36. Lucy
LUCY
NOW
The problem with trying to look like a woman who had her entire life together was that life had a cruel sense of timing.
I had made an effort. Structured black dress. Sheer black tights. Pale blush heels with tiny black bows at the toes. Hair curled and behaving for once. Makeup finished enough to make me look rested, which was impressive because wedding week had turned every woman I loved into a scheduling casualty.
For approximately twelve minutes, I looked composed.
Then Vivienne Hart whispered, "Oh no."
I looked up immediately.
Vivienne stood near the corner of Arlo's private office, one manicured hand pressed against her mouth while the other gripped her phone hard enough to threaten the glass. The room around her continued operating in complete denial of the disaster that had just entered it.
Lo was perched on the edge of Arlo's desk with a seating chart in her lap and a pen behind her ear, looking unfairly elegant for a woman who had spent the last hour arguing with a printer.
Freya knelt beside a garment bag, carefully steaming the hem of Bea's backup dress.
Micah stood in front of the mirror, pinning one of her curls back with the solemn concentration of a surgeon.
And Bea sat in Arlo's leather chair with one hand on the top of her belly, the other holding a glass of ice water, glowing in the deeply irritating way some pregnant women glowed when they were happy, exhausted, and too loved to fully tolerate it.
Lo's head snapped up. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Vivienne muttered.
Freya slowly lowered the steamer. "That sounded like an event-planner lie."
"It was professionally phrased."
Bea tried to sit forward.
"No," Lo, Freya, Micah, Vivienne, and I said at the exact same time.
"I am marrying Alois Müller.” Bea froze. "I am capable of hearing bad news."
Vivienne smiled at her with terrifying calm. "Of course you are."
Which meant Bea absolutely was not hearing whatever the bad news was.
I made the fatal mistake then. The one that should have been avoidable by any woman with pattern recognition and a functional survival instinct. "Do you need anything?"
Vivienne's eyes found mine.
There it was. Doom.
"Lucy," she cooed, and somehow my name sounded like both a compliment and a subpoena. Vivienne crossed the room, took me gently but firmly by the elbow, and guided me toward the door.
Bea narrowed her eyes. "Why are you taking Lucy?"
"Because Lucy asked if I needed anything."
"Rookie mistake," Micah muttered.
Lo gave me a sympathetic look that contained absolutely no offer to rescue me. "You walked into the trap, sweetheart."
"I live in traps," I said. "I should have seen it coming."
Vivienne pulled me into the hallway and shut Arlo's office door behind us with the soft, final click of a woman sealing evidence inside a crime scene.
The hallway outside the office was quieter, but North Line itself hummed beyond it.
Staff moved through the back corridor carrying trays, linens, and glassware.
Somewhere in the restaurant, music played low beneath the warm sound of guests beginning to arrive too early because apparently weddings made people forget how clocks worked.
"What happened?" I asked.
Vivienne inhaled through her nose. "The ice sculpture Rafa ordered as a surprise for Bea is stranded at a loading bay."
I blinked. "The what?"
"The ice sculpture."
"Of what?"
Vivienne closed her eyes for half a second. "Bento."
I stared at her.
Of course Rafa had ordered an ice sculpture of Bea's cat.
Mr. Ribeiro had been moving through wedding week with the emotional stability of a man trying very hard not to cry into floral arrangements.
He had inspected chairs. He had thanked bartenders.
He had taken pictures of place settings.
He had asked Lo three separate times whether Bea was comfortable, despite Bea being within ten feet of him for most of those questions.
A giant frozen tribute to Bento was exactly the kind of sentimental chaos his heart would produce.
"Please tell me it's small," I winced.
Vivienne's silence was unkind. "It is approximately six feet tall."
I pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose. "There is a six-foot ice cat somewhere in the city."
"At Northbend Ice Designs' auxiliary loading bay. Their delivery truck broke down after a piece of loading equipment failed during the transfer. The sculpture is safe, but their replacement vehicle will not arrive for at least two hours."
"The dinner starts in an hour."
"Yes."
"And Bea does not know this exists."
"No."
"And Rafa ordered it because he thought it would make her smile."
Vivienne's expression softened for the first time. "Yes."
There was the problem.
Not the ice. Not the truck. Not the timing. Not even the fact that I was wearing sheer tights and shoes that had been designed by someone with no respect for terrain.
Rafa thought it would make Bea smile.
And Bea deserved to smile.
Tomorrow she would marry Alois in the Sunken Garden at Como Park under glass and flowers and all the terrifying tenderness that came with choosing a person in front of everyone who loved you.
Tonight was supposed to be quieter. Warmer.
North Line full of family and Frosthawks and too many feelings wearing dress shoes.
If Rafa had found a way to turn one of Bea's most beloved sources of daily judgment into a ridiculous frozen centerpiece, then we were getting that ridiculous frozen centerpiece here.
I sighed. "What do you need?"
Vivienne looked relieved enough to make me regret being competent.
Before she could answer, footsteps came down the hall.
Ty rounded the corner carrying a box of folded programs under one arm and a garment bag slung over his shoulder.
He wore dark dress pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie not yet tied, hair clean but already defying whatever attempt had been made to tame it.
He looked like a groomsman who had been given tasks because he was large, useful, and less likely than some of the others to start a group chat argument in the middle of an errand.
His gaze moved over me once, from the curled hair to the black dress to the shoes with their soft little bows, and something in his face went still.
My pulse tripped.
Then one corner of his mouth lifted. "That's a lot of power for one hallway, ladies."
Heat moved up my neck before I could stop it.
Vivienne pointed at him. "You."
Ty blinked. "Me?"
"Do you have your truck?"
His eyes shifted to me, then back to her. "Betsy?"
I folded my arms. "Your antique with opinions."
"She has character."
"She has tetanus."
Ty's mouth twitched. "You wound her."
Vivienne looked between us with the focused impatience of a woman deciding whether flirtation counted as an obstacle. "Can Betsy transport a six-foot ice sculpture?"
I closed my eyes. "Absolutely not," I said.
"What kind of ice sculpture?" he asked, which was the wrong question from a man I was actively trying not to like more than was medically advisable.
Vivienne said, "A cat. Specifically Bento."
There was one suspended breath of silence. Then Ty made a sound like he had swallowed a laugh and injured himself doing it.
"No," I warned.
He looked at me, eyes bright. "This is the funniest thing that has ever happened to any wedding."
Vivienne stepped closer. "The sculpture is stranded. You have a truck. Lucy knows the event layout and has good judgment under pressure."
"Debatable," I said.
Ty shifted the programs under his arm. "I'll go."
"No," I said automatically.
"I think this will be historic."
Vivienne's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then back at us. "You have forty-eight minutes before entrances begin."
"Entrances?" I squeaked.
"For the wedding party."
Ty handed the box of programs to Vivienne. "Where's the loading bay?"
She rattled off the address. He nodded once, practical now, the humor still there but tucked beneath action. Then his gaze came back to me. "You coming?"
I should have said no.
I should have pointed out that I was dressed for a rehearsal dinner, not an ice heist. I should have mentioned that my heels had bows on them.
I should have reminded Vivienne that I had not, in fact, signed any documents accepting responsibility for frozen livestock-adjacent sculpture transportation.
Instead, I thought of Bea's smile. Rafa's face when his daughter saw her surprise.
I exhaled. "If I die saving Frozen Bento, I want a tasteful plaque."
Betsy waited at the curb, polished in the way old trucks could be polished when someone loved them past logic. The deep blue paint had been buffed until it shone beneath the late-June sun. The chrome was clean. The bed had been cleared out. Even the cracked leather bench inside looked conditioned.
I climbed into the passenger seat carefully, smoothing my dress beneath me. Ty shut my door before I could. I stared through the windshield. He jogged around the front of the truck and got behind the wheel.
"Do not say anything about the shoes," I warned.
His eyes dropped briefly. "They look expensive." He nodded solemnly and pulled away from the curb. "Perfect for an ice rescue."
"I hate weddings."
"No, you don't."
"I hate surprise ice sculptures."
"You don't hate those either."
"I might."
"You love Bea."
I looked out the window. Northbend moved past us in warm late-afternoon light, all brick storefronts and hanging flower baskets and sidewalks full of people who had no idea there was a frozen cat emergency unfolding among them.
"Yes," I said. "I love Bea."
Ty's voice softened. "Then we'll get her cat."
Northbend Ice Designs' auxiliary loading bay sat at the edge of town between a warehouse with peeling red doors and an auto body shop advertising summer tire specials. It looked exactly like the sort of place where a person in rehearsal-dinner makeup went to make questionable choices.
A man in insulated overalls waved us toward an open bay. "Wedding pickup?" he called.
Ty pointed at me. "She's in charge."
"I absolutely am not."