36. Lucy #2
The man ignored me, which felt like an ominous theme. "You're here for the cat?"
Ty coughed into his fist. "Yes. The cat."
Inside the bay, cold air blasted over my face and immediately made my curls reconsider their structure.
Sculptures lined the concrete floor beneath bright industrial lights.
Swans. Wedding bells. A champagne tower.
A massive maple leaf. Something that might have been a dolphin if the dolphin had made poor life choices.
Ty stopped beside a covered shape near the back. "Please tell me that's not it."
The employee grabbed the edge of the insulated tarp. "Here we are."
I frowned. "That is huge."
Ty leaned closer. "That seems expensive."
The tarp came away.
Both of us froze.
The sculpture stood nearly as tall as Ty. Crystal clear. Perfectly detailed. Every curl. Every whisker. Every ridiculous ounce of fluffy judgment captured in ice.
A giant frozen Selkirk Rex stared into the distance like he was preparing to audit someone's taxes and find them lacking.
Ty bent forward, one hand on his knee, silently shaking.
The employee smiled proudly. "Pretty good likeness, right?"
Ty made a strangled noise. "He looks disappointed in me."
"That was the hardest part," the employee said seriously.
I pressed my knuckles to my mouth.
Ty lost it. Not loudly at first. Just one helpless laugh, then another, until he had to turn away from the sculpture like eye contact with Frozen Bento might finish him. "I cannot believe Rafa spent actual money on this.”
"Stop laughing. We have to move him."
"Him?"
"It feels disrespectful to say it. When it has giant eyes that are glaring at us right now."
The next ten minutes involved three employees, one pallet jack, two arguments about angles, and Ty quietly losing a battle with melting cat physics before we had even left the bay.
"No, not that strap," the employee said.
Ty shifted. "This strap?"
"The other strap."
"There are seven straps."
By the time Frozen Bento was secured in the bed of Betsy, the sculpture towered over the cab like a clear, furious guardian of poor decisions.
The insulated tarp was wrapped around the base and sides, but his head and upper body remained visible because, according to the employee, the shape made full coverage difficult.
I stared at the truck bed. Then at my shoes. Then at Ty. "How will he stay steady?"
Ty looked at the straps. "The straps will help."
"That is not a plan."
"Luce." Ty's expression shifted, careful. "You do not have to climb back there."
I stepped toward the back tire. "Give me a hand."
His eyebrows lifted.
"Do not make me repeat it."
He moved, offering his hand palm up. His hand closed around mine, warm and steady, and for one ridiculous second, standing beside an old truck with a six-foot ice cat looming over us, I remembered being eighteen and barefoot near a lake.
Ty helping me climb onto the dock. Ty teasing me while I complained.
Ty looking at me like the whole world had narrowed to the space between us.
Then the employee warned, "Careful of the drainage."
Cold water splashed off the tailgate and onto my tights.
I gasped. "Oh, that is obscene."
Ty's mouth pressed into a line.
"You are dead to me," I hissed.
That got him. A laugh broke out of him, bright and helpless, and I hated that I loved the sound.
With as much dignity as possible, which was very little, I climbed into the truck bed and wedged myself beside Frozen Bento. The metal was warm beneath one palm. The ice was bitter cold against the other. Water had already begun gathering in shallow streams around my shoes.
Ty stood at the tailgate and checked the straps one more time.
"Do not drive over thirty," I said.
He held up three fingers.
"If you take a pothole, I will haunt you."
"Fair." He shut the tailgate, rounded the truck, and climbed into the cab.
The engine coughed to life with the kind of sound that suggested Betsy was operating entirely on spite and family history. I braced one hand against the sculpture's side and one against the truck bed.
For exactly eighteen seconds, everything was fine.
Then sunlight hit Frozen Bento. A thin stream of water slid down the sculpture's side, traced over one beautifully carved curl, and dripped directly onto my forearm.
I stared at it.
Then a cold ribbon of water rolled off Bento's chest and straight down the front of my dress.
Betsy turned carefully onto the main road. Frozen Bento shifted one imperceptible inch.
I lunged. "Ty!"
"I'm going nineteen."
"He moved."
Another stream of icy water ran over my fingers and down into the bow of my left shoe.
I made a sound I did not recognize.
Ty's shoulders shook in the cab.
"I am soaked."
"You're doing great."
"I am holding a six-foot frozen cat in the back of your truck while wearing tights."
"Heroic."
"I will climb through that rear window."
"Impressive range of motion in those shoes."
I was furious at physics. At June. At sentimental fathers. At wedding planners with perfect hair. At ice artists who could capture feline contempt but apparently could not guarantee structural dignity in sunlight.
A splash of water hit my knee.
I looked down. My expensive black dress clung wetly to my thigh. "Oh, wonderful," I said. "Great. Perfect. Very elegant."
"Want me to pull over?"
"No." I tightened my grip on Frozen Bento's slick side. "We are not losing Bea's emotionally significant ice cat on my watch."
His mouth curved again, softer this time. "Okay."
Betsy rolled over the smallest uneven patch in the road. Frozen Bento wobbled. I threw my entire body against him.
The ice was brutally cold through the wet fabric of my dress. My curls fell forward into my face. My bracelets clinked against the sculpture. One heel skidded in the growing puddle beneath me.
For one wild second, I was plastered against a frozen cat in the back of an old pickup, hair ruined, makeup fighting for its life, tights soaked, shoes possibly dead, and Ty Burns driving fifteen miles an hour through Northbend like we were escorting a dignitary made of questionable water.
The absurdity hit me in the chest and cracked something open. A laugh burst out of me. Real. Uncontrolled. Ugly enough at the edges to be honest. I tried to stop it, which only made it worse.
Ty looked in the mirror. "What happened?"
"I don't know," I gasped.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Are you crying?"
"Maybe."
"From the ice?"
"From my life."
His chuckle joined mine, warm and full and so familiar that it almost hurt. Betsy crawled down the street. Frozen Bento stared over Northbend in frozen disappointment. I clung to him and laughed until my ribs ached.
And in the middle of it all, the truth settled in deep.
I was in love with every version of Ty Burns.
The boy who had made me feel free.
The man who brought coffee without asking me to thank him for it.
The player who had learned restraint.
The grandson who made breakfast.
The teammate who got quiet instead of cruel.
The man who could drive an old truck fifteen miles an hour through town because a pregnant bride deserved to smile at a frozen version of her cat.
The realization should have scared me.
Instead, for one strange, shining second, it relieved me.
There you are, my heart seemed to say. Finally.
Ty pulled into the service lot behind North Line with the careful precision of a man carrying priceless glass, or several hundred pounds of melting cat. He parked near the rear entrance, cut the engine, and climbed out fast.
"You alive?" he asked, coming around to the tailgate.
I wiped at my cheek with the back of my hand. It did nothing. I was beyond repair. "Barely."
His gaze moved over me. His jaw flexed. "I am sorry.”
"Do I look tragic?" I leaned one hand on Frozen Bento's shoulder. "Do not lie."
"You look..." His mouth twitched. "Like the most committed woman in this wedding party."
"That's a terrible compliment."
"It's accurate."
The rear door of North Line opened. Four members of Arlo's staff came out with a dolly, thick gloves, and the brisk confidence of people who had been told by Vivienne Hart that failure was not an available outcome.
"Is that the cat?" one of them asked.
"No," I said. "Ice Bento is my date."
Ty covered his mouth with one hand.
The unloading began smoothly, which should have been my first warning.
The staff moved fast. Ty climbed into the bed to help guide the base. I stayed close because apparently Stockholm syndrome applied to ice sculptures. The dolly rolled into position. The straps came loose. Frozen Bento shifted forward.
"We've got it," one staff member said.
"Careful with the left side," Ty warned. "The ear is close to the frame."
"I see it."
The sculpture cleared the tailgate. For one glorious second, victory stood within reach.
Then Bento's left ear clipped the metal edge with a sharp, crystalline crack. The ear snapped clean off.
The broken piece hit the pavement, bounced once, and slid beneath Betsy. Frozen Bento, now one-eared and dripping, continued judging us with diminished symmetry.
A laugh escaped me. Small at first. Then completely beyond my control. I bent forward, hands on my knees, soaked dress clinging everywhere, hair falling into my face.
One of the staff members looked horrified. "Miss Thomas, I'm so sorry."
"No," I wheezed. "It is absolutely perfect." I pointed at the sculpture. "Bento would lose an ear in protest."
Another staff member crouched to retrieve the broken ear. "Can we reattach it?"
Ty looked at the ear, then at the cat. "Maybe lean it strategically?"
"Like a garnish?" I asked.
By the time Vivienne appeared at the service door, headset in place and expression sharpened for battle, the sculpture was upright on the dolly, the ear had been placed in a tray of ice like a fallen relic, and I was still wiping tears from my face.
Vivienne took one look from me to the sculpture. "Why," she asked calmly, "is Bento missing an ear?"
"Creative direction," I said.
Ty looked away.
"You are soaked." Vivienne stared at me for a long second. "Your entrance is in twelve minutes."