2. Buzz #3
Because every single time I looked toward the executive hallway side of the arena, my brain supplied the image automatically.
Dark green sweater.
Gold hoops.
Cool eyes.
Mr. Burns.
Like she’d never once loved me at all.
Once I finally got home later that night, my entire body felt exhausted in the specific way only hockey and emotional ruin could accomplish together.
My place overlooked the lake just outside Northbend.
Modern build. Too much black metal and expensive wood. Big windows. Open floor plan.
I bought it after signing with the Frosthawks because some stupid hopeful part of me had thought staying in Minnesota meant something.
Back then, it felt permanent.
Now it mostly just felt quiet.
I tossed my keys onto the kitchen island and stood there for a second listening to the silence settle around me.
Just the hum of the refrigerator and the faint rattle of wind against the windows overlooking the dark water outside.
Dangerous.
Stillness always got dangerous eventually.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge and slammed the cap off against the counter before heading toward the living room without bothering to turn lights on.
The city glowed faintly across the lake beyond the windows. Cold blue reflections rippled across the glass.
I dropped heavily onto the couch and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, beer hanging loosely from one hand.
Lucy Thomas worked for the fucking Frosthawks.
I laughed once under my breath.
Not because it was funny. Because my life apparently enjoyed psychological warfare now.
She’d looked beautiful.
That realization pissed me off immediately. It still hit me the same way. One look and suddenly I was sixteen again standing outside Northbend High trying to pretend I wasn’t completely gone for her already.
I dragged a hand down my face slowly. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered into the empty room.
The worst part?
It wasn’t even the write-up.
It was the way she looked through me. Like whatever we’d been belonged to somebody else now. Some younger version of us she no longer recognized.
I finished the beer eventually without remembering most of drinking it.
Sometime after midnight, exhaustion finally started dragging at me hard enough to shut my brain up for a few minutes.
I stretched out on the couch instead of bothering with the bedroom upstairs.
One arm over my eyes.
Lake wind rattling softly outside.
And somewhere between one heartbeat and the next—I was seventeen again.
The Northbend Summer Festival took over downtown every July.
Food stands.
Live music.
Beer tents full of middle-aged men arguing about hockey prospects like NHL scouts personally monitored Main Street every year.
The entire town smelled like fried food, sunscreen, lake water, and hot pavement baking under summer heat.
Lucy walked beside me through the crowd wearing denim shorts and one of my old hockey hoodies wrapped around her shoulders because the temperature had dropped after sunset.
Her fingers stayed hooked loosely through mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“You cheated,” she informed me seriously as we stepped away from the carnival games.
“I won you that frog fair and square.”
“You bullied the high school volunteer running the dart booth.”
“I applied strategic pressure.”
“You told him you’d make his life miserable during preseason skates.”
“That sounds fake.”
Lucy laughed softly beside me.
God.
That sound.
Colored festival lights reflected gold and pink across her face while music drifted through the warm night air from somewhere near the beer garden downtown.
She looked happy.
The version of her nobody else really got to see.
She stopped walking suddenly near the edge of the park where the crowd thinned out closer to the lake path.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re staring at me weird.”
“I literally am not.”
“You are.”
“I’m handsome. It’s confusing you.”
She rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might injure herself.
Then she smiled anyway. “You know,” she said quietly, stepping a little closer, “you’re significantly less annoying when you’re not around other hockey players.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
I grinned and pulled her gently into my arms while people moved around us farther down the path.
Humid summer air.
Lake breeze.
Fireworks waiting somewhere downtown later that night.
Lucy tilted her head back to look at me.
And there it was again. That expression. The one that always knocked me stupid because it felt so honest. Like she loved me so openly she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
My chest tightened.
The words slipped out before I could overthink them. “I love you.”
Her entire face changed. Beautifully soft. Like something inside her had been waiting for me to say it first.
The festival noise blurred quietly around us.
Lucy reached up slowly and touched the side of my jaw with her fingertips. “I know,” she whispered.
I laughed. “That’s cold.”
A tiny smile pulled at her mouth. Then she looked directly at me and said the words that changed my whole damn life. “I love you too, Ty.”