Chapter 27 #2
I didn’t move.
Jace answered too quickly. “That your medical opinion?”
“No. My medical opinion is that your left skate smells like death.”
“That’s Benny’s stall.”
“Nice try.”
A pause. Then Roman again, lower. “I’m serious.”
The room didn’t go silent this time. Benny and Milo were arguing over who had stolen whose shampoo. Water ran in the showers. Privacy by volume.
Jace said, “I had a lot of shit sitting on my chest.”
“And now?”
“Still shit.” Another pause. “Less chest.”
Roman made a thoughtful sound. “Poetic.”
“Don’t tell anyone. Ruins my brand.”
“You sleep?”
“Some.”
“Eat?”
“Declan made me breakfast.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
Then Jace corrected smoothly, too smoothly. “Coach made everyone do nutrition check-ins last week. Got stuck in my head. I ate breakfast, is what I mean.”
Roman didn’t answer right away.
My grip on the folder in my hand tightened.
Finally Roman said, “Careful with your words today.”
Jace’s reply was quieter. “Yeah. I know.”
No accusation. No reveal. Just Roman, hearing too much because he cared enough to listen properly.
I walked away before I heard anything else.
At noon, Tessa found me outside the media room.
She had her tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other, which meant she was either busy or armed. Possibly both.
“Coach,” she said.
“Tessa.”
“Olivia’s flight is still on schedule. Lands seven-forty. I checked because the alumni dinner next week requires your spouse info finalized and she emailed me about dietary restrictions.”
There it was. Delivered in the same tone she used for broadcast windows and credential lists.
“Thank you,” I said.
Tessa studied me over the rim of her cup. “She said she’ll come straight from the airport?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need me to move your morning media availability tomorrow?”
I should have asked why she was offering. I didn’t. Tessa rarely gave help without making it look administrative.
“No,” I said. “Keep it.”
“All right.”
She didn’t leave.
I looked at her. “Anything else?”
“Jace is calmer today.”
“You mentioned that yesterday.”
“It remains true today.”
I waited.
Tessa’s expression softened by a fraction, which somehow made her more difficult to look at. “Calm is noticeable when someone has been white-knuckling for weeks.”
“He’s working.”
“He is.”
Another silence sat between us, full of things she was too smart to say in a hallway.
Then she said, “I hope tonight is as honest as it needs to be.”
My mouth went dry.
Before I could answer, she lifted her tablet slightly. “I’ll send the revised media grid.”
“Tessa.”
She stopped.
“Thank you.”
She nodded once, not triumphant, not warm exactly. Just present. “Good luck, Coach.”
The afternoon dragged.
I watched video. I answered calls. I sat through a meeting about sponsorship obligations and heard maybe sixty percent of it.
Every time my attention slipped, I brought it back by force.
Names. Dates. Systems. Lines. Responsibilities.
The old discipline still worked, but it required more effort than it used to.
At four-ten, Olivia texted.
Boarding soon. Long day. Looking forward to being home.
I stared at the words until they stopped looking like language.
Home.
I typed three different replies and deleted all of them.
Finally, I sent: Safe flight. I’ll be there when you get in.
It was true.
Not enough, but true.
Jace passed my office doorway twenty minutes later with Roman beside him. He didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow. His hair was damp from the shower, backpack on one shoulder, phone in his hand but screen dark. He looked tired. Stable. Like the day had taken effort and he had managed it anyway.
Roman said something I couldn’t hear.
Jace laughed under his breath, not bright, but real.
I let that be the last thing I took from him before tonight.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, the sky had gone dark over Denver, the kind of winter-dark that made houses look warmer from the outside than they sometimes were within. Olivia’s car wasn’t there yet. No lights burned except the one I’d left over the stove.
For a few seconds, I stayed in the driver’s seat with both hands on the wheel.
There was no version of the next few hours where I came out clean. I had waited too long. I had made choices in the space between loneliness and wanting and called some of them inevitable because that made them easier to survive.
But Olivia deserved more than a quiet marriage ending in pieces she had to discover herself.
She deserved my face. My voice. The truth, even if I couldn’t give her every detail without turning honesty into cruelty.
Inside, Tiny hit the door before I got my key in the lock.
“Back,” I said through the wood.
He responded by snorting directly into the seam.
When I opened it, he greeted me like I’d been missing for a decade, massive body shoving into my legs, tail hammering the wall. I bent and put both hands on his head, pressing my forehead briefly between his ears.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”
The house smelled faintly of coffee and the dinner I’d made the night before. Jace’s travel mug was gone. His bag was gone. His shoes weren’t by the door. No obvious trace of him remained except one strand of dark hair on the sleeve of the couch and the mangled duck abandoned beside Tiny’s bed.
I picked it up.
Tiny took it gently from my hand and carried it to the living room, then circled back as if deciding I required supervision.
I moved through the house doing unnecessary things. Straightened the mail. Rinsed a mug. Checked the guest bathroom even though Olivia never used it. Put the dish towel back where it belonged after realizing I’d been holding it for no reason.
Then I stopped.
My life was not going to become more honest because the counters were clean.
I sat in the living room, not on the couch where Jace had leaned against me two nights ago, but in the chair across from it. Tiny lowered himself onto my feet with a groan and rested his head against my shin.
My phone showed seven-thirty-six.
Then seven-forty.
Then seven-fifty-two.
A message came through at eight-oh-three.
Landed. Waiting on bag. See you soon.
I read it once and set the phone face down on the arm of the chair.
The house was too quiet after that. No television. No rink noise. No Jace filling space with motion and half-finished thoughts. Just the furnace clicking on, Tiny breathing against my leg, and the slow approach of the conversation I should have had before anyone else got hurt this badly.
Headlights swept across the front windows.
Tiny lifted his head.
A car door closed outside, and a minute later Olivia’s key slid into the lock.