5 #2
“I went to therapy. I’m qualified now.”
“You went to therapy because you got stabbed.”
My chest tightened before I could stop it.
A tray crashed somewhere behind us, porcelain cracking against the tile, and the sound went straight through me.
For half a second, the restaurant vanished beneath the memory of Cade’s blood soaking my hands while his face went gray under fluorescent lights.
I was on my knees again, pressing against the wound and screaming at him to stay awake while my palms slipped.
The dispatcher’s voice came through the phone, but I couldn’t understand half the words because Cade’s breathing sounded wrong.
I pulled air through my nose and forced myself to count. Four beats in, hold, then let it out slowly enough for the restaurant to return around me through the clatter of forks, overlapping voices, and Briggs sitting across the table.
Cade was alive.
He watched me carefully. “You still getting hit with it?”
I rubbed one palm over the back of my neck. “Sometimes.”
His jaw tightened. “Still having nightmares?”
“Those too.”
Briggs’s expression had gone serious again. I looked around the table and decided lying would be insulting.
“I’ve probably been dealing with PTSD my whole life.
I just didn’t know what the fuck to call it when I was a kid.
By ten, I was already sleeping light. By twelve, I knew how to tell whether a foster dad had been drinking based on what his footsteps sounded like in the hall.
I knew which bedroom doors I needed to listen for and which adults were safer if I stayed out of their way. ”
Easton’s brows drew together. “Did you ever leave?”
“More than once.”
“How young were you?”
I shrugged. “Depends what you count as leaving.”
Rider kept his voice quiet. “Sleeping somewhere else.”
“Twelve, maybe thirteen when it started happening regularly.”
Briggs stared at me. “You slept outside at twelve?”
“Sometimes.”
“Where the fuck did you go?”
“Wherever worked. Parks if it was warm. Stairwells. Laundromats if somebody forgot to lock one. A friend’s floor when I had a friend with parents who didn’t ask questions.”
Cade looked sick. He knew most of the broad version, but the details still landed differently.
“If the house was worse than whatever I thought might happen outside, outside won.”
Briggs rubbed one hand over his mouth. “Fucking shit.”
“I got good at it.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know it doesn’t.” I took a drink and let the cold settle in my throat.
“The point is, I thought I understood what trauma did. Hypervigilance, nightmares, sitting where I can see the exits, hating somebody behind me when I don’t know they’re there.
My nervous system has been dramatic since childhood. ”
Briggs almost smiled, but I was looking at Cade now.
“I just didn’t expect watching my best friend die in front of me to find a completely new place in my head.”
Cade’s eyes locked on mine. “You didn’t watch me die.”
“It was close enough.”
“I’m alive.”
“I know you’re alive.”
“That matters.”
“It’s what gets me back to sleep.” His expression softened while I kept my gaze on him. “I remind myself you’re alive. I picture you at practice bitching about Coach, threatening Briggs for eating your shit, and trying to organize everybody’s life because apparently you were born forty.”
Briggs lifted a hand. “In my defense, communal cabinets are legally complicated.”
Cade ignored him. “You kept me alive long enough for the doctors.”
“I held pressure on a wound.”
“You stayed with me.”
The words stopped me.
I looked down at the table as the memory shifted beneath them. Maybe that was part of what had fucked me up too. I had spent my childhood learning people disappeared when things got bad, but when Cade went down, I became the one who couldn’t leave.
Briggs leaned his forearms against the table. “That’s the fucked-up part, isn’t it? You spend your whole childhood learning nobody’s coming, then you grow up and finally get people you’d lose your mind trying to save.”
The sentence settled deep as I glanced at Cade again, then Easton, Rider, and Briggs.
“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
For several seconds, nobody joked.
Easton finally pointed toward my phone. “You gonna answer your girlfriend, or are we pretending none of us have watched you look at that screen six times?”
I looked down and found Charm’s name across the notification. The smile came before I could stop it, and Briggs made a disgusted noise.
“That fucking face.”
“What face?”
“The tiny-blonde-texted-me face.”
“She has a name.”
“That sounded defensive.”
“It sounded like you’re annoying.”
I opened the message.
Charm: Brown assigned Tennyson for Monday. I blame you somehow.
My mouth curved while I answered.
Ryan: Pick Bronte.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
Charm: That isn’t how assignments work.
Ryan: Academic rules are suggestions.
Charm: You are corrupting my education.
Ryan: You like me anyway.
A few seconds passed before her answer came through.
Charm: Unfortunately.
I smiled wider.
Briggs slapped one palm against the table. “Look at him.”
I locked the phone. “Mind your business.”
Rider leaned back. “You text her more than you text us.”
“I like her more than I like you.”
“That was unnecessarily hurtful.”
“It was meant to be.”
Cade studied me across the table. “What’s happening there?”
“With what?”
Easton laughed. “That was a terrible attempt.”
“With Charm,” Cade clarified.
“I’m tutoring her.”
Four men stared at me until I sighed.
“And we kiss.”
Briggs threw both hands into the air. “I fucking knew it.”
“You knew nothing.”
“I knew something happened. You’ve been walking around smiling at your phone like a teenager who just discovered breasts.”
“I discovered breasts a long time ago.”
Easton nodded thoughtfully. “Good clarification.”
Cade ignored them. “How long?”
“The kissing?”
“The wanting her.”
I leaned back. “That’s been there for years.”
Rider whistled softly while Briggs pointed at me.
“The lake.”
I looked at him, and his grin widened.
“White bikini.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He slapped the table. “I knew it.”
“You didn’t know shit.”
“I saw your face.”
“You were drunk.”
“I was hydrated and observant. She walked across the beach toward the water in that white bikini, and you stared at the lake for forty fucking minutes like somebody had hidden the meaning of life in it.”
Easton laughed while Rider covered his mouth. Cade looked far too entertained for my liking.
I pointed at Briggs. “I was respecting boundaries.”
“You were trying not to look at her ass again.”
“That was part of respecting boundaries.”
Briggs laughed hard enough to lean back in the booth, but Cade shook his head and brought the conversation back.
“Why now?”
The question settled the table again.
I looked down at my phone. “Because she was hot then.”
Easton nodded. “She’s still hot.”
“Yeah.” I looked at him. “Careful.”
His eyebrows rose while Briggs made another delighted noise.
I ignored all of them. “She’s a problem now because I know her.”
Cade’s amusement softened. “What does that mean?”
“She’s funny as hell when she forgets to behave. She gets mean when she’s comfortable, and she argues with me now instead of apologizing before she says anything. She’s smarter than she thinks she is, but somebody taught her every thought has to be perfect before she’s allowed to have it.”
Rider nodded faintly. “I’ve noticed that.”
“She puts pressure on herself over everything.” I rubbed my thumb across the edge of my phone. “I went over there last night after she spent the day shopping with Crystal.”
Briggs’s expression shifted. “What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic, and that’s what bothers me.”
Cade leaned his forearms against the table. “What did she say?”
“She bought a dress for some cotillion thing.”
“Rich people prom,” Easton said.
“Basically.” I looked back at the thread. “She told me it was navy, long, and had beautiful construction. Her mother liked it. The saleswoman liked it. It photographed well, and her father would approve.”
Briggs frowned. “What did Charm think?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t know.”
His expression changed, and I nodded.
“Four hours of people telling her what worked, and she stopped knowing whether she liked the fucking dress.”
Cade’s face tightened. “She told you that?”
“After I kept asking.”
Briggs reached for another fry but didn’t eat it. “What else happened?”
“She was off when I got there. Quiet. She kept touching the sleeve of her shirt like something was wrong with it. She changed before I arrived and then changed again after I got there because she said what she had on felt weird.”
I glanced toward the restaurant windows, remembering the way she sat near me without ever settling.
“She barely ate the tacos she specifically asked me to bring, and that bothered me more than I wanted to admit. I knew Charm stopped eating when she was stressed because I’d seen her do it before. I had no clue how deep it went.”
The words felt heavier once I gave them to the table.
“She talked about her mother liking the dress more than she talked about herself. Every time I asked what she wanted, she looked at me like I’d handed her an exam.”
Cade rubbed his thumb slowly against the side of his glass. “What are you doing about it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Briggs’s brows lifted. “You’re asking us for advice?”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
He sat straighter. “I have waited years for this moment.”
“Sit the fuck back down emotionally.”
Easton laughed, but I looked at Cade.
“I know I want her. That part isn’t confusing.”
Briggs opened his mouth, and I pointed at him before he could speak.
“If you make one dick joke, I’m leaving.”
He closed his mouth.
“I know she wants me too.”
Cade nodded. “Then what’s the issue?”
“She kissed me, which tells me she wanted to kiss me.”
Easton stared at me. “You’ve become exhausting.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. That’s the problem.”