Page 298 of Wild Card 13

“I deserved it.”

“Some of it,” Ezra corrected. “Don’t look so surprised. I can be fair, even if it irritates me.” Ezra turned back toward the skyline. “I know about the coffee.”

I closed my eyes for half a second. “Lucy told you?”

Ezra’s mouth flattened. “Buzz, I own a hockey team. If one of my players starts altering his daily routine around my daughter’s morning, I hear about it before the foam settles.”

“Right.”

I stared at him.

Ezra’s eyes were steady. “I also know about Petrov.”

My shoulders locked.

“I heard enough,” he said. “Not from Lucy.”

“She doesn’t need to know about that bullshit.”

“I agree.” Ezra looked out toward Talon Arena, its lights distant but visible above the warehouse rooftops. “I have known a lot of hockey players. Loved some of them. Hated some of them. Paid too much money for several.”

Despite myself, I huffed a laugh.

“I have seen you with my team,” Ezra said. “With Alois. With the younger guys. With people who can do nothing for you. I have seen you take the chirping you earned and the blame you didn’t. I have seen you grow up in real time, which has been inconvenient for my grudge.”

My throat worked.

He sighed, annoyed with both of us. “I always wanted a man like that for Lucy.”

The world stopped making sound. I turned my head. Ezra kept looking forward, like the skyline had said it and not him.

“A man like what?” I asked, gripping the railing until the metal pressed hard into my palms.

“Not a perfect man,” Ezra said dryly. “Those are useless. Usually liars.”

I let out a breath that almost hurt.

“But a good one,” he went on. “Don’t fuck it up this time, Burns.”

I nodded once, but it was not enough. Not for what he had just handed me. Not for Lucy. “I love her,” I choked out. “I never stopped.”

“For the record, if you hurt her, I can trade you with one phone call.” He pointed at me. “I mean it.”

“I know.”

He could trade me. Without blinking. If I hurt Lucy badly enough, he would move heaven, earth, and my contract before breakfast.

He nodded once, satisfied. Then he moved past me toward the door. At the stairwell, he stopped without turning around. “And Buzz?”

“Yeah?”

“She likes the coffee.” Ezra opened the door and disappeared downstairs, leaving me alone on the terrace with the city, the string lights, and a hope so large it scared the hell out of me.

When I finally turned toward the stairwell, I saw her.

Lucy stood just inside the glass door leading back down to the mezzanine landing.

Her hand rested on the doorframe. The oversized hoodie had slipped off one shoulder. Her curls framed her face in wild, drying waves, and her glasses sat slightly crooked like she had pushed them up too many times.