Jace broke in my arms without warning.
Not dramatically. Not the way people broke in movies, with clean sobs and pretty grief. It came out of him jagged and disorganized, like his body had been holding too many signals for too long and finally lost the ability to sort them. His hands clenched in the back of my shirt. His forehead hit my shoulder. He shook once, hard enough that Tiny whined against his leg.
“I’ve got you,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You’re inside. Door’s locked. Feet on the floor. My hand on your back.”
He dragged in air, but it caught halfway.
“Again,” I said. “Don’t make it good. Just make it happen.”
His breath came rough against my neck.
“That’s it.”
“I hurt her,” he got out.
“I know.”
“She looked at me like I was a stranger.”
I held the back of his neck, thumb steady against the tense muscle there. “You told her enough truth to end it.”
“Not all of it.”
“No.”
His fingers tightened.
“I’m not going to dress that up for you,” I said. “But you did not keep her in it another month because facing this felt awful. That matters.”
“It doesn’t feel like it matters.”
“Not tonight.”
Tiny shoved his head between us as if emotional distress required his personal inspection. Jace gave a wet, broken laugh into my shirt when the dog’s jowls smashed against his hip.
“Tiny,” I said.
Tiny ignored me, leaned harder, and licked Jace’s wrist.
“Jesus,” Jace muttered. “Your dog is damp.”
“He’s committed.”
Jace’s laugh cracked apart again, and I shifted, bringing him in tighter. I had held injured teammates on the ice. My brothers after bad calls from home. Olivia once, years ago, in an airport when her mother had surgery and she couldn’t get a flight out until morning.
This was different.
Not because Jace needed more. Because I wanted to give more than I had any right to give.
“Look at me,” I said.
It took him a second. He lifted his head, eyes red, face drawn with exhaustion and guilt. He looked twenty-three in that moment, not young in a childish way, but young enough that the weight he was carrying pissed me off at the world, at myself, atevery decision that had led him to my front hall trembling in a jacket that still smelled like cold air.
“You are not too much because you’re having a bad night,” I said.
His mouth twisted.
“Don’t argue with me in your head.”
