10
Ryan
The hotel lobby had mostly emptied by the time I came downstairs after showering.
A few Frost players remained near the elevators in team sweats, talking around duffel bags while everybody waited for the bus to Milwaukee.
Cade, Briggs, Easton, and Rider had claimed a group of chairs near the windows, looking far too comfortable for four guys who didn’t belong to the team currently taking over half the hotel.
Briggs saw me first and lifted both arms. “The conquering hero finally arrives.”
“I scored once.”
“And behaved like you won the Stanley Cup.”
“You drove to Chicago to watch me play. I had to give you a show.”
Easton looked up from his phone. “You celebrated directly in front of the other team’s bench.”
“They needed to see it.”
“You nearly got your ass thrown out,” Cade said.
“The ref respected my passion.”
“The ref told you to shut the fuck up.”
“Same thing.”
Rider laughed while I shifted the strap of my duffel higher on my shoulder.
“Seriously, though, thanks for coming. I know you didn’t have to.”
Briggs pressed one hand over his heart. “I would cross any state line to watch you slaughter mother fuckers on the ice.”
“Then your evening was disappointing.”
Cade’s eyes moved over my face. He knew me well enough to see beneath whatever expression I had carried downstairs, and the humor disappeared from his.
“You hear anything yet?”
The question quieted the rest of them.
I looked toward the phone in my hand even though I already knew there wasn’t a new message waiting.
“Nothing that matters. She answers if I ask something basic, but that’s it.”
Briggs leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What counts as basic?”
“Professor Brown. The weather. Whether the team food looks legally edible.” I rubbed my thumb over the edge of my phone. “Anything real gets ignored.”
Cade watched me. “How long has that been going on?”
“Three days.”
“You’re giving her the space?”
“That’s what I said I’d do.”
“You hate it,” Rider said.
“Yeah. I fucking hate it.”
The admission scraped on the way out.
Every clipped answer from Charm made the fight in my apartment feel more final. I had asked for six days because I wanted her to decide whether she could choose me when other people made that choice difficult. By the third day, some part of me had started wondering whether I already had the answer.
I looked toward the hotel windows. “This might be the end of it.”
Briggs stopped smiling.
Cade’s brows pulled together. “You believe that?”
“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to believe. She came to my apartment determined to fuck me, then disappeared emotionally the second I asked whether she wanted anything beyond what happened behind a closed door.”
“You know she wants more,” Cade said.
“No, I know she wants me fuck me. That’s different.”
Briggs leaned back. “Look at you being offended that a beautiful woman desperately wants your body. How difficult your life must be.”
I glanced toward him. “Every chica in Flint and half the women in Kimball Falls want to fuck me.”
His mouth fell open before he slapped one hand against his chest. “That is the cockiest thing you have ever said in my presence, and I have known you for years.”
Easton nodded slowly. “It was impressive.”
I shrugged. “It’s also true.”
“Humility died tonight,” Rider said.
“I don’t want to fuck Charm.”
Four faces turned toward me.
I dragged one hand over my jaw. “I mean, I obviously want to fuck her. I’ve spent six weeks stopping myself from doing exactly that, and it’s been fucking miserable. That isn’t the point.”
Briggs looked delighted. “Please continue clarifying.”
“I want to be with her.”
That shut him up.
Saying the words aloud made everything inside me feel too exposed, but I didn’t take them back.
“I want her in my apartment when I get home. I want her smell on my pillow and her shit mixed with mine. I want the calls, the books, the arguments, and every ridiculous message she sends because Tennyson personally offended her. I want to know I can take her hand somewhere without feeling her try to slip away the second somebody looks.”
Easton nodded once and looked toward the floor. Whatever moved through his expression carried the weight of something he understood too well. I knew better than to ask about Aura when every conversation involving her still turned him into a man pretending not to bleed.
Cade understood for different reasons.
“I get it,” he said.
I knew he did.
He knew what it meant to want the whole woman and refuse to settle for whatever pieces fear allowed her to offer.
“She’s been into you for years,” Cade continued. “Bliss has said that before. I don’t think Charm’s ashamed of you.”
My attention snapped toward him. “You told Bliss?”
Cade scoffed. “Fuck no. Whatever’s happening between you and Charm belongs to you two. It isn’t my place to announce it to Bliss.”
“Then how do you know?”
“She mentioned it before. Charm’s crush wasn’t exactly classified information.”
I nodded, though the answer created a different problem.
“If Charm told Bliss something now, Bliss would’ve said something to you.”
Cade’s silence confirmed it.
That bothered me more than I wanted it to.
Bliss and Aura were Charm’s people. She trusted them with things she barely admitted to herself, yet three days had passed without either one contacting me or threatening my life.
Apparently, she hadn’t told them anything.
“She didn’t say a word to either of them,” I said.
“Maybe she isn’t ready,” Rider offered.
“That’s the fucking problem.”
Briggs’s expression lost some of its humor. “You think she’s hiding you.”
“I think she wants me when nobody else gets a vote. I don’t know what happens when her father enters the room or her mother starts asking questions. She hasn’t even told Bliss and Aura, and those are the two people she trusts more than anyone.”
Cade leaned forward. “Do you want me to ask Bliss?”
I laughed. “Fuck no. I don’t need Bliss involved unless Charm decides she wants her involved. This isn’t an investigation.”
“Then don’t treat the absence of information like proof.”
“That sounds reasonable when it isn’t your heart standing in the middle of it.”
Cade held my gaze. “You’re right.”
The immediate answer pulled some of the fight out of me.
I looked down at my phone again.
“I’m already falling for her. If this ends, it’s better now than after I fall any harder.”
The words sounded logical. They felt like complete bullshit.
I was already too deep for the timing to protect me. Charm had my mother’s dictionary and a notebook filled with words I had chosen for her. Her hair tie lived around my lamp, her mug sat beside my sink, and I knew what her apartment looked like when she relaxed enough to stop arranging it.
Three days without the full force of her inside my life had made everything feel wrong.
Briggs rubbed both hands over his thighs. “For whatever it’s worth, she looks at you like she wants to climb inside your skin.”
“That’s desire.”
“You’re really committed to ruining compliments tonight.”
“I need more than desire from her.”
Cade nodded. “Then keep the boundary. Just don’t convince yourself you know her answer before she gives it.”
I checked the time on my phone. “The bus leaves in an hour.”
“You coming for a beer?” Easton asked.
“One. I’ve got enough time.”
I reached into my back pocket for my wallet and found nothing.
“Fucking hell.”
Briggs’s brows lifted. “What?”
“My wallet is upstairs.”
Cade gestured toward the elevators. “Go get it. We’ll wait.”
I adjusted the duffel on my shoulder. “I need to grab my other bag anyway.”
Briggs pointed after me as I started walking. “If you’re gone longer than ten minutes, I’m drinking yours.”
“You’re buying.”
“I came to support you.”
“You spent the entire third period texting memes.”
“Emotional support has evolved.”
I flipped him off without looking back and stepped into the elevator.
By the time I reached my room, found my wallet beneath the jeans I wore earlier, and zipped the last of my things into the second bag, I had nearly talked myself out of going back downstairs. A beer wouldn’t change the fact that Charm had ignored the one honest message I sent her.
I miss talking to you.
Three days of silence had turned the woman I wanted into another person I couldn’t make stay by needing her.
That thought followed me into the elevator.
One of my teammates caught the doors before they closed and stepped inside, asking whether I had heard what Coach said about the Milwaukee schedule.
I answered him automatically while the elevator descended, my phone loose in one hand and Charm’s unanswered message sitting somewhere beneath the dark screen.
The doors opened into the lobby.
Charm stood near the elevators.
Every word disappeared.
She wore jeans, sneakers, and a soft gray shirt with her hair twisted away from her face. There was almost no makeup hiding the exhaustion beneath her eyes, and she looked like she had driven four hours fueled by panic and sheer refusal to turn around.
My entire body locked.
The teammate beside me nearly walked into my shoulder before realizing I had stopped moving.
“Charm?”
Hearing her name in my voice seemed to break whatever control she had left.
She crossed the lobby without looking at the Frost players, hotel staff, or the four KFU guys watching from near the windows. She came straight toward me and threw her arms around my neck.
I dropped the duffel fast enough to catch her.
My hands closed around her waist and pulled her against me with enough force that her feet nearly left the floor. Charm buried her face against my neck, and every fear I carried downstairs collided with the feel of her holding on in front of everyone.
She came to Chicago.
She walked into a hotel filled with my teammates and went straight into my arms without checking who saw.
I didn’t know what it fixed yet.
I knew what it meant.
“What are you doing here?” I asked against her hair.
“I’m sorry.”
My arms tightened before I leaned back enough to see her face. Charm held me harder, refusing the distance.