Page 253 of Wild Card 13

On mornings Ty was physically in the building, she waited by the office door. She sat, front paws placed with ridiculous care on the rug, ears at attention, body still except for the slow, hopeful sweep of her tail.

“She is not waiting for him,” I told Bea one morning while Dottie stared at the hallway with the focus of a woman awaiting a royal procession.

Bea glanced up from the wedding seating chart she had spread across my desk. Her hair was twisted into a loose knot, a pencil tucked behind one ear, her expression caught somewhere between public relations crisis and bridal exhaustion.

“She’s waiting for whipped cream,” Bea guessed.

“Exactly.”

“That does not make this less embarrassing for you.”

“I am not embarrassed.”

Bea looked at me. I looked back. Dottie’s tail thumped once. Bea returned to her seating chart. “Sure.”

My office did not look like a conference room with an identity crisis anymore.

That had happened gradually. A lamp first, brass with a warm shade that softened the corners of the room after three in the afternoon. Then bookshelves, because once I admitted I needed shelves, I apparently admitted I needed three. A better chair that did not make my lower back file complaints by noon. A washable dog bed that looked less like emergency shelter inventory and more like something chosen by a woman who intended to stay.

The walls were no longer bare. The first thing I hung was not a diploma or a framed team photograph or anything that made sense for the Director of Player Operations. It was a picture from brunch with Lo, Bea, and Freya, all of us squeezed into one side of the frame while Arlo leaned into the background with two fingers up behind my head like a twelve-year-old.

Lo looked beautiful, laughing. Bea had one hand lifted, caught mid-protest. Freya’s smile took up half the room. I was smiling too, real enough that when I first saw the printed photo, something in mychest had gone painfully quiet. Arlo had written favorite Thomas on the back in black marker.

That morning, Bea tapped the end of her pencil against the seating chart. “Do you think your father would object to being near Rafa if they both have access to appetizers?”

“My father can behave for an entire dinner.”

Bea stared at me.

“For most of an entire dinner,” I corrected.

“Helpful.”

“Rafa can also behave.”

“Your tone suggests otherwise.”

“My tone suggests I have met men.”

Bea made a thoughtful sound and moved a sticky note. “Alois says we should put all emotionally complicated men at one table and let them sort themselves out.”

“That sounds like a security issue.”

“That is what I said.”

Dottie’s tail started moving harder.

The knock was light. Two taps against the open doorframe.

Ty stood at the threshold in team sweats, hair still damp from the shower, one Paper Lantern cup in his right hand and Dottie’s smaller cup in the left. He did not step inside. “Morning,” he said.

My body, traitorous and specific, softened around the word. “Morning,” I responded quickly.

Bea looked between us with the expression of a woman who had decided survival required sudden interest in her seating chart.

Dottie stood, walked to the threshold, and sat directly in front of Ty’s shoes.

Ty looked down at her. “Good morning to you too.”