Jace woke up with Tiny’s paw on his ribs and my hand on the back of his neck.
For a few seconds, he didn’t move. His breathing changed first, that slow shift from sleep to awareness, then his fingers flexed against the sheet. His hair was wrecked, flattened on one side, sticking up on the other. There was a pillow crease along his cheek and a faint frown between his brows like even unconsciousness had been mildly irritating.
Tiny snored directly into his stomach.
Jace opened one eye. Looked down.
“Your dog is committing a felony.”
I kept my voice low. “He missed you.”
“He saw me eight hours ago.”
“Long night for him.”
“It was a long night for all of us. I didn’t climb onto his organs.”
Tiny twitched in his sleep, paw pressing harder.
Jace wheezed. “Declan.”
I slid my arm around Tiny’s chest and tried to shift him. He became liquid, somehow tripling in weight.
“Tiny,” I said.
The dog opened his eyes, gave me the exhausted look of a man being asked to work on his day off, and placed his chin more firmly on Jace.
Jace stared at the ceiling. “This is how I die. Not a dirty hit. Not a skate blade. Crushed in bed by a codependent cow.”
I laughed into his shoulder.
He turned his head toward me, and for one brief second the morning stayed soft. No rink. No Olivia’s absence pressing against the walls. No Vanessa, no Roman, no management, no policies, no headlines waiting in the dark. Just Jace in my bed, warm and rumpled, looking at me like he’d forgotten to put anything between his face and what he felt.
Then he smiled, small and sleepy.
It hit me harder than waking up alone ever had.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Yes. Immediately. Before I start saying things with consequences.”
“You already do that without coffee.”
“Imagine the danger level uncaffeinated.”
Getting out of bed required negotiating with Tiny, who protested with a groan that sounded too human to be ignored. Jace sat up slowly, rubbing both hands over his face, then stopped halfway like he’d lost the thread of the movement. His gaze flicked around the room once.
I saw the moment reality came back.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. It slipped in through the ordinary things. His clothes on the floor. My shirt half under the dresser. The bedroom door open because Tiny had forced his way in sometime before dawn. The quiet house where my wife no longer was.
Jace swallowed and reached for his phone on the nightstand.
Then he stopped himself.
I watched his thumb hover over the screen.
He put it back down, face tight with effort. “No scrolling before food.”
