He stared at me like I had handed him a live wire. “You want me to run a drill.”
“I want you to set the timing. Explain the low hold and the release. If they miss it, stop it and correct it.”
“I’m not an assistant coach.”
“No. You’re the center responsible for making that line function.”
His knee started bouncing. He pressed his palm hard over it, stopped the movement, then started tapping the pen against his notebook instead. “Why?”
“Because you see it.”
“That doesn’t mean I can explain it.”
“You just did.”
“To you.”
“Yes.”
His jaw worked. “Lowell overthinks if too many people talk at him.”
“Then don’t be too many people.”
That landed. I watched it go through him, watched the argument fail because I had given him something he could not turn into rebellion.
Responsibility.
Not a lecture. Not a pat on the back. Not a punishment.
A task that mattered.
He looked toward the screen, then down at his notes, then back at me. “What exactly do you want said?”
I slid a printed sheet across the table. “Three points. No speech. Show low first. Release only after possession. If Milo curls early, reset him above the puck, don’t chase behind him.”
Jace took the sheet.
His hands were steady now.
That was the part I noticed. He had come in buzzing at the edges, wired from lack of sleep or nerves or whatever else lived under his skin. The second I gave him a defined responsibility, something in him organized around it.
Not fixed. Not calm in any permanent way.
Directed.
“I can do that,” he said.
“I know.”
He went quiet.
The words were not praise. I did not soften them. I did not make them warm.
His reaction still hit the room like I had touched him.
He looked down quickly, but not before I saw it. The flash of hunger. Not for me, not exactly, or not only. For being believed without being coddled. For being handed something fragile and expected not to break it.
It moved through me with uncomfortable force.
