7. January 18, Tuesday
Chapter seven
Zoey
Zoey slipped through the archway from the kitchen into the small library of the Springfield group home, the camera hanging heavy from her neck. The house hummed with laughter, shouts, and the occasional crash of a toy against the floor.
Kids and Cyclones players were scattered everywhere.
Some sprawled on the floor with Legos. Others crowded around the TV with controllers clutched in their hands while a ring of spectators cheered, heckled, and offered deeply unhelpful advice.
At the dining room table across the hall, a quieter cluster colored with intense concentration.
Behind her, the kitchen smelled faintly of flour and sugar, where two players helped a handful of eager bakers knead dough and sent tiny clouds of white into the air every time they got too enthusiastic.
Zoey grinned, brushing a dusting of flour off her camera body.
She couldn’t wait to get home and see how these shots turned out. And the event wasn’t even half over yet. This whole afternoon was shaping up to be a PR hat trick.
Her gaze drifted to the PR queen herself.
Several feet away, tucked into a small side alcove, Nina surveyed the chaos with precise, terrifying calm. Clipboard in hand, laptop open beside her, she fired off short instructions to staffers who passed too slowly.
“Finish the questionnaires.”
“Check that the gift bags are upright.”
“Don’t let the kids eat raw dough.”
Honestly, someone should tell Nina to smile. They were at a kids’ group home, for Pete’s sake. Even if this was technically a charity event, at least pretend you liked humanity.
The thought hadn’t fully formed before Nina’s head snapped up and turned in her direction. The brief furrow of her brow said enough: standing idle was not in the approved plan. Zoey braced for the lecture.
But before Nina could say a word, a panicked PR staffer barreled into the room. “Were there any food allergies on that list? One kid swears he has a peanut allergy…”
Babs, the social worker who’d been navigating red tape with Nina for years before Zoey came aboard, shoved past him, and took off for the kitchen. “Xander, I have told you three thousand times—”
The staffer followed her at once, wide-eyed and sweating.
Apparently, this was not the first Xander incident.
“Zoey,” Nina said, low and sharp, just quiet enough not to carry to the kids. “Remember, the camera angle stays consistent, and get the children’s names so we can cross-check the consent forms.”
Zoey bit back a yes, I know, Mom, and substituted, “Of course.”
Then she retreated to what felt like a safer angle near the dining room.
A coworker—Shantell, she thought—hovered at her elbow while Zoey framed a shot of one giant hockey hand carefully coloring inside the lines beside a much smaller hand doing the exact opposite.
“Don’t take it personally,” Shantell murmured. “Nina’s been building this thing for months. Had to call in favors to get it on the calendar before trade deadline swallowed everyone whole.” Then she vanished down the hall, laughter trailing behind her.
Zoey’s gaze found Nina again. Calm. Composed. Untouchable. And yet not entirely. There it was if you looked closely enough: the slight tension in her jaw, the nearly invisible exhale when someone competent intercepted a problem before it reached her.
Managing everything behind the scenes and making it all look effortless? That was skill. Real, high-level, corporate-warrior stress management.
Zoey adjusted her grip on the camera and let her focus settle on the rhythm of the room instead of the individual moments.
That was when it clicked.
No one here was waiting for direction. Not the players, not the staff, not the kids.
The laughter was too easy, the teasing too familiar, the affection too unforced.
And by the way the children called the players by name—without the starstruck stiffness of strangers meeting celebrities—it was obvious this wasn’t the team’s first visit here.
Just the first one being documented by PR.
That was the real story.
Not the polished optics Nina would send upstairs. Not the carefully curated proof that the Cyclones cared about the community.
This.
The stuff that happened when no one needed a camera to make it matter.
And Zoey now got to be a part of it.
She lifted her camera and caught a defenseman sitting perfectly still while a little girl painted his nails a violent shade of glittery pink. The kid’s face glowed with concentration. When she finished and held up his hand for inspection, the player’s grin flashed; brief, genuine, unselfconscious.
Zoey clicked the shutter. Then again.
The warm, boisterous atmosphere washed over her all at once, and it made the hard edges of the place more visible by contrast. The overused furniture.
The institutional paint trying very hard to read as cheerful.
The way some of the children moved through the room with full-body ease while others seemed to hold a little tension in reserve, as if joy might get revoked without warning.
A pang hit her hard and low.
She hated that places like this had to exist. And she was grateful they did. Because if they had to exist, then thank God for the ones staffed by people like Babs, who knew every kid’s name, every trigger, every favorite snack, and every tiny win.
She hoped every child here got to feel this seen every day.
If nothing else, maybe the publicity from today would make people understand how badly more safe homes were needed, along with more foster parents, and more adults who knew how to show up and keep showing up.
Her own fostering orientation was already scheduled. The paperwork had started. She stepped onto the path telling herself—out loud, more than once—that she was done waiting for the right husband, the right timing, the right version of life before she started building a family.
But standing here, in the middle of this noisy, imperfect, loving place, the shape of that family felt sharper.
Less abstract. More like this. Messy. Loud.
Tender. Complicated. A place where kids could land without having to earn it first. A place where being older, harder, angrier, sadder, or more shut down didn’t make them less deserving of patience, less worthy of staying.
Home wasn’t just something she wanted to give a child. It was something she wanted to know how to build well.
That was the part that scared her. Not the paperwork.
Not the classes. Not even the waiting. The possibility of being trusted with a bruised heart and not knowing, in every moment, how to hold it right.
Still, the feeling under the fear held steady.
She wanted this. Not the fantasy of motherhood. Not the pretty version. The real one.
“Zoey!” The small voice rang out, bright and insistent.
A small boy named Jayden sat cross-legged on the rug beside Ilya’s massive frame, his whole face turned up toward her with naked expectation.
Zoey smiled and crouched to his level.
“Ilya said you know real magic,” Jayden announced, eyes wide. “Like actual magic.”
She shot Ilya a look.
Wonderful.
Perfect.
No pressure at all.
“Magic, huh?” she said, buying time. “Well. I know a few tricks. Depends what kind of magic we’re talking about.”
“Any kind,” Jayden said immediately. “Please.”
Ilya looked down at him, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Trust me, kiddo. Zoey’s the real deal.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Because if this went badly, she would be crushing the dreams of one tiny, deeply earnest human being, and she would never recover. What a great first impression that would be.
Choosing something safe, she reached into her bag and said, “All right. But because Babs likes health codes and basic hygiene, all great magic acts begin with clean hands.”
She discreetly slid a few coins from the zippered pouch in her wallet while making a dramatic production out of snapping open a wet wipe.
“My trick,” she declared, swiping at her palms with exaggerated seriousness, “is a classic. I can tell that once upon a time, you found a lucky penny… and then lost it. True?”
Jayden stared at her, transfixed. Then his brow furrowed. “Well… not really,” he admitted. “I found a lucky penny once, but I left it there so someone else could find it. They probably needed the luck more than me.”
Zoey’s heart gave one painful little squeeze.
Good Lord.
Children needed to be wrapped in blankets and protected from everything sharp in the world.
She looked up instinctively.
Ilya was already watching her, and there was something in his face that looked a lot like he’d felt the same punch.
Recovering quickly, Zoey lowered her voice and leaned in. “Well, Mr. Jayden, I have very important news. The universe actually wanted you to have that lucky penny, and you accidentally disrupted its plans. Which means it’s extremely fortunate Ilya introduced you to me because I can help return it.”
She nodded once, solemnly.
Jayden’s mouth parted.
Zoey closed her eyes as though listening to mysterious forces. “So,” she said softly, “are you ready to receive your gift from the universe?”
She was just leaning forward when Jayden blurted, “The universe isn’t mad at me, right?”
The question sliced through her. He was looking at her with such real panic she felt the floor shift under her.
“For ruining its plans,” he rushed on. “It’s not upset with me?”
Shit.
Zoey turned sharply toward Ilya.
Ilya reached out automatically, setting one careful hand on Jayden’s shoulder, and Jayden jerked hard enough to flinch away from the contact.
Immediately, Ilya pulled back.
No apology, no fuss, just a quick repositioning of his body so he sat a little farther off to the side. He stayed close enough to help, far enough not to crowd him, making sure Jayden could still see both of them.
“Jayden,” Ilya said gently, “there is no world where the universe is mad at you.”
Jayden turned back to Zoey, still searching her face for confirmation.