Page 99 of Wild Card 13

"And then they'll tell me how they would've done it."

"They will."

Naomi frowned. "You both realize normal twenty-somethings spend their nights watching terrible reality television."

"I would love terrible reality television," Bea sighed.

The conversation wandered from there. Local gossip. A bakery opening two neighborhoods over. A disastrous first date Naomi had witnessed at the bookstore café. Arlo insisting cinnamon belonged in chili. The rest of us informing him he needed professional help.

It was easy.

Effortless.

Nobody needed anything from me. Nobody cared that I worked for the Frosthawks. Nobody asked about New York. Nobody asked about Buzz.

I wasn't Ezra Thomas's daughter.

I wasn't Director of Player Operations.

I was just Lucy.

A sharp little voice cut through the patio. "Mama!"

Every head turned. Near the rescue pens, a little girl stood with the pen gate swinging open beside her.

"Oh no," one of the volunteers said.

A golden blur shot through the opening. "Dottie!"

Another volunteer groaned with the weary affection of someone who had apparently done this before. "Not again."

The young dog burst across the patio with complete disregard for traction, paws scrambling across the brick before she caught herself and kept going, ears flapping wildly with every awkward stride.

One of the volunteers spun toward the open exercise pen. "Dottie!"

A little girl clapped her hands. "She's playing!"

"No, honey," her mother snickered, already stepping out of the way. "She's escaping."

Conversations paused around the patio. Forks hovered halfway to mouths. People smiled as the blur zigzagged between tables,weaving through chair legs and boots with the reckless confidence only young dogs seemed capable of possessing.

"Dottie!"

"This way!"

"Come here, pretty girl!"

She ignored every voice.

A volunteer crouched a few yards away, patting her leg.

Another offered a treat.

Dottie didn't so much as glance in their direction.

She slipped beneath one table, popped out the other side, skidded around a planter overflowing with orange mums, nearly collided with a man carrying pancakes, recovered without missing a beat, and kept running.

Straight toward us. Toward me.