1 #3
Rider notices everyone staring and frowns. “What?”
“Nothing,” Ryan calls back.
His attention returns to me. “You’d be Kierkegaard.”
“I don’t know enough about him to decide whether I’m offended.”
“Intelligent, anxious, obsessed with choices, and capable of turning one decision into a lifelong spiritual crisis.”
Bliss points toward him. “He’s known her for years.”
“I don’t turn every decision into a crisis.”
Ryan’s gaze drops deliberately to the condiments I aligned by height.
“That was one time.”
“You did it while deciding whether to wear gold or silver shoes to Cade’s birthday.”
“The dress had complicated undertones.”
“It was black.”
“Black still has undertones.”
His smile deepens, revealing the dimple that should be illegal on a face like his.
It would be easier to dismiss him if he were only attractive.
The problem is the way his mind moves beneath all that ink and controlled arrogance, quick enough to make philosophy entertaining and precise enough to identify the flaw I’ve been circling for weeks.
“You really think I’m Kierkegaard?”
“You spent twenty minutes deciding whether a black dress had warm or cool undertones.”
“That was an important decision.”
“You make every decision important.” His amusement fades as he studies me. “That’s why interpretation fucks with you. Nobody can promise you picked the right answer.”
I straighten on the stool. “There should be a right answer.”
“There should be an argument you can defend.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“Exactly.”
He says it as though I’ve finally stepped onto the path he was trying to lead me toward.
“Klein isn’t asking you to dig through the book until you find the opinion she buried inside it,” he continues. “You make a claim, support it with the text, account for whatever contradicts you, and convince her your interpretation can survive being challenged.”
“What happens if my interpretation is wrong?”
“You can be wrong and still build a strong argument if the reasoning is defensible.”
“I don’t intend to be wrong.”
“That’s your first problem.”
Aura gives him an approving look. “Please continue.”
He ignores her. “What’s the course worth?”
“Three credits.”
“Do you need it?”
“No.”
Bliss slaps both palms against the bar. “Thank you.”
Ryan keeps his eyes on mine. “Why take Klein?”
“Because she’s the best.”
That earns a slow nod from him. “Okay. That, I understand.”
Bliss looks between us. “Please don’t encourage her. This is her parents needing literature on her résumé, the four-point-oh, and absolutely no room for her to be a human being.”
“I’m not encouraging anything. If she wants the hardest professor because she’ll learn more, that’s valid. If she wants the hardest professor because graduating with anything below a four-point-oh will make her father’s left eye twitch, that’s different.”
My spine stiffens. “My father has nothing to do with it.”
Ryan holds my stare without challenging the lie directly. He has always possessed an irritating ability to let silence expose me without adding a word.
I reach for my wine, but his hand closes around the stem before mine does.
“You’ve had enough to look warm and still too little to stop worrying,” he says.
“That is an invasive assessment.”
“It’s also right.”
He releases the glass and finally picks up the pitcher. I expect him to return to the table, but he stays beside me.
“I have six weeks before preseason and conditioning start,” he says. “I’ll help you.”
The offer takes a moment to settle through the noise.
“With the class?”
“No, with underwater welding.”
Aura’s mouth twitches, but I ignore her. “You’re offering to tutor me.”
“I’m offering to teach you how to defend your own thoughts without needing permission to have them.”
Something about the way he says it makes the offer feel far more personal than help with an elective.
“You have hockey.”
“I have six weeks before I go back to Flint.”
“You have a life.”
“So do you, allegedly.”
Bliss leans across the bar. “She needs this.”
“I haven’t agreed.”
“You came for advice.”
“I didn’t come looking for a tutor.”
Ryan adjusts his backward hat with one finger. “Good thing I’m offering for free.”
“I can pay you.”
His expression loses its amusement. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.” His voice remains quiet, though the command beneath it stills me. “No mames. I’m not taking your money, loca.”
Heat touches the back of my neck. “Then I can buy coffee.”
“You can buy your own coffee.”
“Ryan.”
“Tomorrow. Book Nook at noon.”
“That sounds less like an invitation and more like a summons.”
“You respond well to structure.”
“I respond poorly to bossy men.”
Aura coughs into her fist.
Ryan’s gaze lowers to my mouth before returning to my eyes. “That why you’re blushing, mami?”
“I’m warm.”
“The air-conditioning is set to arctic.”
Bliss pretends to wipe the same section of the bar while listening to every word. I look at her.
“Do you have customers?”
“Probably.”
“Shouldn’t you help them?”
“They can sense I’m occupied.”
Ryan’s shoulder brushes mine when someone squeezes behind him. His hand closes around the back of my stool to keep it from shifting, caging me for one brief second between his arm and the bar.
My pulse stumbles.
“I’ll think about tomorrow,” I say.
“You won’t.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve already decided.” He nods toward my purse. “You’ll go home, reorganize your notes, read the syllabus again, then show up ten minutes early because being exactly on time makes you nervous.”
“I don’t reorganize my notes.”
Bliss snorts.
I ignore her. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I know you.” Ryan lifts the pitcher and steps away from my stool. “Bring the syllabus and whatever you’ve read so far.”
“My notes are excellent.”
“Then bring the excellent notes.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I like a challenge.”
I tilt my head. “The course or me?”
His eyes hold mine as the noise of the bar moves around us.
“You aren’t the course.”
Before I can answer, Briggs shouts from the table.
“Decker, did you go brew the beer yourself?”
Ryan looks over his shoulder. “Keep talking and I’ll bring you water.”
“Water is for cowards.”
“Water is why your kidneys haven’t quit.”
Briggs cups both hands around his mouth. “CHARM, TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND WE’RE THIRSTY.”
Every face at the Fury table turns toward us. Bliss freezes with a bottle in one hand. Aura stops beside Easton’s booth and smiles like she has been waiting all night for something entertaining to happen to someone else.
My entire face burns.
Ryan doesn’t look remotely embarrassed. He leans closer until his mouth is near my ear, his voice low enough to belong beneath the music.
“You want me to correct him, amiga?”
The warmth of his breath slides over my skin. I grip the edge of the stool and refuse to lean away.
“You seem capable of making your own decisions.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was the only one you’re getting.”
He pulls back slowly, eyes moving over my face before his dimple appears.
“Tomorrow, Charm.”
“Tomorrow, Ryan.”
He carries the pitcher toward the table while Briggs continues shouting questions nobody intends to answer. Easton shoves one of the women away from his shoulder long enough to make room for Ryan, and Cade says something that earns him a hard shove.
I watch Ryan settle into the booth.
He glances back before I can look away.
The friendship between us has been easy for years because I learned how to hide the part that wasn’t friendship. I could joke with him, argue with him, sit beside him at games and parties, and pretend the heat beneath every interaction was only an old crush I had outgrown.
Tomorrow, I’ll sit across from him in a quiet bookstore while he opens my notes and asks what I think. The idea should make me anxious. Instead, anticipation curls low and warm inside me.
The feeling lasts until I look at the basket in front of me and count the empty spaces where the fries I ate used to be.
My stomach tightens. The noise of the bar presses closer, the laughter and music turning sharp around the edges while the wine sits warm and heavy beneath my ribs.
I know two fries can’t change my body. I understand calories, measurements, fabric construction, and the basic biological facts well enough to recognize how irrational the fear is.
Knowing has never stopped it.
The ladies’ room is empty when I push inside. I choose the stall farthest from the door, lock it, and sit with my purse clutched against my stomach. My hands aren’t shaking yet, though my fingers feel numb where they grip the leather.
I close my eyes and try to pull in a full breath.
It stops halfway.
The next one does too.