She folded a blazer carefully. “Player issue?”
“Yes.”
“Same player?”
I didn’t answer quickly enough.
Olivia’s hands paused, then continued. “You get like this when you think someone is a problem you can solve if you just find the right angle.”
“He’s not a problem.”
She looked at me with mild surprise.
I rubbed a hand over my beard. “He’s a player who needs consistency.”
“That sounds less catchy.”
I managed a faint smile.
She came over and kissed the top of my head, a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache. “Don’t forget that you’re allowed to come home from work, Dec.”
“I know.”
But after she went back to packing, my mind was in my office again.
Sit.
Look at me.
Stop interrupting.
And Jace obeying each time like the command had found a place in him no one else had reached.
Across town, I knew nothing about Jace’s night.
I did not know that Vanessa sat across from him on his couch with takeout containers on the coffee table, watching him miss half of what she said.
“You’re somewhere else,” she told him.
He blinked at her, guilt already rising because she was right. “Sorry.”
“Is it practice?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “Coach got on me.”
“You always say that like you hate it.”
He didn’t answer.
Vanessa’s expression shifted, not suspicious, just tired and a little hurt. “I’m not asking for secrets. I just want to know where you go when you leave the room but your body stays here.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. “I don’t know.”
It was the second time in one day he had said it, and meant it.
Later, after Olivia’s suitcase was zipped and Tiny had given up trying to climb inside it, after the house went dark and quiet, I lay awake beside my wife and stared at the ceiling.
My phone was on the nightstand.
