Page 266 of Wild Card 13

Lo touched his arm as she spoke to one of the servers. He looked down at her, his face softening in a way that made me glance away because some kinds of love felt private even when they happened in full daylight.

And then there was Lucy.

She stood near the far end of the dessert table with Dottie’s leash looped loosely around one wrist, talking to Freya while Arlo hovered nearby with a plate and the expression of a man who considered hovering a legitimate form of sibling security. Lucy was not dressed for work. That hit me harder than it should have. No blazer. No director armor. Just a deep green sleeveless dress beneath a light cream cardigan, her curls pinned back on one side, her glasses catching the sun when she turned her head.

Dottie saw me before Lucy did. Her ears went up. Her tail started. Lucy looked down at the movement, then followed Dottie’s attention across the yard.

Our eyes met. Lucy looked at me, and her mouth softened by half a breath before she remembered herself. Then she looked away.

I stayed where I was and I took the drink Zee shoved into my hand. “What is this?” I asked.

“Something with cucumber.”

“Why?”

“Lo said hydrate.”

“She said that to you?”

Zee nodded solemnly. “I felt seen.”

Across the yard, Marco had found a tiny clothespin clipped to his shirt and was interrogating Reed Bishop’s oldest daughter about the rules of the game.

“You cannot say the word,” she told him, stern as a referee.

“What word?”

She narrowed her eyes.

Marco narrowed his right back. “This feels like entrapment.”

“It is,” Harry snickered, passing behind him with two cookies stacked on a napkin. “You’re losing to a nine-year-old.”

“You said baby four times,” the girl scoffed.

Marco looked personally injured. “This party is about one.”

She took his clothespin and walked away.

Harry smiled into his cookie. “Tough league.”

The whole yard had that strange, fragile brightness of people trying to celebrate while pretending there was not still a season hanging by one last frayed thread. Nobody said it. Not with Bea glowing under the umbrella and Alois watching her like the world had handed him something breakable and sacred and he was not sure he trusted his own hands.

We had one game left.

One more game. One more time through the tunnel. One more night pretending the math had not already become a language nobody wanted to speak.

Then Lo appeared in front of me, smelling like expensive perfume and lemon sugar. “Ty Burns,” she said, which somehow sounded both affectionate and like I had been summoned for judgment.

I straightened automatically. “Lo.”

“You look like you’re deciding whether to run or eat six cupcakes.”

“Both are valid options.”

“Eat first.” Her eyes sparkled. “Then I need to introduce you to someone.”

I glanced past her shoulder toward Lucy without meaning to. Her expression softened for one brief second, then she kindly pretended I had not just revealed half my internal organs in public. She turned and lifted one hand toward the patio.