Page 191 of Wild Card 13

Bea, crying and glowing and stepping into the next version of her life with both hands open.

Freya, laughing through tears, already making plans.

Lo, beautiful and emotional and pleased with herself because she had gotten exactly what she wanted: all of us fed, spoiled, and slightly less guarded than when we arrived.

Arlo, standing in the doorway with snow on his shoulder and pride in his face, watching over us without making the moment about him.

And me. Sitting there in the middle of it.

Northbend was not becoming home because I had an apartment here. Or a title at Talon Arena. Or Dottie’s leash hanging beside my front door. Or even that I had grown up here.

It was becoming home because my life had started filling with people who knew how I took my coffee, when I needed a blanket, how to make me laugh, and exactly how much emotional ambush I could survive before feeding me chocolate cake.

That should have terrified me.

And deep down, it did.

But, instead of worrying about it, I laughed again. Not like a woman trying to prove she had everything under control. Just because I was happy. And because, for one small, shining moment, I let myself be exactly that. Happy. Surrounded. Chosen.

A tiny boss lady winning at life in a rooftop igloo with mascara under her eyes, whiskey in her coffee, and three women beside her who had somehow become family while she was busy insisting she did not need anyone at all.

CHAPTER 23

BUZZ

NOW

The visiting locker room at Summit Point Arena smelled like damp gear, fresh tape, and the kind of industrial cleaner that only existed in places where men routinely bled on floors.

And it did what locker rooms did before games. It got stupid.

First, it stayed inside the usual pregame lane. Guys complained about the hotel pillows. About the bus ride. About the arena being too new and trying too hard. About Denver air being thin enough to qualify as a personal attack.

“I swear my room had a pillow menu,” Zee said, pulling his jersey over his pads. His head got stuck halfway through the neck hole for a second, which did not help his argument. “A menu. For pillows.”

Marco leaned back in his stall, one elbow propped on the shelf behind him. “That is called luxury.”

“That is called too many options.”

“Options are beautiful.”

“That doesn’t make it useful.”

“It made me feel expensive.”

snorted and tugged my jersey into place. “That is actually Marco’s whole training philosophy.”

“Thank you,” Marco said. “Finally, respect.”

The laugh that moved through the room was easy. Loose. Thekind that did not require anything from anybody. It rubbed some of the tightness out of my chest, or maybe I just wanted it to.

The door to the hallway opened, letting in a flash of alpine-green light and a colder wash of air from the tunnel. A staffer stuck his head in, said something to Rusty, and disappeared again before the door swung shut.

The crowd outside thumped harder. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

Denver fans had apparently decided subtlety was not part of their founding constitution.

“Do they do that all game?” Zee asked.