I had built a career on reading pressure before it broke.
Tonight, I was the pressure.
The event room swallowed me back in with bright lights, clinking glasses, and voices stacked on top of one another. A regional bank executive caught me before I made it ten feet. He wanted to talk about youth outreach and community visibility and whether the organization might consider a summer clinic with their branding on the boards.
I nodded at the right times. I gave him real answers. When his wife joined us with white wine in one hand and a story about their son’s travel team, I remembered her name, asked which tournament he’d played in, and made the appropriate face when she mentioned a bad call in the semifinal.
My body knew how to be a head coach at a sponsor event.
The rest of me was still in the hallway.
Jace’s disbelief when I admitted jealousy. The flicker of heat right after, sharp and unguarded. The relief he had tried to burybecause relief made it real. His wrist under my grip, the tendons shifting when he obeyed instead of pulling away.
Lower your voice.
He had.
Not because I forced him. Not because he was weak. Because he chose to give me that piece of control, and I had no business wanting it as much as I did.
We’re past pretending it’s only control.
I’d said that too.
Out loud.
The words kept circling back, stripping away every useful excuse I had been using for weeks. Jace did better with structure. True. His brain settled when expectations were clear. True. He trusted me to push without shaming him, to correct without making him feel like everyone else’s burden.
Also true.
Still not the whole truth.
Across the room, he came back.
He didn’t look at me right away, which was somehow worse than if he had stared me down. He stepped through the doors with his suit jacket open and one hand dragging over his cuff, like he could smooth himself into place by force. Milo lifted a hand from near the dessert table. Jace answered with a smile.
Not his real one.
The real one arrived too fast, too bright, all over his face before he could stop it. This one was practiced. Polished. The version that made sponsors feel interesting and cameras feel harmless. He used it on three people in less than five minutes.
Then Roman looked at him.
Vega leaned against a cocktail table with a glass he hadn’t touched much, wearing his usual expression of exhausted tolerance. Most people saw that face and assumed he was bored.
I had coached against Roman long enough to know better.
He clocked Jace’s late smile. The way Jace reached for a drink and changed his mind. The restless drag of his thumb along the seam of his jacket pocket.
Then Roman’s attention shifted to me.
I looked away too fast.
Mistake.
Roman saw that too.
“Tough room?” Tessa asked from my left.
I hadn’t heard her approach.
