25 #3
Rider took a sip of water. “I was calling you dumb.”
“I receive correction selectively.”
Bliss leaned forward, already glowing with the kind of planning energy that made men nervous and women stronger. “We can make it a whole weekend. Cabins Friday, game Friday night, food after, maybe skating Saturday if there’s a rink or something nearby, then everyone comes home Sunday.”
Cade looked down at her. “You made that itinerary in nine seconds.”
“I’m efficient.”
“You’re terrifying.”
“You’re attracted to it.”
“I never denied that.”
Easton groaned. “Breakfast was a mistake.”
I leaned into his shoulder. “You brought me here.”
“I’m learning consequences.”
Ryan shook his head, but his mouth had softened. “I’m serious, though. I want you guys there.”
The table settled at that.
There it was in the way he didn’t say anything else, in the way his fingers tapped once against his coffee mug, then stopped.
Ryan didn’t ask for much. He gave. He showed up.
He tutored Charm with literature and pretended it was casual.
He drove back and forth from Flint like exhaustion was a minor inconvenience.
He sent money where it was needed and wore every hard part of his life like decoration instead of weight.
Asking us to come mattered.
Easton nodded first. “We’ll be there.”
My heart bumped at the easy we.
I looked at him, and his thumb brushed my thigh beneath the table like he knew exactly what the word had done.
Cade nodded next. “We’re there.”
Bliss smiled. “Obviously.”
Briggs lifted his coffee like a toast. “I will personally heckle the opposition with class and volume.”
Rider glanced at him. “You only have one of those.”
“Volume carries the class.”
Charm hadn’t spoken.
Ryan looked at her then, and the noise around us seemed to shift around the line between them. “You coming, Charm?”
Her face smoothed instantly, polished and bright, every bit the girl who knew how to look unbothered while her hands betrayed her beneath the table.
“For a weekend in cabins with hockey players?” she asked. “That sounds like the beginning of a Dateline episode.”
Ryan’s mouth curved. “I’ll protect you from the goalies.”
Briggs gasped. “I am a gentleman.”
“You cried over a mini cow meme,” Rider said.
“That cow understood abandonment.”
Charm’s smile appeared, but it was softer than the words deserved. “I’ll come.”
Ryan held her gaze. “Yeah?”
“For the game,” she said quickly, reaching for that graceful distance she wore like jewelry. “Big opportunity, NHL scouts, group support, very wholesome.”
“Wholesome,” I repeated under my breath.
Easton leaned toward my ear. “You sound dangerous.”
“I am always dangerous.”
“I know.”
Ryan’s gaze stayed on Charm for half a second longer, and the expression on his face shifted into something so private I almost looked away. Not ownership. Not smugness. Something quieter and more impossible.
Charm looked away first.
Her fingers tightened around the spoon in her coffee until the metal clinked against porcelain.
The waitress returned with plates, and the table erupted into motion again.
Syrup passed hand to hand. Briggs argued with Rider about whether toast counted as a breakfast personality disorder.
Cade kept stealing bites from Bliss’s plate and pretending he wasn’t until she stabbed his hand lightly with a fork.
Ryan slid Charm a napkin without looking when syrup dripped off her waffle, and she accepted it with the stiff grace of a woman determined not to find the gesture intimate.
Easton ate beside me with one hand on my thigh under the table.
Not high. Not possessive in a way anyone else could see. Just there. Warm. Steady. His thumb moved once every so often, like he was reminding himself we were allowed to exist in daylight.
I covered his hand with mine, and when he looked over, I smiled. His face changed so softly I almost had to look away.
“Gross,” Briggs said.
I turned slowly. “Excuse you?”
“You two just had a whole conversation with eyes.”
Easton didn’t even blink. “Jealous?”
“Of eye contact sex? Deeply.”
Rider sipped his water. “At least they’re not yelling.”
“Yet,” Briggs said.
Bliss lifted a finger. “No yelling before noon. It’s in the new group chat bylaws.”
Easton’s brows pulled together. “There are bylaws?”
Cade’s expression remained grave. “There are several tabs.”
I pointed at him. “You helped.”
“I formatted.”
Bliss beamed. “He loves a spreadsheet.”
Easton pulled out his phone and checked it. His eyebrows rose. “Why is the chat photo Briggs crying over mozzarella sticks?”
Briggs slapped the table. “That was a private culinary moment.”
Ryan leaned back. “You posted it yourself.”
“For support.”
Charm stood abruptly, smoothing her sweater. “Bathroom.”
Bliss shot up too. “Same. Very natural timing.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and slid out after them. “I suppose I’ll join this spontaneous bladder conference.”
Easton caught my wrist lightly as I passed. “You coming back?”
The question was quiet enough for only me to hear, and after everything we had survived, the softness in it hurt worse than the teasing.
I leaned down and kissed his cheek because apparently I was a woman who did that now. “Yes.”
His fingers loosened.
I followed the girls to the bathroom, and the second the door closed behind us, Bliss spun on Charm with the speed of a prosecutor.
“You are in love with Ryan.”
Charm removed her sunglasses slowly. “Good morning to you too.”
I leaned against the sink and crossed my arms. “The sunglasses were a terrible disguise.”
Charm looked at me. “You look like a woman who had morning sex loud enough to upset building management. I would be cautious with judgment.”
“Oh, I did. Fuck judgment.”
Bliss gasped. “Ay.”
“What? I’m healed, not dead.”
Charm pointed at me. “Exactly.”
Bliss turned back to her. “Ryan?”
Charm sighed and set her sunglasses on the counter. “Yes.”
Bliss squealed.
Charm slapped a hand over her mouth. “Do not summon the entire restaurant.”
Bliss mumbled through her fingers, “Why can’t this be good?”
Charm’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, and I saw the tears there.
Bliss pulled her hand away from her own mouth. “Are you okay?”
Charm’s expression softened. “Yes. I’m okay.”
“And Ryan?” I asked.
“Ryan is Ryan.”
“That was not an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.” Charm leaned back against the counter, her perfect posture dropping for once.
“He isn’t a boyfriend guy. He’s always gone.
Flint practices, road games, the hockey chaos his life currently is.
He has that big rivalry game with NHL scouts watching, and he needs to focus on that, not whatever this is. ”
Bliss’s brows pulled together. “Cee.”
“No, don’t do the voice.” Charm adjusted the bracelet on her wrist, her eyes down.
“You saw how everyone looked at him out there. This game matters. It could change his life. He could get called up, moved, signed, sent anywhere. Ryan is standing at the edge of everything he has worked for, and I’m not going to become some pretty little complication with family baggage and expectations he never asked for. ”
My chest tightened. “That’s a very fancy way of pretending you aren’t scared.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
I held her stare.