Page 8 of Wild Card 13

“Shut up.”

“That’s adorable.”

“I’m trying to be emotionally vulnerable here.”

“Very brave of you.”

He smiled then. Small. Real. Beautiful enough to hurt a little.

Snowflakes melted slowly against his pale lashes while the lake lights shimmered behind him. Then he swallowed once and asked softly, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

CHAPTER 1

LUCY

NOW

Ezra Thomas loved two things with alarming intensity—his children and the Minnesota Frosthawks.

Unfortunately for me, the Frosthawks had spent most of my life winning.

Which meant hockey had lived in every corner of my childhood. In the television glow spilling beneath the den door long after bedtime. In newspaper stacks beside my dad’s coffee every morning. In postgame phone calls that stretched through dinner while my pasta slowly turned cold across from him because somebody’s second line forgot how defensive coverage worked in the third period.

Some daughters grew up competing with work for their father’s attention.

I grew up competing with an entire professional hockey team.

“My girls,” Dad announced from the head of the table for the second time in twenty minutes, lifting his glass of iced tea like we were gathered for a holiday instead of Sunday lunch. “All here. No crisis. No one bleeding in my office.”

Bea paused mid-bite beside me. “Should we knock on wood?”

Late fall sunlight spilled through the tall kitchen windows behind her, warm and gold against the stone countertops Lo had insisted on replacing last year because the original kitchen looked, according to her, “like a bank manager picked it out during a divorce.” The room smelledlike rosemary chicken, fresh bread, and the aggressively expensive coffee my father pretended he did not need emotionally despite being physically incapable of forming coherent thoughts before caffeine.

For once, the house was quiet. No game replay humming in the background. No sports analysts yelling from the den. No television paused on a slow-motion fight while Dad stood there aggrieved by defensive coverage he was not physically involved in.

Lo took a sip of wine beside my father, elegant as ever in cream-colored cashmere while Dad loaded enough food onto his plate to feed an entire checking line. Across from me, Bea looked unfairly pretty for a Sunday afternoon, her dark hair falling over one shoulder while she stole roasted potatoes directly off my plate with the confidence of someone who had emotionally moved into this house months ago.

I let her, mostly because I was too busy complaining. “I’m serious,” I told them, setting my fork down harder than vegetables deserved. “If that man schedules one more ‘quick touch-base meeting’ that lasts two hours, I’m going to fake my own death.”

Bea nodded immediately. “Reasonable.”

Lo hummed sympathetically. “Poison or disappearance?”

“Lo,” Dad sighed.

“What? If she’s going to commit, she should commit fully.”

I laughed before I could stop myself, and my father’s expression softened instantly at the sound. “I am serious,” I continued, pointing my fork toward Bea because she’d made the mistake of looking entertained. “He scheduled a product operations sync, a vendor onboarding call, and a leadership alignment meeting all for the same thirty-minute window, then told me I needed to be more proactive about managing his calendar.”

Bea’s mouth twitched. “Was this before or after he asked you to order his girlfriend’s birthday gift?”

“After. But before he messaged me asking where the birthday gift was.”

Lo carefully set her wine glass down. “And where was the birthday gift?”

“In his office.” I took a bite of roasted carrots with unnecessary aggression. “On his desk. Wrapped. With a card. Becauseapparently I am not an executive assistant anymore. I am now some kind of organizational cryptid who solves problems before they fully exist.”

Dad leaned back in his chair looking deeply entertained by my suffering, which felt rude considering he helped create my personality.