Page 265 of Wild Card 13

We passed the media room. Empty now. A few folded chairs leaned against the wall. Someone had left a half-full water bottle on the table beside a stack of stat sheets no one wanted to look at again.

Near the turn toward Hockey Operations, Alois stopped.

I stopped too.

He nodded once down the hall.

Lucy stood near the glass doors outside the operations suite. Not close enough to hear us. Not looking our way. Physically nearby and completely unaware that her name had just changed the temperature of a locker room.

She had a tablet tucked against one arm and her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. Her hair was pulled back loosely, curls escaping around her face. The emerald blazer was gone, replaced by a cream sweater under a long navy coat, but even tired and postgame and half-lit by office fluorescents, she looked like order in the middle of a building trying not to come apart.

Dottie sat beside her feet, leash looped around Lucy’s wrist, head tilted toward the closed operations door as if she had strong opinions about late-night administrative work.

Lucy listened to whoever was on the phone, then glanced down at the tablet. Her mouth moved around some calm, practical answer. Director voice. Controlled. Competent. Still here after a loss, still doing the work, still holding pieces in place no one in the stands would ever see.

My whole body wanted to go to her. I wanted to cross the hall and stand close enough that she knew someone had her. I wanted to ask if she had eaten. I wanted to tell Dottie she was a traitor. I wanted to make Lucy’s mouth twitch after a night that had probably handed her twelve new problems and no room to feel any of them.

Down the hall, Lucy ended the call and lowered the phone from her ear. Dottie looked up at her, tail sweeping once against the floor. Lucy touched the top of Dottie’s head without looking, fingers sinking briefly into soft fur before she turned back toward the operations door.

She did not see me.

I let that be true.

No wave.

No call down the hall.

No text later pretending I had a reason.

I stood beside Alois in the cold arena corridor and watched Lucy Thomas walk back into the office with her dog at her side and the whole tired building depending on her steadiness.

Then I turned away.

CHAPTER 34

BUZZ

NOW

The first thing I noticed about Lo and Ezra’s backyard was that someone had tried very hard to make it elegant.

The second thing I noticed was that the Frosthawks had already begun threatening that elegance as a species.

There were pale linen-covered tables arranged across the lawn beneath strings of white lights. Flowers spilled out of low ceramic bowls. Little cards with hand-lettered script labeled desserts.

There were tiny lemon tarts. Cream puffs. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Cupcakes with soft green frosting. A whole table of cookies shaped like moons, stars, baby bottles, and, because this was Northbend, tiny Frosthawks jerseys.

Someone had tucked little ember-red pacifiers into the floral arrangements.

Bea sat beneath the shade of a wide cream umbrella near the patio, one hand resting on the round curve of her belly, looking overwhelmed enough that even Marco had lowered his volume by ten percent. She wore a soft white dress that made her look like sunlight had decided to become a person, her dark hair loose over one shoulder, gold at her ears, her mouth trembling every few minutes like the amount of love pointed at her had become physically inconvenient.

Alois stood behind her chair. He had one hand resting on the chair back, not touching her, exactly, but close enough that theentire yard understood he could reach her in half a second if she needed anything. Water. A fan. A different chair. The head of anyone who asked whether she was sure she should eat another cupcake.

Bento sat on Alois’s shoe. The cat looked furious about it. Alois looked resigned, which for him was practically a love poem.

Rafa stood a few feet away with a glass of sparkling water in his hand, watching Bea like he was seeing every age she had ever been and every age she was about to become all at once. He had been introduced to me before, briefly, in the way men were introduced at events where the women around them mattered more than they did. He was handsome, composed, and clearly using every ounce of that composure to keep from becoming a public emotional problem beside a dessert table.

Ezra stood near Lo at the patio doors, sleeves rolled once, expression caught between host and man who had accidentally grown a second family around himself and did not know where to put all of it.