20. Buzz #3
The cold hit clean after the heat of Matt’s, sharp enough to make everyone exhale white into the dark.
Snow fell beneath the streetlights in slow silver pieces, softening the parked cars, the sidewalk, the red awning above us.
Mom hugged Lucy first, careful but warm.
Grandma Ruth followed, tucking Lucy’s coat collar closer around her throat and muttering something about Minnesota winters and fragile bones.
“I have fine bones,” Lucy said.
“Small ones,” Ruth replied.
Lucy laughed.
It went through me like a match strike.
Grandpa Hal gave her a nod. Dad told her to ride safe, which made Lucy smile again. My family moved toward Dad’s truck in a loose cluster of coats and voices and leftover warmth.
Lucy pulled out her phone.
“I’ll drive you,” I stammered immediately.
She didn’t look up. “No.”
“Your car’s at the arena.”
“I know. I’m taking an Uber.”
“I can take you to your car.”
“Ty.”
The way she said my name should have stopped me. But I pressed on, “I’m already here.”
“So is the Uber.”
“You ordered it already?”
I stepped closer as she finished confirming the ride. Close enough that the snow caught between us and melted in the heat coming off my skin.
Behind us, Matt’s hummed through the walls. Ahead of us, the street glowed soft and quiet under fresh snow. My family’s truck engine turned over at the curb, then pulled away, taillights disappearing into the white.
Lucy and I were alone. Fully. Finally.
Her curls had loosened during dinner. A few pieces framed her face now, damp at the ends from melted snow. Her glasses had fogged slightly when we first stepped outside, then cleared. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, or the night, or maybe from me if I let myself be stupid enough to hope.
“You had fun,” I offered.
She looked toward the street. “Your family is hard to refuse.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
Her mouth tightened like she wanted to fight me and couldn’t find the energy. “Yes,” she admitted. “I had fun.”
My chest pulled tight.
It should have been enough.
It was not.
That was the problem with getting pieces of Lucy back. Every piece made me want the next one.
The Uber icon moved closer on her screen. Two minutes away.
I reached for her coat, giving her enough time to pull back. She didn’t. My hands found the lapels, tugging them gently into place the way Grandma Ruth had done ten minutes earlier, except nothing about this felt grandmotherly.
Lucy went very still.
My knuckles brushed the soft wool near her collarbone. The contact was nothing. Fabric and cold air and the space between things.
My body reacted like it was everything.
Her breath caught.
There it was.
Not in my head. Not wishful thinking. Not old memory making a fool out of me.
Lucy felt it too.
I lowered my head before I had enough sense to stop myself. Not to kiss her. I knew better than that. Barely.
My mouth hovered near her hair, close enough to breathe in the clean winter scent of her shampoo, the faint sweetness of Matt’s still clinging to her coat, the warm skin underneath all that careful control.
“Come home with me,” I breathed into her hair.
With a sharp inhale, she forced herself back. “Absolutely not.”
The words hit firm and fast.
No hesitation.
No gray area.
My hands dropped immediately.
I should have stopped there. A smarter man would have stopped there. An emotionally evolved man who had not spent dinner sitting beside the only woman he had ever loved while she laughed with his family like no time had passed absolutely would have stopped there.
Unfortunately, I was still me.
“Oh, come on, Shortcake.” I kept my voice light because the other option was letting her hear how badly I wanted it. “We’re having such a good time.”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “Ty.”
I stepped back and lifted both hands, palms out. “Okay.”
The Uber turned onto the street, headlights cutting through the snow.
Lucy watched me for a second like she expected me to push. Like some part of her had braced for it.
I hated that.
So I smiled. Not the big one. Not the one for cameras or teammates or rooms I wanted to control before they could look too closely. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” I chuckled.
Her expression shifted. For half a second, I saw the thing beneath the no. The want. The ache. The same reckless almost that had been following us since Grandma Ruth’s fudge container appeared between us.
Then the car stopped at the curb.
I opened the back door for her.
Lucy stepped past me, close enough that her sleeve brushed my wrist. She paused before ducking inside, one hand on the top of the doorframe.
“Goodnight, Burns.”
Old and sharp and soft in all the wrong places.
I held the door while she slid into the back seat. The driver asked something I didn’t hear. Lucy answered, her voice quiet through the open door.
I wanted more than one night. The realization landed so hard it almost knocked the air out of me.
I wanted her in my bed, yes. God, yes. I was not dead or noble enough to pretend otherwise.
But I wanted her at my table too. In my passenger seat. On my couch. At Matt’s with my family. In all the ordinary places I had spent years filling with noise because silence reminded me she was gone.
I leaned one hand on the top of the car door and looked down at her. “Sleep well, Shortcake.”