22
Charm
The empty place on my key ring cut into my palm.
I hadn’t loosened my fist since Easton pulled me into his arms. The keys remained trapped inside it, their jagged edges buried so deeply that my fingers had gone numb, but I could still feel the missing one.
Ryan’s key had been small and silver, nearly identical to the key to the ABC apartment, yet I had always known which one belonged to him without looking.
Now there was nothing where it used to be.
Aura sat beside me on the couch with one hand moving slowly across my back while Easton paced between the living room and kitchen, unable to remain still for more than a few seconds.
He hadn’t said much since he caught me, but his anger occupied the room with us.
He controlled it well enough that he hadn’t turned it against me, yet it was too large to hide.
My phone lay facedown on the coffee table with Ryan’s messages waiting beneath the dark screen.
Charm and I had a thing for a minute. It’s dead.
Six months reduced to two words because I failed him when he asked me for four.
Dile que importo.
Tell him I matter.
My throat closed again. I folded forward and pressed my fist against my stomach as another sob tore through me.
Aura moved closer. “Breathe, Cee.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“You are breathing. Stay with me.”
“It hurts.”
“I know it does.”
“No, you don’t.” The words came out broken and sharper than I intended. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I know you understand this feeling, but he took the key, Aye.”
Her hand stopped between my shoulder blades.
“He took it off my ring.” I opened my fist enough for her to see the red marks crossing my palm and the bare metal loop where Ryan’s key used to hang. “He wouldn’t let me touch him. I tried to hold his arm, and he ripped it away from me. He told me not to touch him.”
Easton stopped pacing as Aura took my hand and carefully pulled my fingers away from the keys.
“Put those down before you cut yourself.”
I let her place them on the table, but the word cut sent Ryan’s face through my mind again. I saw the emptiness inside his eyes and heard the voice he had never used with me before tonight. Ryan hadn’t needed a blade. He had taken every tender thing he’d ever given me and severed it with his mouth.
His Spanish returned in the silence words he knew I couldn’t understand, but only a few. “He said I killed him.”
Easton looked away.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Aura’s arm tightened around me. “I know you didn’t.”
“I didn’t know what to do in that study.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying that to hurt you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” My fingernails scraped across my knees. “Nothing anyone says can hurt more than what he said to me.”
Easton gave me a hard look. “Don’t be so sure about that.”
“Easton,” Aura warned.
“What?” He dragged both hands over his face before resuming his pacing. “I’m trying, babe. I’m trying real fucking hard to remember she’s your best friend and she’s sitting here wrecked, but Ryan just told every one of us he’s leaving Kimball Falls like the last six months meant nothing.”
“They didn’t mean nothing.”
“I know that,” he said, turning toward me. “That’s why I’m pissed.”
Headlights swept across the living room wall. A car door slammed outside, followed by another and the heavy rhythm of several people climbing the stairs.
Aura stood before the knock came, and the door barely opened before Bliss rushed through it.
Her gaze found me on the couch, and something inside her face broke.
She crossed the room so quickly that Cade had to catch the door behind her.
Briggs followed him inside, ducking slightly beneath the frame, but I only saw them for a second before Bliss dropped beside me and wrapped both arms around my shoulders.
“What have you done, Charm?”
The question was whispered against my hair.
I collapsed into her. “I know I’m awful.”
My hands caught in the back of her coat while my entire body shook.
“I know, B. I didn’t mean it. I swear I didn’t mean it.”
“I know, babe.” Bliss cupped the back of my head and held me against her. “I know.”
Her calm scared me more than if she had been crying.
Bliss cried when other people cried. She cried when animals were injured in movies, when children performed badly and kept going, when Cade looked at her too softly, and whenever one of us experienced an emotion strong enough to change the energy in a room.
She felt everything without apology and usually made sure we felt it with her.
Tonight, her hands were steady.
She smoothed my hair away from my wet face and pressed her cheek against my forehead while I sobbed into her shoulder.
“We’ll talk about what you meant later,” she murmured.
I pulled back enough to see her. “Why?”
Bliss’s eyes moved toward Cade.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you acting like that?”
“Cade talked to Ryan.”
The room tilted around me as I looked past her.
Cade stood near the door with his keys still in one hand.
His expression was harder than I had ever seen it when directed at me.
There was no warmth in his face and no attempt to soften whatever he knew because I was crying.
Cade was the closest thing Ryan had to a brother, the first person Ryan had trusted after years of believing nobody stayed, and their friendship had been forged long before any of us entered their lives.
“Is he okay?”
“No.”
The single word landed with more force than if Cade had shouted it.
My breath caught, and another sob tore through me before I could stop it. Bliss pulled me into her arms again, but this time I saw Briggs over her shoulder.
He wasn’t smiling.
Briggs always had something waiting behind his expression—a joke, a smirk, or a piece of manufactured stupidity designed to keep anyone from looking too closely at how much he noticed. Tonight, there was nothing playful in his face.
His arms hung at his sides, his enormous hands curled loosely near his thighs as he looked at me with an anger so quiet that I almost didn’t recognize him.
“What did you think was going to happen?” he asked.
Bliss’s arms tightened around me. “Briggs, give her a minute.”
“I didn’t—”
“What did you think Ryan was going to do, Charm?”
My chest heaved as I fought to pull enough air into it. “I thought he would let me explain.”
“Again, right? You thought he would listen while you explained your reasons again.” Briggs’s jaw hardened. “Spoiler alert, you thought wrong.”
“Briggs,” Easton snapped. “What the fuck?”
Briggs didn’t look away from me. “You weren’t on the call.”
“No, I’ve been here trying to help her.” Easton stepped between the living room and kitchen, his attention shifting toward Cade. “What the fuck did I miss?”
Cade glanced at me before looking at Easton. “It ain’t good, brother.”
Easton went still.
The anger inside him changed shape. His eyes returned to me, narrowing as though he was finally looking beyond my tears and trying to understand the size of what happened beneath them.
“How deep was this?”
I wiped at my face. “How deep was what?”
“You and Ryan.” Easton stepped closer. “How serious were you?”
The question didn’t make sense at first. He knew about us. He teased Ryan. He had seen us together in Chicago. All of them had watched how Ryan touched me and how I gravitated toward him in every room.
Then I looked at Bliss and saw the confusion beneath her fear. Aura remained beside the couch with her arms folded across herself, her attention moving between me and Easton.
The men knew, and my girls didn’t know enough.
“We knew enough to understand what Ryan felt,” Easton said. “The guys did. He talked to us because we’re his boys and the only family he has. I figured he told us more than you told the girls, but I didn’t know how much more.”
Bliss pulled away from me slowly. “What is he talking about?”
Aura’s brows drew together. “Cee?”
I couldn’t look at either of them.
The omission rose between us, ugly and undeniable.
For months, I had disappeared into Ryan’s apartment.
There had been late-night calls, studying, fights, apologies, poetry, mind-blowing sex, and nights spent with his body wrapped around mine.
Bliss and Aura knew I had feelings for him.
Since the Waffle House the previous weekend, they knew we were sleeping together.
They understood my parents were the reason I remained terrified of anyone seeing too much.
They didn’t know the whole truth because I hadn’t trusted anyone with it.
Ryan had trusted the guys.
I had kept him hidden from everyone.
“I’m so sorry.”
Bliss’s hand fell from my shoulder. “For what?”
“Charm,” Aura said. “Tell us.”
“We’ve been together for a while.”
Bliss stared at me. “Together how?”
I pressed both hands against my mouth, but the truth had nowhere else to go. “We were together.”
“Dating?”
I nodded.
Aura’s arms dropped. “You were his girlfriend?”
The word tore something open inside me as I nodded again.
Briggs laughed once, and the sound contained nothing kind. “Not according to Ryan.”
I looked at him.
“He kept trying to lock it down, and you wouldn’t let him because you were scared of your parents and anybody who might judge you for being with a guy like him.”
Bliss covered her mouth. “Oh, Charm. You didn’t.”
“I love him.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.” Her voice remained calm, but tears finally gathered along her lashes. “How long?”
I could barely force the answer through my throat. “Almost six months.”
Aura sat heavily in the armchair while Bliss leaned away from me, disbelief moving across her face.
“Six months?”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t.”
Briggs stepped closer. “You could. You chose not to.”
“Back off,” Easton said.
“No.” Briggs kept his attention fixed on me. “After six months, you stood there while he defended you, and you didn’t think for one fucking second to save my boy? You couldn’t tell your parents he was your man?”
“You don’t understand.”