“I'm sleeping.”
“Jace.”
“Mom.” I grinned at her, deflecting the way I always did. “I smell lasagna. Are you trying to fatten me up? Coach is gonna have my ass if I show up overweight.”
She swatted my arm but smiled, and just like that the interrogation was over. For now. “Your father's in the living room. Go say hi. Dinner's in twenty minutes.”
I found Dad in his usual spot—recliner kicked back, baseball game on the TV, beer sweating on the side table. He looked up when I walked in, and his face did that thing it always did. Not quite a smile, but close enough.
“Jace. Good drive?”
“Yeah. Easy.” I dropped onto the couch and gestured at the screen. “Who's winning?”
“Mariners, seventh inning.”
We watched in comfortable silence for a few minutes. This was us. This was how we worked. Mom asked questions and fussed and made sure I was eating enough. Dad just... existed in the same space, solid and steady, and somehow that was enough.
“How's the season going?” he asked during a commercial break.
“We're doing good so far.”
“Saw the highlights. That third period goal was pretty.”
Something warm settled in my gut. Dad didn't give compliments easy, but when he did, they stuck. “Thanks. Rook set me up perfect. I just had to bury it.”
“You looked good out there.”
I nodded and tried not to think about how I'd felt like shit all week. How I'd been playing fine on the ice but couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, couldn't stop my brain from getting into places it had no business going.
Places that involved Coach's hands and the way his voice went rough when he was frustrated and what it might feel like ifhe ever looked at me the way I kept catching myself looking at him.
I shoved that thought down deep and focused on the game.
Dinner was exactlywhat I'd needed without knowing I needed it.
Mom had made enough lasagna to feed the entire Wolves roster, plus garlic bread, salad, and those roasted vegetables she knew I actually liked even though I'd spent most of my childhood claiming I hated them. She served me a portion that could've been two meals, then added more garlic bread to my plate when I wasn't looking.
“Ma, I'm gonna be sick.”
“You're too skinny.”
“I'm 6'2” and 205 pounds.”
“Exactly. Too skinny.” She pointed her fork at me. “You need to keep your strength up. All that skating and hitting, you're burning calories like crazy.”
Dad snorted into his beer. “He's fine, Marie.”
“You stay out of this,” she said, but she was smiling. “When's the last time you had a home-cooked meal, Jace?”
I thought about the protein shakes, the meal-prep chicken and rice I'd been rotating through all week, the pizza I'd ordered at midnight two nights ago because I couldn't sleep and needed something to do with my hands. “Uh...”
“Exactly.” She served herself a much smaller portion and sat down across from me. “So eat.”
I ate. Because arguing with Mom was pointless, and because the lasagna was perfect, and because something about being here made me feel like I could breathe properly for the first timesince last Tuesday's practice when Coach had put his hand on my shoulder to adjust my positioning and I'd felt it everywhere.
We talked about safe things. Mom's book club. Dad's golf league. My sister's new job. The weather. Hockey, but only the surface-level stuff—wins and losses, not the mess inside my head.
Then Mom said, “Did you hear about that baseball player who came out? Tyler Morrison?”
