Page 165 of Wild Card 13

“That’s common sense.”

Inside, Matt’s wrapped around us the way it always did. Warm. Dim. Alive without being loud. A couple televisions played in the corners with the volume low enough to ignore. People sat over baskets, beers, and water glasses, voices blending into the low hum of a room that let you exist without asking for a performance.

Marlene spotted us before we made it three steps. Her eyes went to my mother first, then Grandma Ruth, then Dad and Grandpa Hal. Then me. Then Lucy. Marlene’s expression shifted by approximately one molecule. “Burnses,” she chuckled.

“Hi, Marlene,” Mom replied warmly.

Marlene’s gaze stayed on Lucy for another beat. “Been a while.”

Lucy’s shoulders drew back. “It has.”

Marlene grabbed a stack of menus nobody needed and nodded toward the back corner. “Big table’s open.”

“Perfect,” Mom said.

“Waters?” Marlene asked.

“Please,” Lucy said.

Marlene looked at me. “Jucy Lucys?”

I nodded. “For the table.”

“Fries?”

“Three, please.”

Marlene turned toward the grill without writing anything down.

“She hasn’t changed,” Lucy murmured.

“Nope.”

Neither have you, I wanted to say.

Except she had. That was what kept catching me wrong. Lucy slid out of her coat near the table, careful and composed, emerald blazer beneath it, glasses slipping slightly down her nose as she draped the coat over the back of a chair. Adult Lucy. Professional Lucy. The woman who had run a whole event that morning like pressure was something she had been born knowing how to hold.

Then Grandma Ruth touched her elbow and fussed with the sleeve of her blazer like Lucy was still eighteen and too cold in a hockey rink. Just for a second. Long enough to wreck me.

“Sit here, sweetheart,” Mom said, pulling out a chair.

Lucy moved toward it, but Grandma Ruth immediately set her tote on the seat.

“Oh,” Ruth said, not sounding sorry at all. “I need this side for my hip.”

My mother slid smoothly into the chair beside the blocked one. “Lucy, why don’t you sit there?”

There happened to be the chair beside mine.

Subtlety had never been the Burns family’s strongest tradition.

Lucy looked at the arrangement. Then at my mother. Then at Grandma Ruth, who was now very busily removing a container of fudge from her tote despite no one having asked for more fudge.

I pressed my lips together.

Lucy sat beside me.

I tried not to look amused.