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.

The hydrotherapy room was cold enough to make my teeth hurt.

Jace sat chest-deep in a steel recovery tub while ice floated around his ribs. His left shoulder stayed above the water, taped and protected. My phone counted down beside my AP Biology book.

“One minute, twenty-eight seconds,” I said.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m studying mitochondria.”

“While I die.”

“Very educational.”

He glared at me over the rim of the tub.

I highlighted another sentence.

“One minute, twelve.”

“You have no empathy.”

“I have empathy for athletes who follow the plan.”

“I followed the plan.”

“You took three extra shifts after Lauren told you to reduce your minutes.”

“We were tied.”

“And now your shoulder is in a bucket of ice.”

His mouth twisted.

“You’re impossible, Parker.”

“So I’ve heard.”

The room settled into the hum of the circulating pump.

No parents.

No teammates.

No Madison.

Just Jace turning blue and me pretending I could focus on cellular respiration.

“You ignored me all day,” he said.

I looked up.

“What?”

“In the cafeteria. Between second and third period. After chemistry.”

“You were counting?”

“I noticed.”

“I was busy.”

“You walked past me close enough to hit my shoulder.”

“I would never risk the paperwork.”

That earned a short laugh.

He leaned his head back against the steel rim.

“You’re really going to keep doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Acting like I don’t exist outside rehab.”

I capped my highlighter.

“You were very clear at the Moon Match Ceremony.”

His smile disappeared.

“I’m respecting your public statement.”

“Are you going to hold that against me forever?”

“Until graduation seems reasonable.”

I expected another sarcastic answer.

Instead, Jace went still.

“Only until graduation?”

The question changed the room.

I stared at him.

He was not joking.

For the first time, he sounded as if he had imagined a version of his life that continued after Blackridge and still included me.

My pulse jumped.

The alarm saved me.

I snatched the phone off the counter.

“Time.”

Jace gripped the rails and pulled himself up.

Water streamed down his chest and soaked his shorts. The cold had stiffened him, and he was protecting the left side without realizing it.

“Slow down,” I warned.

“I’m fine.”

His foot hit the wet rubber mat.

It slid.

Jace pitched backward toward the edge of the steel tub.

I reacted without thinking.

I grabbed his right forearm with both hands.

It was stupid physics.

He outweighed me by at least seventy pounds.

Instead of stopping him, I got pulled down too.

My back hit the mat.

Jace twisted at the last second and braced his right arm beside my head so he did not land on me.

Cold water soaked through my shirt.

I sucked in a breath.

Then realized where we were.

Jace hovered over me.

My palm was flat against his bare chest.

His right arm held most of his weight. His left hand had landed at my waist, fingers spread against my side.

His heart hammered under my hand.

The mate bond flared.

Pine and frost flooded the small room.

My wolf answered with a low, pleased hum.

Jace’s eyes flashed gold.

Neither of us moved.

His thumb made one slow pass against my waist.

Not an accident.

“Jace,” I whispered.

The hydrotherapy door opened.

“Your mother needs to know if—”

Madison stopped.

Silence dropped between all three of us.

She looked at me on the floor.

Then at Jace above me.

Then at his hand on my waist.

“Am I interrupting something?”

I pulled my hand off his chest.

Jace got up first and offered me his good hand.

I ignored it and pushed myself to sitting.

Every instinct in me expected him to laugh.

Explain.

Tell Madison I slipped and it meant nothing.

That was what public Jace always did.

He said nothing.

He did not deny the scent choking the room.

He did not tell Madison she had misunderstood.

He stood between us dripping onto the floor, breathing hard, and let the truth exist.

Madison’s expression changed by degrees.

The polished irritation left first.

Then the certainty.

What remained was recognition.

She finally saw what the courtyard denial had hidden.

The bond was not broken.

Jace’s wolf wanted me.

And, worse for both of us, some part of Jace did too.

Madison looked at my wet clothes, then at his bare chest.

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” she said.

Her calm frightened me more than shouting would have.

Madison did not make scenes.

She collected information.

The door closed behind her.

I got to my feet and wrung water from the hem of my shirt.

Jace stared at the door.

“She’s going to tell your mother,” I said.

“Probably.”

“And then?”

Jace dragged a towel over his hair with his good hand. He did not look at me when he answered.

“Then my mother does what she always does. She decides which version of the story she can control.”

“Which version is that?”

“That you’re a temporary complication.”

The words should have hurt more than they did. Maybe because he sounded disgusted by them too.

I crossed my arms.

“Are you going to correct her?”

His gaze lifted to mine.

The hesitation was small.

I still saw it.

“If she asks me what happened in here, I won’t lie.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

“That is not the same thing as telling the truth before you’re cornered.”

Jace flinched.

Good.

He needed to understand the difference.

“You sound calm,” I said.

“I’m not.”

For once, I believed him.

The bond pulsed between us, warm and exposed.

Jace took one step toward me, then stopped himself.

“Ivy, if tomorrow gets ugly—”

“Don’t.”

He frowned.

“Do not make me another promise in a locked room,” I said. “If you want me to believe something, do it where people can see you.”

His face tightened.

“Fair.”

Yesterday it had belonged to treatment rooms and accidental touches.

Now Madison had seen it with her own eyes.

By tomorrow, whatever happened between Jace and me would no longer be a private problem.