I leaned back and closed my eyes.
Control, I reminded myself, was not avoidance. It was not pretending desire vanished because I put rules around it. Control was choosing the order of necessary things.
Get home.
Get through arrival.
Let the team disperse.
Do not create an opportunity in public.
Do not seek him out.
Do not make him responsible for my lack of discipline.
The plane dipped through a bank of cloud cover on descent, and the cabin pressure changed. A few guys stirred. Seat backs came up. Phones appeared before the wheels touched the runway. The moment we landed in Denver, the usual reentry noise began. Notifications. Plans. Rides. Partners. Kids. Dogs. Real lives reattaching after forty-eight hours on the road.
I stood in the aisle and kept my attention on bags overhead, on movement, on making sure nobody left equipment behind.
Jace waited his turn instead of jamming into the aisle.
That should not have felt like a sign.
He looked tired. The kind of tired that lived under the eyes, not in the body. When he reached up for his bag, his hoodie lifted, revealing a strip of stomach above his waistband. My memory supplied skin under my hands. His breath catching.
I turned away.
At the arena, everything became easier for exactly seventeen minutes.
The building demanded tasks. Travel gear unloaded. Staff moving equipment. Players collecting personal items from stalls. Medical check-ins. Tessa chasing two guys for scheduled content with the grim efficiency of a woman who had no patience for millionaires who lost calendars. I answered questions. Approved tomorrow’s adjusted schedule. Spoke to our trainer about Brooks’s shoulder. Signed off on a community appearance I would have to attend Thursday.
Jace moved through the room like he was trying not to take up space.
That bothered me more than the usual noise.
He joked once with Milo when Milo shoved a backpack into his chest and told him to stop being weird. Jace laughed, but it landed flat. His fingers kept going to his phone, then away again. He changed out of team travel clothes into sweats, shoved his dress shoes into his bag without looking, realized one had gone into the wrong compartment, swore softly, fixed it, then stood there like he had forgotten the next step.
I almost crossed the room.
I did not.
Nothing at work.
The rule had to mean something when it was inconvenient. Especially then.
Roman said something to him. Jace nodded. Roman watched him longer than necessary before grabbing his own bag and heading out with the veterans.
One by one, the room thinned.
Jace did not come to me.
I went into my office under the pretense of collecting notes I did not need. I left the door open because closing it would have been an invitation even if neither of us named it. I set papers into a folder. Checked my email. Rearranged the folder. Checked my phone.
Nothing.
Outside the office, footsteps passed. Voices faded. A stick clattered somewhere down the hall. The arena emptied in layers, each one making the silence sharper.
I expected him.
