Chapter 33 #2
I had led teams through elimination games. Sat across from general managers after my knee ended my playing career. Told Olivia the truth and watched her face change because of me.
That one word still hit harder than expected.
“I’m willing to make professional sacrifices,” I said.
Jace’s head snapped up. “No.”
“You don’t know what I mean.”
“I know enough to say no first.”
“Jace.”
“No. You don’t get to walk into this assuming you’re the piece that moves because you’re older or because you’re the coach or because you’ve decided guilt needs a job.
” His voice stayed low, but the intensity was all him, bright and difficult to contain.
“You worked for this. You lost playing before you were ready. You rebuilt your entire life around staying in the game. You don’t get to toss that on the table like it’s spare change. ”
“I’m not tossing anything.”
“You said sacrifices.”
“Yes. Because there may be some.”
“Not your career.”
I sat back. “If the only workable solution is me stepping away from direct supervision, that may affect my job.”
“Stepping away from direct supervision isn’t the same as lighting your contract on fire.”
“No.”
“But you’d do it.”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
His face changed.
He dragged a hand over his mouth, then looked out the window. Outside, a woman in a red coat tried to manage two leashes and a paper bag while one small dog refused to move. It was ordinary enough to be cruel.
“You would,” he said.
“If the choice is between keeping you and keeping the exact shape of my position, I know what I would choose.”
His eyes came back to me, bright with anger and fear. “Don’t make me the reason you lose something else.”
“You are not responsible for my choices.”
“That sounds noble until I have to watch you clean out an office.”
“Look at me.”
He did, but it took effort.
“I’m not looking to be punished,” I said. “I’m not trying to balance a scale. If I choose a sacrifice, it will be because I believe the life on the other side is worth it.”
His throat moved. “And if I don’t want to be worth that?”
“That isn’t your decision.”
“It feels like it should be partly mine.”
I took that in. He was right. Not about choosing for me. About having to live with the result.
“You get a voice,” I said. “You don’t get a veto over what I can live with.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then blew out a hard breath. “That is annoyingly fair.”
“I try.”
“You try to be impossible in a reasonable tone.”
“Also true.”
He picked at the cup sleeve again, tearing a small strip free. Then another. I watched him notice, watched irritation cross his face, watched him put both hands flat on the table instead.
“I don’t want a trade,” he said quietly.
“I don’t want that either.”
“I know Tessa said not to spiral there. I am not spiraling. I am calmly placing it on the list of nightmares.”
“It’s on mine too.”
That seemed to settle him more than reassurance would have. I had learned that about Jace. Empty comfort made him feel handled. Truth gave him something solid to press against, even when it hurt.
He looked down. “My dad’s going to find out eventually.”
“Yes.”
“Harper too.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll call me an idiot.”
“Probably.”
“She’ll mean it with love, but she will absolutely say it.”
“I look forward to earning her review.”
He let out a small laugh, then rubbed at his chest like the sound had caught on something. “I keep thinking about Olivia.”
“So do I.”
“And Vanessa. I don’t want to. That sounds awful, but I mean I don’t want to sit here with you and think about my ex-girlfriend. Then I feel like garbage because she didn’t stop being a person just because I stopped being in love with her.”
“She didn’t.”
“And Olivia didn’t stop being your wife because you love me.”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t.”
His gaze lifted. “That’s why we have to do this right.”
“As right as we can from here.”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “No more hiding from the people who need to know.”
The sentence moved through me with a quiet finality.
Not everyone. Not the public. Not the locker room by rumor. But the people with the authority to either help us build a structure or tear one down after discovering we’d built it in secret.
Ownership. Hockey operations. The ones who would ask hard questions and deserve straight answers.
I turned the tea cup between my hands. “We need personal counsel before disclosure.”
“Both of us?”
“Yes. Marlene was clear. We need our own advice. Then we decide who goes in first and what we say.”
“Tessa?”
“She helps us understand the room. Not carry the confession.”
Jace nodded. “Okay.”
His knee started bouncing under the table. He noticed when it hit the metal support with a soft clank, winced, and pressed his heel down. I wanted to put my hand over his knee. I didn’t. Not here. Not because I was ashamed, but because we were practicing the discipline we had claimed to want.
He saw me stop myself.
The look he gave me was tired and grateful and frustrated all at once.
“I hate this part,” he said.
“I know.”
“I hate sitting across from you like we’re negotiating a sponsorship deal.”
“I know.”
“But I also like that we’re not pretending.”
“So do I.”
He looked at the shredded cup sleeve, gathered the pieces, and shoved them into the empty tea cup. “If ownership says no?”
“We ask what no means.”
“That’s such a coach answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have. No to the relationship? No to the reporting structure? No to secrecy? Those are different.”
“And if their solution hurts one of us?”
“Then we decide whether we can live with it.”
He was quiet for a while.
The coffee shop hummed around us. Milk steaming. Chairs scraping. A low conversation near the door about someone’s kid refusing to wear boots. Life continuing in public while ours tried to become something that could survive being seen.
Jace reached across the table.
It was a small movement. Barely more than his fingertips touching the edge of my sleeve. Risk measured in inches.
I looked at his hand.
He started to pull back.
I caught two of his fingers under the table where no one could see.
Not long. Just enough.
His breath left him.
“Okay,” he said, barely audible.
I released him before it became careless.
“We’ll find counsel tonight,” I said. “Separate names. No team email. No team devices.”
“Then we talk to Tessa after?”
“Yes.”
“And then ownership.”
“Yes.”
He nodded once, then again, slower. Organizing it. Making steps out of a cliff.
“Not tomorrow morning,” he said. “I need to sleep before walking into a room where someone might say the word recusal like it’s a weapon.”
“Not tomorrow morning.”
“But soon.”
“Soon.”
He looked at me then, really looked, and the force of it made the noise around us fade to something distant.
“We’re keeping it,” he said.
It was not bravado. It wasn’t a promise that everything would work out. It was a decision made with fear still sitting in his lap.
I felt it in my bones.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re keeping it.”
His mouth trembled at one corner before he pulled it under control. “Then we figure out how to tell the people who can take it away.”
I wanted to tell him they couldn’t. I wanted to give him something clean and absolute.
I didn’t.
Instead, I gave him the only honest thing I had.
“We tell them before they find out,” I said. “And we walk in knowing what we’re asking for.”
Jace reached for my coffee again, took a drink, and grimaced like it offended him personally.
“Fine,” he said. “Tonight we find lawyers. Then we decide how and when to disclose to ownership.”
I nodded.
Outside, afternoon light slid across the sidewalk, pale and cold. Jace sat across from me in my stolen hoodie with fear in his face and steadiness under it, no longer asking whether this was real enough to risk the damage.
The damage was already part of the math.
Now we had to protect what was left.