Page 261 of Wild Card 13

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. Does the dog tip? Because if the dog tips, I respect the hustle.”

“Dottie tips in drool and affection,” I said.

Milo snorted. “Then she is rich.”

Marco sat forward, eyes bright with the kind of delight that had ruined countless team dinners. “What I want to know is whether the whipped cream is for Dottie or whether Burns has simply been domesticated and this is how Ms. Thomas rewards good behavior.”

There were whistles. Groans. Someone slapped a towel against a stall door.

It was stupid. It was annoying. It was not cruel.

For once in my life, I could take stupid without making it a federal case. That felt like growth, though I was fairly sure no therapist would recommend measuring emotional maturity by whether I could survive being called housebroken by a man wearing only a towel.

I lifted both hands. “If any of you had ever experienced approval from a woman with standards, you would understand.”

Harry pointed at me. “You’re admitting you’re whipped.”

“I’m admitting Dottie likes whipped cream.”

“Convenient dodge.”

The laughter came easier now, rolling through the room, bouncing off tile and wood and the metal hooks above our stalls. For a second, the loss loosened its grip. Not gone. Never gone. But shifted, like a bruise pressed by accident and then left alone.

I let myself breathe.

That was the trick lately.

A joke could be a joke.

A chirp could be a chirp.

Lucy’s name could be in the conversation without my body trying to prove something.

Across the room, Victor Petrov laughed under his breath. It was a small sound. Meaner than the rest because it had no warmth in it.

He sat near the end of the row in team sweats, one ankle propped over the opposite knee, phone loose in his hand, jaw shadowed and tight. Scratched again. Third game in a row. He had watched us lose from the press box and come down afterward with that flat, restless bitterness men got when they wanted to blame the room for the fact that the room had started moving on without them.

Victor was a depth guy. Everyone knew it. He knew it too, which made him dangerous in the way desperate men could be dangerous. Sharp in places he should have been careful.

He had been quiet through Coach’s postgame talk. Quiet while Cam said his piece. Quiet while the first wave of guys showered and the equipment staff moved out and the room became player-only. Now his eyes lifted toward me.

“Standards,” he said.

I kept my arms crossed. “You need help with the definition?”

Victor’s mouth curved. “Just trying to understand the system. Some guys get scratched. Some guys get rewarded.”

Cam’s head came up.

There were a lot of ways a sentence like that could go bad. Talent resentment was normal. Ice time resentment was normal. Late-season pressure turned every roster decision into a bruise. If Victor wanted to take a shot at me, fine. He could get in line behind my own brain, which had spent the last three hours replaying the missed clear in the second period like it was being paid by the loop.

Marco leaned back slowly. “Careful.”

Victor ignored him. His gaze stayed on me. “Must be nice, Burns. Lose a game, still got the owner’s daughter upstairs training you with pup cups.”

The laugh that followed was wrong. Not everyone. Not even most. A couple of reflexive barks from guys who heard tone before meaning. Someone made a low, uncertain sound near the showers. Zee sat up fully. Harry went still. Oliver stopped unwinding the tape around his wrist.