3. Jax
Chapter three
Jax
She’s at the glass again.
Third time in twenty minutes. Not that I’m tracking it.
I face the net and run the drill.
My defense reads the play, adjusts, executes. They’re sharp because I’m sharp. That’s how this works. Always has. Nobody says it out loud.
I hold the line. That’s the job.
Reporter’s at the glass. Recorder out. Notebook open. Taking everything in.
I face the net. Do the job.
She moves from the glass to the bench and turns just enough for me to get a clean look at her face.
Wait.
Dark curls. Green eyes.
No fucking way.
That’s—
Jesus Christ.
Grocery store girl.
What the hell is she doing here?
I face the net. Do the job.
She’s got Brody backed against the boards and he’s already telling her shit he has no business telling her. I can see his hands going from the crease. Give Brody half a reason and he’ll talk himself into trouble.
She moves on from Brody to Sebastian and Caleb, recorder out, notebook open, getting what she needs without ever looking rushed. Then Liam, somehow, which I clock mostly because getting anything useful out of Liam is usually a minor miracle.
Me?
Nothing.
She doesn’t come near me. Doesn’t even fake it. Just works the room like I’m not standing ten feet away.
That gets under my skin faster than it should.
I reset in the crease.
I keep waiting for her to circle back.
She doesn’t.
You’d think that would make this easier. It doesn’t.
What the fuck is it about me?
Locker room after.
Brody will not shut up.
“Nova asked me about line chemistry and I ended up telling her about my grandmother’s pasta recipe. I don’t even know how that happened. She has some kind of—I don’t know. Thing.”
Nova.
There it is.
“A thing,” I say.
“Yeah, like a thing where you just keep talking and you can’t stop and you don’t know why you’re still going but you are.”
Sebastian’s already looked her up. Caleb wants to know if she’s coming to team dinner Friday. Marcus wants his stats from last Tuesday mentioned specifically.
I say nothing. Sit down. Start taping my stick.
Left to right. Thirteen wraps. Same number every time. Same since I was nineteen.
I’m on the ninth wrap when it all catches up at once.
My hands go still on the tape.
Fuck.
Grocery store girl’s Nova.
And she’s been in this building all morning acting like Tuesday night never happened. That mouth. The attitude. The way she came around that corner in the store like the rest of the world could sort itself out around her.
She’s been six feet away at the boards. Two hours in my peripheral. Recorder in her hand. Credential around her neck. Talking to my teammates. Not saying a damn thing to me.
That part lands. Not loud. Just deep. Here’s what I can’t get a handle on.
Does she know?
She got a clean look at me eventually. Buzz cut now, gear on, different context, but still. Then again, maybe she didn’t. Maybe to her I’m just the goalie. Except she never came near me. Not once. That doesn’t feel accidental.
Feels like a choice.
Maybe she figured it out last night. Maybe she didn’t until this morning. Either way, she’s standing in my building acting like she’d rather eat the tape off my stick than say a word about it.
I did the same.
That’s something.
I finish the thirteenth wrap. Set the stick down.
She wrote that piece. Her name’s on it. That’s enough.
Neither of us has said a word about Tuesday night in a grocery store.
And I let her win at rock-paper-scissors like an idiot.
Hell of a thing to be sitting with.
Aiden drops onto the bench next to me after everyone else clears out.
He doesn’t say anything right away. He never does.
We’ve been doing this long enough to know some things don’t need to be rushed into words.
He sits. I sit.
“You good?” he says.
“Fine.”
He lets that sit. He knows what that means coming from me.
“She’s the grocery store girl.”
Not a question.
I say nothing.
He nods once. Doesn’t make it a thing. Doesn’t push. Just takes it.
“Okay,” he says, and that’s it.
He gets up and leaves.
I sit there a second with my stick and the realization that Aiden knowing means Aurora’s going to know by tonight. Those two have never kept a single thing from each other.
I’ve made peace with that.
I pull out my phone.
Aurora:
I just met your new journalist. We’re getting coffee this week. She’s hilarious.
I stare at it.
Type back:
She’s not my journalist.
The dots pop up.
Four seconds.
Aurora:
Okay
One word. No punctuation.
I’ve known Aurora long enough to know exactly what that means. That specific flat four-second okay is the most dangerous thing in her vocabulary.
It means she’s already decided something.
I put the phone in my pocket. Stand up. Head for the exit.
And then I see it.
Nova’s still in the hallway packing up her bag. Callum is next to her—twenty-two, no filter, thinks everything is an opening.
He says something.
She smiles.
Not the professional one.
The real one.
Something in my chest goes quiet.
I have no claim on that smile.
I keep walking.
I don’t look back.
I look back.