16. Lucy
LUCY
NOW
By two twenty-three, I had reorganized the same stack of briefing packets four times.
The first time had been necessary. The attendance forms had been placed behind the transportation schedule instead of the accessibility profiles.
The second time had been preventative. If Ty needed to reference the volunteer assignments during tomorrow’s event, there was no logical reason to make him search for them.
The third time had been because the corners were not aligned.
The fourth time had been because Charlotte’s voice would not leave my head. They’ll turn on you too eventually. I pressed my palm across the cover of the top packet, smoothing paper that was already perfectly flat.
Beneath my desk, Dottie shifted closer until the length of her body rested against both of my calves. Her chin settled heavily across the toe of my shoe, warm and solid and entirely unconcerned with professional boundaries.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
One ear lifted.
I looked down over the edge of my glasses. “That was unnecessarily judgmental.”
Her ear dropped again, but she did not move.
The office had gone quiet in the strange way Talon Arena occasionally did between scheduled demands.
Somewhere beneath the operations level, machinery hummed steadily through the walls.
A puck struck the boards on the secondary rink below, the sound sharp but distant.
Beyond the glass wall of my office, staff moved through the corridor carrying tablets and folders, everyone walking with the purposeful speed of people who knew tomorrow morning had become significantly more complicated than expected.
Nobody looked toward my door.
Charlotte’s termination had taken less than fifteen minutes.
The Human Resources representative had occupied the chair on Charlotte’s right. I had sat across from her with a prepared statement, a list of access points requiring immediate deactivation, and every sentence I needed printed in twelve-point font before me.
My voice had not shaken. Not when I told her the organization had completed its internal review.
Not when I outlined the communications she had withheld and the obligations she had knowingly left incomplete.
Not when I informed her that her employment with the Minnesota Frosthawks was terminated effective immediately.
Charlotte had listened without interrupting. Her face had remained composed, her hands folded neatly in her lap, as if we were discussing a disappointing quarterly report instead of the end of her career with the organization.
Only after the Human Resources representative began explaining the process for collecting her belongings had Charlotte finally looked directly at me. “You think this place is yours now,” she had said quietly.
I had kept my expression still. “This conversation is not about me.”
“It will be.” Her smile had been small and almost sympathetic. “Give it time. They’ll turn on you too eventually.”
The Human Resources representative had shifted beside her.
I had simply closed the folder in front of me. “Your building access has been suspended. Someone will escort you while you collect your personal belongings.”
Professional. Controlled. Mic drop.
Except apparently it was not finished, because her voice had followed me back to my office and lodged itself somewhere beneath my ribs.
I adjusted my glasses and reached for the packet again.
Dottie exhaled against my ankle.
“I said I was fine.”
Her tail struck the side of the desk once.
The clock in the corner of my monitor changed to two twenty-nine.
I checked the packet one final time. Everything had been accounted for now.
Every detail Charlotte had neglected, hidden, or assumed someone else would eventually discover had been dragged into the light and assigned to someone competent.
The event would happen tomorrow. The children would arrive. Their families would not know how close the entire morning had come to becoming an organizational embarrassment.
That was the point of doing my job well. People were not supposed to see the disaster. They were only supposed to experience the part that worked.
At exactly two thirty, someone knocked twice against my open door. Dottie’s head lifted immediately. Mine followed more slowly.
Ty stood in the doorway wearing black athletic pants and a dark Frosthawks quarter-zip, his gym bag slung over one shoulder.
His hair was still slightly damp from whatever treatment or shower had preceded this meeting.
A phone rested in one hand. He glanced at the clock mounted on my wall, then back at me. “Two-thirty.”
“I can see that.”
“Just establishing the record.”
“You were given a time and arrived at that time. I’m not sure it qualifies as a historic achievement.”
His mouth curved.
Dottie’s tail began thumping against the floor. I looked down at her. “Your standards are apparently lower.”
“She appreciates growth.”
“She appreciates anyone who might be carrying food.”
Ty looked at Dottie. “I’m not.”
Her tail continued anyway.
“Unconditional faith,” he said. “It’s nice to have one supporter in Hockey Operations.”
“You are adored by an entire city.”
“Yeah, but most of them don’t have ears like that.”
Dottie pushed herself upright, but instead of crossing the room, she leaned more firmly against my legs. Her eyes stayed fixed on Ty while her body remained planted against me.
His gaze dropped to her. Something in his expression shifted. Barely. The humor stayed, but it softened around the edges. Then he looked at me again.
“You coming in?” I asked.
“Was waiting for permission.”
“Since when?”
“Since I’m working on respecting professional boundaries.”
The words should not have carried any meaning beyond the obvious. Unfortunately, my body had never been particularly interested in obvious meanings where Ty Burns was concerned.
A hotel room in New York surfaced without warning. His hand at my waist. His mouth against my neck. The quiet afterward, when neither of us had known what to say without making the night real enough to survive the morning.
I looked down at the packet before the memory could settle fully. “You can sit.”
“Generous.” Ty stepped into the office and set his gym bag beside one of the visitor chairs. He did not close the door behind him. I noticed that immediately and hated myself slightly for noticing at all.
He lowered into the chair across from my desk, then stretched one long leg beneath it as if the furniture had personally failed to account for professional hockey players. His phone stayed in his hand. He glanced down at the screen while settling back, balancing the chair briefly on its rear legs.
Dottie watched him. I watched the chair. “Those are not designed for that.”
Ty looked up. “For sitting?”
“For whatever you’re doing.”
“I’m sitting.”
“You’re testing the organization’s liability coverage.”
He lowered the chair onto all four legs for approximately three seconds. Then tipped it back again. I inhaled slowly through my nose. His attention shifted away from his phone and traveled around the office instead.
There was not much to see. My desk. Two chairs.
A row of operations manuals and reference binders arranged along the low cabinet beneath the interior window.
A framed photograph of Arlo and me on North Line’s rooftop sat beside the lamp.
My coffee mug waited near the computer, untouched since before Charlotte’s termination.
Most of the personal evidence in the room belonged to Dottie.
Her bed occupied the corner beside the window.
A folded blanket rested across it. Her water bowl sat on a rubber mat near the cabinet, and a woven basket held enough toys to suggest she had negotiated a much better relocation package than I had.
Ty’s eyes paused on the basket. “Dottie moved in faster than you did.”
“This is an office.”
“I’ve seen waiting rooms with more personality.”
“You spend a concerning amount of time in medical facilities.”
“Occupational hazard.”
I opened the packet in front of me. “Should we begin?”
His gaze stayed on the nearly bare wall behind my desk. “You could put something up.”
“I could also conduct the meeting you are here to attend.”
“A plant, maybe.”
“It would die.”
“Picture?”
“There is a picture.”
His eyes moved toward the photograph of Arlo and me. “One picture. Very bold.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I know.” The humor disappeared from his voice so quietly that I looked at him before I meant to. Ty had lowered his chair again. Both feet rested on the floor now.
The office suddenly felt smaller than it had a moment earlier. Too quiet. Too enclosed, even with an open door and an entire wall made of glass.
Ty tapped the edge of his phone once against his knee. “Besides,” he said, his voice lighter again, “you’re sticking around now. You might as well make the place look like you’re comfortable here.”
My fingers stopped against the packet. He watched me carefully. I should have asked what he meant. I should have made him explain himself instead of allowing one uncomplicated sentence to shift the air between us. “You noticed,” I said.
“Your email signature changed.” Ty shrugged one shoulder, as though noticing six missing letters at the bottom of an email meant nothing. “Congratulations.”
There was no teasing in it. No bitterness. Only something warm and restrained that made looking at him unexpectedly difficult.
I lowered my eyes toward the packet and aligned it with the edge of my desk, even though it was already straight. “Thank you.”
Dottie pressed her chin against my knee.
Across from me, Ty’s chair tipped slowly back onto two legs again. And just like that, the moment was gone. Almost.
“For tomorrow,” I began, forcing the shift before my lungs forgot how to breathe, “you’ll need to enter through the west service entrance at eight fifteen.”
Ty glanced down at his phone again. “Eight fifteen.”
“That was not a question.”
“I was committing it to memory.”
“There is a schedule in front of you.”