A week later, Blackridge won another home game and Jace came off the ice with his shoulder angry again.
Not reinjured.
Angry.
There was a difference, and Lauren had made me learn it.
The locker room celebration thudded through the wall while Jace sat alone on the treatment table in athletic pants, shirtless, his hair still damp with melted ice and sweat.
I cut three strips of kinesiology tape.
“You took three hard hits on that side in the third period.”
“It’s hockey.”
“It’s also your left AC joint.”
“I noticed.”
“Did you? Because you kept volunteering it to people twice your size.”
“They’re not twice my size.”
“Your medical argument is devastating.”
He gave me a tired look.
The swelling was mild compared with the opener, but the muscle around the joint had tightened. Wolves healed quickly; his range of motion had improved every day. The problem was that Jace treated fast healing as permission to be reckless.
I stepped closer.
“I’m going to anchor across the chest and shoulder blade. Sit straight.”
He did.
The angle was awkward from the side.
I moved between his knees to reach the front anchor point.
Jace went quiet.
So did I.
My fingers pressed the first strip against his upper chest.
His skin was warm.
The bond stirred.
Pine and winter frost slid into the room, softer than it had been during the injury. Not a blast. A pull.
I kept my eyes on the tape.
“Don’t move.”
“I’m not moving.”
“You’re breathing.”
“I’ll work on that.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
I guided the tape over the joint with careful tension, then around the back of his shoulder.
His hand flexed beside his thigh.
“Do you hate me?” he asked.
My fingers stopped.
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“I’m working.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I smoothed the tape down.
“You stood in a courtyard and denied me in front of the entire school.”
“I know.”
“You let your mother talk about Madison like she was already part of your future while I stood three feet away.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know.”
I reached for the second strip.
“Then why ask?”
“Because you don’t act like you hate me.”
I looked at him.
That was the problem.
If I hated him, this would be easy.
I could ignore the way his wolf settled for me. I could forget how he had let go on the ice the second I had my balance. I could dismiss the quiet version of him who appeared whenever nobody important was watching.
“I’m trying to,” I admitted.
Jace’s eyes dropped to my mouth.
“How’s that going?”
“Poorly.”
His hands moved to my waist.
The contact hit through my shirt like a spark.
My wolf surged forward.
For one dangerous second, I stayed there.
His thumbs rested just above my hips. He did not yank me closer, but the invitation was obvious.
So was the privacy.
A closed treatment room.
No parents.
No scouts.
No Madison.
I caught both his wrists.
Jace tensed.
I removed his hands from my waist and placed them on the edge of the table.
“You don’t get private privileges after a public denial.”
He went very still.
The words landed harder than I expected.
He looked at his hands, then at me.
“Ivy—”
“No.”
I stepped out from between his knees.
“You don’t get to decide I’m real only when the door is shut.”
His throat worked.
For once, he had no argument ready.
“I understand,” he said.
I did not trust the answer.
But I finished the tape.
When I stepped back, Jace rolled the shoulder once and stopped when I gave him a look.
“What?”
“You’re testing it.”
“I’m checking it.”
“That is what the post-game exam is for.”
He lowered his arm.
“I came off for two shifts tonight,” he said.
I looked up.
“Coach wanted me back out. I told him no until the ache settled.”
That was new. Jace usually treated pain as an insult to be defeated in public.
“Lauren will be thrilled you discovered self-preservation.”
“You told me one game wasn’t worth the next ten years of my shoulder.”
“I say a lot of brilliant things.”
His mouth curved.
“Apparently.”
The smile lasted only a second, but the exchange mattered. He had listened to something I said when I wasn’t touching him, threatening to report him, or standing between him and a game.
That was harder to dismiss than the bond.
I wrote the reduced pain score on his chart and circled the note for Lauren. The numbers mattered because they gave me something objective to hold on to. Jace could charm, argue, or make my wolf forget its own name, but a shoulder either improved or it did not.
Trust should work the same way, I decided. Not promises. Not chemistry. Evidence.
A minute later, footsteps thundered down the hallway.
“Callahan!” someone shouted. “Coach wants the press photo. You alive in there?”
Three of his linemates burst through the door before I could answer.
Jace had already moved.
He pulled on his shirt and sat on the bench across the room, leaving a clear, professional distance between us before anyone entered.
“There he is,” one of the defensemen said. “Golden boy lives.”
“Give me a minute,” Jace replied. “Parker just finished the tape.”
Nobody looked twice at us.
That was the point.
Jace had not scrambled away because he was ashamed to be caught near me.
He had moved because I had asked him not to blur the line.
His teammates started arguing about a missed call in the second period.
Jace stood and joined them.
Before he left, he looked back at me.
No secret smile.
No loaded comment.
Just a brief nod.
I returned it.
One decent choice did not erase the courtyard.
It did not repair trust.
But it was the first time Jace had respected a boundary without making me fight him for it.
That should not have mattered as much as it did.
