20. Buzz
BUZZ
NOW
Grandma Ruth appeared beside us with a plastic container in both hands, and Lucy pulled away so fast I felt the absence of her before I understood she had moved.
That was how close I’d been.
Not touching her. Not even close enough to call it touching. But my hand had lifted before my brain caught up, and for one reckless, idiotic, perfect second, Lucy Thomas had not stepped back.
She had stayed.
Then Grandma Ruth showed up with fudge, because apparently God had a sense of humor and it was shaped like an eighty-year-old woman with a tote bag full of sugar.
Lucy’s clipboard knocked against her hip as she shifted back into herself. Her shoulders straightened. Her chin lifted. Her expression smoothed out in that devastating professional way that made me want to mess up my whole life just to see what she looked like underneath it.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching for a piece of fudge like it was a work assignment.
Grandma Ruth gave her the kind of look that had humbled grown men at Thanksgiving. “You’re too skinny.”
Lucy blinked. “I’m not.”
“You are. Marion said so.”
Across the spectator section, my mother looked over as if she had been summoned by the mere accusation of underfeeding someone.
She was holding a paper cup of coffee in one hand and talking to the Mighty Blades coordinator with the focused warmth she brought to every conversation, like she was one casserole away from adopting the whole room.
“I absolutely did not,” Mom called.
Grandma Ruth did not look away from Lucy. “She implied it.”
Lucy made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite surrender. But something. Something real enough that it caught low in my chest and stayed there.
I took a piece of fudge because if I didn’t put something in my hand, I was going to do something stupid with it. Like reach for Lucy again.
The event was still moving around us, bright and loud in all the right places.
Kids were coming off the ice with flushed cheeks and damp hair beneath helmets.
Parents hovered near the boards pretending they weren’t crying.
Volunteers guided sleds back toward the equipment area while Freya stood near the gate, radiating the kind of friendly authority that made people thank her for bossing them around.
Lucy slipped past me to answer a question from one of the Mighty Blades staff members. I watched her go because my self-control had limits and most of them were currently wearing emerald green.
She looked good in the arena. Not pretty. She was always pretty, and thinking that felt too small for what happened when Lucy walked through a room.
She looked right. Clipboard against her chest. Radio at her waistband.
Curls pinned back with several pieces already escaping because she had been moving all morning.
Glasses catching the rink lights as she listened to a parent with her whole attention.
She nodded once, asked a question, then turned and redirected two volunteers with a calm hand gesture that somehow made everyone around her move smoother.
She had always been controlled. Even at eighteen, Lucy had made control look like oxygen.
But this was different. This was poise. This was authority. This was the woman she had become while I was off building a life too loud to notice what was missing from it.
“Careful,” Bea said beside me.
I glanced down. “With what?”
“With looking at her like that in public.”
“I’m looking normally.”
Bea’s eyebrows rose.
I took a bite of fudge. “This is a community event. I’m being civic.”
“You are being obvious.”
“Feels rude to criticize a volunteer.”
“You are not a volunteer. You are a player with good optics.”
“Usually people say asset.”
“Usually people are trying to keep you happy.”
I pointed the fudge at her. “You wound me, Boss Lady.”
“Good. Builds character.”
I looked back toward Lucy before I could stop myself. She was speaking with Sarah now, too far away for me to hear, but I could read enough. Sarah’s expression stayed composed, tablet tucked to her side, but she said something that made Lucy go still for half a beat.
Lucy looked down quickly, like the floor had become very important. Sarah touched her tablet once, nodded, and moved away.
Lucy stayed there for one second longer than necessary. Then she inhaled, lifted her head, and went right back to work.
Something proud and hot moved through me so fast it almost scared me.
Lucy looked good in her new role. Not because of the blazer or the title or the fact that every person in the room had started turning toward her when they needed an answer.
Because she had earned it in front of everyone, and even from across the rink I could see her starting to believe that maybe she had.
I wanted to be near her so badly my teeth hurt.
Instead, I finished my fudge and went back to work.
For the next twenty minutes, the event turned into the kind of organized chaos that would have sent Lucy into silent task mode if it had started earlier.
But now the hard parts were behind us. The kids were more comfortable.
The parents were easier. Tasha had found the rhythm of photographing without invading.
Freya had somehow convinced three volunteers, one parent, and a terrified sponsor rep that hydration was not optional.
Alois stood near the equipment table with his arms folded, watching Niko show his mother how far he had made it across the ice.
The blue earmuffs were still crooked on Niko’s head.
“You know,” I said, stopping beside him, “you sitting on the ice was very emotionally generous.”
Alois did not look at me. “You made it strange.”
“I made it approachable.”
“You talked too much.”
“The kid laughed.”
“He laughed because you were annoying.”
“Still counts.”
Alois’s mouth did something that was not a smile because apparently smiling cost extra in Germany. “Unfortunately.”
I grinned. “That’s high praise coming from you.”
“Do not get comfortable.”
“Too late. I feel nurtured.”
He finally looked at me then, expression flat. “You’re an idiot.”
I laughed, and the sound came easier than I expected. Not loud. Not for show. Just there.
Alois looked back toward the ice. After a second, he said, “You did well.”
The words were so unexpected I almost missed a step. I opened my mouth.
He cut me off without turning. “Do not ruin it.”
I closed my mouth. Then, because I had apparently learned something today, I nodded once and let the compliment sit there without trying to make it into a joke.
Across the room, Lucy glanced over. Her eyes moved from Alois to me, and something flickered across her face before she looked away.
Hope was a stupid thing. Mine had terrible timing.
By the time the final group came off the ice, the whole secondary rink had changed temperature.
Not literally. It was still cold enough that the kids’ noses had gone pink and Grandma Ruth had started distributing spare napkins like survival equipment.
But the tightness had gone out of the room.
Families lingered instead of rushing out.
Kids tugged parents back toward the boards.
Someone asked if the Mighty Blades could come back next year, and Lucy’s face changed in a way I wanted to memorize before she tucked it away.
Grandpa Hal had been hunched over his folded roster for most of the last rotation. I’d assumed he was tracking nonsense. Shot attempts. Cone drills. Which kid chirped me hardest. Then he walked over to the Mighty Blades coordinator and handed it to her. “Thought they might like this,” he said.
She unfolded the paper.
I was close enough to see the columns. Favorite moment. Best laugh. First goal. Biggest cheer. Wanted to try again. Grandpa had written every kid’s name in careful block letters.
The coordinator pressed her fingers to her mouth.
Lucy saw it. She stopped beside the check-in table with two lanyards still looped over her wrist. For a second, everything professional in her face fell away. Her eyes brightened. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
Grandpa Hal shoved both hands into his coat pockets like he hadn’t just ripped her clean open.
My chest went tight.
There it was. A way in.
Not one I could use. Not yet. But I saw it. I saw the way my family could still reach places in Lucy that I had been locked out of for years. I saw the way she remembered them with her whole body before she remembered to protect herself.
And because I was a selfish bastard, it made me hopeful.
Fraser moved past me carrying a collapsed folding table under one arm. “Good event,” he barked.
I looked at him automatically, like a kid looking for something I was too old to need. His eyes were on the room, not me. On Lucy talking quietly to the coordinator. On the kids still clustered by the glass. On the volunteers stacking bins.
He nodded once. “She ran it well.”
“Yeah,” I said again, quieter this time. “She did.”
Mom appeared near Lucy with her coat folded over one arm, and whatever she said made Lucy shake her head immediately.
Mom smiled anyway.
Oh, no.
I started toward them because I was not above wanting to be present when Marion Burns deployed full force.
“We’re going to Matt’s,” Mom said as I got close, warm as fresh coffee and twice as dangerous. “And Lucy, we’re not taking no for an answer.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “I really should get back to the arena office.”
“Everything is packed,” Grandma Ruth piped in from behind her. “You have people.”
“I do have people,” Lucy said carefully.
Mom touched Lucy’s arm, gentle enough that Lucy could have stepped away and didn’t. “For old time’s sake.”
Lucy looked toward the rink. Toward the equipment table, the emptying boards, the space where the morning had happened and somehow worked.
Then she looked at my mother, at Grandma Ruth, at Grandpa Hal still pretending his roster had not made half the adults in the room emotional, at Dad carrying another folded chair like usefulness was his native language.
Finally, she looked at me.
I held my breath like an idiot.