Page 279 of Wild Card 13

“You handled it well.”

“The stroller had a vendetta.”

“The stroller was innocent. The Frosthawks were the problem.”

“That’s usually true,” he said. “I had a good time too.”

My guard did not fall. But something in it loosened. A latch,maybe. One I had kept closed so long I had mistaken the pressure for safety.

My phone buzzed again on my desk, breaking the moment. I glanced at the screen.

Naomi: WELL?

I ignored it.

Ty’s gaze flicked to my phone, then away, giving me back the room before I had to ask for it. “I should let you work.” He made it to the door before he paused. Not for me. For Dottie, because apparently both of us were cowards in different directions. “See you later, Dottie Girl,” he said, his voice dropping into that soft, ridiculous register she had somehow earned from him.

“Thanks for the coffee, Ty,” I managed.

It came out too small for what I meant.Thank you for coming.Thank you for still coming.Please don’t leave yet.

Dottie wagged from the rug, unashamed.

For one strange second, I saw him as he had been at eighteen, standing beside a lake with summer in his hair and my heart in his hands. Then I blinked and saw him now: older, tired, bruised by a loss, choosing to stand in my office on a morning when nothing required him to be there.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

The second he disappeared down the hall, my phone buzzed again.

Naomi: A regular came in. He looked like someone had emotionally drop-kicked him through a playoff bracket.

Naomi.

Naomi: I remain committed to making him suffer on your behalf.

Naomi: But I’m impressed with your resolve, because on my end, this man is making it inconvenient to stay mad at him.

I sat in my quiet office with my coffee warm in my hands andDottie asleep on the rug, pup cup crushed under one paw like a trophy.

Inconvenient.That was one word for it.Terrifyingwas another.

Because the question inside me had started to change when I was not looking.

For months, it had been:Is this real?

Every coffee. Every threshold. Every moment he left before I had to ask him to. Every small act had pressed against that question until the shape of it wore down.

Now a different question waited underneath.

What happens if I let myself love him again?

By late afternoon, the rain had cleared and the arena windows glowed with that golden almost-summer light that made even concrete look forgiving.

The building had emptied in stages. Players left with their bags. Staff drifted between offices with end-of-season paperwork tucked under their arms. The media room went dark. The family lounge smelled faintly of old popcorn and lemon cleaner. Someone had turned off the music that usually played low near the concourse, and the silence left behind felt enormous.

I was sorting through summer access forms when my dad appeared in my doorway without knocking.

He never knocked in buildings he owned. It was one of his more irritating traits, and also one of the ways I knew he was my father beyond biology. He entered spaces like he had already measured the load-bearing walls and decided he could improve them.