Page 162 of Wild Card 13

“I absolutely did not,” Mom called.

Grandma Ruth did not look away from Lucy. “She implied it.”

Lucy made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite surrender. But something. Something real enough that it caught low in my chest and stayed there.

I took a piece of fudge because if I didn’t put something in my hand, I was going to do something stupid with it. Like reach for Lucy again.

The event was still moving around us, bright and loud in all the right places. Kids were coming off the ice with flushed cheeks and damp hair beneath helmets. Parents hovered near the boards pretending they weren’t crying. Volunteers guided sleds back toward the equipment area while Freya stood near the gate, radiating the kind of friendly authority that made people thank her for bossing them around.

Lucy slipped past me to answer a question from one of the Mighty Blades staff members. I watched her go because my self-control had limits and most of them were currently wearing emerald green.

She looked good in the arena. Not pretty. She was always pretty, and thinking that felt too small for what happened when Lucy walked through a room.

She looked right. Clipboard against her chest. Radio at her waistband. Curls pinned back with several pieces already escaping because she had been moving all morning. Glasses catching the rink lights as she listened to a parent with her whole attention. She nodded once, asked a question, then turned and redirected two volunteers with a calm hand gesture that somehow made everyone around her move smoother.

She had always been controlled. Even at eighteen, Lucy had made control look like oxygen.

But this was different. This was poise. This was authority. This was the woman she had become while I was off building a life too loud to notice what was missing from it.

“Careful,” Bea said beside me.

I glanced down. “With what?”

“With looking at her like that in public.”

“I’m looking normally.”

Bea’s eyebrows rose.

I took a bite of fudge. “This is a community event. I’m being civic.”

“You are being obvious.”

“Feels rude to criticize a volunteer.”

“You are not a volunteer. You are a player with good optics.”

“Usually people say asset.”

“Usually people are trying to keep you happy.”

I pointed the fudge at her. “You wound me, Boss Lady.”

“Good. Builds character.”

I looked back toward Lucy before I could stop myself. She was speaking with Sarah now, too far away for me to hear, but I could read enough. Sarah’s expression stayed composed, tablet tucked to her side, but she said something that made Lucy go still for half a beat.

Lucy looked down quickly, like the floor had become very important. Sarah touched her tablet once, nodded, and moved away.

Lucy stayed there for one second longer than necessary. Then she inhaled, lifted her head, and went right back to work.

Something proud and hot moved through me so fast it almost scared me.

Lucy looked good in her new role. Not because of the blazer or the title or the fact that every person in the room had started turning toward her when they needed an answer. Because she had earned it in front of everyone, and even from across the rink I could see her starting to believe that maybe she had.

I wanted to be near her so badly my teeth hurt.

Instead, I finished my fudge and went back to work.