33. Buzz #3
Marco exhaled. “Well,” he said, voice lower than usual. “That was significantly less fun than my original pup-cup material.”
Harry rubbed a hand down his face. “Your original material was also terrible.”
“Yes, but in a charming way.”
A laugh broke out near Jonah’s stall. Small. Careful. Relieved.
The room started moving again by degrees. A locker shut. Someone turned the shower off. Milo pulled on his hoodie. Harry muttered something about his knees. Marco got dressed with less theater than usual, which meant even he knew the air needed a minute.
Alois stood. “You are staring.”
“I’m processing.”
“That is new for you.”
I huffed once. It almost became a laugh and did not quite make it. “There he is.”
Alois tightened the knot in his tie. “You handled it.”
I looked down at the tape twisted around my fingers. The adhesive had stuck lightly to my skin. I peeled it free. “Did I?”
“Yes.”
“You sure? Because I still wanted to put him through a wall.”
Alois looked back at me, expression unreadable to anyone who had not spent too many months learning the difference between his silences. “I did not say you became a saint.”
My throat tightened before I could stop it. I looked away fast, toward the Frosthawks logo stitched into the carpet, the sharp wing marks cut through charcoal and ember red beneath the scuffed toes of my dress shoes.
I let out a short breath. “Great talk.”
He shrugged into his jacket, tugged it into place over his shoulders, and glanced toward the door. “I agree.” Alois picked up his bag. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Out.”
“Specific.”
“You need air.”
I stood because arguing with Alois after a loss required a level of energy I did not currently possess.
Around us, the room had settled into a quieter version of normal.
Not healed. Not fixed. But functional. Men dressing.
Talking low. Avoiding some things and naming others.
The season still dying in the corner while everyone pretended not to hear it breathe.
Oliver caught my eye as I grabbed my jacket. He gave one small nod.
I followed Alois into the hallway.
The corridor outside the locker room was colder, brighter, washed in the hard overhead lights that made every scuff on the concrete visible.
A laundry cart sat abandoned near the wall.
Down the hall, arena staff moved with postgame efficiency, stripping the building back down to bones now that the crowd had gone.
The smell shifted from sweat and tape to cleaning solution, melted ice, and stale popcorn from the concourse above.
Alois walked beside me without speaking. That was one of the better things about him. He did not fill quiet just because it existed. He let it stretch until a person either found their footing or revealed they had none.
We passed the media room. Empty now. A few folded chairs leaned against the wall. Someone had left a half-full water bottle on the table beside a stack of stat sheets no one wanted to look at again.
Near the turn toward Hockey Operations, Alois stopped.
I stopped too.
He nodded once down the hall.
Lucy stood near the glass doors outside the operations suite. Not close enough to hear us. Not looking our way. Physically nearby and completely unaware that her name had just changed the temperature of a locker room.
She had a tablet tucked against one arm and her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear.
Her hair was pulled back loosely, curls escaping around her face.
The emerald blazer was gone, replaced by a cream sweater under a long navy coat, but even tired and postgame and half-lit by office fluorescents, she looked like order in the middle of a building trying not to come apart.
Dottie sat beside her feet, leash looped around Lucy’s wrist, head tilted toward the closed operations door as if she had strong opinions about late-night administrative work.
Lucy listened to whoever was on the phone, then glanced down at the tablet. Her mouth moved around some calm, practical answer. Director voice. Controlled. Competent. Still here after a loss, still doing the work, still holding pieces in place no one in the stands would ever see.
My whole body wanted to go to her. I wanted to cross the hall and stand close enough that she knew someone had her.
I wanted to ask if she had eaten. I wanted to tell Dottie she was a traitor.
I wanted to make Lucy’s mouth twitch after a night that had probably handed her twelve new problems and no room to feel any of them.
Down the hall, Lucy ended the call and lowered the phone from her ear. Dottie looked up at her, tail sweeping once against the floor. Lucy touched the top of Dottie’s head without looking, fingers sinking briefly into soft fur before she turned back toward the operations door.
She did not see me.
I let that be true.
No wave.
No call down the hall.
No text later pretending I had a reason.
I stood beside Alois in the cold arena corridor and watched Lucy Thomas walk back into the office with her dog at her side and the whole tired building depending on her steadiness.
Then I turned away.