I didn't have an answer for that. Couldn't have one, not when the stakes were my entire career and everything I'd built.
Owen watched me for a moment longer, then sighed. “At least eat something. You look like you're about to fall over.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a burger and fries, setting it in front of me without comment. I ate mechanically, grateful for a distraction, grateful for something to do with my hands while Connor sat three stools down and the weight of everything I couldn't have pressed in from every direction.
I lasted another twenty minutes before making my excuses and heading out. Owen hugged me before I left and squeezed my shoulder hard. “Get some sleep. And Jace? You're allowed to want things. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I lied.
The drive home was quiet, just me and the city lights blurring past my windows. I parked in my building's underground garage and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, to my expensive condo with floor-to-ceiling windows that made me feel like I was on display even when the curtains were closed.
I took a shower hot enough to burn. Ate a protein bar because my nutritionist would kill me if I skipped meals. Then I stood in my bedroom and stared at the pill bottle on my nightstand: the one with the label that didn't quite match what was inside.
They helped with the anxiety. With the spiraling thoughts and the panic that hit when I was alone with my brain. My therapist had prescribed it months ago, said it was temporary, just to get me through the rough patch.
Except the rough patch hadn't ended.
I dry-swallowed a pill and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, waiting for my pulse to slow, waiting for the chemical calm to override the chaos in my head.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my brain kept replaying the moment Connor had smiled at me, the moment I'd seen interest in his eyes and felt terror instead of anything resembling hope.
CHAPTER 2
NEW COACH SMELL
GRANT
Iarrived at Northgate Arena at five in the morning because that's what you did when you were on your last life in this league. You showed up early. You stayed late. You proved that whatever they'd heard about you, whatever rumors followed you like smoke, you were here to work and nothing else.
The building was dark except for the maintenance lights, that industrial hum every arena had, like the place was breathing even when empty. I preferred it this way. No cameras. No crowd noise. No performance. Just the structure of the thing, the bones laid bare.
I sat in my truck for a minute, engine ticking as it cooled, watching the empty staff lot. The franchise had sent me a welcome packet two weeks ago, full of branding materials and organizational charts and corporate speak that made my head hurt.
They'd hired me because they were desperate and I was cheap. A last-chance coach for a team that needed a culture reset. We were both damaged goods trying to prove we weren't broken.
Fair enough.
I grabbed my bag and walked to the employee entrance. The keycard they'd mailed me worked on the first try. Inside, the hallways were pristine, polished concrete and branded signage, the Northgate Wolves logo everywhere. Not just a team. A product.
I stood in the entrance for a moment, getting my bearings. Left hallway. Right hallway. Stairwell ahead. No signs pointing to coaches' offices or video rooms, just generic corporate architecture that assumed you already knew where everything was.
“You lost?”
I turned and a woman stood in the doorway to what looked like a training room, late thirties, athletic build, holding a coffee mug that saidI put the “win” in Winnipeg. She wore scrubs and running shoes, her hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, and she had an assessing look that said she'd already catalogued my posture, my bag, and the exact degree of tension in my shoulders.
“Grant Sutherland,” I said.
“I know who you are.” She walked over and extended a hand. “Tess Marlowe. Head athletic trainer. You're early.”
“Habit.”
“Good habit.” She studied me for another second, then nodded toward the hallway. “Come on. I'll show you around before the circus starts. You want coffee first or the tour?”
“Tour's fine. I'll find coffee after.”
“Smart. The good stuff's on the second floor anyway. Down here it's just whatever the equipment guys make, and trust me, you don't want that.”
She led me down the main hallway, pointing out rooms as we passed. “Medical on the left, that's my kingdom, don't fuck with my kingdom. Equipment storage. Visiting team facilities, whichare nice but notthatnice because we're petty like that. Main locker room's ahead.”
