Page 176 of Wild Card 13

“Dad,” I said softly.

He lowered the camera a little. His eyes were wet again.

“Oh my God,” Arlo muttered. “He’s going to lose it.”

“I am not,” Dad said. “I’m focusing.”

“On not crying?”

“Arlo.”

Ty laughed under his breath.

Dad cleared his throat and lifted the camera again. “You look beautiful, Lucy.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He took the picture.

Then Ty stepped beside me. His hand found mine out of habit, fingers warm and familiar, and the contact steadied me so quickly it almost scared me. I glanced up at him. He was already looking at me.

The room, the camera, Naomi’s teasing, Arlo’s suspicious glare, Dad’s emotional sniffle—all of it blurred around the edges.

Ty squeezed my hand once.

I squeezed back.

Dad took the picture.

“You have her home by midnight,” Arlo said.

Dad gave him a look. “That is my line.”

Arlo shrugged. “You were busy with the tripod.”

“I’ll have her home by midnight.”

Dad hugged me before I left. He held on longer than usual. When he released me, his eyes flicked briefly toward the desk upstairs where the Aldenmere letter sat. He did not say anything in front of Ty. Neither did I.

But I felt the future waiting up there. Folded in creamy paper. Too big to fit in my room.

Outside, the evening had turned soft and cool. The last of the daylight stretched across the street, turning the bare branches gold at the tips. Betsy sat crooked at the curb, freshly washed or at leastaggressively sprayed with a hose. The old truck gleamed in patches where the water had dried unevenly.

Ty hurried ahead to open my door. “Careful,” he said, suddenly serious as he looked at the layers of my skirt.

I laughed as he took my hand and helped me climb into the passenger seat. The dress gathered around me in a sea of green, spilling over my knees and brushing the edge of the dashboard. Ty stood there for a second after I settled, one hand still resting on the open door.

“What?” I asked.

His eyes lifted to mine. The teasing slipped from his face. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “Just looking.”

My chest warmed so fast I had to look away. “Close the door, Burns.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He shut it gently, then jogged around the hood and climbed in beside me. Betsy started on the second try, which Ty pretended was a personal triumph. The radio came alive in the middle of a Beatles song, low and crackling through the speakers. Something bright and familiar, all jangling guitar and old harmony, filled the cab as he pulled away from the curb.

The night moved around us in soft spring colors, porch lights flickering on, lawns still patchy from winter, the air cool enough that Ty cracked his window.

The breeze slipped in, carrying the smell of damp pavement and thawing earth and somebody’s charcoal grill starting up several houses away. My skirt rustled around my legs. Ty’s hand rested loose on the wheel, thumb tapping once against the beat before going still.