Page 120 of Wild Card 13

“You say currently like there’s a trapdoor under my chair.” I looked at the packet. Then at Sarah. Then at Lucy.

“There can be,” Sarah said. “Budget permitting.”

Coach took another drink of coffee. “Burns, this takes your free morning tomorrow.”

“I heard.”

He waited. So did everyone else. I knew why.

Free mornings during the season were rare. Sacred, practically. Recovery. Sleep. Physical therapy. Errands. Sitting in your house staring at nothing because your body hurt and your brain needed quiet.

The old me would have complained on principle. Not because Iactually cared, but because being difficult gave people something easy to expect from me.

I looked at Lucy. She was not looking at me. She was looking at the schedule on the screen like she thought staring hard enough might make the entire thing finally cooperate.

“I’m in,” I blurted out.

Coach blinked. Sarah’s pen stopped moving. Alois slowly turned his head toward me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Coach chuckled. “I was waiting for the tantrum.”

“I can complain if it would help your morning feel normal.”

“No, I’m good.”

Alois studied me for one long second. “You are ill.”

“I’m community-minded.”

“You are annoying.”

“Both things can be true.”

Lucy clicked to the next slide, but the movement was sharper than before. “Bea originally developed the concept and has already built most of the outreach framework,” she said. “She’ll be handling Alois’s schedule and guest interaction points tomorrow. I’ll be coordinating overall operations and working directly with Buzz.”

Working directly with Buzz.The sentence landed in the room politely.It knocked into my chest like a puck to the sternum.

Lucy kept going before anyone could react. “Because the event is tomorrow, we’re condensing what should have been a longer player preparation process into one day. Buzz, I’ll need you available this afternoon for a separate briefing and walkthrough.”

“Okay.”

She looked at me. Just long enough for suspicion to flicker across her face. I almost smiled. Lucy Thomas did not trust compliance when it came from me. Fair. Historically, I had not made that easy.

Sarah leaned back slightly. “That was very painless.”

“Should I make it weird?” I asked. “I can circle back.”

“Please don’t,” Lucy sighed.

And there she was. Not all the way. Not even close. But that dry little edge in her voice slipped out before she could stop it.

My mind tightened around it. The real Lucy lived in those edges.

Rawlings cleared his throat. “I thought Charlotte had completed the player-facing prep for this.”

Lucy’s hand went still on the remote.