Page 255 of Wild Card 13

Ty’s smile came and went. Then he looked at me, softening again. “Have a good day, Luce.”

My throat tightened.

I could have said thank you. It sat there, waiting, simple and deserved. But thanking him felt too clean. Too tidy. As if I were accepting a gift instead of participating in a ritual that was doing something to both of us.

So I lifted the coffee. “Tell Coach the playoff math looks less depressing if he stops staring at it.”

Ty’s eyes warmed. “I’ll pass that along.”

Then he left.

No extra line.

No lingering look designed to make my pulse misbehave.

Just Ty stepping back into the hallway while Dottie licked whipped cream from a paper cup and my half-finished sketch of his lake sat exposed on my desk.

Bea waited until his footsteps faded. Then she coughed, “Well.”

I looked at the Paper Lantern logo on the cup. “Do not.”

She held up both hands. “I won’t.”

The routine did not get biggerafter that. A fact that made it dangerous.

Ty did not start texting me good morning. He did not ask if I liked the coffee. He did not turn every cup into a conversation. He did not use Dottie as an excuse to hover in my office, which wasannoying because Dottie would have absolutely supported him in that betrayal if whipped cream remained involved.

On my off days, nothing came. Not a cup at my apartment door. Not a cup sent to Naomi’s back table when I worked from Paper Lantern. Not a casual text that pretended not to be checking whether I was thinking about him.

He let my life remain mine.

Then, on mornings I was at the arena and he was not, coffee appeared anyway. Sometimes at my desk. Sometimes with Sarah, who handed it off without comment because Sarah could run an organization during a power outage and still respect a private emotional crisis.

Once, with Rusty, who stared at the cup like it might explode.

“Burns said this was yours,” he said.

“It is.”

“Dog thing too.”

Dottie, who had been asleep until the exact second Rusty entered, rose from her bed with priestly purpose.

Rusty looked down at her. “You people are weird.”

“Yes,” I giggled, taking the cups. “Thank you.”

He left muttering something about hockey players and whipped cream.

The Frosthawks kept losing games they needed and winning games too late to make anyone comfortable. The word playoffs remained in the building, but it had started moving differently. Less like a plan. More like a prayer people were embarrassed to say out loud.

The road schedule got uglier. So did the weather.

Northbend thawed in pieces. Snow melted into black piles along curbs. The lake ice dulled under weak sun. Rain came one Tuesday morning in a cold, steady sheet that made the whole city smell like wet pavement, old leaves, and winter finally giving up.

That was the morning Freya stopped by my office with her coat over one arm and her curls pulled back from her face in a scarf the color of marigolds.

“You’re leaving early,” I observed.