37. Buzz
BUZZ
NOW
By the time dinner started, I had almost convinced myself I was acting normal.
Normal was a stretch considering I was still damp in places no man should have to be damp during a rehearsal dinner.
My dress shirt had dried in wrinkled patches, one sleeve was still clinging to my forearm, and there was a streak of something across my cuff that I was choosing to believe was melted ice and not cat-sculpture trauma.
The whole North Line mezzanine looked like controlled chaos wearing candles.
Lucy sat two tables away from me in a pair of gray North Line sweatpants rolled twice at the waist and a fitted black tank top beneath an oversized zip-up hoodie that looked like it belonged to Arlo.
Her hair was half-dry, half-wild, curls refusing every rule she had probably forced on them earlier. The emerald frames of her glasses caught candlelight when she turned her head. Her cheeks were still pink from the cold and the adrenaline and the laughter.
She was smiling with her whole face while Arlo leaned over the back of her chair, hands braced on either side of her, saying something that made her shove at his arm.
I missed watching Lucy Thomas be fully herself.
The girl who used to turn a grocery store run into an adventure.
The girl who once made me pull over on the side of the road because the sunset was “being dramatic and deserved witnesses.” The girl who could get furious about a problem, solve it anyway, and then laugh so hard afterward that everyone around her forgot they were supposed to be stressed.
For years, I had missed being loved by her.
Tonight, I realized I had also missed the privilege of seeing her unguarded.
“Burns.”
I blinked.
Alois was looking at me from the head of the table. So was half the room.
“Yeah?” I said.
Alois’s mouth curved. “I asked if you were well.”
“I’m great.”
“You have been staring at the potatoes for a full minute.”
Bobby leaned around Oliver. “To be fair, they are very compelling potatoes.”
“They have depth,” Arlo added from behind Lucy.
Lucy pressed her lips together, but her shoulders shook. She glanced at me across the room. Her eyes met mine, bright behind her glasses, and for one second the whole room thinned around us.
Betsy.
Her soaked dress.
My hand at her waist.
Lucy looked down at her plate, smiling to herself.
My chest tightened.
Careful, I reminded myself.
Hope was a dangerous thing when it had her face.
Dinner moved around us with ease. Plates cleared. Wine refreshed. Someone brought Bea a sparkling water with berries floating in it, and she cried because it was “too pretty.”
Arlo kept circling the room like a host who could not stop hosting even at his own family’s event.
He checked on Lo’s drink, adjusted the dessert table, gave one of the servers a quiet nod, and still found time to lean down near Lucy and say, “You know, I can have your name embroidered on those sweats if you’re attached. ”
Lucy looked up at him sweetly. “I know where you keep the expensive bourbon.”
He kissed the top of her head, quick and easy, and moved on.
Eventually, Bobby stood and tapped his knife gently against his water glass.
Lo reached up and took the knife out of his hand.
Bobby looked down at her. “I was being tasteful.”
“You were one tap away from breaking stemware.”
Lo handed him a spoon instead.
Bobby accepted it with dignity. “As best man—”
Alois groaned.
“As best man,” Bobby repeated louder, “and as the only person here officially brave enough to manage the emotional needs of this table—”
“Untrue,” Bea hollered.
“Borderline offensive,” Lucy said.
A low, easy laugh moved through the room.
Bobby smiled, softer now, and turned toward Bea and Alois. “I’ll save the good stuff for tomorrow. Mostly because Lo threatened me.” He glanced at Lo. “Lovingly.”
“Accurately,” she said.
“But tonight, I’ll just say this. Some people make sense from the beginning. Some people take a minute. Some people take a very expensive PR situation, a judgy cat, several team meetings, and one very intense German man learning to be soft.”
Alois narrowed his eyes. “Careful.”
“Only teasing.”
Bea laughed, then immediately started crying.
Alois forgot the entire room. He turned toward her, both hands gentle now, one on her cheek and one at her waist. “Quel est le problème?”
“I’m fine.” She waved him off while crying harder. “I’m so fine. This is happy crying.”
“I will never understand hormones.”
“I’m pregnant and loved, Alois. Keep up.”
The whole mezzanine went soft around them.
Bobby lowered the spoon. “See? That. That’s what I was getting at.”
Alois kept his eyes on Bea, and when he spoke, his voice had lost every trace of humor. “I did not know I could have this.”
The room quieted.
Bea’s chin trembled.
Alois swallowed once. I had seen that man take hits that would fold other guys in half.
I had seen him skate off bloodied and furious and silent.
But standing in front of the people who loved him, with Bea tucked against him and his hand spread carefully over the curve of Bea’s belly, he looked wrecked in a way I understood too well.
“I was very good at being alone,” he said. “I thought that made me strong.” He looked down at Bea, and something in his face shifted. “Then you came into my life and ruined that completely.”
Bea let out a wet laugh.
Alois brushed his thumb beneath her eye. “Thank you.”
Rafa covered his mouth with his fist. Ezra looked down at his glass. Lo blinked fast. Arlo suddenly became very interested in adjusting a candle that did not need adjusting.
Lucy watched Bea and Alois with her face open. No careful smile. Just love for them, plain and unprotected.
After the toast, people started moving again. Chairs scraped softly. Conversation rose. Dessert plates appeared. Frozen Bento continued his slow, judgmental decline near the sweets.
I stood because sitting still had become impossible.
I made it three steps toward the bar before Ezra appeared beside me.
“Buzz,” he said.
My spine straightened before I could stop it. “Mr. Thomas.”
He looked me over once, taking in my wrinkled shirt, damp sleeve, and probably the fact that I had been staring at his daughter like a man with no survival instincts. “Walk with me.”
There were a lot of things a guy did not want to hear from the owner of his team.
Walk with me was high on the list. Especially when that owner was also the father of the woman I loved and had nearly kissed only minutes ago.
“Sure,” I said, because apparently I wanted to live dangerously.
Ezra led me out of the mezzanine through a side door and up the short private stairwell to the rooftop terrace. The summer air hit cooler up there, threaded with the city sounds below and the faint glow of Talon Arena in the distance.
North Line’s rooftop looked nothing like the chaos downstairs.
String lights crossed overhead. Planters overflowed with summer greenery.
The gas fireplaces burned low near clusters of lounge seating, their flames shifting blue and gold behind glass.
The outdoor bar was closed for the private event, polished and empty.
Ezra stopped near the railing.
I waited.
Finally, Ezra said, “You think I brought you up here to tell you to stay away from my daughter.”
I kept my eyes on the skyline. “That crossed my mind.”
“Smart.” Ezra exhaled through his nose. Almost a laugh, but not generous enough to fully become one. “I’m not going to do that.”
He rested both hands on the railing, his posture relaxed in the way powerful men could afford to look relaxed. Expensive suit. Controlled expression. Gray at his temples catching the terrace light. He looked less like the owner of the Frosthawks up here and more like Lucy’s father.
“I promised Lucy I’d keep her away from you,” he began. “When you came back to Minnesota, when the trade went through, when it became clear this wasn’t going to be a clean situation for either of you, I told her I would make sure she didn’t have to deal with you more than necessary.”
I swallowed.
“I meant it at the time,” he said. “Mostly.” Ezra turned his head enough to look at me. “Then I watched both of you act like professionals while bleeding all over my organization.”
The words landed sharp and quiet. “Mr. Thomas—”
Ezra cut me off. “I stopped keeping the door closed. I gave her some assignments that involved you. Operations issues. A few things here and there.”
My hand tightened on the railing. “Why?”
“Because my daughter has spent years proving she can survive things she should have healed from. And you,” he said, “have spent years taking punishment like it was the same thing as accountability.”
“I deserved it.”
“Some of it,” Ezra corrected. “Don’t look so surprised. I can be fair, even if it irritates me.” Ezra turned back toward the skyline. “I know about the coffee.”
I closed my eyes for half a second. “Lucy told you?”
Ezra’s mouth flattened. “Buzz, I own a hockey team. If one of my players starts altering his daily routine around my daughter’s morning, I hear about it before the foam settles.”
“Right.”
I stared at him.
Ezra’s eyes were steady. “I also know about Petrov.”
My shoulders locked.
“I heard enough,” he said. “Not from Lucy.”
“She doesn’t need to know about that bullshit.”
“I agree.” Ezra looked out toward Talon Arena, its lights distant but visible above the warehouse rooftops. “I have known a lot of hockey players. Loved some of them. Hated some of them. Paid too much money for several.”
Despite myself, I huffed a laugh.
“I have seen you with my team,” Ezra said. “With Alois. With the younger guys. With people who can do nothing for you. I have seen you take the chirping you earned and the blame you didn’t. I have seen you grow up in real time, which has been inconvenient for my grudge.”
My throat worked.
He sighed, annoyed with both of us. “I always wanted a man like that for Lucy.”
The world stopped making sound. I turned my head. Ezra kept looking forward, like the skyline had said it and not him.