3. Buzz #3
I killed the engine and climbed out quickly before jogging around the truck through the cold to open Lucy’s door for her.
She blinked up at me as she stepped down onto the snowy pavement. “What was that?”
“What?”
“The door thing.”
“I’m being gentlemanly.”
“That sounded painful for you to say.”
“It was horrible.”
Lucy smiled and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as we headed toward the entrance together.
The second I pulled the heavy door open, warmth wrapped around us.
Alive in a way that never demanded anything from you.
The smell wafted from the grill—grease, grilled beef, onions caramelizing on the old flat-top behind the bar, beer soaked into decades-old wood and fryer oil and winter jackets drying from the snow outside.
Matt’s always smelled the same.
Like comfort.
Like late nights after wins.
Like Northbend itself somehow.
A few people glanced up when we walked in, but not many. Conversations kept moving. Glasses clinked softly somewhere near the bar while an old song played low enough not to overpower the room.
The pine floors creaked beneath our boots as I led Lucy farther inside.
Original wood paneling darkened with age. Small tables packed close together. Old beer signs glowing softly against the walls. A couple TVs mounted high in the corners showing sports highlights with the volume turned low enough nobody paid much attention to them.
It wasn’t trendy.
It wasn’t polished.
It was real.
And suddenly I became weirdly aware this was the first place I’d ever brought Lucy that actually belonged to my world instead of hers.
Not libraries.
Not coffee shops.
Hockey families. Loud booths. Grease-stained baskets of fries. Guys arguing over the Frosthawks at the bar like they personally coached the team.
For a second, nerves washed over me unexpectedly hard.
Which was ridiculous.
I played contact sports voluntarily.
But somehow bringing Lucy Thomas to Matt’s felt more dangerous.
“You’re thinking too hard again,” she observed quietly beside me.
“What?”
“You get this wrinkle thing between your eyebrows when your brain starts spiraling.”
“I do not spiral.”
“You absolutely spiral.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
A woman behind the bar looked up the second she spotted me.
Marlene moved through the narrow space behind the bar with the same steady rhythm she always had. Sharp eyes. Rolled sleeves. The kind of person who read a room before most people realized there was anything to read.
“Well,” she barked immediately, eyeing me over the rim of a glass she was drying, “look who’s alive.”
“Rough season,” I replied.
Her attention shifted toward Lucy beside me. And then immediately back to me.
Oh no.
Absolutely not.
“Marlene,” I warned.
“Who’s this?” she asked with the kind of smile that meant my public execution had already been scheduled.
Lucy looked briefly caught off guard before offering a polite smile. “Lucy.”
Marlene’s eyebrows lifted slightly. She looked back at me. And started grinning.
I realized the problem immediately.
“No,” I said instantly.
“Oh my God,” Marlene breathed. “You brought a Lucy here?”
Lucy blinked once beside me.
Then her eyes widened. Then she started laughing so hard she physically had to grab my arm for balance.
Traitor.
“This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you,” Marlene informed me.
“I hate everybody here.”
“You brought a girl named Lucy to get a Jucy Lucy.”
“I’m aware of the situation.”
Lucy busted out laughing beside me, cheeks pink from cold and amusement while she buried part of her face behind her scarf trying unsuccessfully to recover.
And honestly?
Seeing her laugh that hard because of me hit somewhere deep in my chest in a way I didn’t fully understand.
Marlene pointed toward a booth near the back. “Sit down before I tell the entire building.”
“She absolutely will too,” I muttered to Lucy as we slid into the booth.
“I can’t believe this wasn’t intentional.”
“It wasn’t.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
Warm light glowed softly above the booth while snow drifted outside the front windows in lazy white streaks against the darkening street beyond.
Lucy pulled off her coat and folded it beside her carefully before looking around the bar again.
Her eyes moved slowly over everything. She wasn’t judging any of it. She was trying to understand why I loved it.
“This place matters to you,” she said softly.
The noise of the bar hummed quietly around us.
Somebody laughed near the front windows.
The flat-top hissed behind the counter while Marlene yelled an order toward the kitchen without looking up from the register.
A group of older guys near the TV argued about the Frosthawks’ defensive pairing choices with the seriousness of men debating international policy.
Matt’s had looked exactly like this for longer than I’d been alive.
And somehow sitting here across from Lucy made the whole place feel different.
“Yeah,” I admitted after a second. “Kinda.”
Lucy smiled slightly and rested her chin against her hand while she looked at me across the table.
“My dad used to bring me here after games sometimes,” I explained before I fully decided to say it out loud. “Especially after bad ones.”
Lucy stayed quiet, letting me continue naturally instead of jumping in to fill the silence.
“We’d sit over there usually.” I nodded toward a booth closer to the bar. “And he’d make me wait like ten full minutes before eating because otherwise the cheese would basically melt your face off.”
“That sounds medically dangerous.”
“It builds character.”
“It builds third-degree burns.”
“Worth it.”
Lucy laughed softly again, and I felt myself relax further into the booth without meaning to.
“That’s why everyone says ‘fear the cheese,’” I explained.
“People say that?”
“Marlene definitely says that.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Yes.”
Lucy shook her head, smiling down at her hands before looking back up at me through her eyelashes.
I didn’t have to perform constantly. Didn’t have to be loud enough or funny enough or impressive enough to hold her attention.
She already looked at me like I mattered.
A lot of people knew hockey-me.
Teachers.
Coaches.
Teammates.
Parents.
The version of me who chirped too much and talked too loud and acted like everything rolled off my back because that was easier than admitting when things actually got under my skin.
But sitting here across from Lucy in a tiny booth at Matt’s while snow fell softly outside the windows and The Beatles still drifted low through the speakers overhead—I had this sudden terrifying feeling she might eventually know every version of me.
Marlene appeared beside the booth before my brain could spiral itself into complete emotional catastrophe.
“All right, Romeo,” she announced, setting two baskets down in front of us. “One Jucy Lucy for Lucy.”
Lucy immediately covered her face with one hand laughing.
“And one for the hockey menace currently staring at her like he forgot how restaurants work.”
“I’m literally sitting here normally.”
“You look concussed.”
“Rude.”
Marlene pointed at the burgers sternly. “He told you about the cheese?”
Lucy nodded through laughter, and Marlene walked away before I could add anything. Lucy was still laughing quietly when she looked back up at me across the table. “This is absolutely your fault somehow.”
“I didn’t invent your name.”
“You brought me here intentionally.”
“Honestly? The realization hit me halfway through driving.”
“That’s objectively embarrassing.”
“For you maybe.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes slightly. “You are enjoying this way too much.”
“I’m having the best day of my life.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Lucy froze for half a second.
Because the thing was? I meant it. Not because of the grade. Not even because of hockey.
Because somewhere between frozen lakes and biology flash cards and Beatles songs in my truck, Lucy Thomas had quietly become my favorite part of every day without me noticing when it happened.
And judging by the way she was looking at me now across the tiny booth at Matt’s? I had a feeling she knew it too.