Jace glanced back. “If someone comes in?”
“Then we’re talking.”
“About what?”
I stopped near the chair with his jacket. “Not hockey.”
His mouth moved like he almost laughed. “That narrows it down to literally everything else.”
Then he faced the city again.
Traffic moved below us in red and white streams. His shoulders were tight. His hands stayed buried in his pockets, but I could see the movement through the fabric. Fingers flexing. Releasing. Flexing again.
“I think about you constantly,” he said.
No warning. No attempt to make it easier for either of us.
My throat closed around the first response and killed it.
Jace kept going before I could find another. “Not in a fun way. Not like a thing I can use when I’m bored and then shoveback in a drawer. It’s at practice. At home. In the middle of conversations. Vanessa will be talking about some brand trip, and I’m standing there trying to listen, trying really fucking hard, and my brain is running three tracks at once, and one of them is always you.” He breathed out through his nose. “My dad asked how the new coach was working out, and I almost dropped a plate.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
“I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad,” he said.
“It does.”
“Yeah.” His reflection shifted as he swallowed. “Same.”
That was the part that cut deepest. He wasn’t careless. Impulsive, yes. Messy when overloaded. Too fast when emotion got ahead of him. But not careless. He knew there were people attached to us. He knew wanting something didn’t erase the damage of taking it.
“I’m losing objectivity,” I said.
He turned then.
“I know when you’ve eaten. I know when you’re close to overload. I know which tone gets through and which one makes you shut down. I notice who touches you before I notice who’s open on a breakout in film.” My voice stayed low, but that didn’t make any of it less damning. “That’s not acceptable from your coach.”
“No.”
“I control your ice time. Your development. Your discipline. I have authority over your career.”
“I know.”
“And you respond to that authority in ways I have no right to want.”
His breath changed.
There it was, stripped of the hallway and anger and jealousy. No confrontation to hide behind. No adrenaline to blame. Just the truth standing between us in a quiet hotel lounge after midnight.
Jace took one step toward me.
Not a challenge. Not one of his impulsive lunges toward chaos.
Deliberate.
That was worse.
“You know what happens when you tell me what to do,” he said.
