38. Lucy #2
Bobby immediately checked the ring box like he deserved credit for civilization continuing.
I caught Buzz’s eye again across the aisle.
This time he did not make a face.
The reception at Talon Arena should have felt wrong.
It was the arena.
The place where my father held court. Where players became heroes or disasters depending on the night. Where I had spent entire seasons learning how to make chaos look organized. Where Buzz had skated under bright lights while I pretended not to watch him too closely.
It should not have been able to become something else.
But when I walked inside, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Micah walked into my back. “Sorry,” she muttered, then looked around.
The ice was covered. The boards were hidden.
The scale of the arena had been softened into something unreal by candlelight and hanging lights that shimmered overhead like captured stars.
Tables spread across the floor in champagne and ivory, every setting precise, every glass catching gold.
The center of the space held the dance floor, gleaming beneath layers of light.
But the flowers were what stole the room.
Florals imported from Brazil spilled in lush arrangements that made the whole arena feel warmer, fuller, alive in a way I had not expected.
Ivory blooms, soft greenery, and delicate touches that nodded toward Bea without announcing themselves. It was not themed.
For a moment, I could not quite make my brain accept it.
Talon had held playoff losses and overtime wins and charity skates and ugly press conferences and the kind of nights when everyone went home pretending their hearts had not been left somewhere under the seats.
Tonight it held candles.
Brazilian flowers.
Silver feather bookmarks at every place setting engraved with four words: Love Is Showing Up.
I ran my thumb over the favor at my seat until the edge pressed a faint line into my skin.
At the bridal party table, I sat between Lo and Micah, with a clear view of Bea and Alois and a dangerous partial view of Buzz two seats down on the other side of the arrangement. Close enough to notice. Far enough to pretend I was not noticing.
The reception moved in bright pieces.
The roar of applause when Bea and Alois came in, his hand low on her back, her veil gone now, her smile wide and unguarded.
Vivienne appearing near the kitchen doors with a headset and a smile so fixed it deserved structural support.
Bobby refusing sparkling juice at first because he was “on duty,” then accepting it after Oliver informed him hydrated best men performed better under pressure.
Players behaving themselves for approximately forty-two minutes, which felt like a league record.
Then my father stood near the head table in a dark suit, one hand around a glass, his expression composed in that way that made strangers think he was impossible to read and made me understand he was feeling too much.
He looked at Bea first.
Then Alois.
“I’ll keep this short,” Ezra began, which earned a soft ripple of laughter because everyone knew my father considered brevity a virtue and speeches a necessary evil.
“I have spent a long time in this business watching people become who they are under pressure. Pressure reveals character. Sometimes it reveals problems.” Another small wave of laughter, quieter this time.
“Sometimes it reveals the people you would trust with the things that matter most.”
Bea’s eyes had already gone shiny.
Alois held her hand on the table.
“When Bea came into this organization, she did not ask to be protected from hard rooms. She walked into them prepared. She earned trust the difficult way. Not because it was handed to her. Because she kept showing up.”
The bookmark under my thumb felt suddenly impossible to hold.
Ezra turned slightly toward Alois.
“And Alois, you have spent years being known for what you can survive. Tonight, I think everyone in this room gets to see something better. What you were brave enough to choose.”
Alois looked down.
Bea squeezed his hand.
Ezra lifted his glass.
“Family is not always who you are born to. Sometimes it is who stands beside you when life gets complicated. Sometimes it is who sees the worst parts of the road and chooses to keep walking with you anyway.” His voice roughened, just barely.
“To Bea and Alois. To the family they found. To the family they are building. And to love that keeps showing up.”
Glasses lifted around the room. “To Bea and Alois,” everyone said.
My father sat down.
Short and sweet, exactly as promised. Devastating anyway.
The night loosened after that, as if everyone had collectively decided the emotional damage portion had been fulfilled and it was time to let the hockey players near dessert.
That was a mistake.
The three-tier ivory cake was elegant and perfect and very Bea.
The groom’s cake was a hockey helmet. A stunningly accurate hockey helmet, complete with details so precise half the roster gathered around it like scouts reviewing game footage.
Alois stared at it in silence. Then looked at Lo.
Lo lifted her champagne glass. “It’s art,” she said.
Bobby took approximately one hundred pictures.
Zee asked if the cake was regulation size.
Buzz leaned close enough for me to hear him say, “I give it ten minutes before someone tries to put it on.”
I looked at him over my champagne. “Five.”
His eyes warmed. “You’re probably right.”
We were careful all night.