Page 161 of Wild Card 13

He turned toward me, and the smile that started on his mouth was all trouble before he pulled it back into something almost respectful. Almost. “That sounded dangerously close to praise.”

“It was professional feedback.”

“Even hotter.”

“Ty.”

His grin widened for half a second, and there he was. The boy who used to make irritation feel like oxygen. Then his gaze moved over my face, and the grin softened. “You okay, Shortcake?”

The nickname slipped between us. Old. Familiar. Devastating.

I should have corrected him.

Across the rink, Bea looked up from her clipboard.

“I’m fine,” I responded, finally.

Ty’s expression told me exactly how little he believed that. But he only nodded.

“You helped,” I said quietly. “With Niko. With all of it.”

“I told you I would.”

I looked at him, and for one dangerous second, I forgot the years between us. I forgot every reason I had trained myself to stand outside the reach of him. All I saw was the man in front of me. Patient. Present. Still impossible. Still Ty.

His hand lifted slightly, instinctive and careful, like he meant to reach for mine and remembered halfway there that he had not been given permission.

His fingers hovered close enough that I felt the warmth of him before contact.

Then Ruth appeared beside us with a plastic container in both hands. “Fudge?”

CHAPTER 20

BUZZ

NOW

Grandma Ruth appeared beside us with a plastic container in both hands, and Lucy pulled away so fast I felt the absence of her before I understood she had moved.

That was how close I’d been.

Not touching her. Not even close enough to call it touching. But my hand had lifted before my brain caught up, and for one reckless, idiotic, perfect second, Lucy Thomas had not stepped back.

She had stayed.

Then Grandma Ruth showed up with fudge, because apparently God had a sense of humor and it was shaped like an eighty-year-old woman with a tote bag full of sugar.

Lucy’s clipboard knocked against her hip as she shifted back into herself. Her shoulders straightened. Her chin lifted. Her expression smoothed out in that devastating professional way that made me want to mess up my whole life just to see what she looked like underneath it.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching for a piece of fudge like it was a work assignment.

Grandma Ruth gave her the kind of look that had humbled grown men at Thanksgiving. “You’re too skinny.”

Lucy blinked. “I’m not.”

“You are. Marion said so.”

Across the spectator section, my mother looked over as if she had been summoned by the mere accusation of underfeeding someone. She was holding a paper cup of coffee in one hand and talking to the Mighty Blades coordinator with the focused warmth she brought to every conversation, like she was one casserole away from adopting the whole room.