Page 275 of Wild Card 13

But I felt it.

For the organization.

For my father, who had stood in his suite with his hands in his pockets and his jaw set like the owner in him could absorb what the father in him hated watching.

For the staff members who would spend today packing away one version of hope and building spreadsheets for the next one.

And for Ty.

I hated that I could still see him after the horn sounded, bent at the waist with both gloves braced on his knees, helmet shadowing his face. I had watched from a distance while he stayed there for one second too long before straightening. Not dramatic. Not performative. Just a man trying to fit disappointment back inside his body before the cameras found him.

My phone buzzed on my desk.

Naomi: Before you spiral, no, he has not been in yet.

I pressed my lips together.

I was not going to ask.

Naomi: You were spiritually asking.

He is not coming today.

Naomi: Is that what you think or what you’re practicing saying out loud so it hurts less if it’s true?

I turned the phone face down. Dottie whined at the door.

The hallway outside my office had started to wake up in pieces. Not game-day waking. Not the sharp, kinetic rush of staff and players and media and equipment. This was quieter. Doors opening. Low voices. Someone laughing once, too hard and too short, before the sound died.

Exit meeting day had its own strange weather. Men who had spent months moving as one unit suddenly moved as individuals. They carried garment bags and sticks and duffels stuffed with the season’s debris. Tape rolls. Extra socks. Protein containers. Family photos pulled from locker stalls. Hoodies with frayed cuffs. Lucky things that had stopped being lucky.

By nine, the hallway outside my office had become a slow procession of endings.

Cam passed with a suit jacket hooked over two fingers and histie already loosened. He nodded at me through the open door with the tired steadiness of a captain who had not slept enough and would still say the right thing to everyone else before he let himself feel anything.

Jonah walked by with Milo, both of them quiet for once, carrying sticks bundled together with tape.

Harry Vestergaard moved past alone, enormous goalie bag over his shoulder, expression unreadable in the way only goalies and Scandinavian men seemed able to manage without effort.

Zee Hendrix stopped outside my office long enough to scratch Dottie between the ears. He wore a black suit, no tie, his hair still damp like he had showered at the arena because routine did not know what to do with grief either. “Morning, Dots,” he murmured.

Dottie melted under his hand.

“Careful,” I warned. “She’s emotionally vulnerable.”

Zee looked at the dog, then at me. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Aren’t we all?” Then he kept walking.

I watched him go, the broad line of his shoulders disappearing toward the player corridor. A minute later, Hadley Holloway turned the corner carrying a folder, a travel mug, and a pair of reading glasses hooked carefully over one finger.

I knew her, of course. Not in the text-you-when-your-life-was-on-fire way. But hockey families had a way of orbiting each other whether anyone planned it or not. Christmas parties. Foundation dinners. Family skates. The awkward buffet line at team obligations where coaches’ kids and owners’ kids learned to smile politely while grown men discussed power plays over carved ham.

Hadley was Coach Holloway’s daughter, which meant my dad had known Dan long enough for me to have seen Hadley grow from a quiet teenager in dress flats to quiet young woman in white sneakers who moved through the arena like someone who had learned the map before she had learned to be intimidated by it.

She was younger than me by a few years. Twenty-two now, maybe. Soft brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, a light rain jacket zipped halfway over a simple blue dress, her sneakers squeaking faintly against the polished concrete. Pretty in a quiet way, with a face that looked kind before it looked anything else.

She spotted me and smiled. “Lucy.”

“Hadley.” I glanced at the folder. “Please tell me Dan forgot something important enough to justify that expression.”