He looked down at his plate, then at Tiny, then back at me. “I want that so badly it’s embarrassing.”
“It isn’t.”
“It kind of is. I play in front of twenty thousand people for a living, and apparently my big fantasy is buying cereal with you and arguing over toilet paper brands.”
“We’d argue over more than that.”
“Obviously. You probably buy responsible bread.”
“I buy normal bread.”
“You buy bread with visible seeds.”
“It’s good.”
“It looks like it was made during a punishment.”
I smiled, but it didn’t hold for long. Neither did his.
The room didn’t change, but the air did. We both felt it. The morning couldn’t stay suspended forever.
Jace pushed eggs around his plate. “We can’t keep doing it like this.”
“No.”
He nodded once, too fast, then made himself take a breath. “Olivia knows there’s someone. Vanessa knows enough to hate me properly. Roman knows enough to watch me like I’m a loose grenade. The only people who don’t know are the ones who can actually destroy us professionally.”
“That’s the part we have to handle carefully.”
He rubbed at his jaw, stubble rasping under his fingers. “Carefully meaning what? We pretend until we get caught? We confess to ownership and hope they appreciate honesty? I’m not being sarcastic. I genuinely don’t know the adult sequence here.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
That admission cost more than I expected.
Jace looked at me. “You always know the sequence.”
“No. I know systems. This isn’t one I can run by instinct.”
He nodded again, slower this time. “Because you’re my coach.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s not a detail. That’s the whole land mine.”
I took a drink of coffee I didn’t want. “If we go to the wrong person first, it becomes a personnel issue before we understand our options.”
“If we go to no one, it becomes a scandal when someone else notices.”
“Exactly.”
“Roman?” he asked, but I heard the doubt in it before he finished the name.
I shook my head. “I trust Roman with your life. I don’t think he’s the first person for this.”
Jace’s mouth pressed together, but he didn’t argue. “He’d react as my friend.”
“He should. That’s his place.”
