Page 274 of Wild Card 13

My throat went dry. “Am I?” I tried to make the answer lighter than it felt. “Shorter audience. Lower heckling standards.”

Her mouth softened, but her eyes stayed serious. “That’s not what I mean.”

Then Arlo called her name from the patio, holding up a plate like he had found something she needed to eat.

Lucy looked over. “I should go.”

“Okay.”

She hesitated. Her eyes stayed on me for one breath too long, and in that one breath, every reckless part of me wanted to ask. For what, I did not even know. More time. A walk. A real conversation. Her hand. A future neither of us was ready to name.

I lifted my glass slightly. “Thanks for the lemonade.”

Her expression flickered. Maybe she had expected me to ask too. Maybe some part of her had wanted me to. “You’re welcome,” she muttered softly.

CHAPTER 35

LUCY

NOW

Dottie waited by my office door like the world had not ended the night before.

Technically, it had not. The sun still rose. The security lights still hummed over the service corridor. The air inside Talon Arena still held that same permanent bite of old ice and metal and cleaning solution. Somewhere deep in the building, someone pushed a cart with one bad wheel, and the squeak echoed through the empty hall in short, lonely bursts.

But the season was over. There was a difference in a rink the morning after a final loss. I had known that my whole life. I had grown up inside arenas, had learned the language of skates and tape and cold coffee before I could spell half the words adults used around me. A building after a win had a pulse, even when it was empty. A building after a loss held its breath.

This morning, Talon did not feel asleep.

It felt stunned.

Dottie did not seem to notice. She sat in front of my closed office door with her ears drooping down both sides of her face, her leash trailing from my hand, her little body angled toward the hallway like she expected the usual procession to arrive because routine was routine and dogs did not bother themselves with playoff math.

“Baby girl,” I cooed softly, “I don’t think he’s coming today.”

Her tail thumped once. I looked down at her. She looked up at me with pure, offensive confidence.

I unlocked my office, nudged the door open with my hip, and tried not to notice the way she stayed planted in the hall for an extra second before following me inside.

The room was still dim. Rain had moved through Northbend overnight, leaving the windows streaked and the whole city washed clean in that hesitant early-summer green that looked too tender to survive a Minnesota season. The small lamp on my side table cast a warm circle over the rug, over Dottie’s bed, over the bookshelves I had finally stopped pretending were temporary.

My office looked lived in now.

Dottie circled her bed once, twice, and then abandoned it entirely to sit by the door again.

I set my bag down on my desk. “You are being ridiculous.”

She huffed.

“And I understand this has changed your life.”

Her ears twitched.

“But the season is over.” I pulled my laptop from my bag and opened it. I stared at my dark computer screen and saw myself reflected there: auburn curls clipped back badly, glasses slightly crooked, the cream sweater I had chosen because the rain made everything feel soft around the edges. I looked as drained as everyone else in the building.

The Frosthawks had lost by one. One goal. One final ugly scramble in front of the net. One puck off the post. One season folding in on itself beneath arena lights while thousands of people made the same wounded sound at once.

I had not cried. It was not my loss in the way it was theirs. I did not lace up skates. I did not take hits. I did not spend eighty-two games measuring my body against the edge of someone else’s ambition.