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Done packing, I cranked the playlist to full before leaving my apartment complex’s parking lot, the volume loud enough to rattle the side mirrors of my overstuffed Volvo and force my brain into a narrow, manageable channel. Gerald’s carrier sat in the passenger seat, lashed down, and he spent the first five minutes howling at a frequency that set my molars on edge. Every time he opened his mouth, I shouted back, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in a rolling commentary of what we saw through the windshield. “Look, Gerald, another billboard for cowboy boots. Marvel at the architectural marvels of Kansas City. Yes, that is a real dead possum.” After a while, he quieted, maybe out of resignation or maybe just to plot my murder. I didn’t turn the music down, not even when I stopped for gas and the station attendant stared into the cab like I was running a rave for one. By the time I pulled onto the estate’s private drive, with an acre of manicured lawns, and an overly elaborate front porch leading to a front door the size of a bank vault, I was amped to a degree that no caffeine had ever managed. I switched off the ignition and listened to the ringing silence in my ears. Gerald let out a skeptical chirp, as if to say, this place? Really? “Let’s go make some friends, bud,” I told him. I meant it as a joke, but uuugh. The moment I stepped out of the car, the wind cut through my jacket and sliced all the way to the skin. The house waited, gleaming in the early winter sun, all sharp corners and endless glass. I unlatched the carrier, slung my duffel over one shoulder, and carried both up the front steps, boots echoing off the stone with every step. I’d unpack the rest later. At some point, preferably when Jax was otherwise occupied so he wouldn’t see how badly I’d overpacked. Jax opened the door before I rang the bell. He filled the frame, shoulders squared, hair freshly washed, sweatshirt clean but stretched at the collar. He looked at the carrier first, then at my face, and said, “That’s not coming in here.” I answered cheerfully. “He’s absolutely coming in here,” and walked past him, the carrier swinging at my side. He stood there for a second, then shut the door with a little more force than necessary. Inside, the mansion hummed with temperature-controlled perfection. The air smelled like filtered nothing. I set Gerald down on the entry tile and took stock of the foyer, which was as long as my entire apartment and lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that showed off a sterile, snow-dusted backyard. Not a single photograph or tchotchke anywhere, just an echo that traveled up to the second-floor gallery and back down. “Do you live here alone?” I asked, more as a statement than a question. He walked past me, not bothering to answer, and gestured for me to follow. “Tour first,” he said. “That way you don’t get lost.” Gerald meowed, sharp and decisive. Jaxson glanced at him and said, “It’s your problem if he pisses on the floor.” “Noted,” I replied and hurried after the enormous man. The tour happened at just short of a sprint. He called out room names as we passed, not really slowing. Each was a monument to emptiness. Cavernous spaces, all white and glass, a little bit of furniture arranged with mathematical accuracy. No dust, no stray sock, not even a left-behind coffee cup. The kitchen felt like it had never hosted a meal. The coffee maker was still in its original box on the counter, next to a paper towel holder with a single roll, edges perfectly aligned. I ran my hand over the marble island. Not a fingerprint. Jaxson watched me do it and smirked. “Are you expecting company?” “Just admiring the cleanliness. I’m not sure I’m allowed to breathe in here.” He moved on, not bothering to check if I was behind him. “Most people like the gym.” We stopped in a room that could have hosted the NHL draft combine. This room was fully furnished, at least. Two racks of free weights, a squat cage, a treadmill, an elliptical, and a rowing machine that belonged in a museum. I whistled, low and impressed. He didn’t comment, but he did give me half a minute to look around. Gerald was silent. I’d opened the carrier so he could investigate, and he’d already vanished into the shadows. I wasn’t worried. If he could survive a loading dock, he could survive this. The office was next. An actual office, not a home office. It boasted a desk big enough for three people, dual monitors, a set of leather guest chairs untouched by any human ass. The bookshelves held only two things. A stack of yearbooks and a glass case with a championship puck, suspended like it was on display at the Hall of Fame. No photos. No family. “You could use a plant,” I observed. “Plants die,” he said. “Next.” I kept the commentary rolling because silence in this house felt like doom. The library, yes, a separate room from the office, had shelves for a thousand books but held maybe five total, three of which were team media guides. The bowling alley was behind a door I almost missed. Two lanes, full bar, untouched. The media room was all blackout curtains and a wall-to-wall screen that would make a theater jealous. I peeked into the pool area. It was Olympic length, heated, and deep blue. I’d have to take advantage of that. He never said a word more than necessary. I filled the time with sound, naming things out loud, asking questions he never answered. “Do you swim? Do you actually use the bowling alley? When was the last time you read a book in the library?” He ignored me. We stopped in a hallway with six closed doors, all identical. “Guest suites,” he said. I made a show of peeking into one. White walls, gray duvet, a nightstand with nothing on it, not even a lamp. The closet door was open and empty. “You know most people put towels in the guest room, right?” He frowned, then shrugged. “Nobody ever stays.” I closed the door gently, as if the emptiness might be contagious. Out back, through the windows, I caught sight of a greenhouse. Long, low, and half-buried in the snow. I paused, stared. “Is that yours?” He grunted. “Supposed to be for a chef, but I don’t have one. Don’t want one.” I laughed, which bounced around the hallway and came back louder. “Have you ever been in it?” “Once.” “Dare you to go again,” I said. He gave me a look, equal parts annoyance, and something I couldn’t decode, then nodded at the end of the hall. “Your room’s this way.” We walked without talking, which was incredibly hard for me. I rolled my shoulders to work out the tension, but it stuck. The room assigned to me was the only one where someone had clearly spent more than five seconds prepping it. It might’ve been ten seconds. There was a queen bed, actually made. There was one white towel on it. A table lamp that worked on the bedside table. The closet had four hangers. It felt like a hotel, albeit a nice one. I set my duffel on the bed and looked at Jaxson, who hovered by the door. “Thanks,” I said. He gestured to the bathroom. “Full bath. If you need anything, let me know. I’m down in the basement.” He hadn’t pointed that out on the tour. “Dungeons are very in this year,” I quipped, then caught myself. “Sorry. That was—” He cut me off. “You’re fine. Just keep the cat out of my room.” I grinned. “You got it, boss.” He left, shutting the door with a sharp click. I let out a breath and turned to Gerald, who’d followed us in and had already made it to the windowsill. He was watching the backyard with predatory focus. “We did it,” I told him. “We’re officially squatters in the house of a man who could crush us with one hand.” He mrowled at me. I unpacked quickly, then snuck out to my car to get the rest, blessedly unseen by Jax. It took me all of ten minutes to put my clothes in the dresser, meds on the bathroom counter, toiletries lined up in the enormous shower. I set up Gerald’s food, water, and litter box on opposite sides of the bathroom, then the cat bed beside mine, which he’d never use. The whole time, I kept talking to him. “You think we can get him to eat a vegetable by the end of the month? Maybe a single sprig of parsley, as a treat?” He blinked slowly, then flicked his tail. I grabbed my phone and sent a text to Maya. Arrived alive. House is massive, clinical, and terrifying. Jaxson is exactly as advertised. Please advise. She replied within seconds. Don’t touch his stuff. Don’t touch him. Don’t touch anything. Noted. Will touch only the cat. Then I sat on the edge of the bed, all the adrenaline from the car ride draining out at once. Gerald hopped up, kneaded the blanket, and curled into a loaf by my knee. I stroked his head and let myself feel the strangeness of the situation. I was living in the most expensive house I’d ever seen, responsible for getting a man back on the ice, and for some reason, all I could think about was the way Jax had said “plants die.” This was fine. I could do this. It was nice, sure, but I’d stayed in hospital on-call rooms with more personality than this suite. The mattress was, as promised, above average. Not the lumpy, half-comatose kind found in staff housing or the lopsided one from my apartment, but a real, actual, perfectly supportive queen. The bedding, though so white it might have been bleached with lab chemicals, made it look more like a sample display than a thing meant for human sleep. I looked for a charging port and found none. The lamp’s cord was wound up and zip tied. The attached bathroom was nearly a parody of minimalist hygiene. A glass shower, chrome fixtures, and not so much as a single towel or tissue, other than the one left on the bed. The vanity’s drawers were empty. The echo was so sharp that when I coughed once, a little dry-throat tickle, it bounced straight back in a way that made me instantly decide not to clear my throat ever again. The toilet had clearly never been used. I made a note to buy a bathmat and maybe some actual color for the walls, if only to keep myself from hallucinating in the middle of the night. Back in the bedroom, Gerald was already stretched across the foot of the bed, paws extended, the picture of feline arrogance. He blinked at me, unimpressed by the new digs, then licked one paw and flopped onto his side. I envied the transition. I turned on my playlist softly, a bit of white noise against the nothing, then checked the window, half expecting a surveillance drone for security. Nope. Just the greenhouse and the snow. And us. We could do this. The evening rolled in fast, cold and insistent at the windows, while the mansion’s climate controls pumped out a steady, impersonal comfort. I’d been in the guest room for an hour and had already rearranged the pillows twice, set up Gerald’s three beds in three different locations, and moved my duffels to three different corners of the suite before admitting that none of it mattered. Gerald preferred the end of the bed. He ignored the expensive cat beds with a disdain that was wholly catlike. I spent twenty minutes catching up on charts and answering emails I’d flagged as urgent three days ago. I sent my sister a selfie of myself and Gerald, then sat on the edge of the bed and stretched. By the time my phone pinged with a new message from Maya, I realized I was hungry. Not just hungry, but hollow, restless hunger that follows an adrenaline crash. Right on cue, there was a knock on the bedroom door. I opened it quickly. Jaxson stood there, phone in hand. He didn’t make eye contact, just kept looking at his phone. He said, “What do you want from the Chinese place?” For a second, I forgot how to answer. He’d caught me mid-thought, halfway between wanting to eat and wanting to avoid him at all costs. My mouth worked before my brain caught up. “Pepper chicken, white rice, two egg rolls.” My answer came out fast, the way I’d rattle off a med order to a nurse. Jaxson didn’t react. He just typed it in with his thumb, then looked up at me for half a second. “Okay,” he said, and turned to go. His steps faded down the hall, even and slow. The silence after was more noticeable than the conversation itself. I closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling. Gerald was at my feet, studying me with the same judgmental stare he’d given the empty food bowl that morning. I picked him up, cradled him against my chest, and paced the room until he started purring. His heartbeat was so fast I could feel it in my palm. I set him on the comforter and sat down at the desk, pulling up a player recovery spreadsheet I’d been building for the team. My brain tried to fill the quiet with medical trivia, but I kept circling back to the bizarre lack of social etiquette. Jaxson had gone out of his way to avoid me all day, but still knocked on my door to take a dinner order. It made no sense, but it also made perfect sense. He was managing the situation on his terms, as best he could. Twenty minutes later, I heard the doorbell. It didn’t just ring, oh no, it played the Glaciers fight-song riff that echoed through the halls. I waited, listening to the sequence of events. The front door, the muted voices, the shuffle of a takeout bag being set on the counter. Then, nothing. No footsteps coming my way. I waited five more minutes, to see if there’d be a second knock. There wasn’t. I checked my phone, found no texts. I left Gerald in the guest room and walked out into the hall. The house was dark except for the kitchen, where the pendant lights over the island created a pool of pale blue. The counter was perfectly clean except for two white takeout containers and a paper plate, napkin, and plastic fork set out beside mine. Jaxson’s food was nowhere in sight. Neither was Jaxson. I waited, unsure if I should eat at the counter or retreat with my food like a raccoon. He didn’t need physio tonight. We’d start tomorrow, so I went for speed, grabbed my containers, stacked the plate, and made a silent dash back to my room. Gerald met me at the door, tail held high. I set the food on the desk, plated up a modest portion, and sat cross-legged on the comforter with the laptop perched on the bed beside me. I queued up a random documentary, with enough background noise to let my brain power down. The pepper chicken was exactly as bland as I expected. I fed Gerald tiny shreds, making him chase them across the comforter so he’d burn a calorie or two. He destroyed the bit of egg roll, then tried to climb the plate for more. I gave him another bite, then cut him off. I wasn’t about to spend the first night in this mausoleum cleaning up cat vomit. Halfway through the meal, I got a text from Vincent, reminding me about my morning check-in. I stuck my tongue out at the phone. Somewhere in the house, a door shut hard enough to rattle the walls. For a second, I thought Jaxson might show up and demand to know why I’d fled the kitchen, but he stayed wherever he was. Likely in his basement lair. I imagined blackout curtains and a silent TV. I pictured him eating his food straight from the container, not even bothering with a plate. Maybe not even using utensils. I finished dinner in under ten minutes, stacked the trash neatly, and set it outside my door for the morning. Gerald curled up on my feet, purring so loud the laptop speakers couldn’t compete. I lay back on the comforter, hands folded on my chest, and watched the documentary flicker by in the blue-lit dark. My mind refused to stop spinning. Tomorrow, I’d force Jaxson to start the rehab plan. No more tiptoeing or letting him control the narrative. I’d drag him out of bed, ice his shoulder, tape him up, and make him follow every rep of the routine. If he wanted a wall, I’d become a sledgehammer. To that note, I pulled out my phone and texted Jax. Tomorrow 7am, gym? K. Geez, he was so chatty. I wasn’t about to let my first big-league assignment turn into a two-week paid vacation for a stubborn man-child with a shoulder separation. Gerald snuggled up higher, a warm ball pressed against my ribs. I stroked his ears until he drifted off, and let my thoughts drift, too.