25 #4
Charm Harlen was polished in a way that made people underestimate how much steel lived under all that grace.
But right then, with her sunglasses on the sink and worry slipping through the cracks, she looked less like the girl who could level a room with a look and more like our Cee, terrified of wanting the wrong man loudly enough for her whole life to hear it.
“My parents would never accept him,” she said softly.
The bathroom quieted.
Bliss stepped closer. “Charm.”
“No, really. You know my parents. A man with no family name, no money, no ties they can brag about at a charity dinner, and a foster history they would discuss in whispers like a contagious disease?” Her mouth tightened, but her eyes shone. “They would smile in public and skin me alive in private.”
“Ryan deserves better than being treated like a scandal,” I said.
“I know that.”
“And you deserve better than having your life approved like a merger.”
“I know that too.” She looked away, swallowing hard. “That’s why it has to stay fun.”
Bliss’s lips pressed together.
Charm pointed at her. “Do not Bennett me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were loading it.”
Bliss deflated. “Fine. I was loading it.”
I reached for Charm’s hand. “We’ll leave it alone.”
Her fingers squeezed mine once. “Thank you.”
“For now,” Bliss added.
Charm groaned. “B.”
“What? I said for now. That is growth.”
I looked between them in the mirror, at Bliss’s soft, worried face and Charm’s sunglasses on the counter and my own hair slightly frizzed from Easton’s hands and the shower steam. For the first time in what felt like forever, the reflection didn’t look like three girls bracing for impact.
Bliss leaned into my side. “Are you happy?”
I stared at my reflection, then at the bathroom door beyond it, where Easton waited somewhere on the other side with his hand on my thigh still burned into my skin.
“I’m scared,” I said.
Charm nodded. “That tracks.”
“But yes.” My mouth trembled before it curved. “I’m happy.”
Bliss made a tiny sound and hugged me hard enough to knock my hip into the sink.
“Ow.”
“Sorry. Joyful impact.”
Charm grabbed her sunglasses. “We should go back before the men attempt unsupervised emotional discussion.”
I opened the door. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Bliss said. “Briggs is there.”
We returned to the table to find Briggs demonstrating something with two forks and a syrup bottle while Easton watched with the grave patience of a man reconsidering friendship.
Ryan saw Charm first.
Not obviously. Not dramatically. His eyes moved to her, checked her face, then dropped to the sunglasses in her hand before returning to his coffee like he hadn’t just given himself away in three seconds flat.
Charm slid into the booth without looking at him, but Ryan leaned toward her and murmured something too low for the table.
She flushed.
Bliss kicked me under the table.
I kicked her back.
Easton’s hand found my thigh again when I sat beside him. “Bathroom summit go well?”
“Minutes are confidential.”
“I have clearance.”
“You have probationary access.”
He leaned closer. “What do I need for full access?”
I looked at his mouth, then back at his eyes. “Survive breakfast.”
His smile went slow and private. “I can do that.”
Across the table, Briggs pointed a fork at us. “See? Eyes again.”
“Eat your waffle,” Rider said.
“I am surrounded by romance and repression,” Briggs announced. “This is why goalies are important. We absorb emotional impact.”
Cade looked at him. “You cried at a dog food commercial last week.”
“It had narrative structure.”
Ryan laughed, Charm smiled into her coffee, Bliss kissed Cade’s shoulder, and Rider shook his head with that quiet almost-smile that made him look like he was pretending not to love everyone at the table. Easton’s thumb moved over my leg beneath the table, steady and quiet and real.
For once, the noise around us didn’t feel like something I had to survive. It felt like something I got to keep.
Ryan lifted his coffee again, his gaze moving over all of us like he was trying not to make the moment too serious and failing by a little. “So, Friday after Thanksgiving?”
Briggs raised his fork. “Flint Frost rivalry weekend.”
Cade nodded. “We’ll be there.”
Bliss smiled through the last of her tears. “All of us.”
Easton looked at Ryan, then at me, then back again. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Charm’s eyes stayed on her plate, but her voice came soft and clear. “Neither would I.”
Ryan’s expression changed for half a second before he covered it with a grin. “Then I guess I better give you something worth watching.”
Briggs leaned across the table, completely solemn for once. “Ryan, my beautiful tattooed literature king, you are going to skate like every scout in that arena owes you money.”
Rider lifted his water. “That was almost motivational.”
“It had narrative structure,” Briggs said.
The table laughed, and Ryan laughed with us, though his eyes went to Charm first.
Outside, November light pushed against the Waffle House windows, pale and cold and harmless-looking, the kind of morning that made a person believe the world might stay gentle if enough people were sitting close together.
I leaned into Easton’s shoulder and let myself believe it.