Page 230 of Wild Card 13

For a second, neither of us moved.

The house held us in place. The fire burned lower. Dottie leaned against Lucy’s leg like a living anchor. My bourbon sat untouched on the table behind me, and hers beside it, one cube melted down to almost nothing.

Lucy opened her eyes again. “You still make it hard to breathe.” Her lips trembled. “That’s the problem.”

“I know.”

“I need time.”

I nodded once. “Then take however much.”

Her gaze sharpened through the tears. “You say that now.”

“I mean it now.”

“Now isn’t hard.”

That landed exactly where she intended. She needed to know she could hit and I would stay upright. Not because I was tough. Because the room had finally stopped being about my pain first.

“You’re right,” I said. “Now is easy compared to later.”

She looked startled again.

I let out a slow breath. “Later is the work. Tomorrow. At the arena. On road trips. When you’re mad. When you’re quiet. When I want to push because I’m scared you’re slipping away again. That’s where I have to do it differently.”

Lucy’s hand moved over Dottie’s ear. Back and forth. Slow. Grounding. “I should go,” she whispered.

Every selfish part of me wanted to say no. I nodded instead. “Okay.”

Lucy’s expression flickered. Maybe she had expected me to make it harder. Maybe some part of her had wanted me to.

That was the cruelest part of growth. Sometimes doing the right thing still hurt the person in front of you because they were braced for the old version and the new one had not earned trust yet.

She clipped Dottie’s leash back on with hands that shook less than before. Dottie looked between us again, clearly not understanding why any reasonable person would leave a couch she had just claimed.

I walked to the entry closet before Lucy reached it.

Her coat hung beside mine.

For one second, I just looked at it there. Her wool coat tucked between my winter jacket and the old Burns Heating & Air hoodie Ikept by the door because my dad still acted like brand loyalty was a family sacrament.

It looked too right, like something that belonged in my house.

I took it off the hanger and turned toward her.

Lucy stopped a few feet away from me. Her eyes dropped to the coat in my hands. For a second, I thought she might take it herself.

I stepped closer carefully.

Her gaze lifted to mine.

There was a question there. Maybe not whether she trusted me. Maybe only whether she trusted this one small kindness not to become a request.

I kept still.

Lucy turned.

I eased the coat over her shoulders.