20. Buzz #2
“Okay,” she sighed softly, handing the lanyards off to Sarah. “For old time’s sake.”
And just like that, I was eighteen again for half a second. Stupidly, dangerously, completely gone.
Snow followed our caravan from the arena to Matt’s, softening the sidewalks and clinging to the shoulders of Lucy’s coat by the time we reached the red awning from the road.
She stopped just outside the front windows, not because she didn’t know the place, but because she did.
I saw it hit her. The warm glow through the glass. The low blur of voices inside. The familiar shape of the bar beyond the condensation-fogged window. The kind of memory that didn’t need to announce itself before it put both hands around your throat.
For half a second, Lucy looked eighteen again. Like some part of her had stepped too close to a room where we had once belonged to each other without knowing how temporary that kind of belonging could be.
My family moved ahead around us in a loose cluster of coats and familiar noise. Grandma Ruth was already telling Grandpa not to track slush across the floor. Dad held the door for Mom. Nobody looked back.
Lucy blinked once, and the woman from Talon Arena returned by degrees. The straight shoulders. The careful chin. The hand smoothing the front of her coat like composure could be pressed back into place.
“Still hungry?” I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything else.
Her gaze slid to mine. “It’s Matt’s.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s common sense.”
Inside, Matt’s wrapped around us the way it always did.
Warm. Dim. Alive without being loud. A couple televisions played in the corners with the volume low enough to ignore.
People sat over baskets, beers, and water glasses, voices blending into the low hum of a room that let you exist without asking for a performance.
Marlene spotted us before we made it three steps. Her eyes went to my mother first, then Grandma Ruth, then Dad and Grandpa Hal. Then me. Then Lucy. Marlene’s expression shifted by approximately one molecule. “Burnses,” she chuckled.
“Hi, Marlene,” Mom replied warmly.
Marlene’s gaze stayed on Lucy for another beat. “Been a while.”
Lucy’s shoulders drew back. “It has.”
Marlene grabbed a stack of menus nobody needed and nodded toward the back corner. “Big table’s open.”
“Perfect,” Mom said.
“Waters?” Marlene asked.
“Please,” Lucy said.
Marlene looked at me. “Jucy Lucys?”
I nodded. “For the table.”
“Fries?”
“Three, please.”
Marlene turned toward the grill without writing anything down.
“She hasn’t changed,” Lucy murmured.
“Nope.”
Neither have you, I wanted to say.
Except she had. That was what kept catching me wrong.
Lucy slid out of her coat near the table, careful and composed, emerald blazer beneath it, glasses slipping slightly down her nose as she draped the coat over the back of a chair.
Adult Lucy. Professional Lucy. The woman who had run a whole event that morning like pressure was something she had been born knowing how to hold.
Then Grandma Ruth touched her elbow and fussed with the sleeve of her blazer like Lucy was still eighteen and too cold in a hockey rink. Just for a second. Long enough to wreck me.
“Sit here, sweetheart,” Mom said, pulling out a chair.
Lucy moved toward it, but Grandma Ruth immediately set her tote on the seat.
“Oh,” Ruth said, not sounding sorry at all. “I need this side for my hip.”
My mother slid smoothly into the chair beside the blocked one. “Lucy, why don’t you sit there?”
There happened to be the chair beside mine.
Subtlety had never been the Burns family’s strongest tradition.
Lucy looked at the arrangement. Then at my mother. Then at Grandma Ruth, who was now very busily removing a container of fudge from her tote despite no one having asked for more fudge.
I pressed my lips together.
Lucy sat beside me.
I tried not to look amused.
Dad sat across from us with a low sound that might have been a laugh if he ever admitted to making those. Grandpa Hal settled beside him, folded his hands on the table, and looked at Lucy. “How’s your drawing?” he asked.
Lucy went still.
I looked at Grandpa Hal, surprised. He didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and, like always, decided not to make a production of tenderness.
Lucy adjusted her glasses. “I haven’t done much of it lately.”
“Shame,” Hal said. “You had a good eye.”
Lucy smiled, but it did something strange at the edges. “Thank you.”
Mom reached for her water as Marlene dropped glasses at the table. “Kendrick wanted to come this morning,” she said gently. “He got called into a job.”
Lucy looked up. “How is he?”
“Busy,” Dad responded.
Mom gave him a look. “He’s good. Tired. Still doing too much. So, exactly the same.”
Lucy’s mouth curved. “That sounds right.”
“He asked about you,” Mom added.
“That was nice of him.” Lucy’s fingers moved around her water glass. “And Thane?”
“Chicago has him on the road,” Dad answered. “Riveters are in Denver tonight.”
“Of course they are,” I said. “Being joyless on mountain time.”
Dad’s eyes shifted to me. “He’s plus-two in his last five.”
“See? Joyless.”
Lucy’s elbow nudged mine.
It was small. Barely anything. An old correction without words.
My body forgot eight years.
She was already looking down at her water like she had not meant to do it. A faint flush whispered over the tops of her cheeks.
I wanted to press my knee against hers under the table. I wanted to lean close and ask if she remembered every time we sat in this corner with our shoulders touching and fries between us and my family loud around us. I wanted to know if this place felt like time travel to her too.
Instead, I picked up my water and drank half of it like that would fix anything.
The burgers came in red plastic baskets lined with paper, buns soft and plain, the patties sealed tight around molten cheese that looked harmless.
Marlene set the extra napkins in front of Lucy.
Lucy looked at the pile. “Is this personal?”
“Experience,” Marlene said.
“I haven’t been here in years.”
“Cheese didn’t cool down while you were gone.”
Grandma Ruth nodded solemnly. “Fear the cheese.”
Lucy pressed her lips together, fighting a smile.
I leaned closer. “Sacred text.”
“This town is deeply strange,” Lucy giggled.
“You missed it.”
Her eyes flicked to mine.
There it was again. Too much. Too fast.
Then she looked down and carefully unwrapped her burger to let it cool. “I missed the fries.”
For a while, dinner was easy. Dangerously so.
Mom asked Lucy about the event, and Lucy answered without hiding behind her title.
Grandma Ruth complained that the arena coffee was weak, which offended my father because apparently coffee could be a family value.
Grandpa Hal told Lucy about the roster he gave the coordinator, and Lucy went quiet again, eyes bright behind her glasses.
“That was kind,” she said.
Grandpa shrugged. “Kids like seeing their names.”
“Adults do too,” Lucy replied softly.
Dad paid at the register before anyone noticed him stand. By the time Mom said, “Fraser,” he was already sliding his wallet back into his pocket with the calm finality of a man who considered the matter settled.
Lucy straightened. “Mr. Burns, I can pay for mine.”
“No,” Dad said.
“That isn’t necessary.”
“I know.”
She blinked.
I looked down into my water because the smile trying to get loose on my face was going to get me stabbed with a fry.
Dad came back to the table and pulled on his coat. “Enjoyed the event,” he said to Lucy. “You ran it well.”
She softened. “Thank you.”
If Dad noticed her fingers tighten around her napkin, he didn’t show it. But I did.
The whole damn day had been people seeing her. Sarah. The families. The Mighty Blades coordinator. My family. Me.
By the time we stepped back out into the snow, I was in trouble.