30. Lucy #3
His answer came without hesitation. “Yep.”
My throat tightened. I looked up.
He stood in the doorway, not quite relaxed, not quite braced. Waiting, but not demanding. Present, but not invading.
“Every morning?” I asked.
His mouth curved. A flicker of the old Ty broke through before adult Ty caught it and made it gentler. He winked. “See you tomorrow.”
Then he turned and left.
No lingering.
No clever second line.
No glance over his shoulder designed to ruin my ability to function.
Just his footsteps moving down the hall while Dottie licked whipped cream from a cup labeled with her name like she had personally negotiated a sponsorship.
I stood there holding the coffee.
The arena continued around me. A cart rattled somewhere. Voices passed in the corridor. My computer chimed with a new email. Dottie’s tongue made an undignified sound against paper.
I looked down at her. “You folded immediately.”
She did not care.
“You have no principles.”
Dottie’s tail wagged. She pushed the empty cup across the floor with her nose, checking for leftovers.
I looked at the coffee again.
The thing about grand gestures was that they gave you something to reject.
Flowers could be thrown away. Speeches could be dismantled. Apologies could be examined for weak points until they collapsed under the weight of insufficient precision.
But coffee from the place my best friend owned, made exactly the way I liked it, brought to my office without a note, without a demand, without an audience, without even stepping past the threshold?
By late morning, the caffeine had done its best with the poor materials available to it.
I made progress on actual work. Not flawless progress.
But enough that my inbox stopped looking like it wanted to press charges.
Dottie fell asleep on her bed with her paws twitching, probably dreaming of abandoning me for whipped cream.
I signed off on two travel adjustments, forwarded a facilities issue to the correct department, and moved the Charlotte folder into the corner of my desk where I could see it without letting it take up the entire room.
At eleven twenty-six, my father called. My office phone. Which meant owner business.
“Lucy Thomas.”
“Come upstairs when you have a minute,” Dad said.
I sat a little straighter. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
The line clicked off.
I stared at the receiver.
Dottie opened one eye.
“That was either reassuring or ominous,” I told her.
She closed her eye again.
The owner’s suite sat above the main executive level, tucked beyond a corridor most people in the building did not enter unless they had a badge, an appointment, or the kind of confidence that usually came with expensive attorneys.
I had been there plenty of times, of course.
I had grown up in arenas. I had done homework in rooms like this, eaten vending machine dinners on leather couches, watched Dad take calls that made adults lower their voices when they passed by.
Dad had never been a gold-fixtures man. His office suite was all dark wood, clean glass, framed black-and-white hockey photographs, and windows overlooking the arena bowl.
The furniture was expensive, but not showy.
Built to last. Built to survive men who forgot how heavy they were when they dropped into chairs after games.
There was a photo of Arlo and me on one shelf from a summer trip years ago, both of us sunburned, squinting, and pretending not to be happy.
Another of Dad and Lo at some Frosthawks charity event, Lo laughing at something while Dad looked at her like she had interrupted a war he had been willing to lose.
A framed jersey from his playing days hung along the far wall, the number sharp beneath museum glass.
His desk faced the room instead of the window. Dad liked to see the door.
He stood when I came in, phone in one hand, reading glasses in the other. He wore a charcoal suit with no tie, the top button of his white shirt undone. He looked like ownership had been built around him rather than the other way around.
Then he saw my face. Not the makeup. Not the blazer. Not the part I had repaired in the staff bathroom. His expression changed by half an inch. “You look tired.”
“I am.”
His brows drew together. “You were here late again.”
I walked farther into the office. “I had work to finish.”
“You are also human, despite persistent evidence that you consider sleep an optional vendor service.”
I set my coffee on the edge of his conference table. “That sounds like something Lo said.”
“It was effective when she said it.”
“Did it work on you?”
“No.”
“Then why would it work on me?”
His mouth twitched.
For a moment, the last twenty-four hours loosened their grip enough for me to breathe inside a room where I had never had to perform being fine quite as hard as I did everywhere else.
Dad gestured toward the chair across from his desk. “Sit.”
“Is this owner business or father business?”
“Yes.”
“That was not an answer.”
“It was efficient.”
I sat.
He remained standing for a second longer, then set his phone on the desk and leaned back against it instead of taking his chair.
That was father business, then. Or at least not fully owner business.
Dad behind his desk meant decisions. Dad leaning against it meant he was trying to make a conversation feel less like one.
“Charlotte will no longer be an issue,” he said.
My spine straightened. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Dad.”
His eyes narrowed faintly. “Lucy.”
“I need slightly more than ominous owner brevity.”
“She is gone from the organization permanently. Her access is closed. Any future attempt to interfere with team operations, contact staff or partners, or make legal threats will be handled before it reaches your desk.”
Charlotte’s email had been sitting inside me like a splinter. Not because I thought she would win. She would not. Her documentation was weak, her behavior was documented, and her confidence had always exceeded her strategy by a dangerous margin.
“What did you do?” I asked.
He sighed in the deeply put-upon manner of a man whose daughter had inherited too many of his interrogation habits.
Then, slowly, his face shifted. Not into the public smile.
Not the owner smile. Warm. Dry. A little dangerous.
“I took care of the wicked witch with a bucket full of lawyers who have real credentials and the deep pockets of this team.”
I stared at him. He looked very pleased with himself. “A bucket full,” I repeated.
“It felt proportionate.”
Despite everything, I laughed. It came out tired and thin, real.
Dad’s smile deepened for one second, and in that second, the whole room changed.
Not the owner’s suite. Not the place where calls were made and problems disappeared behind polished doors.
Just my father’s office, where he had once let me spin in his chair until I got dizzy and then pretended not to notice when I knocked a stack of scouting reports onto the floor.
“I had it handled,” I said, but there was no bite in it.
“I know.”
“Then why step in?”
Dad’s eyes held mine.
Because you are my daughter, his face said. Out loud, he said, “Because eliminating a companywide threat is for me to deal with personally and swiftly.”
I looked away first, toward the window overlooking the bowl.
Down below, the ice gleamed beneath the arena lights, empty and waiting.
So much of my life had happened in rooms above ice.
Watching. Waiting. Trying to understand where I fit inside a world that belonged to my father before it ever belonged to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are welcome.” Then he ruined it on purpose. “Now that we have established I am occasionally useful, I would like to discuss your office.”
I blinked back toward him. “My office?”
“It looks like a conference room having an identity crisis.”
“That is rude.”
“It is accurate.”
“I have been busy.”
“I noticed.” His gaze moved over my face again, and I could tell he was connecting the wrong dots. Late nights. Charlotte. Promotion. Workload. Office lights burning after games. He saw exhaustion and gave it the shape he understood.