35. Lucy
LUCY
NOW
Dottie waited by my office door like the world had not ended the night before.
Technically, it had not. The sun still rose.
The security lights still hummed over the service corridor.
The air inside Talon Arena still held that same permanent bite of old ice and metal and cleaning solution.
Somewhere deep in the building, someone pushed a cart with one bad wheel, and the squeak echoed through the empty hall in short, lonely bursts.
But the season was over. There was a difference in a rink the morning after a final loss.
I had known that my whole life. I had grown up inside arenas, had learned the language of skates and tape and cold coffee before I could spell half the words adults used around me.
A building after a win had a pulse, even when it was empty.
A building after a loss held its breath.
This morning, Talon did not feel asleep.
It felt stunned.
Dottie did not seem to notice. She sat in front of my closed office door with her ears drooping down both sides of her face, her leash trailing from my hand, her little body angled toward the hallway like she expected the usual procession to arrive because routine was routine and dogs did not bother themselves with playoff math.
“Baby girl,” I cooed softly, “I don’t think he’s coming today.”
Her tail thumped once. I looked down at her. She looked up at me with pure, offensive confidence.
I unlocked my office, nudged the door open with my hip, and tried not to notice the way she stayed planted in the hall for an extra second before following me inside.
The room was still dim. Rain had moved through Northbend overnight, leaving the windows streaked and the whole city washed clean in that hesitant early-summer green that looked too tender to survive a Minnesota season.
The small lamp on my side table cast a warm circle over the rug, over Dottie’s bed, over the bookshelves I had finally stopped pretending were temporary.
My office looked lived in now.
Dottie circled her bed once, twice, and then abandoned it entirely to sit by the door again.
I set my bag down on my desk. “You are being ridiculous.”
She huffed.
“And I understand this has changed your life.”
Her ears twitched.
“But the season is over.” I pulled my laptop from my bag and opened it.
I stared at my dark computer screen and saw myself reflected there: auburn curls clipped back badly, glasses slightly crooked, the cream sweater I had chosen because the rain made everything feel soft around the edges.
I looked as drained as everyone else in the building.
The Frosthawks had lost by one. One goal. One final ugly scramble in front of the net. One puck off the post. One season folding in on itself beneath arena lights while thousands of people made the same wounded sound at once.
I had not cried. It was not my loss in the way it was theirs. I did not lace up skates. I did not take hits. I did not spend eighty-two games measuring my body against the edge of someone else’s ambition.
But I felt it.
For the organization.
For my father, who had stood in his suite with his hands in his pockets and his jaw set like the owner in him could absorb what the father in him hated watching.
For the staff members who would spend today packing away one version of hope and building spreadsheets for the next one.
And for Ty.
I hated that I could still see him after the horn sounded, bent at the waist with both gloves braced on his knees, helmet shadowing his face.
I had watched from a distance while he stayed there for one second too long before straightening.
Not dramatic. Not performative. Just a man trying to fit disappointment back inside his body before the cameras found him.
My phone buzzed on my desk.
Naomi: Before you spiral, no, he has not been in yet.
I pressed my lips together.
I was not going to ask.
Naomi: You were spiritually asking.
He is not coming today.
Naomi: Is that what you think or what you’re practicing saying out loud so it hurts less if it’s true?
I turned the phone face down. Dottie whined at the door.
The hallway outside my office had started to wake up in pieces. Not game-day waking. Not the sharp, kinetic rush of staff and players and media and equipment. This was quieter. Doors opening. Low voices. Someone laughing once, too hard and too short, before the sound died.
Exit meeting day had its own strange weather.
Men who had spent months moving as one unit suddenly moved as individuals.
They carried garment bags and sticks and duffels stuffed with the season’s debris.
Tape rolls. Extra socks. Protein containers.
Family photos pulled from locker stalls.
Hoodies with frayed cuffs. Lucky things that had stopped being lucky.
By nine, the hallway outside my office had become a slow procession of endings.
Cam passed with a suit jacket hooked over two fingers and his tie already loosened. He nodded at me through the open door with the tired steadiness of a captain who had not slept enough and would still say the right thing to everyone else before he let himself feel anything.
Jonah walked by with Milo, both of them quiet for once, carrying sticks bundled together with tape.
Harry Vestergaard moved past alone, enormous goalie bag over his shoulder, expression unreadable in the way only goalies and Scandinavian men seemed able to manage without effort.
Zee Hendrix stopped outside my office long enough to scratch Dottie between the ears. He wore a black suit, no tie, his hair still damp like he had showered at the arena because routine did not know what to do with grief either. “Morning, Dots,” he murmured.
Dottie melted under his hand.
“Careful,” I warned. “She’s emotionally vulnerable.”
Zee looked at the dog, then at me. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Aren’t we all?” Then he kept walking.
I watched him go, the broad line of his shoulders disappearing toward the player corridor. A minute later, Hadley Holloway turned the corner carrying a folder, a travel mug, and a pair of reading glasses hooked carefully over one finger.
I knew her, of course. Not in the text-you-when-your-life-was-on-fire way.
But hockey families had a way of orbiting each other whether anyone planned it or not.
Christmas parties. Foundation dinners. Family skates.
The awkward buffet line at team obligations where coaches’ kids and owners’ kids learned to smile politely while grown men discussed power plays over carved ham.
Hadley was Coach Holloway’s daughter, which meant my dad had known Dan long enough for me to have seen Hadley grow from a quiet teenager in dress flats to quiet young woman in white sneakers who moved through the arena like someone who had learned the map before she had learned to be intimidated by it.
She was younger than me by a few years. Twenty-two now, maybe.
Soft brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, a light rain jacket zipped halfway over a simple blue dress, her sneakers squeaking faintly against the polished concrete.
Pretty in a quiet way, with a face that looked kind before it looked anything else.
She spotted me and smiled. “Lucy.”
“Hadley.” I glanced at the folder. “Please tell me Dan forgot something important enough to justify that expression.”
She lifted the glasses with two fingers. “His reading glasses and the notes he swore he did not need.”
I smiled despite myself. “That sounds like Dan.”
“It’s a gift,” she giggled, stepping closer. “His ability to leave the house with half of his life and full confidence.”
Dottie rose from her post by the door and sniffed Hadley’s sneaker with great seriousness.
Hadley’s face softened immediately. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“This is Dottie,” I offered. “She’s currently in mourning.”
Hadley crouched and offered her hand. “Over the season?”
“Over a missing pup cup.”
“Devastating.”
Dottie pressed her head into Hadley’s palm like Hadley had been personally placed in the hallway for emotional support.
Hadley smiled, and something about it lodged itself in me. She did not rush the affection. Did not squeal. Did not make Dottie into a performance. She just stayed still and let my dog decide what came next.
“You still helping your dad survive the end-of-season paperwork?” I asked.
Hadley glanced toward the coaches’ corridor. “Mostly I’m preventing him from pretending he can read twelve-point font from three feet away.”
“Heroic work.”
“Someone has to protect the organization.”
“That’s what I keep saying.”
Her laugh was soft.
Down the hallway, Zee reappeared at the far end, walking backward for two steps while talking to one of the trainers. His gaze flicked our way for half a second. Not long enough to mean anything.
Her posture changed by almost nothing. A little stillness. A little awareness. Then she looked back at Dottie and smoothed one hand over her ear.
Interesting. I filed that away where I kept things that were not my business but were absolutely my business eventually.
“You’ll be at Bea and Alois’s wedding, right?” I asked.
Hadley looked up. “If my dad remembers to tell me what time we’re leaving.”
“Text me,” I offered before I could overthink it. “I’m helping with some of the logistics. I’ll make sure you have the details.”
Her eyes warmed. “Really?”
“Really. And if the hockey men start moving floral arrangements because they think they’re helping, I may need backup.”
“I’m very good at telling brutes to put things back where they found them.”
“I suspected.”
Hadley stood, still smiling. “Thanks. I’ll text you.”
I gave her my number, and she tucked it into her phone with the same careful focus she seemed to give everything. “Good luck today,” she said.
“You too. With the delivery mission.”
She held up the glasses. “High stakes.”