5 #3
I leaned forward. “She has enough people deciding what everything means for her. I’m not going to decide kissing me means she wants sex, a relationship, a fucking label, or whatever comes next. I want her to get there herself.”
Briggs looked thoughtful. “You’re seeing what happens.”
“Yeah.”
“With regular kissing.”
I gave him a look. “We kiss.”
“And nothing else?”
“I stop it.”
All four men stared at me while Briggs’s eyebrows climbed.
“You stop?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m asking respectfully.”
“You’ve never asked anything respectfully.”
Cade looked more interested than amused now. “Why do you stop?”
I rubbed my hand over my jaw. “Because she turns everything into a test.”
That answer quieted them.
“She worries about whether she said the right thing, wore the right thing, ordered the right thing, whether somebody’s pissed, whether she disappointed somebody. If I push this too fast, she’ll turn me into another fucking test she thinks she has to pass.”
Cade nodded slowly. “You think sex would do that.”
“I know it would right now.”
Briggs watched me. “How?”
“The first time we almost crossed that line, I stopped, and she apologized.”
“For what?”
“For me stopping.”
Rider frowned. “Why would she apologize for that?”
“Because she immediately decided something about her made me change my mind.”
Easton’s jaw tightened. “That’s rough.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at Charm’s name again. “I’m attracted to her enough that stopping is fucking miserable. I’m not doing it because I’m confused about what I want.”
Briggs grinned faintly. “Thank you for confirming.”
“Eat shit.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m doing it because I want her to know she can choose this without figuring out whether she’s doing it right for me.”
Cade sat back. “That’s good.”
“I don’t know if it is.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because I might be making it worse.”
Briggs pointed the fry toward me. “How?”
“I keep telling myself I’m giving her room, but what if all I’m really doing is leaving her guessing?”
Nobody answered immediately, which was why I’d asked them.
Cade usually told me what he actually thought even when I didn’t want to hear it.
Briggs had spent years hiding serious instincts under enough bullshit that people forgot he had them.
Rider watched more than he spoke, and Easton could smell emotional cowardice because he specialized in it.
I trusted all of them differently.
Briggs spoke first. “Stop making her prove shit.”
“I don’t.”
“I know you don’t. I’m saying keep it that way.”
His humor disappeared again as he glanced toward the pocket where his phone sat turned off.
“When you spend your childhood wanting somebody’s approval badly enough, you start assuming every relationship has requirements.
You don’t even know you’re doing it.” He rubbed his hand against his jaw.
“You think if I called my parents right now and they said all the right things, some part of me wouldn’t immediately start trying to become whatever version makes them keep calling? ”
Nobody answered.
Briggs shrugged. “That wiring is fucked.”
I nodded, and Cade spoke next.
“Make sure she knows your interest isn’t based on performance.”
I frowned. “I tell her she’s beautiful.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
He said it so simply that I went quiet.
Briggs nodded. “Everybody tells her she’s beautiful.”
“She probably knows that,” Rider added.
I thought about Charm standing in her apartment wearing one of my shirts, her hair piled badly on top of her head while she insulted a sewing machine and I laughed at her.
“I tell her I like the version she hides.”
Cade nodded. “Keep telling her.”
Easton leaned forward. “Maybe tell her what you actually want too.”
“I have.”
“Have you?”
I looked at him as Briggs pointed at me again.
“You told us you’re seeing what happens,” Briggs said. “Does Charm know what that means?”
“I told her we’d keep doing what we were doing.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means exactly what it says.”
“To you.”
I stared at him, but Briggs shrugged.
“You’re worried everybody else decides shit for her, but you might be deciding that vague is safer without asking whether vague makes her crazy.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiled. “Emotionally gifted goalie.”
Cade almost laughed while I looked down at my phone again.
Briggs might have had a point, and I hated that.
Charm had spent the last few weeks meeting me halfway every time I gave her room to do it.
She texted first now. She asked me to come over and told me when she wanted another kiss instead of waiting for me to guess.
She had started arguing with Professor Brown and sent me a picture of an A like she wanted me inside the moment before anybody else.
She was moving toward me. I had been so focused on keeping pressure off her that I hadn’t considered ambiguity could become pressure too.
Cade watched my face. “What do you actually want?”
“Her.”
“That’s broad.”
“I want to keep seeing her.”
“Then tell her that.”
“I have.”
Briggs groaned. “You’re irritating when you get literal.”
I flipped him off. “I’m not asking her to be my girlfriend right now.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know she feels it too.”
Rider frowned slightly. “You just said you know she wants you.”
“I know she feels something.” I looked at Cade. “I want her to trust it.”
That came out closer to the truth than anything else had.
“She spends half her life questioning what she wants as soon as somebody else has an opinion. I’m not putting a label on us while she’s still looking at me every few days like she expects me to decide I made a mistake.”
Cade’s expression softened. “What happens for now?”
“For now, I’m seeing how it plays out.”
Briggs leaned back. “That is dating.”
“It isn’t.”
“You text all day.”
“Yes.”
“You bring her food.”
“She needs to eat.”
“You tutor her.”
“She needs help.”
“You kiss her.”
“That part is recreational.”
Easton laughed while Briggs lifted both hands.
“You’re dating her with cowardly vocabulary.”
“I’m not scared of calling it something.”
“What are you scared of?”
The answer came easily.
“Her feeling like she has to say yes because she thinks that’s what I want.”
Briggs went quiet, and Cade nodded once.
“That I understand.”
I looked at him.
“Then give her enough information to choose.”
That sat better than anything else.
My phone buzzed again.
Charm: I checked Brown’s assignment. He actually assigned Tennyson. You manifested this.
I smiled while answering.
Ryan: You’ll survive.
Charm: That sounded disturbingly confident.
Ryan: Somebody has to be confident about you.
The typing bubble appeared, vanished, then returned.
Charm: You are becoming a problem.
I leaned back in the booth.
Ryan: You like problems.
Charm: I like one problem. Unfortunately.
Briggs leaned halfway across the table trying to see the screen, and I angled the phone away.
“Back up.”
“That smile is criminal.”
“Mind your fucking business.”
Cade checked the time. “You tutoring her today?”
“Yeah.”
Briggs grinned. “Tutoring.”
“Books are involved.”
“So are tongues.”
I stood and grabbed my keys. “Lunch was supposed to be about supporting you.”
“I feel supported.”
“You’re about to feel concussed.”
Rider laughed into his drink while I dropped enough cash beside the check to cover my part.
I looked at Briggs. “You serious about not answering them?”
His expression changed. “Yeah.”
“Then don’t.”
“What if they keep trying?”
“Let them try.”
He held my gaze while I shoved my wallet into my pocket.
“You spent your whole childhood chasing people who had the chance to choose you every day. You don’t have to turn around now because they finally noticed everybody else wants what they ignored. Your grandparents were there before ESPN, and so were we.”
Briggs swallowed before that crooked grin returned.
“Fucking feelings twice in one lunch.”
“You started it.”
“I blame sports media.”
As I stepped away from the table, Cade called after me.
“Ryan.”
I looked back.
He rested one arm along the booth. “Tell her what you want before you ask her what she wants.”
I held his gaze for a second. “Yeah.”
Briggs raised his drink. “Ask her to be your girlfriend eventually too, because this seeing-what-happens bullshit is insulting all of us.”
I backed toward the door. “We’re seeing what happens.”
Easton shook his head. “That is dating with cowardly vocabulary.”
I laughed and pushed through the door into the August heat.
My phone vibrated again before I reached the truck.
Charm: Are you still coming at three?
I answered while crossing the parking lot.
Ryan: Wouldn’t miss watching you lose a fight with Tennyson.
Her reply appeared while I unlocked the door.
Charm: I hate you.
I smiled as I answered.
Ryan: No you don’t, mi hada.
I slid behind the wheel and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.
I knew what I wanted, and that had never been the difficult part.
Wanting Charm physically had been manageable because I could keep it separate from everything that mattered.
I couldn’t do that anymore. I cared whether she ate, whether she laughed, whether she trusted her own thoughts, and whether I was helping her find her way out of the cage or becoming one more person waiting outside it with instructions.
The fear sat deeper than the possibility of Lance hating me or our friends getting caught inside whatever happened between us.
Charm was becoming someone I expected to find on the other side of every message, every tutoring session, and every ordinary part of my day.
I knew better than to trust permanence simply because I wanted it, but every time her name appeared on my phone, wanting her felt less like a choice I could control.
Giving Charm room mattered. Making sure she never mistook my patience for uncertainty mattered too.
Whatever happened at three, I needed to stop hiding the truth inside vague language and trust her enough to give it to her.
I wanted Charm, and I was already too far inside those feelings to pretend I didn’t care where they took us.