“Maybe.” His fingers found mine under the blanket. “Not this morning.”
I held his hand and let that be enough for the hour we had.
Outside, the day kept arriving. Inside, he stayed. And for the first time in years, my house felt less like a place I maintained and more like a place where someone had finally come home, even if neither of us had earned the right to call it that yet.
Chapter 25
Chapter 25
DECLAN
Jace arrived at the rink seventeen minutes earlier than the buffer I’d been trying to drill into him for weeks.
I knew because I’d been in my office since six-thirty, video paused on my laptop, coffee cold beside my hand, and Tiny’s dog hair stuck to the hem of my black practice pants from where he’d leaned his entire massive body against me before I left the house.
Seventeen minutes shouldn’t have meant much.
It did.
Jace came through the staff entrance with his backpack hanging off one shoulder, hair still damp from the shower he’d taken at my place, hoodie crooked at the collar, phone already in his hand. He stopped just inside the door.
Not because he’d forgotten where he was going.
Because he was doing what I’d told him in the kitchen before we left separately.
Pause. Check. Then move.
Keys. Phone. Wallet. Practice bag.
He touched each pocket once. Not six times. Took one breath. Walked on.
It wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a cure. He’d have bad mornings again. He’d lose time. He’d forget something important because his brain had grabbed hold of the wrong thread and sprinted.He’d get overstimulated and short-tempered and ashamed afterward.
But this morning, his shoulders sat lower.
His mouth was quiet without being clamped shut.
When Benny Lasker came around the corner carrying a protein shake in one hand and a pastry bag in the other, Jace sidestepped him without making a comment about eating like a hungover raccoon.
Benny stopped, looked down at his bag, then after Jace. “Did Holloway just let my breakfast live?”
Milo Danvers appeared behind him wearing one skate guard despite being nowhere near the ice. “Maybe he’s sick.”
Benny stared at his foot. “Why are you wearing that?”
Milo looked down. “Preparedness.”
“You drove here.”
“Road conditions are unpredictable.”
“You look like a penguin who lost a fight with a Roomba.”
Jace glanced back. A small smile broke through. “That’s disrespectful to penguins.”
Then he kept moving.
Benny pointed after him. “Not sick. Still mean.”
