Page 44 of Wild Card 13

Which was comforting in a strange way.

Because for several minutes, nobody mentioned Ty.

Nobody looked at me carefully.

Nobody asked questions.

The conversation settled into the easy rhythm that had slowly developed between us over the last few weeks.

Three women drinking coffee.

Stealing pastries.

Complaining about hockey players.

Pretending life was uncomplicated.

For the first time all morning, I felt myself relax. Enough to laugh. Enough to breathe. Enough to momentarily forget that my entire life had been quietly blown-up less than twenty-four hours ago.

Then Freya glanced at her watch. “Speaking of disasters, I have to go convince professional athletes that hydrating is not a sign of weakness.”

“Good luck,” I told her.

“Thank you. I'll need it.”

Bea laughed. “That's because you keep treating them like adults.”

“They're grown men.”

“Debatable.”

Freya opened her mouth to respond. Then stopped. Her eyes shifted somewhere over my shoulder. The smile disappeared from her face.

The kind that made every muscle in my body tighten.

Bea noticed it too.

I watched her expression change almost immediately.

Slowly, far too slowly, I turned toward the glass wall behind me and stopped breathing.

Ty stood in the executive corridor outside my office.

For a second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing.

The charcoal suit.

The open collar.

The coffee cup balanced casually in one hand.

The gym bag hanging from the other.

Every detail felt strangely familiar, like my memory had reached through years of distance and dropped him directly into the middle of my morning.

He looked older than the boy I remembered.

Broader.