19. Lucy
LUCY
NOW
By the time I reached the secondary rink level at Talon Arena, the building had already begun pretending it was awake.
The concourse lights still held that faint bluish cast they had before the public doors opened, and most of the arena remained quiet in the heavy, echoing way large buildings did when they were built to hold thousands of people but currently held only staff with travel mugs and clipped-on radios.
Somewhere beyond the wall, the main bowl sat empty and enormous, rows of charcoal seats disappearing into dimness beneath the scoreboard.
Work lights glowed over the ice like the building had one eye open.
The secondary rink felt warmer by comparison, though only because people had already started moving through it.
Rubber mats created the walkway between the family lounge and the rink entrance.
Folding tables lined the wall, each one covered with labeled bins, clipboards, credential lanyards, water bottles, snack baskets, and stacks of waiver packets I had checked too many times to count.
The quiet room had been set up beside the lounge with dimmed lamps, extra chairs, soft blankets, fidget items, and a sign I had rewritten twice last night because the first version felt too clinical and the second felt like I was trying too hard. The third simply said: Quiet Space.
I stood near the check-in table with a coffee I had forgotten to drink cooling in my hand and my radio clipped to the waistband of my trousers beneath my blazer.
You can do this, I thought as I forced a breath deep into my diaphragm. If Charlotte can do this, you can do this.
Her absence moved through the morning in practical, irritating ways instead of dramatic ones.
A missing sponsor arrival time. A media release form filed under the wrong subfolder.
Accessibility notes that should have been merged into the staff packet and had instead existed in three separate email threads, two of which had been forwarded to an account that no longer had building access.
I had fixed all of it. The event was happening.
The children would arrive at nine. The Mighty Blades coordinator had already confirmed she was five minutes out.
Equipment services had the adaptive sleds staged beside the ice.
Freya had arrived early, hair piled on top of her head, leggings tucked into winter boots, already talking with the volunteer lead about safe body positioning and how not to treat enthusiasm like permission.
Bea stood twenty feet away with Tasha, both of them reviewing the photo consent list while Tasha held a camera against her chest like someone prepared to document joy and ruin anyone who violated boundaries around it.
Sarah Yu moved through the space with a tablet and the kind of expression that made interns straighten their posture from across the rink.
Everything was fine. I looked down at my clipboard.
Everything was fine because I had done every possible thing I could do before the families arrived, and the only thing left was to keep my head on straight.
A puck hit the boards on the far end of the rink where one of the equipment assistants was testing the ice surface. The sound cracked through the air, sharp and clean. My fingers tightened around the clipboard.
“Your coffee is losing its will to live,” Bea said beside me. Bea glanced over my face, and for half a second the teasing thinned into something softer. “You okay?”
I inhaled through my nose. “I’m functional,” I said.
Bea’s mouth twitched. “A deeply realistic answer.”
Before I could respond, Sarah approached with her tablet tucked against one hip. “The west service entrance is clear. Mighty Blades coordinator is pulling in now. Security has the spectator section marked off behind the glass along the near blue line.”
“Thank you.”
“Your father is upstairs for a donor call. He said he’ll come down once arrivals settle,” she added quickly.
My stomach tightened once, then released. “All right.”
At exactly 7:45, the west service door opened.
Ty Burns came through carrying three bundles of short hockey sticks under one arm, a Frosthawks duffel over his opposite shoulder, and a shopping bag dangling from two fingers.
He wore black athletic pants, a dark hoodie beneath his team jacket, and his hair looked like he had attempted to tame it before deciding personal growth had limits.
He stopped just inside the rink area, glanced at the clock, then looked directly at me.
I hated that my body registered the exactness of it. The punctuality. The eye contact. The fact that he had shown up with both hands full and his phone nowhere visible.
He crossed the rubber mats toward me with an energy that was still unmistakably Ty, all loose limbs and barely contained motion, but there was nothing careless about the way he moved through the setup.
He stepped around a volunteer carrying a bin of helmets, paused to let Freya pass with a stack of laminated instruction cards, then set the sticks carefully beside the equipment table.
“Seven forty-five,” he sang out.
“I can see that.”
“Just establishing the record.”
Bea made a sound beside me that was suspiciously close to a laugh, then immediately pretended to read her consent list.
I looked at the shopping bag. “Please tell me that isn’t breakfast.”
“Rude. Also no.” Ty reached into the bag and pulled out a package of child-sized noise-reduction earmuffs.
Bright blue. Price tag still stuck crookedly along the plastic.
Then another. Pink. Then green. Then black.
“I wasn’t sure what colors were approved, so I panicked and bought all the options they had. ”
For a second, I only stared at them while he set them on the table carefully. “There are still price tags on them,” I said, because it was the safest sentence available.
Ty looked down. “Yeah, I made a judgment call in the parking lot between being on time and wrestling sticker glue before sunrise.”
“Growth and prioritization.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Thank you,” I said, and the words came out quieter than I intended.
Ty’s expression changed. Not into smugness. Not into triumph. Something warmer. More careful. “You said today mattered.”
Before the moment could deepen into something neither of us had time to handle, the main doors from the concourse opened and the morning truly began.
Families arrived in layers. Children in Frosthawks hoodies and Mighty Blades jackets.
Parents carrying gear bags, backpacks, medical equipment, stuffed animals, snacks, water bottles, and the particular guarded hope of people who had learned to expect environments to be almost accessible but not quite.
Volunteers checked names against lists. Tasha crouched beside one little boy to show him the camera and ask if pictures were okay.
Freya directed two player aides away from the transfer area with a bright smile and a terrifyingly firm hand.
I moved from table to table, answering questions, smoothing timing, adjusting the rotation chart when one family arrived early and another called to say parking had confused them.
The building filled with sound slowly. Velcro ripping open.
Rubber wheels over mats. Skate blades over ice.
Coffee lids snapping into place. A child laughing so hard near the boards that three adults turned just to hear it.
And then I saw Marion Burns. She stood near the controlled spectator section with Fraser beside her, Ruth on her other side, and Hal just behind them holding a folded roster and a pen.
For one suspended second, the secondary rink disappeared and I was eighteen again, wrapped in a navy blanket, holding coffee strong enough to strip paint.
Marion saw me at the same time. Her face softened with recognition that had learned how to be careful. She stepped forward before I could decide what expression I was supposed to wear. “Lucy.”
“Mrs. Burns,” I stammered awkwardly.
Her hands came up, hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second, then settled around me in a warm hug that smelled faintly of vanilla, laundry detergent, and coffee. “It’s been too long, sweetheart,” she murmured.
I let myself hug her back for one breath too long. Then I stepped away before my face could betray me. “It’s good to see you,” I said, and it was so inadequate it almost hurt.
Marion seemed to understand that too. She only squeezed my forearm once.
Ruth leaned around her, already unzipping a tote. “I brought fudge.”
“Of course you did,” I said.
Hal lifted his folded roster slightly. Across the top, in neat block letters, he had written Northbend Mighty Blades Event. Beneath it, he had drawn columns.
“This isn’t a game,” I told him.
Hal looked at the ice. “Still worth keeping track. Kids might get a kick outta it.”
Fraser had already moved toward a stack of folding chairs near the spectator section without being asked. One of the volunteers was struggling to separate two that had locked together. Fraser set his coffee down, stepped in, and freed them with a practical twist of his hands.
Behind me, Ty’s voice dropped low. “You came.” He had gone still a few feet away from his family, the bundles of sticks forgotten beside the equipment table. His eyes moved over Marion, Ruth, Hal, his father. For half a second, something young and unguarded crossed his face.
Marion smiled at him. “You said it was important.”
Ty swallowed. “Yeah.”
“So we came,” Fraser stated, as though that explained everything.
It did. And that was what made it unbearable.
Ty glanced at me then, and whatever he saw in my face softened the edges of his own expression. He did not smile. He did not make a joke. He only looked at me long enough for the old ache of wanting to belong to the Burns family to settle directly beneath my breastbone.
A child near the check-in table shouted, “Buzz!”
The spell broke. Ty turned toward the sound, and the morning pulled him into motion.