Statement went live. Media wants interviews. Call me.
I silenced it and walked back to my car.
The drive back to my own place was a blur. I parked in the garage and sat there in the dark, hands still on the wheel, and let myself feel it. The guilt. The grief. The terror that I'd just lost him in every way that mattered.
And the worst part was knowing I'd do it again.
CHAPTER 18
NO RESPONSE
GRANT
My phone was on the nightstand. No missed calls. No new messages. Just the same three texts I'd sent yesterday, all markeddeliveredbut unanswered.
The last one made me feel pathetic. I'd stared at it for ten minutes before hitting send, knowing it would land like a plea and hating myself for it. But I'd sent it anyway, because the alternative—doing nothing—felt worse. Still nothing.
I sat up, dragged a hand down my face, and told myself it was fine. He was angry. Injured. Embarrassed that I'd benched him, that I'd seen him break.
Of course he was ignoring me. Logic didn't stop the tightness in my chest.
I got up, showered, dressed in the same grey suit I'd worn a hundred times, and drove to the rink on autopilot. The roads were quiet, the sky that flat winter grey that made Toronto feel like it was holding its breath. I parked in my usual spot, grabbed my coffee from the cupholder, and walked into the building like I had my shit together. I didn't.
The rink felt wrong the second I stepped inside.
I stopped outside the locker room door and listened. Usual pre-practice noise: chirping, the metallic click of gear being adjusted, someone's playlist bleeding through a phone speaker. Normal. Except it wasn't. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The guys glanced up. A few nodded. Most went back to taping sticks or lacing skates. But I caught the way a couple of them looked at Jace's stall—#19 stenciled above it, his name plate still bolted to the wood—and then looked away like they were waiting for him to materialize and fix whatever the fuck this was. He wouldn't.
Rook was sitting in his stall, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Volkov was silent beside him, jaw tight, already in game mode even though this was just practice. Mercer was adjusting his tape job for the third time, hands moving too fast. Finn kept glancing at Jace's empty spot like a kid waiting for his favorite teacher to walk in. No one said anything. I didn't either.
I walked to the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and started sketching out the drill structure. Forecheck pressure, breakout timing, neutral zone regroups. Clean, efficient, no room for slop. If I kept my hands busy, maybe my brain would stop circling back to the fact that Jace was gone and I had no fucking idea where he was or if he was okay.
“Alright,” I said, capping the marker. My voice came out steady. Professional. “Let's get to work.”
They moved. Slowly, but they moved.
I ran them harder than usual. Not because they needed it. Because I did. If I loosened my grip, if I let the structure slip, the worry would show. And I couldn't afford that.
I blew the whistle and called a line change. Rook's line skated in, and I watched them execute the breakout I'd drawn up. Textbook. Clean. But there was a hesitation in the passing—a half-second delay where Rook looked right, found no one, and had to adjust. Because Hartley wasn't there.
“Again,” I called.
They did it again. Better this time. But still wrong. I kept my jaw tight and didn't say what I was thinking:You're compensating for a ghost.
The whistle blew for a water break, and the guys drifted toward the bench. I stayed at center ice, arms crossed, scanning the tunnel entrance like I had been for the past hour. Expecting the door to open. Hoping he'd show up with crutches and that stubborn fucking glare, too pissed to stay away, too competitive to let the team practice without him haunting the ice. The door didn't open. I turned back to the drill and forced myself to focus.
By the time practice ended, my patience had snapped. Not outwardly. But internally? I was done.
The guys started filtering off the ice, voices low, movements slower than usual. I caught Mercer muttering something to Finn, who shook his head and looked back at the empty tunnel like he was mourning. I stayed on the ice until the last skate blade scraped away, and then I followed them into the locker room.
Rook was sitting in his stall, helmet off, hair damp with sweat, staring at nothing. I walked over and stopped in front of him. “Rook.”
He looked up. Wary. “Coach.”
“Where's Hartley?”
His jaw tightened. “Don't know.”
