1. Lucy #2
My fingers tightened instinctively around my napkin.
Across the table, Bea’s expression shifted immediately, humor dimming into quiet attention. Beside my father, Lo lowered her eyes toward her plate with the grace of someone deliberately pretending not to witness a private moment unfolding in front of her.
Dad exhaled slowly through his nose, regret flickering briefly across his face. “I’m not trying to make that sound simple.”
“It is simple,” I answered, softer than I intended. “You had a job. It mattered. I got it.”
His expression changed again then. And for one terrible second, I thought he might apologize.
Not here.
Not over rosemary chicken and roasted potatoes.
Not after years of learning how to love him around the edges of everything his life demanded from him.
So I reached for my water again and forced my voice lighter before either of us accidentally said something honest enough to ruin lunch. “Besides,” I added, “I already survived one hockey-related career path. I tutored Ty Burns through sophomore biology. I’ve done my time.”
“The organization is growing,” Dad continued, ignoring my protest. “Fast. Messy in places. We’re trying to build something sustainable, and I need people I trust who can see systems, not just personalities.
You understand operations. You understand how people move through structures. You know how to make chaos functional.”
“Very flattering,” I murmured. “Still hockey.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “But hockey is also contracts, travel, scheduling, compliance, player conduct, sponsor obligations, media risk, medical coordination, family support, community appearances, and twenty other things nobody sees because they’re too busy watching the puck.”
Bea lifted her wine glass slightly. “He’s not wrong.”
I pointed at her immediately. “You are supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on the side of you not being psychologically damaged by a man who uses Messenger like a tactical assault weapon.”
Dad’s mouth twitched faintly. “Come in temporarily,” he offered. “Help us build better systems. If you hate it, leave. If something better comes along, take it. No guilt. No pressure.”
No pressure, from my father, usually meant he had already considered seventeen possible outcomes and quietly decided which one he preferred while pretending I had equal footing in the conversation.
My father just had the kind of confidence that came from years of making impossible decisions in expensive rooms while everyone else waited for him to speak first. He could sound casual while placing a life raft directly in front of you. And I was tired enough to want the raft.
“I don’t want to be one of those owner’s daughter hires,” I finally admitted.
“You won’t be,” he replied quickly.
“People will think I am.”
“People think a lot of things,” Bea snickered, a knowing smirk tugging at her mouth.
“That is not a business strategy.”
“No,” Dad agreed calmly. “Hiring someone competent is.”
I looked away first because unfortunately that had been a good answer.
Beyond the sunroom windows, late autumn had turned the backyard pale and quiet. The planters Lo filled every spring sat empty now, dark soil damp from last night’s rain. The maple tree near the fence had lost almost all its leaves, thin branches scratching softly against the gray sky.
When I was little, I used to sit out there with sketchbooks while my father took calls inside.
I had drawn everything in that backyard at least a hundred times.
The maple tree. The chipped birdbath Lo eventually replaced after claiming it looked “dangerously haunted.” The back of my father’s head through the glass while he paced the kitchen talking about contracts and trades and systems I didn’t understand yet.
I had spent most of my life near hockey without ever really belonging to it.
Near the arena, the noise, the players. Never fully inside. Never fully away.
“I have plans,” I exhaled, though the words came out thinner than I wanted them to. “I don’t want to get stuck.”
“Then don’t.” Dad nodded once. “Use it as a bridge. Get paid what you’re worth. Help me for a while. Build experience. Then go do whatever bigger thing you want to do.”
The bigger thing sat quietly inside me like it always did.
Not business operations. Not hockey. A hidden folder full of half-finished chapters.
Notes apps crowded with dialogue snippets and scene ideas.
Characters who visited me while I brushed my teeth or tried to fall asleep.
Entire conversations I carried around in my head instead of saying out loud.
I could tell my father I wanted something bigger.
I could not tell him I wanted to write love stories.
Lo’s hand covered mine before I realized I’d started folding my napkin into increasingly aggressive little squares again.
Her rings pressed cool against my knuckles.
“Temporary doesn’t mean insignificant, sugar,” she said gently.
“Sometimes temporary is how we get from the wrong room to the right one.”
Bea’s expression softened immediately.
Dad looked down toward his plate like Lo had just said something he wanted to keep without interrupting.
I swallowed hard enough to annoy myself. “That was inconveniently beautiful.”
Lo squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “I do try to be useful between casseroles.”
“You don’t make casseroles.”
“Not for people who question my wisdom.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
My father’s entire face warmed at the sound, like he’d been waiting for it.
And for one dangerous second, sitting there in the warm kitchen light with Bea smiling beside me and Lo stealing bread from the basket while my father watched me hopefully across the table, I felt myself starting to cave a little around the edges.
Then Dad reached for his fork and added, far too casually, “And honestly, we need more clear heads around certain players.”
Something cold slid quietly down my spine before I even understood why. “You know,” I said carefully, “whenever someone says certain players, it immediately sounds like one of them recently lit something on fire.”
Dad cut into his chicken. “Young roster. Big personalities. Guys who are assets on the ice but need better infrastructure around them off it.”
“Horrifying sentence,” I muttered.
Bea tilted her head slightly. “Anyone specific?”
Dad paused. And if I believed the universe occasionally performed acts of mercy, I would’ve hoped for interruption then. Instead, he said calmly, “Buzz Burns, for one.”
My entire body forgot how lunch worked. The fork stopped halfway to my mouth before I could stop it. I lowered it slowly back onto my plate and reached for my water glass instead because suddenly my hands required occupational therapy.
Ty Burns was not a ghost.
Ghosts were easier.
Ghosts stayed ghosts.
Ty Burns was extremely alive.
Extremely employed.
Extremely beloved by the city of Northbend in the deeply irritating way hometown hockey stars always were.
Good with reporters.
Good in commercials.
Good smile.
Good hands.
I did not think about his hands. I definitely did not think about them enough for heat to rise briefly into my face years after the fact like my nervous system had been waiting patiently for humiliation to return.
“Buzz,” Bea repeated slowly.
I smoothed my napkin unnecessarily across my lap. “Sounds less like a hockey player and more like somebody who should be monitored by a beekeeper.”
Lo laughed softly into her wine.
Dad, unfortunately oblivious in the specific way loving fathers could be when they thought enough time had passed to dull something sharp, continued talking.
“He’s valuable. More valuable than people realize.
But he gets by on instinct, charm, and talent.
That works until it doesn’t. He needs business-minded structure around him. ”
I stared at the condensation slipping slowly down my water glass.
Across the table, Bea had gone very still. Then slowly, she whispered, “What’s the story with Buzz?”
There it was. Carefully placed in the center of the table like a live grenade waiting for the pin to be pulled.
I shrugged one shoulder. “There isn’t a story.”
Bea’s eyebrows lifted immediately. “Oh my God,” she gasped, sitting up straighter. “Lucy.”
I looked at her warily.
“You dated Buzz Burns in high school?”
Lo reached for her wine.
Dad blinked once across the table like he genuinely had not realized this counted as shocking information. Which honestly felt unfair considering he had technically lived through it.
“It wasn’t serious,” I said automatically.
Bea stared at me in open betrayal. “You never told me you dated Buzz Burns.”
I took a very careful sip of water. “I never talk about Buzz.”
And I never wanted to again.
I’d built routines around it. Avoiding old photos. Avoiding certain songs without consciously meaning to. Avoiding Northbend bars during alumni weekends because somebody always had stories about Buzz. As if his name still moved through town independently of him.
Across from me, Dad looked mildly bewildered by the tension now unfolding at his dining table. “You dated for years,” he said.
I closed my eyes briefly. “Thank you, Dad. Very helpful.”
Bea turned toward me slowly. “Years?”
“It was high school.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is technically an answer.”
Lo bit back a smile behind her wine glass.
Bea pointed at me accusingly. “You let me spend weeks doing PR damage control for this man without mentioning you used to date him?”
Dad laughed softly into his iced tea.
Bea leaned back in her chair looking genuinely stunned now. “I cannot believe you never told me.”
I shrugged again, smaller this time. “It never came up.”
Dad wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Anyway, you wouldn’t be dealing with players directly at first.”
“At first?” I caught immediately.
He gave me a look far too innocent to trust. “Depending on where we place you.”
Lo leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. “I guess everyone works for the team now. Darlin’, where do you want me?”