38. Lucy
LUCY
NOW
Buzz Burns was waiting outside the bridal suite with six coffees and the expression of a man who had either been given a very sacred mission or had robbed a small café.
I stopped in the corridor with my garment bag hooked over one arm, my makeup bag sliding down my wrist, and my emergency wedding binder tucked against my ribs because Vivienne Hart had told me she did not need backup but had greeted the sight of the binder with the manic gratitude of a woman who absolutely did.
Buzz saw me and smiled. “You look prepared to either attend a wedding or negotiate a hostage release.”
“What are you doing here?”
He lifted the drink carrier in his left hand, then the one in his right. “Bridesmaid coffee delivery.”
“For all of us?”
His eyes skimmed my face, careful and bright. “Vivienne sent three separate texts with capital letters. I got concerned.”
I took the coffee he held out to me, the one with my name written across the cup in block letters that were not his handwriting. Vivienne’s, probably. Lucy Thomas, block letters that weren’t his. The order underneath was pure Vivienne: Lucy Thomas, no heroics.
Buzz looked at it and gave me a solemn nod. “No heroics today.” His laugh slipped past his lips, soft and quick.
Some of the tension loosened as his calm washed over me. I had almost forgotten how good it was to see him before the chaos.
Today was not about me. So I pushed everything down, lifted my coffee in salute, and said, “If any of those are decaf, you’re not leaving this hallway alive.”
Buzz’s gaze stayed on mine one beat too long. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The bridal suite door flew open.
Vivienne Hart appeared in champagne silk, a headset, and the haunted expression of a woman who had already defeated three emergencies before nine in the morning. “Coffee,” she twittered, spotting Buzz. “Excellent. Do not get comfortable. There is a containment issue involving the groomsmen.”
Buzz blinked. “A what?”
“Containment,” Vivienne repeated. “Issue.”
Buzz looked toward the hallway, then back at me. “Duty calls.”
“Try not to let anyone create a penalty box out of ceremony seating.”
“No promises.”
He started to go, then paused. His eyes dropped to the coffee in my hand, then came back to my face. “You good?”
I nodded. “I’m good.”
After that, the morning became satin and steam and the delicate, hilarious disaster of women trying to get ready around one very pregnant bride who kept crying at inconvenient times and then blaming the baby.
Bea sat in the center of the room in a robe that probably cost more than my first car, her dark hair pinned halfway up, her face bare except for the kind of glow people paid stylists to fake and pregnancy had apparently handed her for free. “I’m fine,” she whimpered, while crying into a tissue.
Micah, already in her navy dress with one earring in and one earring lost somewhere near the vanity, said, “Your face is leaking.”
Freya stood behind Bea with a curling iron in hand and the calm focus of someone who routinely made injured athletes obey basic medical advice. “Do not move unless you want one side of your head to look like it survived a small electrical event.”
Lo sat near the window, watching with that still, knowing expression she got when she was feeling too much and making it everybody else’s problem by saying almost nothing.
The getting-ready part of the day could have swallowed hours if we’d let it.
It didn’t.
In my memory, it came in flashes.
Micah finding the missing earring hooked to the lace of Bea’s robe and announcing that couture was just fabric with better hiding places.
Freya kneeling to adjust Bea’s shoe because bending at thirty-three weeks pregnant was apparently now classified as a recreational risk.
Vivienne appearing every six minutes with a new clipboard and the expression of a battlefield commander who had been personally betrayed by time.
Stella Watson passing once through the doorway with her camera lowered, quiet as a breath, getting the kind of image no other reporter would have been allowed to take.
Not intrusive. Not hungry. Just present.
Respectful. Like she understood this was news to everyone else, but family to the people inside the room.
And Bea laughing through tears when the baby shifted hard against her bladder. “Already opinionated,” she said, pressing a hand to the curve of her stomach.
“Wonder where that comes from,” I said.
She pointed at me. “That sounded judgmental.”
“It was admiration.”
By the time the dress came out, even Vivienne stopped moving.
The dress was ivory and timeless, all structure and softness at once.
Off-the-shoulder. A fitted bodice that gave way into an empire waist, then a skirt that fell around Bea like someone had taken every old-world painting of a bride and made it breathe.
The veil was cathedral-length, delicate enough to look impossible.
We got Bea into the dress with the care of people handling something sacred and mildly explosive. Freya managed the train. Micah handled buttons. Lo watched Bea’s face in the mirror. I stood behind her with the veil in my hands, terrified to breathe wrong.
When it was done, Bea looked at herself and went completely still.
I had known Bea as the person who could make a grown hockey player regret an ill-advised quote with one glance. I had seen her survive pressure, build strategy out of ashes, and love Alois Müller with the kind of loyalty that made the rest of us look underdeveloped.
I had never seen her look like this.
Bea turned from the mirror and found me watching. “Don’t,” she warned, already blinking.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought something sentimental.”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
I smiled, because my throat had gotten suspiciously tight and I did not trust it with words.
Bea reached for my hand. A quick private moment in the middle of a room full of women pretending not to watch us. “Thank you,” she muttered softly.
“For what?”
“For yesterday. For today. For caring about all the pieces.” Her smile trembled. “Even the stupid frozen cat.”
“Bento is not stupid. He is an icon.”
Bea laughed, but her eyes stayed wet. “I’m serious, Luce.”
I squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to thank me for loving you.”
Her face crumpled.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Vivienne said from across the room. “No. We are done with facial flooding. Makeup is sealed. Feelings are now scheduled for the ceremony.”
Bea laughed through another almost-sob.
Vivienne pointed at the ceiling as though making an announcement to a higher power. “I am not afraid of love, but I am extremely afraid of mascara.”
The ceremony space looked like a secret garden had been invited to a royal wedding and had accepted with excellent manners.
The Sunken Garden had always been beautiful, but that day it felt like it had been waiting for Bea and Alois specifically.
Ivory florals climbed and spilled and softened every line.
Eucalyptus garlands curved through gold accents and candlelight.
The air smelled green and clean and faintly sweet, like summer had been polished for company.
There was no hockey branding.
No Frosthawks crest.
No numbers.
No arena lights.
For one day, nobody belonged to the team first.
I stood with Lo, Micah, and Freya, navy fabric whispering around my legs, my bouquet steady in both hands. Across the aisle, the groomsmen stood in black tuxes, Oliver composed, Zee pretending not to look emotional, Bobby so serious with the rings that I worried he might demand a security detail.
And Buzz. He stood with his hands folded in front of him, shoulders broad beneath his tux, blond hair neater than usual but not enough to erase him. The sight of him there should have been unfair.
For one brief second, everything else softened around the edges.
Then he made the tiniest face toward Bobby, who was standing like a twelve-year-old secret service agent, and I almost laughed in the middle of a wedding processional.
I was grateful for that. For the way Buzz understood, somehow, that if he looked at me like the rooftop conversation was still burning through him, I might not survive the ceremony.
Then the music changed.
Everyone rose.
And Bea came in.
I could not pretend I remember every detail of that walk.
Some pieces of a life belong to the people living them most deeply.
I remember the room changing. The way the guests inhaled like one body. The ivory, candlelight, the long fall of her veil, the impossible grace of her hand resting near the curve of her belly.
I remember Alois. He had been standing like a man trying to be strong enough for the moment.
Then he saw her. And Alois Müller, who had taken hits that made entire arenas go silent, who had built a career out of being immovable, cried openly.
Not one dignified tear.
Not a controlled blink.
He broke.
His face shifted, his mouth trembled, and the tears came with such honest force that the entire room seemed to ache around him.
Bobby looked up at him, alarmed.
Oliver put one hand briefly on Alois’s shoulder.
Buzz bowed his head, smiling like he had to hide it.
And Bea saw Alois crying. Her face changed. Like some part of her had been waiting her whole life to be loved by someone brave enough to be undone in public and not turn away from it.
The vows were traditional. There was something almost startling about that. After everything Bea and Alois had survived to stand there, after every sharp edge and impossible turn, they did not need to reinvent the language.
To have and to hold.
From this day forward.
For better, for worse.
Words said by countless people before them, and still, somehow, new in their mouths.
Bea’s voice wobbled only once.
Alois’s broke twice.
When the officiant pronounced them married, the room came apart in applause, laughter, tears, and the kind of joy that made even the candlelight seem louder.
Alois kissed his wife like he had been given a miracle and understood the instructions.
Bea laughed against his mouth.