“Jace—”
“But here's the thing.” I turned to face him. “It's not working. So whatever wall you're building right now, you're building it for yourself. Not for me.”
Something moved across his face. He looked away.
I waited until he looked back. “You're not just scared of what could happen. You're scared of something that already happened. Something you haven't told me.” I stepped closer. “So stop running from it and just say it.”
“It doesn't matter?—”
“It does to me.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “You want me to walk away? Fine. Give me a real reason. Not the job, not the rules, not the optics. The actual reason.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and I watched something war across his face — the urge to shut down, to deflect, to keep it locked somewhere it couldn't hurt anyone.
Then something in him gave. Not dramatically. Just quietly, like a door he'd been holding shut finally swinging open on its own weight. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat down, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor.
“There was a player,” he said. “Young. Struggling. I tried to help him.”
My chest went tight. “Help him how?”
“The way a coach is supposed to.” He ran both hands through his hair. “Extra ice time. Film sessions. Checking in when he seemed off. I thought I was doing my job. Thought I was being a good coach.”
“What happened?”
“He spiraled anyway. Started missing practices, showing up drunk, picking fights. And people saw us together too much. Saw me staying late with him. Saw the closed-door meetings. Started talking. Started assuming.”
“Assuming what?”
“That I was sleeping with him.” He said it bluntly. “That I was the reason he was falling apart instead of the reason I was trying to keep him together. It didn't matter that nothing happened. It didn't matter that I never touched him, never crossed that line. What mattered was how it looked.”
I stared at his back. “So you got fired for something you didn't do.”
“I got fired because perception is reality in this business.” His shoulders were rigid. “Someone saw something—him leaving my office late, maybe, or me with my hand on his shoulder. Something innocent that looked like something else. And once the whispers started, the organization had to act. So they buried it. Fired me quietly. Traded him. Made it all go away.”
“But you didn't do anything wrong.”
“I got too close.” He finally turned to face me, and his eyes were haunted. “Maybe I didn't cross the line, but I got close enough that people could draw their own conclusions. And in the end, that was enough to destroy everything.” His voice cracked slightly. “So I swore I'd never let myself get close to a player again. Never create that appearance. Never give anyone a reason to whisper.” He paused. “And then I met you.”
The silence that fell was different now. Heavier. Full of all the things we'd been avoiding.
“So that's why,” I said quietly. “That's why you've been such a bastard. Because you think I'm going to be another mistake.”
“You're not a mistake.” He turned to face me, and the look in his eyes was so raw it made my chest ache. “That's the problem. If you were a mistake, this would be easier. But you're not. You're brilliant and talented and you're breaking yourself trying to be perfect, and every time I look at you I see him and I can't—” His voice broke. “I can't do that again.”
I stared at him, and something in my chest cracked open.
“I'm not him,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. “I'm not whoever that player was. I'm not going to fall apart because of this.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” I stepped closer, and he didn't move away. “You want to know why I've been a mess? It's not because of you. It's because I've been lying to everyone—including myself—for years.”
His eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”
“I'm gay, Coach. And I've been hiding it since I was fifteen because being gay in hockey is a fucking death sentence. You think you're protecting me by staying away? You think distance is going to keep me safe?” I laughed. “I’ve been unsafe my entire fucking career. Every time I step on the ice. Every time I do an interview. Every time I smile for the cameras and let them sell the image of the perfect golden boy who definitely fucks women and definitely isn't a problem.”
His face had gone pale.
“You want to know what keeps me up at night?” I continued. “It's not you. It's the thought that someone's going to find out. That one picture, one rumor, one fucking screenshot is going to end everything. My career. My endorsements. My family's pride. Everything I've worked for since I was a kid.”
