Fourteen
The phantom burn of his thumb tracing my knuckles lingers against my skin. I scrub harder at the bar top, trying to erase it along with the stubborn water ring that’s probably been there for years.
We almost kissed.
All those years of anger, and all it took was him not defending himself.
I’d woken at dawn, my muscles stiff from the booth, the air in the pub biting cold.
The emergency lights had finally given up the ghost somewhere in the small hours—the bar was lit now by the pale, flat gray of a post-storm morning bleeding through the windows.
I’d lain there for a full minute before I heard movement down the hall. Then silence again.
When I pushed out of the booth and pulled my hair back, Gabriel was already standing at the frosted front window with his coat zipped to his chin, watching the plows grind their slow way down the street.
He didn’t turn around when he heard me. That told me everything about what he’d already decided by the time the sun came up.
I turned to the espresso machine—more for something to do with my hands than anything else—and said, “Want some coffee?”
He turned then. Just enough. His eyes met mine for one long, unreadable beat—not the hungry, searching look from last night, but something quieter. Something that looked like a decision already made.
“No. Thanks.” His voice was still rough with sleep. “I should go.”
He held my gaze for just a fraction too long before he looked away. The door opened; a blade of cold air cut through the room, and then he was gone. Taking all the air with him.
The mechanical wolf stands silent in the corner, its LED eyes dark. Judging me.
Fuck you too, wolf.
I’m elbow-deep in restocking the beer fridge when Delilah bursts through the door, her cheeks flushed from the cold, hair dusted with fresh snow.
“Oh my god, Ivy! I’ve been trying to reach you all night!” She unwraps her scarf, shaking flakes onto the mat. “The power was out everywhere, cell towers down—I was freaking out! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, keeping my eyes on the Kokanee six-pack I’m sliding onto the shelf. “Just a long night with the storm.”
“Uh-huh.” Her boots click across the floor as she approaches. “So... interesting article in the Sin Bin Sentinel this morning.”
My hand freezes mid-reach. “What?”
She pulls out her phone, tapping the screen before turning it toward me.
There, in full color, is a photo of Gabriel standing inside The Penalty Box, the burgundy velvet box visible in his hands.
The headline reads: Wolves’ Castellano Extends Olive Branch—New Owner Westfield Building Community Bridges.
“‘Sources say the gesture represents new ownership’s commitment to local partnerships,’” Delilah reads aloud, her eyebrow raised. “’Castellano personally delivered a welcome gift on behalf of the team despite yesterday’s severe weather conditions.’”
“Who wrote that?” I ask, snatching the phone from her hand and scanning the article.
“Some guy named Braxton Hicks,” Delilah says, snorting. “Which, first of all, tragic. Who names their kid after false labor contractions?”
I ignore the joke, my eyes locking on the photo. The angle. The framing.
“So Gabriel was here?” Delilah says slowly, pulling me from my thoughts. “Last night. During the storm.”
“Martin Westfield sent him with a gift.” I hand back her phone, turning to grab more beer. “Timing was shit. Storm hit. He got stuck.”
“Stuck. Here. With you. All night.”
“The roads were closed, Lilah. What was I supposed to do, kick him out into a blizzard?”
“No, but—” She pauses as the back door opens and Ulf and his wife Birgitta bustle in, arms laden with grocery bags and thermoses.
“Hal-lo!” Ulf calls out cheerfully, snow dusting his white hair. “We brought supplies! Heard the power was out.”
Ulf’s heading toward the kitchen when he pauses by the office door. “You have guest last night? Blankets are everywhere.”
My face heats. “Just... yeah. Someone got stuck here during the storm.”
His crystal blue eyes twinkle, but he doesn’t push. “Good you weren’t alone. Scary, those big storms.”
They disappear into the kitchen, Birgitta already muttering about checking the walk-in temperatures, and Delilah leans against the bar, arms crossed.
“Okay, they’re gone. Spill.”
“There’s nothing to spill.”
“Ivy.” Her voice drops, gentler now. “You’ve been wound tight since the Wolves partnership started, and you practically vibrate every time Castellano’s name comes up. What’s the deal with you two?”
I stack glasses. Wipe down the already-clean tap handles. Rearrange coasters that don’t need rearranging.
“We knew each other,” I finally say. “Before.”
“Before what?”
“Before all of this. Before he was... him.” I gesture vaguely at her phone, at the Sin Bin Sentinel article, at the whole mess. “There was a tournament. Years ago.”
Delilah is quiet, waiting for the rest of it.
I stop, swallowing hard around the sudden lump in my throat. I’m saying too much. Revealing too much. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”
“It clearly matters.” She reaches across the bar, stilling my frantic cleaning. “Ivy, in the two years I’ve worked here, I’ve never seen you with anyone. Not a date, not a hookup, nothing. And now Gabriel Castellano shows up and you’re—”
“I’m what?”
“Alive,” she says simply. “Pissed off and wound up and maybe terrified, but alive. Like someone finally woke you up.”
The words land harder than they should.
“Nothing happened last night,” I say, but my voice wavers.
“Okay.” She doesn’t sound convinced.
“We just... talked. That’s all.”
“And?”
The question hangs there. Simple. I keep my hands moving, dragging a cloth across the bar in long, even strokes, wiping the handles of the taps.
Delilah doesn’t push. She just waits, which is somehow worse than if she had pushed.
The words sit in my chest. Saying them out loud makes them real in a way they aren’t yet, tucked behind my sternum in the dark where I’ve been carrying them all morning.
If I say it, it becomes a fact instead of a thing that happened in the middle of a blizzard when the lights were out and my defenses were down and I’d made the spectacular mistake of letting him close enough to touch my face.
I pull in a slow breath through my nose. Let it out.
“He apologized,” I say finally. The words come out quieter than I intended.
Delilah’s expression softens. “That’s something, at least.”
“It doesn’t change anything.” I wring the rag out over the sink. “What happened, happened. An apology doesn’t give me back what I lost.”
“No,” she agrees. “But maybe it’s a start.”
“A start to what?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But you can’t stay frozen forever, Ives. Your dad wouldn’t want that.”
The mention of my father makes my chest tighten. “This isn’t about Dad.”
“Isn’t it? Aside from the mechanical wolf, you’ve kept this place exactly the way he left it, like he’s still here somehow.” Her voice is kind but firm. “But he’s not. And you’re allowed to move forward.”
“I have moved forward,” I snap.
“Have you? Or have you just been treading water, hoping you don’t drown?”
Before I can respond, the front door swings open, letting in a blast of freezing air and a guy in a high-vis jacket. His heavy boots crunch on the mat.
“Ivy Hayes?” he asks, holding out a clipboard and a thick envelope. “Corporate Couriers on behalf of the Resort Municipality of Whistler. I need a signature.”
Delilah and I exchange a sharp look. My stomach drops as I wipe my hands on a towel, cross the room, and sign the shivering man’s clipboard. He hands me the envelope and leaves without another word.
I stare at the return address: Bylaw Services.
The door swings shut behind him, and my own reflection stares back at me through three frosted letters. WSE. I catch myself buffing a smudge off the glass with my sleeve—habit, like keeping his monogram spotless is going to buy this building anything.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Delilah murmurs.
My hands are actually trembling as I tear it open. The letterhead is stark and official:
NOTICE OF BYLAW VIOLATION
Property: 4368 Village Gate Boulevard (The Penalty Box)
Violation Report: Potential code violations involving commercial kitchen facilities, emergency exits, posted occupancy load, and an unapproved mechanical amusement device.
A Bylaw Officer will conduct an inspection at an unannounced time within the next 72 hours. Non-compliance may result in operational suspension and/or fines.
4368 Village Gate Boulevard. The legal address. Nobody who’s ever bought a beer here uses it—to the village, we’re just the Stroll. But the municipality doesn’t drink here. It knows the lot, not the bar.
The paper crumples slightly in my grip.
“Ivy?” Delilah’s voice sounds distant. “What is it?”
I read it aloud, my voice alien. When I finish, the silence is deafening.
“That’s... they can’t just shut you down, can they?” Delilah asks. “Your dad brought everything up to code.”
“Yeah, when he bought it over twenty years ago,” I say numbly. “Codes change. Requirements change. And if they want to find violations...”
“They’ll find them,” she finishes grimly.
I set the letter down on the bar. I need to think.
I look around the room instead—at the walk-in whose temperature Birgitta just flagged.
At the exit sign above the back hallway that flickers when it gets cold.
At the basement door and its two-centimeter-too-narrow staircase that’s been grandfathered in since my father bought this building.
All the little fault lines in this place that I know by heart because I am the one who monitors them, patches them, quietly holds them together with my bare hands year after year.
They were always there. Always manageable. But manageable only works when nobody is looking.
My stomach drops before the thought fully forms—that sick, cold lurch of someone who has just realized the walls they built aren’t as high as they thought. I feel it in my throat first, then my chest, then deep in my gut. Like the floor is still solid, but something under it has shifted.
We’re on the radar now.
“This is because of the video,” I say finally.
The words feel like gravel in my mouth. “The BeerGate clip. And now this article.” I gesture at her phone.
“For twenty years, we were just a quiet local pub. Now we’re the viral bar feuding with the Wolves’ star player, and Castellano is doing photo ops in my dining room.
Someone pointed a lens at this place, and now the city is looking at us through a magnifying glass. ”
Delilah doesn’t blink. “So what do you do?”
I look around The Penalty Box—at the memorabilia wall, at the bar my father second-mortgaged twice and drained his RRSPs to keep afloat just so he could pay for my elite ice time. I look at every worn corner I’ve fought so desperately to protect. The mechanical wolf stares back at me, unblinking.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’m not giving up without a fight.”
From the kitchen, Birgitta’s voice calls out: “Ivy! This walk-in, the temperature is not stable. You know this?”
I close my eyes. Of course it’s not.
“Yeah,” I call back, my voice steadier than I feel. “I know.”
Delilah squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”
But as I stare at the bylaw notice in my hand, and the velvet box still sitting unopened on the back bar, a bitter realization settles over me.
Gabriel spent last night agonizing over the future he stole from me. But his guilt doesn’t change reality.
Whether he means to or not, the wreckage just follows him.
And now it’s coming for the only thing I have left.