Page 12 of Wild Card 13

“I have plans,” I exhaled, though the words came out thinner than I wanted them to. “I don’t want to get stuck.”

“Then don’t.” Dad nodded once. “Use it as a bridge. Get paid what you’re worth. Help me for a while. Build experience. Then go do whatever bigger thing you want to do.”

The bigger thing sat quietly inside me like it always did. Not business operations. Not hockey. A hidden folder full of half-finished chapters. Notes apps crowded with dialogue snippets and scene ideas. Characters who visited me while I brushed my teeth or tried to fall asleep. Entire conversations I carried around in my head instead of saying out loud.

I could tell my father I wanted something bigger.

I could not tell him I wanted to write love stories.

Lo’s hand covered mine before I realized I’d started folding my napkin into increasingly aggressive little squares again. Her rings pressed cool against my knuckles. “Temporary doesn’t mean insignificant, sugar,” she said gently. “Sometimes temporary is how we get from the wrong room to the right one.”

Bea’s expression softened immediately.

Dad looked down toward his plate like Lo had just said something he wanted to keep without interrupting.

I swallowed hard enough to annoy myself. “That was inconveniently beautiful.”

Lo squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “I do try to be useful between casseroles.”

“You don’t make casseroles.”

“Not for people who question my wisdom.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

My father’s entire face warmed at the sound, like he’d been waiting for it.

And for one dangerous second, sitting there in the warm kitchen light with Bea smiling beside me and Lo stealing bread from the basket while my father watched me hopefully across the table, I felt myself starting to cave a little around the edges.

Then Dad reached for his fork and added, far too casually, “And honestly, we need more clear heads around certain players.”

Something cold slid quietly down my spine before I even understood why. “You know,” I said carefully, “whenever someone says certain players, it immediately sounds like one of them recently lit something on fire.”

Dad cut into his chicken. “Young roster. Big personalities. Guys who are assets on the ice but need better infrastructure around them off it.”

“Horrifying sentence,” I muttered.

Bea tilted her head slightly. “Anyone specific?”

Dad paused. And if I believed the universe occasionally performed acts of mercy, I would’ve hoped for interruption then. Instead, he said calmly, “Buzz Burns, for one.”

My entire body forgot how lunch worked. The fork stopped halfway to my mouth before I could stop it. I lowered it slowly back onto my plate and reached for my water glass instead because suddenly my hands required occupational therapy.

Ty Burns was not a ghost.

Ghosts were easier.

Ghosts stayedghosts.

Ty Burns was extremely alive.

Extremely employed.

Extremely beloved by the city of Northbend in the deeply irritating way hometown hockey stars always were.

Good with reporters.

Good in commercials.