Lucy:We will. I promise.
Jake:Get some sleep. Love you.
Lucy:Love you too.
Lucy set down her phone and looked out at the Paris skyline. The Eiffel Tower was lit up, sparkling on the hour like it did every night.
She was living her dream. Learning from the best. Building the future she'd always wanted.
So why did it feel like she was losing something precious in the process?
February passed in a haze of coaching and missing Lucy.
The Wolves won seven of their eight games. Jake's coaching skills improved daily. Tommy praised his technique, his communication with the players, his ability to read the game.
"You're a natural at this," Tommy said after a particularly good practice. "The guys respect you. They listen. That's not something you can teach."
Jake should have felt proud. Should have felt excited about his future as a coach.
Instead, he just felt empty.
He and Lucy texted daily but talked less and less. The time difference made it impossible to have real conversations. When they did manage video calls, they were awkward and forced—both of them trying so hard to be supportive that they weren't actually being honest.
Lucy would tell him about Chef Laurent's latest impossible challenge. About the beautiful patisserie she'd discovered in the Latin Quarter. About weekend trips to Versailles with Amelie and James.
Jake would tell her about the Wolves' winning streak. About Emma's improvement at youth hockey. About the town gossip she was missing.
But they never talked about the hard stuff. About how much Jake missed her. About whether Lucy was questioning if coming home was still what she wanted. About whether six months apart was going to destroy what they'd built.
"You're being weird," Marcus said bluntly one night at Mac's Tavern.
"I'm not being weird."
"You're absolutely being weird. You've been staring at your phone for twenty minutes instead of eating your burger."
"I'm just checking if Lucy texted."
"And has she?"
"No."
"Because it's the middle of the night in Paris and she's sleeping like a normal person?"
"Yeah."
Marcus grabbed Jake's phone and set it face-down on the table. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
"I don't know. Things feel off with Lucy. We barely talk. When we do talk, it's surface-level stuff. We're not really connecting anymore."
"Have you told her this?"
"No. She's dealing with enough—culinary school is intense, Paris is overwhelming. I don't want to add to her stress by complaining about the distance."
"Jake. That's called communication. You need to communicate. Tell her you're struggling. Tell her you miss her and it's hard and you're scared."
"What if that makes things worse?"
"What if not telling her makes things worse? What if she's feeling the same way but also not saying anything because she doesn't want to burden you?"
