I stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind me.
The click was soft.
Jace heard it like a gunshot.
The room was suddenly too small for both of us. No rink glass. No players. No plausible reason for the way his attentiondragged over me and stuck. My hands, when I set my folder on the table. My forearms, the tattoos exposed below my sleeves. My mouth, for one dangerous second before he forced his eyes back to mine.
I noticed every inch of that noticing.
“You did get it right,” I said.
His breathing changed. “Not all of it.”
“Enough for today.”
“That’s not how my head works.”
“I’m aware.”
“No, you’re not.” He stood, too fast, chair legs scraping. “You think because you can say a thing and I listen, that means it’s handled. It’s not handled. I’ll go home and keep seeing the clip anyway. I’ll lie in bed and fix it six different ways and forget three things I’m actually supposed to do tomorrow because this one thing is still open.”
The honesty stripped the irritation out of me.
I kept my voice level. “Then write down the next step.”
He stared.
“Not all six. One. The next action for tomorrow.”
His throat moved. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He looked like he wanted to argue because it was too simple, because simple did not mean easy, because his brain was already trying to outrun the instruction.
But he sat.
He wrote one line.
Show low before delay. Wait for Lowell’s possession.
The handwriting was rougher than this morning.
He capped the pen and looked up at me.
The air between us had no safe place to go.
I should have opened the door. I should have told him to leave, gone home, called Olivia, fed Tiny, remembered the shape of my own life.
Instead, I stood there.
Jace’s gaze dropped to my hand again. Not long. Long enough.
I felt it like contact.
“You gave me Lowell today,” he said quietly.
“I did.”
