24 #3
We claimed two rooms on the opposite side of the lodge. Mine was smaller, with a queen bed, one window facing the trees, and no fireplace. It resembled the room I would’ve chosen if I booked the trip alone. Temporary and functional would be enough.
Briggs took the room beside mine because subtlety had never been one of his strengths. By the time we returned downstairs, his phone had begun vibrating against the kitchen counter.
He looked at the screen.
“Updates?” I asked.
“You want them?”
“Logistics only.”
He opened the group chat I had left the night before. “Cade and Bliss are loading the SUV. Rider is going with them because apparently nobody trusts him to navigate winter roads alone.”
“Reasonable.”
“Rider says fuck you and that his driving record is cleaner than Cade’s.”
“Cade drives like somebody’s grandfather.”
“Rider has received three speeding tickets.”
“Exactly.”
Briggs continued scrolling. “Easton and Aura have Gayle, Skylar, and Vivi. Vivi wants confirmation that the second cabin is still southeast of the main lodge and the upstairs room has blue blankets.”
“It does. The code follows the same format I sent Easton.”
Briggs typed the response. A second later, his eyebrows lifted.
“What?”
“Vivi says thank you for remembering.”
I shrug. “I remember important things.”
His attention remained on the phone, and my stomach tightened before he spoke.
“Charm replied.”
“I said logistics.”
“It is technically about the trip.”
“What did she say?”
His gaze lifted to mine. “You sure?”
“No.”
He waited and I hated him for making me choose every time. “Read it.”
“He remembers everything important.” The words entered the kitchen softly.
I turned toward the expensive coffee machine and stared at buttons I didn’t understand. Charm didn’t get to take the tenderness I gave her and hold it up as proof of who I was after she refused to do the same for me.
“Anything else?”
Briggs scrolled. “Bliss says they’re leaving in twenty minutes. Aura says they’ll be about an hour behind them because Skylar forgot half her shit.”
“That tracks.”
“Rider wants to know whether the pool table is regulation size.”
“It is.”
“Cade wants to know if I’ve broken anything.”
“Tell him not yet.”
The look he gave me then almost made me laugh. “I’m offended by the assumption.”
“You broke his ping-pong table.”
“That collapse was structural.”
“Briggs, you sat on it.”
“It should’ve accounted for athletic bodies.”
I turned despite myself.
Briggs’s expression was completely serious. The smallest laugh caught behind my ribs. It hurt too much to become sound, but he saw it anyway.
He returned to the phone before I could resent him for noticing. “Charm says she’s driving herself.”
My face went still. “What time?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Ask.”
Briggs typed while I braced both hands against the counter and stared through the windows at the snow.
“What are you going to tell her?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“If she asks to talk?”
“No.”
“If she says she only needs five minutes?”
“No.”
“If she cries?”
I looked at him. “What part of do not let her near me sounded conditional?”
“None of it.”
“Then stop testing the answer.”
“I’m making sure I know the parameters.”
“You know them.”
Briggs locked his phone and set it facedown. “I’ve got you.”
“Our boys know too?”
“Cade knows. Easton knows. Rider knows enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Rider saw your message, called Cade, and said he would personally throw Charm into the second cabin if she tried to corner you.”
My mouth twitched.
“He also asked whether throwing meant physically carrying her or whether he should use a sled.”
“That sounds more like him.”
“He’s leaning toward the sled.”
“Tell him no assaulting women on resort property.”
“Off-property enforcement remains under review.”
The laugh made it out this time. It was brief, scraped raw, and followed immediately by the ache Charm left beneath it.
Briggs didn’t look relieved or treat the sound like evidence I was recovering. He walked to the refrigerator and opened it, where empty shelves stared back at him.
“Where’s the food?”
“Cade’s picking up the online order.”
“You rented ten thousand dollars of lodge and didn’t buy breakfast?”
“I have coffee.”
“That isn’t nutrition.”
“It kept me alive through college.”
“Your body was fueled by spite through college.”
“It still is.”
“I support spite, but I also support eggs.”
He shut the refrigerator with profound disappointment.
The next hour passed with enough normal bullshit to keep my hands busy.
Briggs opened every cabinet and announced the appliances like he was inspecting prizes on a game show.
I checked the second cabin, turned up the heat, confirmed Vivi’s room was ready, and returned before the silence inside it had time to feel peaceful.
Peace was dangerous because it left too much room for memory.
At noon, I changed into black Frost sweats and a team shirt. Practice wasn’t until four, but my gear waited beside the front door. I retaped two sticks that didn’t need it, reorganized my bag, and checked every zipper twice while Briggs played air hockey against himself downstairs.
By the time tires crunched over the snow outside, I had dismantled and rebuilt the contents of my equipment bag three times.
Briggs appeared at the top of the stairs carrying both paddles.
“You know playing yourself is depressing, right?” I asked.
“I was winning.”
“Against who?”
“My previous score.”
Voices carried from outside, and my shoulders tightened automatically.
Briggs placed the paddles on the table and looked through the window. “Cade’s SUV.”
“Is she with them?”
He studied the vehicle as the doors opened. “No.”
Relief moved through me, tangled with something else I refused to call disappointment. Wanting to see her would imply hope. The hollow drop inside my chest was only my body searching for the person it had learned to expect.
My body would learn better.
“Want me to get the door?” Briggs asked.
“I’m not hiding in my own fucking lodge.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
I walked toward the entryway as the front door opened.
Bliss entered first and stopped beneath the vaulted ceiling. Her eyes widened as she took in the beams, fireplace, and enormous windows overlooking the lake.
“Oh my gosh.”
Cade followed with two grocery bags. His gaze found me immediately and moved from my black eye to Briggs’s swollen mouth.
“What the fuck happened to both of you?”
“Hockey,” Briggs answered.
Cade looked at the sunglasses resting on top of his head. “You don’t play for Flint.”
“Cross-organizational development.”
“You fought him.”
“I allowed Ryan to explore his emotions through movement.”
Cade’s eyes moved toward me.
“He trespassed.”
“In my defense, the door was unlocked.”
“The arena was closed.”
“Those sound like conflicting security failures.”
Bliss stepped closer and lifted her hand toward my bruised cheek without making contact. Her face crumpled for half a second before she controlled it.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
She blinked, and I didn’t rescue her from the answer. Her hand dropped.
“I’m sorry, Ryan.”
The apology was so quiet that it almost disappeared beneath Cade setting the groceries on the floor.
I held her gaze. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I know, but I’m still sorry.”
Cade rested one hand against the back of her neck. Bliss leaned into him instinctively, and the tenderness between them struck a place inside me that was already bruised. I looked away.
“Take your boots off before you start decorating,” Cade told her.
“I’m not decorating.”
“You brought pillows.”
“They’re emotional-support pillows.”
Briggs appeared beside her. “The pool changes colors.”
Bliss gasped. “It does?”
“And there’s air hockey.”
She turned toward the stairs.
“Take off your boots,” Cade called after her.
Bliss kicked them toward the wall without slowing. Briggs followed her downstairs, both of them shouting before they reached the bottom.
Cade closed his eyes.
“Twenty-three and twenty-four,” I said.
“I’m going to kill both of them.”
“You’d miss her.”
“I’d miss one of them.”
Rider entered through the open door carrying another grocery bag and a case of beer, snow dusting the shoulders of his coat.
“I regret coming.”
Briggs shouted from downstairs, “There’s a regulation pool table.”
Rider’s expression changed. “I regret it less.”
He looked at my face and then at Cade. “Hockey?”
“That’s the story,” Cade said.
Rider lowered the groceries onto the island and walked toward me. He didn’t ask permission before clasping my hand and pulling me into a hard, brief embrace.
“You good?” he asked near my ear.
“No.”
“Need me to throw anyone into the second cabin?”
“Not yet.”
“Sled option remains available.”
I pulled back. “No assaulting women.”
“I would cushion the sled.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It helps a little.”
The front door opened again before I could answer.
Aura entered with two overnight bags hanging from one shoulder.
Easton followed, carrying enough luggage to suggest nobody in his vehicle understood the meaning of a long weekend.
Gayle and Skylar came behind him, arguing about who forgot a charger, while Vivi paused in the doorway and studied the interior of the lodge.
Easton dropped the bags and walked straight toward me.
His eyes landed on my black eye. “Briggs?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded before gripping my hand and pulling me against his chest. There were no questions and no speech. His palm struck my back once before he released me.
“We’ve got you,” he said.
“I know.”
Aura watched the exchange. Exhaustion shadowed her eyes, and sadness softened her mouth when she looked at me. She started toward me, stopped, and seemed to choose each word before speaking.
“Ryan, I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
The sentence caught me off guard.
Aura folded her arms across herself. “I love her too. Those things are going to make me say shit you don’t want to hear eventually.”
“Eventually can wait.”
“It can.”
“But you’re going to ask me to hear her out.”
“Yes.”
“I’m telling you now that I won’t.”
Her jaw tightened.