Chapter 4 #2
"Maybe." She smiled, and it was real—tired, but real. "I've been told recently that I work too much. That I need to have a life outside this place."
"Do you want a life outside this place?"
"I don't know. I think I've forgotten what that looks like." She glanced back at the counter, where Mae was very obviously pretending not to watch them. "I should get back to work. But... Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you came in today. Even if you were late."
"Me too."
Lucy headed back to the counter, and Jake watched her go. The way she moved through the bakery—confident, purposeful, like she belonged there in a way Jake had never quite felt like he belonged anywhere.
He finished his pork buns slowly, making them last. Drank his coffee in small sips instead of gulping it down. And when he finally got up to pay, he did something he'd never done before.
He left a twenty-dollar tip.
Mae rang him up, eyebrows raised. "That's a lot for six pork buns."
"They're worth it," Jake said, loud enough for Lucy to hear in the back.
As he walked out, gear bag over his shoulder, Jake felt something shift. Not a huge change. Not a revelation. Just a small adjustment—like he'd been standing slightly off-center for three years and had finally found his balance.
His phone buzzed the moment he got in his truck.
Marcus: So? How'd it go?
Jake typed back: I sat down.
Marcus: AND?????
Jake: And I'm going to Friday dinner.
Marcus: HOLY SHIT CHARACTER GROWTH
Marcus: I'm so proud I could cry
Marcus: Wait are you going because of team bonding or because Lucy might be there
Jake didn't respond to that one.
"Oh my God oh my God oh my God."
Mae's voice carried from the front of the store approximately three seconds after Jake left. Lucy looked up from the prep table where she'd been aggressively kneading bread dough.
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what'? Jake Morrison just sat down and ate here for the first time in THREE YEARS. And you guys TALKED. Like, actual conversation. And he left a twenty-dollar tip on a twelve-dollar order."
"He did?"
Mae held up the twenty like evidence. "This is happening. Operation: Get Lucy A Life is working."
"There is no operation." But Lucy was smiling despite herself. He'd sat down. He'd stayed. They'd talked.
And it had felt... easy. Natural. Like they'd been having conversations all along and were just now getting around to doing it out loud.
"Rei is going to lose her mind," Mae said. "Can I tell Rei?"
"There's nothing to tell."
"Bull. You made eyes at each other. He complimented the pork buns TWICE. He asked you a personal question. These are major developments in the Jake-and-Lucy saga."
"There is no saga."
"Yet." Mae grinned. "But there will be. Especially if he comes to team dinner Friday."
"Why would he come to team dinner?"
"Because apparently everyone on the Wolves is coming. It's mandatory. Which means you'll see him. In a social setting. Outside the bakery." Mae clutched the twenty to her chest dramatically. "This is the beginning of something beautiful. I can feel it."
Lucy rolled her eyes, but the truth was, she could feel it too. Something had shifted this morning. Some unspoken acknowledgment that they'd both been circling each other for three years, both stuck in their routines, both too scared or tired or stubborn to break the pattern.
Until today.
Her phone buzzed.
Rei: Mae just texted me. JAKE MORRISON SAT DOWN AND TALKED TO YOU???
Lucy: It was a three-minute conversation about pork buns.
Rei: IT'S A START
Rei: You're definitely coming Friday now right
Lucy: I already said I was coming
Rei: Yes but now you MEAN it
Rei: Wear the blue sweater. The soft one. It makes your eyes look good
Lucy: I'm not trying to impress anyone
Rei: Sure Jan
Lucy put her phone away and went back to her bread. But she was smiling. And when she caught her reflection in the industrial oven door, she barely recognized herself—flour in her hair, exhausted from another 4:45 AM wake-up, but somehow looking more alive than she had in months.
Maybe showing up to her own life wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Thursday afternoon practice was brutal. Tommy ran them through defensive drills that had everyone gasping, then added conditioning work that left even Marcus—who prided himself on being in peak shape—bent over his knees.
"Trying to kill us before Saturday?" Ryan called out between gasps.
"Trying to make sure you're ready," Tommy shot back. "That Nashville scout isn't coming to watch you coast."
Jake felt every eye in the locker room turn to him. Right. Because the scout was there for Jake. Nobody else.
Owen, sitting next to him, nudged Jake's shoulder. "That's so cool, man. The NHL is watching you."
"It's just a scout," Jake said. "Doesn't mean anything."
"Doesn't mean anything? Dude, it's the NHL. If they're interested—"
"They're not interested," Jake interrupted. "They're looking. There's a difference."
Marcus, across the room, gave Jake a long look but didn't say anything.
After practice, Jake was the last to leave the locker room—his usual pattern. Tommy caught him at the door.
"Got a minute?"
"Sure."
They walked to Tommy's office—a small room off the main corridor, walls covered with team photos going back thirty years. Jake spotted himself in the youth hockey team photo from 1998, gap-toothed and tiny, holding a stick almost as tall as he was.
Tommy settled behind his desk. "How you feeling about Saturday?"
"Fine."
"Fine." Tommy leaned back in his chair. "You know what your problem is, Reaper?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"You're so busy trying to figure out what everyone else wants that you've forgotten to ask yourself what you want."
Jake shifted his weight. "I want to play well. Help the team win."
"That's what you're supposed to want. I'm asking what you actually want."
The question hung in the air between them. Through the thin walls, Jake could hear the sounds of the arena—the Zamboni making its rounds, the maintenance crew setting up for tonight's public skate session, the hum of the industrial refrigeration units.
"I don't know," Jake admitted finally.
"Then figure it out. Before Saturday. Because if that scout makes an offer and you take it just because you think you're supposed to—because you think your dad would have wanted it, or because it's the dream you've been chasing since you were eight—you're going to end up somewhere you don't want to be. "
"How do you know I don't want to be in the NHL?"
Tommy smiled, but it was sad. "Because I've been watching you for three years, and the only time I see you happy is when you're coaching those kids on Saturday mornings. Or—" he paused, "—when you walk out of that bakery on Wednesday mornings."
Jake's chest tightened. "I don't—"
"I'm not blind, Reaper. And neither is the rest of the team.
You've got a routine. Wednesday mornings, 8:17 AM, six pork buns and black coffee.
You've never missed it in three years until yesterday.
And yesterday, you were nervous. I've seen you face down NHL enforcers without blinking, but the thought of being twelve minutes late to the bakery had you practically jogging to your truck. "
"It's just—"
"It's not just anything. It's something. And maybe it's time you let it be something instead of pretending it's nothing."
Tommy stood, signaling the conversation was over.
But as Jake turned to leave, the coach added: "That Scout on Saturday?
He's going to watch you play. But more important, he's going to watch how you play.
And right now, you play like someone who's going through the motions.
Like you're already somewhere else in your head. "
"I'm focused."
"You're efficient. There's a difference." Tommy pulled out his phone, scrolled for a moment, then turned the screen to show Jake a video. "This is you. Saturday morning. Teaching Emma Rodriguez that spin move."
On the screen, Jake watched himself demonstrating a skating technique to a seven-year-old. And Tommy was right—Jake was smiling. Really smiling, not the tight professional smile he gave reporters or the neutral expression he wore during games. He looked... happy.
"That's who you are," Tommy said quietly. "Not Reaper. Not the guy who's going through the motions. That guy. Find him again before Saturday. Because that's the player the NHL wants. Not the shell you've been wearing for three years."
Jake walked out of the arena in a daze. The cold November air hit him like a slap, sharp and clarifying.
He sat in his truck and pulled out his phone. No new messages. No emergency. No reason he couldn't just drive home, heat up leftovers, watch a movie on mute, continue the routine.
Instead, he found himself typing a text to his mom.
Can I come for dinner Sunday? I want to talk to you about something.
Her response came immediately: Of course honey. I'll make your favorite. Everything okay?
Jake stared at the phone for a long moment before typing: Yeah. I think I'm just figuring some things out.
His mom sent back a heart emoji, then: I'm proud of you.
Jake put the phone away and sat in the parking lot, watching the sun set over Timber Falls. The mountains in the distance were turning purple-blue with twilight, the kind of view his dad used to call "God showing off."
His dad would be fifty-seven now if he'd lived. Would have opinions about Jake's career, about the Nashville scout, about whether Jake should chase the NHL dream or let it go.
But his dad wasn't here. And Jake was twenty-eight years old, living in a studio apartment above a hardware store, coaching youth hockey on Saturday mornings, and eating pork buns from a bakery run by a woman with flour permanently on her cheek.
And maybe—maybe—that was okay.
Maybe that was even good.
His phone buzzed. The team group chat.
Marcus: TOMORROW. TEAM DINNER. MAC'S TAVERN. 7PM. WHO'S IN?
Owen: I'M IN!!! :D :D :D
Dmitri: да
Ryan: I'll be there