Page 292 of Wild Card 13

Vivienne's gaze returned to me. "You need to change."

"I have clothes in Arlo's office."

"Go."

Ty moved toward the truck bed, reaching for my hand. He helped me down carefully. My ruined heel hit the pavement, slipped slightly, and his other hand came to my waist.

The service door closed behind Vivienne and the staff, leaving us alone beside Betsy in the warm evening light.

Water dripped from the hem of my dress onto the pavement. Somewhere inside North Line, someone laughed. The rehearsal dinner waited with flowers and candles and people who had no idea that my life had just rearranged itself in the back of an old pickup.

Ty's thumb brushed once over my knuckles. "Lucy.”

Whatever he saw in my face made his expression change. The humor softened. The caution stayed, but beneath it was something else. Hope, maybe. Want. The kind of ache a person carried carefully because they had learned what happened when they handled love like it could not break.

He moved first. Just a tilt toward me. A question made of inches.

My heart answered before my fear could.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

My breath caught.

For once, I did not step back.

The door behind us flew open.

"Guys!" Bobby shouted, wild-eyed and out of breath. "Vivienne says if you miss entrances, she is going to kill you both with her bare hands and I think she means it."

Ty's eyes closed.

I stepped back so fast my wet heel squeaked against the pavement.

Bobby blinked between us. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No." Ty cleared his throat. "Just finished the Frozen Bento crisis."

"Right." Bobby nodded. "Great. Love that. Lucy, Bea is asking why everyone keeps saying the word ear. Buzz, Alois is pacing."

Ty looked at me again.

The almost-kiss still hung there, unfinished and alive.

"You should go," Ty muttered.

Neither of us moved.

Bobby pointed toward the door. "I am begging, as a man with no power here."

I gathered what remained of my dignity, which was mostly damp and making a sloshing sound in one shoe, and hurried inside.

Arlo's office had become louder in my absence.

Bea was standing now, one hand on her belly, the other braced against Lo's arm while Freya tried to block her view of the hallway with her body.

"Why are you wet?" Bea demanded the second I entered.

"I had a disagreement with art."