Now and then Olivia laughed at the show. I asked what I’d missed. She explained. We were easy together in the way people became after years of shared space.
Easy was not the same as close.
When we went to bed, she kissed me softly and said, “I’m glad to be home.”
I said, “Me too.”
Both of us meant it.
Neither of us reached for more.
The next afternoon, Holloway arrived for private video three minutes early with his notebook, two pens, and a protein bar sticking out of his hoodie pocket.
Tiny, who had spent the morning acting devoted to Olivia, immediately lumbered to him and planted himself across Jace’s sneakers.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
Jace looked down. “He respects greatness.”
“He respects crumbs.”
“I do have crumbs.” Jace pulled the protein bar out. “Not for you, big man. Coach will murder me.”
“I’ll make Benny do it. He has experience betraying me.”
Jace laughed under his breath and stepped carefully around Tiny, then sat at the small table facing the monitor. He bounced one heel, opened his notebook, closed it, opened it again.
I let him settle for a moment.
“Second-period clips from last game,” I said. “We’re looking at controlled patience through the neutral zone.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“It will be survivable.”
“Barely.”
I played the first clip. He followed. Answered well. Jumped too far ahead once, then corrected himself before I had to. On the third clip, his energy began to scatter. He leaned forward, talking faster.
“If their F2 pinches and the D gaps up, then I can cut underneath, unless Milo’s late, which he will be because he loves drama, but if I pull the weak-side D toward me, Lowell has thelane, except if Lowell does that thing where he hesitates because he thinks too much about thinking, then maybe I should just carry it and force them to decide.”
“Holloway.”
He didn’t hear me. Or heard and didn’t stop. His pen moved across the paper in short, jagged marks that might have been notes or just pressure given ink.
“And if I change speed before the blue line, I can get their feet crossed, but the issue is timing because if I go too early you’ll tell me again, and I know, I know, support first, but sometimes the window is there for half a second and if I don’t take it, it’s gone, and then everyone acts like the safe play was smarter just because it was safer, which is not always the same thing.”
“Stop.”
The word landed flat.
Jace stopped.
Not gradually. Not with one last sentence dragging behind him. His mouth closed. His pen froze against the page.
The room went silent except for Tiny’s breathing near the door and the low hum of the monitor.
Jace stared at the screen, then slowly turned his head toward me.
