40. Buzz #3
“Thank you.” Her mouth pressed together. She looked down at her tablet.
I looked down at my now-correctly-oriented packet.
Oliver leaned toward me. “Why did that sound like you were being called to the principal’s office?”
“Because I respect administrative processes.”
Zee made a strangled noise into his coffee.
Alois said nothing.
After the meeting, I tried to escape with dignity, which lasted until Lucy caught my sleeve outside the conference room. One little tug at the cuff of my shirt that no one else would have noticed. “A word,” she said under her breath.
Lucy turned down a quieter corridor that ran behind the administrative offices. The hallway was empty, lit by long strips of fluorescent light, with framed photos of old Frosthawks teams lining the wall. It was not romantic.
She stopped beside a photo of the 2012 roster and turned on me. “You are terrible at this.”
“I moved you out of the way of a case.”
“You held my waist.”
“It was an emergency.”
“It was a rolling equipment case, not a meteor.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Her expression shifted. The lecture softened at the edges. “I’m not mad. I just…” She looked past me, toward the main corridor. “We are very bad at being normal.”
“We were never that good at it.”
Her mouth twitched. “True.”
“I’ll do better.”
“I know you will.”
Lucy stepped closer. Enough that I could smell her perfume under the arena coffee and cold air. “I’m also bad at it,” she admitted.
“You are?”
“I blushed through that entire meeting.”
“It was cute.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do not call me cute in the workplace.”
“After hours?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
“That sounds promising.”
“You’re pushing it.”
“I missed pushing it.”
For a second, the hallway disappeared, and it was just us at eighteen. Us before everything broke. Us after it, too. Older now. More careful. Still somehow the same where it mattered.
Lucy’s gaze dropped to my mouth.
There were rules. No touching. No nicknames. No making this everyone’s business before it had a chance to become ours.
I knew all of them.
I respected all of them.
And still, when Lucy looked at me like that, I stepped closer.
She did not step back.
“Luce,” I said quietly.
Her breath caught.
That was all it took.
I bent my head. She tipped her face up. We were an inch apart, maybe less, when the air changed.
Lucy froze.
I froze.
Slowly, I turned my head.
Alois Müller, over six feet of silent European judgment, stood at the end of the corridor. He had a folder in one hand. His expression revealed absolutely nothing.
He looked at the very small amount of space between us. Then he looked back at me. And said nothing. Not one word.
Lucy stepped back first, smoothing both hands down the front of her dress like she had been discussing facility operations and not almost kissing me beneath a framed photo of retired defensemen.
“Müller,” she said, voice perfectly professional except for the fact that her face was still bright pink. “Did you need something?”
Alois looked at her. Then at the folder in his hand. He lifted it slightly.
Lucy took two steps toward him and accepted it. “Thank you.” She opened the folder like it contained anything important. “Was there anything else?” she asked.
Alois’s eyes shifted to me again.
I stood there like a guilty teenager with a professional contract.
Then, Alois shook his head.
Lucy nodded. “Great. I’ll review this before the next meeting.”
Alois stayed silent. He turned and walked away.
Then Lucy put the folder against her chest and whispered, “Oh my God.”
I stared after him. “He knows.”
“He suspects.”
“He knows in three languages.”
She covered her mouth with the folder. Her shoulders shook. At first, I thought she was panicking. Then I realized she was laughing. Lucy’s laugh broke loose for half a second before she clapped the folder over her mouth again.
The relief hit me so fast I almost laughed too. “You think this is funny?” I whispered.
Her eyes were bright behind her glasses. “He said nothing.”
“That was the loudest nothing I’ve ever not heard.”
“He just stood there.”
“He looked at me like he was deciding where to hide the body.”
She shook her head, but she was still laughing, and for one tiny, reckless second, she let her hand touch mine.
Her fingers brushed mine. Then hooked around them. Only for the space of a heartbeat.
Lucy looked down at our hands, then back up at me. The laughter faded, but the warmth stayed. “This is the kind of thing that gets us caught.”
“I know.”
She squeezed my fingers once. Then let go. “We’ll figure it all out.” She lifted the folder. “Go before I get us both fired. My place. Seven.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed the folder at me. “Dangerous.”
I winked. “Only after hours.”
Then the question rose up in me, easy and impossible and ridiculous enough that I knew if I waited, I would overthink it until it became something else. I asked, “Will you be my girlfriend again?”
She smiled. Kissed my cheek quickly. She walked away from me then, spine straight, heels clicking on the arena floor.
Except she looked back once. Over her shoulder. And blushed.