25 #2
The crew had claimed the long corner booth.
Cade sat at one end with Bliss tucked under his arm, her face lighting up the second she saw us.
Charm sat beside her in sunglasses that were unnecessary indoors and deeply suspicious, stirring coffee like she had secrets and a headache.
Ryan sat across from Charm, one tattooed forearm stretched along the back of the booth, his expression too casual to fool anyone.
Briggs was beside him with a menu open upside down, which felt intentional.
Rider sat at the far end, calm as ever, already watching us like he had been assigned security.
Bliss clapped both hands over her mouth.
I stopped walking. “If you cry before I sit down, I’m leaving.”
Her eyes filled immediately. “I’m not crying.”
Charm lifted her sunglasses just enough to look at Bliss. “You are actively leaking.”
“I’m joyful.”
“You’re damp.”
Easton squeezed my hand. “You sure you want to sit with them?”
“No. Keep walking.”
Briggs shot out of the booth like he’d been spring-loaded. “Absolutely not. The emotionally constipated captain and the pre-law menace have arrived together, hand-in-hand, post-healing, definitely post-coital, and I have prepared remarks.”
Ryan grabbed the back of Briggs’s hoodie and yanked him down. “No remarks before coffee.”
Briggs landed in the booth with a grunt. “Censorship weakens democracy.”
Rider’s mouth barely moved. “You weaken breakfast.”
Cade looked at Easton. “You good?”
Easton nodded once. “Yeah.”
Cade’s gaze moved over him, not intrusive but checking the way Cade checked everyone he cared about. “Actually good?”
Easton’s hand tightened around mine. “More than good and moving to perfect.”
Cade’s eyes softened by one degree. “That’s enough for now.”
Bliss shoved playfully at Cade’s chest. “Move, babe. I need to sit by Aura.”
Cade slid over because he was many things, but a man willing to deny Bliss anything was not one of them.
I slid into the booth, and Bliss immediately threw both arms around me from the side.
“Subtle,” I murmured.
“I am showing restraint.”
“You climbed me.”
“I could have screamed.”
Charm leaned across Bliss. “She really could have. We begged her not to.”
Ryan’s mouth twitched behind his coffee. “Group effort.”
Easton sat beside me, his thigh pressing warm against mine under the table. The contact was casual, almost small, except nothing about us felt small yet. Not after the night before. Not after everything that had cracked open and somehow left us breathing.
Briggs leaned forward, his eyes narrowed at our hands on the table. “So, are we allowed to be excited, or are we playing it cool?”
“Play it cool,” Rider said.
Briggs nodded with the gravity of a man receiving sacred instruction. “I have never done that, but I’ll imagine it.”
Bliss looked between me and Easton with a soft, watery smile. “You both look happy.”
“Careful,” I said. “Say that louder and we’ll panic.”
Easton’s thumb brushed mine. “She’s not wrong.”
I turned my head toward him. He looked back at me without flinching, without turning it into a joke, without pretending he hadn’t just said something that made my chest ache in public.
My mouth softened. “No, she isn’t.”
Charm made a tiny sound.
Ryan looked at her. “You okay?”
She slid her sunglasses down over her eyes. “Allergies.”
“Inside a Waffle House?” Ryan asked.
“The syrup is aggressive.”
Briggs pointed at her. “I respect that lie.”
The waitress appeared with a coffee pot and the tired expression of a woman who had seen enough college athletes to know we were either excellent tippers or a problem. “You all ready?”
Cade ordered for Bliss without looking at the menu.
Bliss ordered anyway just to correct him on bacon quantity.
Briggs ordered enough food to require structural support.
Rider ordered eggs and toast like a man allergic to joy.
Ryan ordered black coffee and waffles, and Charm looked at him with quiet horror.
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Black coffee?”
“Yes.”
“You live like a man with no soft furniture.”
He stirred nothing into it, his eyes on her. “You offering to improve me?”
Charm took a slow sip of her heavily sweetened coffee. “I don’t take on charity projects before noon.”
Briggs froze, then leaned back against the booth. “That was a body shot.”
Ryan smiled into his mug. “She likes me.”
Charm’s cheeks went pink. “You’re loud for a man drinking sadness water.”
I glanced between them, and the little flicker in Charm’s face hit differently than it would have a week ago.
It wasn’t only flirtation. It wasn’t only smug, pretty Charm enjoying the attention of a tattooed hockey player who looked at her like he knew exactly how many walls she had and how much patience he had for them.
There was longing there.
Quiet. Careful. Terrified of being noticed.
Ryan looked away first, but not before his gaze softened on her in a way that made my chest pinch.
Interesting and very much not my business, which meant Bliss and I would be discussing it in a bathroom within ten minutes.
The waitress left with our orders, and Briggs reached across the table to steal a creamer from Rider’s side.
Rider caught his wrist without looking. “Use your own.”
“I need dairy.”
“You ordered four waffles.”
“Those are structural carbohydrates.”
Ryan leaned back, his arm still along the booth, his fingers tapping once against the cracked vinyl. “Speaking of structural support, I need to ask you all something.”
The shift in his voice was small, but everyone at the table heard it. Even Briggs stopped trying to liberate the creamer.
Easton looked across at him. “What’s up?”
Ryan lifted his coffee, took one sip, then set it down like he’d needed something to do with his hands.
“Flint Frost has the rivalry game of all rivalry games the Friday after Thanksgiving. Flint Frost versus Minnesota Ice, home game at Frozen Lake Arena. It’s already sold out, but I can get tickets, and there are cabins close by if you guys want to come up for the weekend. ”
Briggs’s face lit. “Cabins?”
“With heat,” Ryan said.
“That felt targeted.”
“It was.”
Rider leaned back. “Fury doesn’t have a game that weekend.”
“Exactly.” Ryan’s gaze moved around the table, landing on Cade and Easton a little longer than the rest. “I know everybody’s got family stuff Thursday, and I’m not trying to hijack Thanksgiving.
But Friday through Sunday, if you’re free, come to Flint.
Make it a mini trip. The cabins are close to the arena, and there’s a lake, a fire pit, decent food, and enough distance from campus that maybe none of us do anything criminal for forty-eight hours. ”
Rider’s mouth curved. “Ambitious.”
Ryan nodded sheepishly. “There are a few NHL scouts coming.” He shrugged again. “Who knows, though.”
Bliss straightened under Cade’s arm. “Wait. The Flint Frost versus Minnesota Ice game? Ryan, that is huge.”
Ryan shrugged, but the movement didn’t land casual. “It’s a game.”
Cade’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t do that.”
Ryan looked at him as Cade leaned forward, his forearms resting on the table. “Don’t undersell it.”
The table got quieter, and Ryan’s jaw shifted.
For the first time since I had known him, the swagger around him thinned enough to show the pressure underneath.
He wasn’t Fury anymore, not technically.
He had graduated and moved into semi-pro hockey but kept showing up for us like loyalty was the only language he trusted.
Sitting there across from Charm with black coffee in front of him and tattoos disappearing beneath his sleeves, he looked like a man standing at the edge of something too big to admit he wanted.
Cade didn’t let him hide from it.
“Scouts will be there,” Cade said.
Ryan’s eyes flicked away. “Some.”
Easton huffed. “Some? Frost staff has been talking about this for two weeks. NHL scouts, AHL guys, agents, media, the whole circus. That game matters.”
Briggs slammed a hand on the table hard enough to rattle the silverware. “This is the part where we all acknowledge Ryan Decker is being annoyingly humble about possibly changing the entire trajectory of his life.”
Ryan pointed at him. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I was born weird, and you knew that before inviting me to a cabin.”
Rider looked at Ryan, his expression calm but solid. “They’ll be watching you.”
Ryan’s throat moved once. “They’ll be watching everyone.”
“No,” Easton said, his voice cutting clean through the dodge. “They’ll be watching you.”
Ryan held his stare for a second too long, then looked down at his coffee.
Charm had gone very still beside Bliss and me.
That was what caught me, not the game or the scouts.
Not the way every guy at the table seemed to lean forward around Ryan like they could put their shoulders under the weight with him.
Charm was looking at him like someone had just handed her a glimpse of a future she already knew she wasn’t allowed to want, and somehow, her reaction was affecting his.
Her fingers tightened around her mug. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes moved over him with the softest kind of pride, the kind that didn’t belong to a girl who thought a man was only fun.
Ryan didn’t see it, or maybe he did and didn’t know what to do with it.
My chest went tight.
Oh, Cee.
Bliss noticed me noticing, because Bliss had never met an emotional land mine she didn’t locate with terrifying accuracy. Her eyes flicked from me to Charm, then to Ryan, then back again.
“Bathroom in five,” she mouthed.
I gave the smallest nod.
Briggs, blessedly unaware or pretending to be, threw both hands out. “I am in. Absolutely in. Cabin weekend, rivalry game, NHL scouts, possible emotional support goalie presence. I will bring snacks, inappropriate encouragement, and one speech that makes Ryan cry.”
Ryan stared at him. “I will push you into the snow.”
“Not the lake,” Rider said dryly. “We’re maintaining optimism.”
Briggs pointed at Rider. “See, this is why you’re valuable. Risk management.”