1
Six months ago
Charm
The Sin Bin is loud enough to make thinking impossible, which is precisely why I come here when I’ve spent an entire day thinking myself into a crisis.
Summer has packed the bar with students pretending tomorrow doesn’t exist, locals escaping the heat, and half the KFU athletic department drinking like preseason conditioning is a rumor someone started to ruin their evening.
Music pushes through the speakers beneath the roar of conversation, glasses knock against tabletops, and the kitchen window opens every few minutes to release another wave of heat and fried food.
I stop inside the entrance long enough to search for Bliss and find her behind the bar, bent over the register with a pencil trapped through the knot of hair piled on her head.
She’s wearing her referee shirt tied at the waist, black shorts, and the same expression she gets whenever someone asks whether tequila is gluten-free.
Aura moves behind her with a tray balanced against one palm, navigating a cluster of men who have apparently mistaken the aisle for a place to stand and admire themselves.
“Move,” she tells them, and they move.
I smile before I reach the bar because being near them does that to me.
Bliss and Aura have been my home since I was twelve, when every room in my house felt too quiet and every adult spoke to me as though grief might break apart if they used their normal voice.
They never treated me like the girl whose brother died.
They treated me like Charm, who hated raisins, loved clothes, and could be convinced to jump from Bliss’s bedroom window if Aura went first.
I barely see Bliss now that she and Cade have discovered they can’t survive more than twenty consecutive minutes apart.
I don’t resent her for it. Bliss has spent years offering everyone else pieces of her happiness as though she could keep them alive through force of personality alone.
She deserves every irritatingly devoted second Cade gives her.
Still, I miss her, and tonight, I need both of them badly enough that I spent the entire drive rehearsing how to ask for advice without sounding like I’m one academic inconvenience away from a complete psychological collapse.
Bliss looks up, spots me, and abandons the register in the middle of whatever she was doing.
“Cee!”
She rounds the bar before I can brace myself and wraps both arms around me. The force of her hug sends my purse sliding down my shoulder, but I catch it before it hits the floor.
“Hello to you too.”
“You came to see me.” She pulls back and holds my face between her hands. “Did something happen? Are you sick? Did your father finally ban happiness? Blink twice if you need extraction.”
“I came voluntarily.”
Aura appears beside us and sets down her empty tray. “She never comes here alone on a Friday night voluntarily.”
“I come here.”
“With us,” Aura says. “Or because someone ordered you to participate in college life before you graduate without a personality.”
“I have a personality.”
Bliss releases my face and gives me a deeply skeptical look. “You have excellent posture.”
“That isn’t the same thing,” Aura adds.
I smooth the front of my cream linen shorts even though they aren’t wrinkled. The movement draws Aura’s attention immediately, and her eyes narrow.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You straightened your shorts.”
“They needed it.”
“They didn’t,” Bliss says. “I was looking at them because they’re cute, and I wondered whether my ass would fit.”
“It would fit differently.”
Aura snorts while Bliss presses a hand over her heart.
“That was devastatingly diplomatic.”
“I’m trying to be kinder.”
“You told me my ass would alter the structural integrity of the shorts.”
“I said it would fit differently.”
“You’re deflecting,” Aura says, stepping closer. “What happened?”
The crowd surges around us when the front door opens, bringing another group of students inside. Bliss catches my wrist and pulls me toward the end of the bar, where an empty stool waits beside the service station.
“Sit there. We have approximately four minutes before Hannah realizes she’s paying us to socialize.”
“You’re both dating KFU hockey players. That’s money to Hannah, so I doubt she’d care.”
“She still insists I work during scheduled hours. It’s deeply hostile.”
Aura lifts her tray again. “Tell us why you look like you’ve been reorganizing a bookshelf by emotional significance.”
“I have never done that.”
Both of them stare at me.
“I did it once,” I admit. I don’t tell them I’d been unable to sleep and needed something orderly enough to quiet the noise in my head.
“Sit,” Bliss orders. “I’ll get you wine.”
“Water is fine.”
“Wine and water,” she decides.
I slide onto the stool and place my purse carefully over my lap. Everything inside is familiar. Wallet. Lipstick. Tissues. Hand cream. Mints. The ordinary collection of things I carry everywhere so I’m never caught needing something I failed to anticipate.
Aura disappears into the crowd while Bliss sets a glass of sauvignon blanc in front of me, followed by water and a basket of fries I didn’t request.
“Eat something.”
“I had dinner.”
“What did you eat?”
“A salad.”
Bliss’s expression sharpens. “That’s a side dish wearing confidence.”
“It had chicken.”
“How much chicken?”
“Enough chicken.”
She pushes the fries closer. “Have one before I involve Aura.”
“You weaponize her too easily.”
“It works.”
I choose a fry because they’re my weakness and Bliss knows it.
My stomach twists before I take the first bite, but I smile while chewing and reach for my wine.
I know how to eat when someone is watching because I’ve spent the last eight years mastering the difference between taking a bite and eating enough for anyone to stop worrying.
Across the room, the Fury table occupies its usual place near the back wall.
Briggs sits with his chair tipped onto two legs, one massive arm hooked over the back while Rider says something that makes Cade shake his head.
Easton is leaning into the corner of the booth with a blonde pressed against one side and a brunette hanging over his shoulder.
A third woman stands behind him with her hand resting on his chest.
Easton doesn’t look particularly interested in any of them. His attention keeps drifting toward Aura as she crosses the room.
Aura notices, then notices me noticing.
“Don’t say the obvious,” she warns when she reaches the service station.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
“That’s Ryan’s line.”
The name leaves my mouth too naturally, and Bliss’s eyes brighten with immediate, unwanted interest.
“Speaking of Ryan.”
“We weren’t.”
“You just did.”
“He says I think loudly.”
Aura begins loading drinks onto her tray. “That’s because you stare at him like you’re trying to solve a difficult equation with your vagina.”
I nearly choke on my wine.
Bliss grabs a napkin and pats my back with unnecessary enthusiasm. “Breathe, Cee. We can’t explain that death to your mother.”
“I don’t stare at Ryan.”
“You’ve stared at Ryan since freshman year,” Bliss says.
“I was eighteen and unfamiliar with tattoos.”
“You were eighteen, not raised in a convent.”
“My mother would argue with that distinction.”
Aura glances toward the Fury table as one of the women laughs too loudly at something Easton says. “Ryan isn’t even here yet.”
“I know.”
They both turn toward me, and I immediately wish I’d chosen a different answer.
Bliss leans across the bar. “How do you know?”
“Because I can count.”
“You checked the table, then?”
“The table is directly in my line of sight.”
“You chose this stool.”
“You assigned me this stool.”
Aura lifts her tray. “She’s right about that.”
“Thank you.”
“You still checked.”
“Please go deliver your drinks before someone dies of dehydration.”
Aura gives me a sharp smile. “Tell Bliss what’s wrong. I’ll be back after I dump a pitcher into Easton’s lap.”
She moves away before I can remind her that assaulting customers generally affects tips.
Bliss rests both forearms on the bar and studies me with the patience she saves for people she loves and customers she suspects are about to vomit.
“Talk.”
I turn my wineglass slowly between my fingers. “I enrolled in a summer course.”
“That sounds like something you would do without requiring an intervention.”
“It’s literature.”
“That still sounds harmless.”
“It’s an elective designed to prepare students for advanced interpretation and literary philosophy.”
Bliss blinks. “Those words hurt my feelings.”
“I need it before Professor Klein’s course in the fall.”
“The professor who made Collin Grant cry over Jane Austen?”
“She didn’t make him cry. She asked why his argument required Austen to have written a completely different novel.”
“That sounds mean.”
“It was deserved.”
“Cee.”
I exhale and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Klein is ruthless. Her Victorian Literature seminar is one of the most difficult courses offered, and I’m already behind everyone else because literary interpretation isn’t my field.”
“Then don’t take her class.”
“I need the credits.”
“You need credits. Do you need hers?”
“The course fits my schedule.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I lift my wineglass, but Bliss covers the rim with her palm before I can drink.
“You came here for advice. Stop giving me your father’s approved answers.”
My fingers tighten around the stem. “I’m not.”
“You are. You’re using complete sentences, and your forehead hasn’t moved in ten minutes.”
“That is generally considered good skin care.”
Bliss doesn’t smile. “What are you scared of?”
The question lands too cleanly. I look toward the kitchen window as another order appears beneath the heat lamps.
“I’m not scared.”
“You reorganized the condiments while you were waiting for me to pour your wine.”
The ketchup and mustard bottles beside me are aligned perfectly by height. I hadn’t realized I’d touched them.