums.
Nothing about this was safe.
Nothing was clean.
Consequences were already moving toward us from more than one direction.
But for the first time since it began, it didn’t feel like we were living only on stolen air and bad judgment.
It felt like an unlocked door.
It felt like a dog waiting behind it.
It felt, dangerously, like the beginning of a life we might have to become brave enough to build.