7
Charm
The mirror never lied.
It didn’t care how many compliments I had collected that week, how many papers Professor Brown had finally praised, or how many evenings Ryan spent convincing me I was smarter than I had ever believed.
The woman staring back at me still looked too soft through the waist, her thighs too thick beneath the hem of the camo denim skirt, and her skin somehow dull despite the expensive makeup spread across the vanity.
“You’re a mess,” I whispered to my reflection.
The words came automatically, as familiar as breathing.
My gaze drifted toward the measuring tape lying beside the makeup brushes.
Tonight was supposed to be different. Ryan had planned it without telling me what he was doing, remembered a drunken conversation about the summer carnival from three months earlier, and made it clear whatever we had been doing over books and coffee didn’t cover this.
He was picking me up at seven because he wanted to take me somewhere, and knowing that should’ve made getting dressed fun.
Instead, I had changed four times.
The first skirt made my legs look enormous.
The second outfit made my stomach impossible to ignore.
The sundress I had loved when I bought it somehow showed every place my body had failed between the store and my bedroom.
Now I was back in the camo skirt, fitted white tank, cropped denim jacket, and white Vans Ryan would probably approve of because he had specifically warned me against wearing shoes I couldn’t walk in.
He was leaving for Flint tomorrow.
That thought had lived beneath my skin all day.
I had gotten too used to him. His name appeared on my phone before breakfast, his books covered my table, his truck waited outside, and his hand reached for mine whenever we drove anywhere.
Even knowing he was coming back didn’t stop my brain from treating the change like something dangerous.
Flint meant different schedules, practices, games, teammates, distance, and a thousand opportunities for this strange, beautiful thing between us to become harder than it had been while he was twenty minutes away.
Ryan had already told me there was no one else. I had told him the same, but apparently my anxiety had heard every word and decided evidence was optional.
I turned sideways and pulled the hem of the tank flatter over my stomach. The fabric followed the curve I hated, and disgust rolled through me so quickly I had to look away.
The measuring tape waited beside the brushes.
Relief came before I touched it, and that was becoming its own kind of horror.
I picked it up and wrapped it around my waist, positioning it where I remembered measuring the last time. The number was the same as it had been that morning, but the mirror contradicted it, so I tightened the tape until it pressed into my skin.
The number changed.
I measured again.
My waist came first, followed by my hips and thighs.
I told myself I would stop after one measurement of each, but the smallest difference between my legs made me start over.
The right thigh measured larger, although it looked smaller in the mirror.
When I repositioned the tape, the left became larger instead.
Nothing settled the argument.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure whether I meant the woman in the mirror or the mind that refused to let me tolerate being her.
A knock sounded from the living room, and my entire body jolted.
“Charm?”
Ryan.
I wound the tape too quickly, shoved it into the vanity drawer, and closed it just as I heard the front door open. I had left it unlocked for him, another ordinary intimacy that had felt sweet until I remembered what he could walk in and find.
“Mi hada?”
“Give me a second!”
His laugh carried faintly through the apartment. “I was told seven.”
“It is seven.”
“It was seven two minutes ago.”
I grabbed my cropped jacket from the bed and pulled it on before checking the red marks around my waist. The skirt covered most of them. My tank hid the rest.
I checked my makeup next. Mascara hadn’t moved. Lip gloss was still even, and nothing in my face revealed the twenty minutes I had spent measuring myself.
Everything was fine because everything looked fine.
Ryan’s footsteps reached the hallway while I was still staring at my reflection. He appeared in the bedroom doorway with one shoulder against the frame and stopped.
For several seconds, he didn’t say anything.
Ryan had dressed like Ryan, which somehow made the fact that he had clearly made an effort worse for my nervous system.
Dark jeans fit low on his hips, clean black sneakers replaced the beat-up pair he normally wore around town, and the sleeves of a fitted black shirt stopped high enough on his arms that almost every inch of tattoo below them was exposed.
His backward cap should’ve made the whole thing casual. Instead, the black-on-black combination made him look like the kind of guy mothers warned their daughters about right before their daughters made terrible decisions on purpose.
His eyes moved over me slowly, and I immediately wanted to pull the jacket around my waist.
Ryan’s mouth curved. “Holy fuck.”
Heat climbed into my face. “What?”
“You.”
“That isn’t helpful.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be helpful.”
His gaze traveled down the skirt again before returning to my face, and nothing in the way he looked at me was polite enough to mistake for a compliment he thought I needed.
“You look fucking beautiful.”
The woman in the mirror had been disgusting five minutes ago.
Ryan looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive.
My brain refused to reconcile the two.
“You like the skirt?”
“I like you in the skirt.”
“That was smooth.”
“That was accurate.”
He pushed away from the doorway and came toward me. Instead of reaching for my hand the way he normally did, both of his settled around my waist.
My breath caught when his fingers pressed close to the marks beneath my clothes. He drew me against him and lowered his mouth to mine with the easy confidence of someone who had stopped questioning whether he was allowed to kiss me weeks ago.
Nothing about Ryan was shy, which was one of the things I loved most and understood least.
He didn’t glance toward windows before touching me.
He didn’t wait until doors closed before taking my hand.
If somebody caught him kissing me in a parking lot, his first instinct wasn’t embarrassment.
Ryan seemed offended by the idea that wanting me should be something either of us needed to disguise.
His mouth moved over mine slowly, his thumbs pressing into the curve of my waist while I slid my hands up his chest. I had expected a hello kiss.
Ryan apparently had other plans because he deepened it until the last few minutes in front of the mirror dissolved beneath the warmth of his body and the familiar taste of coffee on his tongue.
When he finally eased back, his forehead rested against mine while his eyes dropped to my mouth.
“If we keep doing that, we’re missing the fair.”
The disappointment came before I could hide it.
Ryan noticed, and his thumb brushed my side. “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that makes me consider canceling everything I planned and locking your front door.”
My heartbeat stumbled. “You could.”
His eyes darkened enough that answering heat moved through me instantly. For a few seconds, I thought he might.
That was what kept confusing me.
Ryan wanted me. There was no reasonable way to deny it anymore.
I had felt exactly how badly he wanted me more than once.
I had watched restraint tighten his body while his mouth was still on mine.
I had heard him tell me he wasn’t interested in another woman and seen the possessive satisfaction on his face when I told him I wasn’t interested in another man.
Every time we came close to going further, he stopped. He never looked relieved afterward. He looked tortured, yet my mind continued turning his restraint into evidence against me.
Ryan kissed me once more, gentler this time, before brushing his nose against mine. “Later.”
The promise inside the word sent a ridiculous thrill through me.
“Later what?”
His dimple appeared. “You’re going to have to survive the carnival to find out.”
“You’re evil.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
He started to step back, and my hands tightened instinctively against his shirt.
Ryan looked down at them before meeting my eyes again. “I’m not leaving yet.”
I hated how easily he heard the fears I hadn’t said.
“I know.”
His gaze lingered for another moment before he kissed my forehead and released me. “Grab your purse.”
“I can carry it myself.”
“I know you can.”
He had already moved toward it, and panic flickered when I remembered the measuring tape had been left on the vanity only minutes earlier. I had put it away, but the fear of him seeing any evidence remained.
“I’ll get it.”
I crossed the room too quickly.
Ryan paused with his hand halfway toward the strap. My heart kicked hard as his eyes moved from the purse to my face.
“I was going to be useful.”
“You’re taking me on a date. I can carry my own purse.”
That distracted him.
“Date?”
I stopped.
He leaned one shoulder against the dresser, amusement settling into his expression. “You called it a date.”
Heat reached my ears. “You’re the one who planned an outing at seven and told me to wear practical shoes.”
“That’s your definition?”
“I have standards.”
“Apparently low ones.”
I snatched the purse and slung the strap over my shoulder. Ryan’s gaze stayed on me for another second, though whatever he saw wasn’t enough to make him push.
Then he held out his hand. “Come on, mi hada.”
I looked at it.
I had probably held Ryan’s hand hundreds of times over the four years I had known him, but tonight felt different. Maybe that was because he hadn’t corrected me when I called this a date. Maybe it was because tomorrow he was leaving.