Page 239 of Wild Card 13

No clever second line.

No glance over his shoulder designed to ruin my ability to function.

Just his footsteps moving down the hall while Dottie licked whipped cream from a cup labeled with her name like she had personally negotiated a sponsorship.

I stood there holding the coffee.

The arena continued around me. A cart rattled somewhere. Voices passed in the corridor. My computer chimed with a new email. Dottie’s tongue made an undignified sound against paper.

I looked down at her. “You folded immediately.”

She did not care.

“You have no principles.”

Dottie’s tail wagged. She pushed the empty cup across the floor with her nose, checking for leftovers.

I looked at the coffee again.

The thing about grand gestures was that they gave you something to reject.

Flowers could be thrown away. Speeches could be dismantled. Apologies could be examined for weak points until they collapsed under the weight of insufficient precision.

But coffee from the place my best friend owned, made exactly the way I liked it, brought to my office without a note, without a demand, without an audience, without even stepping past the threshold?

By late morning,the caffeine had done its best with the poor materials available to it.

I made progress on actual work. Not flawless progress. But enough that my inbox stopped looking like it wanted to press charges. Dottie fell asleep on her bed with her paws twitching, probably dreaming of abandoning me for whipped cream. I signed off on two travel adjustments, forwarded a facilities issue to the correct department, and moved the Charlotte folder into the corner of my desk where I could see it without letting it take up the entire room.

At eleven twenty-six, my father called. My office phone. Which meant owner business.

“Lucy Thomas.”

“Come upstairs when you have a minute,” Dad said.

I sat a little straighter. “Is something wrong?”

“No.”

The line clicked off.

I stared at the receiver.

Dottie opened one eye.

“That was either reassuring or ominous,” I told her.

She closed her eye again.

The owner’s suite sat above the main executive level, tucked beyond a corridor most people in the building did not enter unless they had a badge, an appointment, or the kind of confidence that usually came with expensive attorneys. I had been there plenty of times, of course. I had grown up in arenas. I had done homework in rooms like this, eaten vending machine dinners on leather couches, watched Dad take calls that made adults lower their voices when they passed by.

Dad had never been a gold-fixtures man. His office suite was all dark wood, clean glass, framed black-and-white hockey photographs, and windows overlooking the arena bowl. The furniture was expensive, but not showy. Built to last. Built to survive men who forgot how heavy they were when they dropped into chairs after games.

There was a photo of Arlo and me on one shelf from a summer trip years ago, both of us sunburned, squinting, and pretending not to be happy. Another of Dad and Lo at some Frosthawks charity event, Lo laughing at something while Dad looked at her like she had interrupted a war he had been willing to lose. A framed jersey from his playing days hung along the far wall, the number sharp beneath museum glass.

His desk faced the room instead of the window. Dad liked to see the door.

He stood when I came in, phone in one hand, reading glasses in the other. He wore a charcoal suit with no tie, the top button of his white shirt undone. He looked like ownership had been built around him rather than the other way around.