I did not reply. There was nothing to add that would not become too much.
I set the phone beside me on the couch, then picked it up again almost immediately and opened the thread.
Green.
One word. Clean. Trusting. Controlled.
I sat alone in the quiet house with my dog snoring across the room and my wife hundreds of miles away, holding my phone like it had become a pulse point.
This was not a phase.
Not curiosity. Not a reaction to a dying marriage or a reckless attraction sharpened by secrecy. Not just control, not just sex, not just the relief of being wanted by someone who looked at me like instruction could be a form of shelter.
Jace had become important.
I looked at his last message until the screen dimmed.
Then I tapped it awake again.
Green.
I had spent weeks believing Jace was waiting for me.
Now, in the silence after him, I understood I had started waiting too.
Chapter 21
Chapter 21
JACE
The problem with an off day was that nobody told my brain.
My body understood it. My legs were heavy from travel and the last game. My shoulder had that deep bruise ache from taking a hit in the second period. I slept late because my phone was across the room and I hated Declan for being right about that, then liked him too much for it, then hated myself for liking him too much before I even brushed my teeth.
No rink. No meetings. No video. No schedule printed and taped to my stall. Just a whole day sitting in front of me like an open tab I couldn’t close.
By noon, I had started laundry, forgotten laundry, reheated coffee twice, answered three texts from Harper, ignored six from Vanessa, cleaned half the kitchen, lost my keys, found them in the refrigerator, and stood in the shower for too long because the water noise gave my head something steady to hold.
Vanessa called while I was eating cereal over the sink.
I let it ring.
Then I felt like garbage and called her back before I could talk myself out of it.
“Hey,” she said, bright but tight. “You alive?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was in the shower.”
It was not a lie. It just wasn’t the whole timeline.
“You’ve been in the shower for four hours?”
I closed my eyes. “No.”
“Jace.”
“I know.”
