I watched until Jace disappeared into the locker room, then made myself turn back to the laptop.
Professional.
Controlled.
Those words used to feel like the foundation under my feet. Lately they felt more like weight plates I had to carry around all day without letting anyone hear them clank together.
I didn’t follow him. Didn’t text. Didn’t let myself think about the smell of my shampoo in his hair or the way he’d looked in my bed that morning, half awake and warm and blinking like the world had finally slowed down enough for him to see it.
I hit play and watched our second line miss the same defensive rotation for the third time in one period.
Real life did not pause for private disasters.
By the time I made it to the coaches’ room, the rink had filled with practice-day noise. Tape tearing. Music thumping through the locker room wall. Equipment staff swearing because somebody had left wet gear zipped in a bag overnight. Skates scraping rubber flooring. Grown men pretending exhaustion was a rumor invented by weaker species.
I stood near the whiteboard with the practice plan in my hand and listened.
Some days needed volume.
Today needed attention.
Jace laughed once on the other side of the wall, bright and quick, then stopped before it tipped into too much. Another detail I had no right to collect. Another thing I filed away anyway.
A few minutes later, the locker room door opened and Roman stepped into the hall. He saw me, nodded once, then turned toward the training room.
He looked bored.
That meant nothing.
Roman Vega could look bored while the building burned down around him. His face wasn’t where he kept useful information. He kept it in who he watched, who he fed, who he pretended not to worry about.
I gave him a minute, then stepped into the hall under the excuse of checking the ice schedule posted outside the equipment room.
The locker room door hadn’t latched.
Roman’s voice came first, low and close. “You got a second?”
Jace answered, “If this is about me being early, I’m accepting apology gifts.”
“It’s not.”
The room quieted in that particular way men did when they wanted plausible deniability.
“Come here,” Roman said.
A bench creaked. Footsteps shifted toward the back corner near the goalie stalls.
I should have left.
I didn’t.
Roman said, “You texted alive. Home safe.”
Jace didn’t answer.
“Interesting choice of words.”
A quiet exhale. “Yeah.”
