14
Charm
Ryan had packed the same black T-shirt three times because he couldn’t keep his hands off me long enough to remember whether he had actually put it in the bag.
He stood at the foot of the bed in black sweatpants, barefoot and shirtless, with his duffel spread open across the rumpled comforter between us.
Team-issued shirts sat in careful stacks beside compression gear, socks, underwear, chargers, and everything else apparently required to play four hockey games in six nights without civilization collapsing.
His dark suit hung from the back of the bedroom door inside a garment bag, and his backward Frost cap sat low over damp, sleep-mussed hair while I watched him pick up the same shirt again.
I sat cross-legged near the headboard in his hoodie with my Minky blanket wrapped around my waist, attempting to locate the second earring I had lost sometime between entering his bedroom and waking up sore enough to understand exactly how seriously Ryan had taken his promise about making me feel him for a week.
“You already packed that.”
Ryan glanced at the duffel and then at the shirt in his hand. “No, I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
“Then why am I holding it?”
“Because five minutes ago, you pulled it back out when you decided packing required kissing me.”
His mouth curved as I pointed toward the bag.
“Put it down and step away.”
“You complaining about the kissing?”
“I’m documenting the cause of your future wardrobe crisis.”
“I have enough clothes.”
“You’re leaving for six nights.”
“Which apparently requires seventeen black shirts according to whatever system you think I’m fucking up.”
“It requires you to remember which ones you already packed.”
Ryan tossed the shirt into the duffel and looked at me. “Packed.”
“Congratulations.”
“Smartass.”
“You like me.”
“Unfortunately.”
The ease of it still felt new. There was nothing fragile about Ryan, but everything between us was new enough that I kept noticing how naturally it fit.
Last night, I had finally called him my boyfriend.
The word itself was ordinary, but the promise beneath it wasn’t.
We had already agreed that neither of us wanted anyone else.
Now I had claimed him as mine, accepted that I was his, and promised I would tell my parents before somebody else carried the news to them.
It should have terrified me more than it did. I had spent most of my life needing to know every rule before entering a room, yet being Ryan’s girlfriend felt easier than almost anything else.
Ryan picked up a pair of boxer briefs and folded them once. My phone vibrated on the nightstand, but I didn’t need to look to know who it was. The first message from my mother had arrived before seven.
Mother: Your father’s dinner is Wednesday at seven. Please don’t be late.
The second had come twenty minutes later.
Mother: I made the reservation under Harlen. Your father requested the private dining room at Westerly for sixty of his closest friends and family.
The latest message included a photograph of a navy dress hanging in my childhood bedroom and the suggestion that it would be appropriate for the evening.
Ryan noticed my eyes move toward the phone. “Wednesday?”
I nodded.
He set the boxers down instead of pretending he hadn’t caught the change in me. “Still doing it?”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in my answer, and I was proud of myself for that much.
Ryan’s gaze remained on mine. “You sure?”
“No.” I smiled weakly. “But I’m still doing it.”
“That’s different.”
“It feels different.”
He crossed the room and stopped beside the bed. “What’re you worried about most?”
“My father.”
“That narrows it down to one entire human being.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around my legs. “I know how my mother will do it. She’ll ask questions that sound concerned. She’ll mention Flint and probably ask what your plans are after hockey. Somehow, she’ll make it sound like you’re running an illegal gambling operation.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You’re too controlling to gamble.”
“Fair.”
“My dad is harder.”
Ryan lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress.
“He won’t yell,” I continued. “He barely ever has to. He’ll get quiet and start explaining my life to me like I forgot what it is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’ll remind me about school, design, internships, money, my apartment, and probably the fact that he still pays my tuition. He’ll tell me he’s worried I’m making an impulsive choice because I’m emotional. Then he’ll remind me that Charles would’ve never been reckless or careless.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“I know what he’s doing when he does it now,” I added quickly. “Knowing doesn’t stop it from working.”
“I know.”
He didn’t give me another speech about being brave or tell me my father couldn’t control me. He didn’t ask why I cared after everything Lance had done.
Ryan understood.
I reached out and hooked two fingers beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling him closer until his knee bumped mine.
“I’m going to tell them.”
“I believe you.”
“If it goes badly, I call you.”
“You call me if it goes well too.”
I smiled. “You want a celebration call?”
“I want the first call.”
Warmth moved through my chest. “Okay.”
Ryan leaned closer. “And you don’t go quiet on me.”
“I know.”
“You say that like I’m nagging.”
“You are nagging.”
“Charm.”
I laughed softly. “I won’t go quiet.”
“If he pisses you off?”
“I call.”
“If your mother makes you cry?”
“I call.”
“If you decide you’re completely fine and don’t need anybody?”
I opened my mouth, and his eyes narrowed before I could answer.
With a sigh, I surrendered. “I call my extremely demanding boyfriend.”
“Good.”
“You’re enjoying that word.”
“You made me wait four years to hear it.”
“I didn’t know we were negotiating for four years.”
“I was.”
“You might’ve mentioned that.”
“I made it pretty fucking obvious.”
“You flirt with everyone.”
“I didn’t teach everyone Spanish, give them access to my apartment, or spend four years trying to keep my hands off them.”
The heat in his eyes made my stomach tighten. “You haven’t given me access to your apartment yet.”
His gaze flicked toward the small bowl beside the front door before returning to me. “We’ll get to that.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That sounded suspicious.”
“Stop trying to investigate me before I’ve had coffee.”
“I thought you liked my mouth.”
“I love your mouth.” Ryan caught my face between his hands. “It’s the questions coming out of it that cause problems.”
His kiss should have stayed quick. Nothing with Ryan ever did.
One of his hands slipped behind my neck while mine slid along his bare side. A minute later, the carefully packed duffel tipped sideways because he had leaned over me again, sending two shirts onto the floor.
I smiled against his mouth. “Your system is collapsing.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“You have things to do.”
“So do you.”
“I have Klein.”
Ryan pulled back enough to look at me. “How much did she hit you with?”
I groaned and let my head fall against the pillow.
“That bad?”
“She wants the revised analysis Wednesday morning.”
“Before dinner?”
“Yes.”
His mouth twitched.
“What?”
“Your father’s about to get the version of you that survives Klein.”
“I don’t think that’s comforting.”
“It comforts me.”
I shoved lightly at his shoulder. Ryan caught my wrist and kissed the center of my palm before sitting up again.
“You bringing the paper here?”
I blinked. “While you’re gone?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great answer.”
“I know you said I can come here.”
“I didn’t say you can. I told you to.”
“That sounds remarkably different when you say it like that.”
“Good.”
He returned to packing as if the conversation were settled. I watched him fold another shirt before my attention shifted toward the books lining his wall.
“Ryan.”
“Yeah?”
“What if I need your books?”
He looked over his shoulder like I had asked whether I was allowed to breathe his air. “Then use my books.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Even the ones on the top shelf?”
“All of them, Charm.”
“You barely let people touch some of those.”
He zipped one side of his bag and straightened. “You’re still doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Calling yourself people.”
I smiled despite the ache the words created. Ryan came back to the bed and leaned down until his hands were braced on either side of my legs.
“My books are your books, mi hada.”
Something inside me squeezed.
He had told me enough about books that I knew exactly what he was giving me.
Books had followed him through places people hadn’t.
Knowledge had belonged to him when almost nothing else did.
Some of the battered copies had survived foster homes, nights spent sleeping wherever he could, college, hockey, Flint, and every version of his life that existed before I knew him.
“You mean that?”
His expression softened. “I don’t say shit I don’t mean to you.”
I reached up and straightened the cap that had shifted crooked while he kissed me. Ryan held still beneath my fingers.
“You do that when you’re anxious.”
“I’m fixing your questionable fashion choices.”
“It was fine.”
“It was crooked.”
“So?”
“Now it isn’t.”
He caught my wrist before I could lower my hand. “You worried about Klein or Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t multiple choice.”
“It’s both.”
His thumb moved across the inside of my wrist. “Then use this place for both.”
I studied his face.
“If Aura and Easton are doing whatever dramatic bullshit Aura and Easton do, come here.”
“That barely narrows down a time window.”
“Exactly. If your apartment is loud, come here. If Klein has you ready to set Victorian literature on fire, come here.”
“You would hate that.”
“Depends on the book.”
“If Wednesday starts making you crazy, come here before dinner,” he continued. “Study, get dressed, pace around, talk to yourself, and drink wine out of my shitty mugs.”
“The Great Lakes mug is growing on me.”
“That’s because you have taste now.”
“I don’t think that’s what happened.”
Ryan ignored me. “If you miss me, come here.”