Page 251 of Wild Card 13

Grandma Ruth looked between us with open interest. Grandpa suddenly became fascinated by the medical papers in his hand, which was somehow worse.

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

Lucy turned to Grandma Ruth before I could say anything else stupid. “What did they say?”

“Hairline fracture,” Grandma Ruth replied with enormous dignity. “Boot. Rest. People hovering.”

“Rest is usually part of healing.”

“Everyone keeps saying that like it is useful.”

Lucy smiled. Small, real. “It is annoying when medically sound advice refuses to be more convenient.”

Grandma Ruth’s eyes twinkled. “Exactly.”

Lucy stepped closer to my grandmother’s chair and bent slightly toward her, careful not to make a production of it. “Does it hurt badly?”

“No.”

“Grandma,” I grumbled.

She pretended to ignore me. “It is sore.”

Lucy nodded like she understood the translation. “Sore enough that Ty drove?”

“In Harold’s sedan,” Grandma said, and whatever dignity she had been carrying dissolved into wicked satisfaction. “You should have seen him. Folded up like a lawn chair.”

Lucy pressed her lips together.

I pointed at her. “Do not.”

Her eyes lifted to mine, and there it was for one dangerous second. The quick, dry spark. The old rhythm. The part of us that still knew how to catch and return without thinking. Then she looked down, but not before I saw the smile trying to survive.

The waiting room faded around the edges. The crying toddler. The television. The nurse calling names. The man coughing near the far wall. It all blurred behind the simple fact of Lucy standing with my family, her body angled toward Grandma Ruth but her attention still aware of me.

She had come because she was worried and with nothing in her hands. No excuse strong enough to hide behind.

My phone buzzed in my hand. I glanced down.

Coach: Family first. Update when you can.

I looked back at Lucy.

Her chin lifted slightly. “You missed practice.”

“That happens sometimes.”

“Not without six people knowing why.” She adjusted her glasses. “You are annoyingly reliable about team obligations.” Lucy kept her face composed, but color touched the tops of her cheeks. “A staff member said family emergency. Then hospital.”

Lucy held my gaze.

For one heartbeat, I thought she might retreat behind work. Behind the title. Behind some sentence about player welfare or operational responsibility.

No explanation. No confession. No words for the thing her presence already told me.

Yet her standing there was enough to make hope lift its head inside my chest, something half-frozen realizing there was still warmth left in the world.

I forced myself to be careful with it. It was just a light in a window I had no right to break trying to get closer.