Page 283 of Wild Card 13

Dottie’s whole body lit.

My heart followed before I gave it permission.

Ty came into view wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt under an open dark jacket, and sneakers still damp from outside. No suit. No team gear. No lanyard. No media polish. No reason that belonged to the Frosthawks.

He stopped when he saw us waiting in the hall. For a second, something vulnerable moved over his face so quickly I might have missed it if I had not been learning him in pieces. “Morning,” he said.

Dottie answered for both of us by trying to levitate.

Ty laughed quietly and crouched before she could combust. The sound was still tired, but more him than it had been two days ago. “Yeah,” he said to her. “I missed you too.”

I stood there with my keys in one hand and my damp bag slipping down my shoulder, watching my dog accept love without making a single argument against it.

She was not betraying me. She was just a dog. She knew who showed up with a gentle voice and a cup of whipped cream. She knew whose hands were careful. She knew routine as safety because no one had taught her to be ashamed of wanting that.

Maybe that was what hurt.

Maybe that was what healed.

Ty stood and handed me my coffee.

“You don’t have a meeting,” I said.

“No.”

“No training?”

“Later. Not here.”

The hallway felt very still.

“So you just came here.”

“Yeah.”

I looked down at the coffee. My name was written on the side in Naomi’s handwriting, the y looping too far under the other letters. “Paper Lantern is in the opposite direction from your place.”

“I know.”

I looked back at him. He just stood there, holding Dottie’s empty cup now, letting the truth be as plain as the hallway around us.

He had chosen this. Not because the arena schedule carried him here. Not because teammates would see. Not because hockey had placed him within reach and all he had to do was extend a hand.

He had gotten up after the season ended, after the structure fell away, after the building stopped requiring his body inside it, and he had driven in the wrong direction to bring me coffee.

To bring Dottie her ridiculous cup.

To keep a small promise without asking me to clap for it.

“What happens now?” I asked.

Ty’s eyes searched mine, careful. “With what?”

I could have saidus. But what came out was, “The routine.”

His expression softened. “I keep showing up,” he said.

CHAPTER 36