25 #2
“Yeah, I’m fucking angry. Ryan loved Charm for six months while she kept him secret because she was too scared to let the people closest to her see what he was to her.”
“I know what she did.”
“Then stop acting like our loyalty is the problem.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“You just forbade me from going to him.”
“This is already becoming guys against girls, and I remember exactly what that did to us.”
The words struck something deeper than the argument. Easton’s jaw flexed as the history of their barely repaired relationship entered the room with them.
“This isn’t us,” he said.
“It becomes us every time you decide loyalty means shutting me out.”
“I’m not shutting you out.”
“You made plans to leave without discussing them with me.”
“My friend is in hell. I shouldn’t need your permission to sit beside him.”
“Charm is right here.”
“I know where Charm is.”
“Stop talking about her like she’s some stranger who walked inside and destroyed him for fun.”
“I’m not. I love Charm, and I’m still allowed to be furious with her.”
“She was terrified.”
“So was Ryan!” Easton’s shout struck the windows.
Aura recoiled.
He dragged both hands over his face and turned away, but anger kept spilling through his fingers.
“He walked into that house knowing they would look at him like garbage. He stood there anyway because she asked him to. Don’t explain her fear like his didn’t count because he was brave enough to speak through it.”
“I never said his fear didn’t count.”
“You explain hers every time somebody says what she did.”
“Because none of you understand what her parents have done to her.”
“We understand enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I understand Ryan had nobody.” Easton turned back toward her.
“He had no parents manipulating him because both were gone before he was old enough to understand what having them meant. He had foster homes, garbage bags, and people reminding him he should be grateful for whatever scraps they offered.”
His eyes moved briefly toward me.
“Charm had two parents who called her theirs every day, and when Ryan asked her to claim him once, she looked at the floor.”
Aura’s face collapsed.
“East,” I whispered.
He looked at me, and the fury in his eyes devastated me because Easton had always treated me like family.
“You’re right,” I told him. “Please don’t fight with her because of me.”
“This isn’t because of you,” Aura said.
“Yes, it is.”
Bliss moved toward Cade as he lifted his bag. “You’re leaving too?”
“Tonight.”
“You promised we would spend the weekend together.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to sleep alone in a cabin I’ve never been inside before.”
Cade’s expression softened, but he didn’t lower the bag. “You won’t be alone. Aura, Charm, Gayle, Vivi, and Skylar are here.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Then stay.”
“Pip.”
“Please.” Bliss caught the front of his coat. “Briggs is already with Ryan. Easton and Rider are going. He won’t be alone.”
Cade looked down at her hands.
“I’m the closest thing Ryan has ever had to real family,” he said quietly. “I have never left him in hell, and I’m not starting tonight because you don’t want to sleep alone.”
The words visibly wounded Bliss. Her fingers fell from his coat.
“Wow.”
Cade’s expression tightened. “That came out harsher than I meant.”
“No, I think it came out exactly how you meant it.”
“Bliss.”
“You could’ve said you needed to go. You didn’t have to make me sound selfish for asking my fiancé to stay beside me.”
“I’m not saying you’re selfish.”
“You compared my wanting you here to abandoning Ryan in hell.”
“That is what it feels like.”
Tears gathered in Bliss’s eyes. “You aren’t the only person who loves him.”
“I know.”
“I love him too.”
“Then understand why I have to go.”
“Understanding doesn’t stop it from hurting.”
Cade lowered his bag and reached for her, but Bliss stepped away.
The divide became something I could see.
The guys stood around the wreckage Ryan carried from Kimball Falls, furious because they knew what it cost him to let me into his life. Bliss and Aura stood beside me, angry because protecting Ryan had started to look like punishing everyone who refused to abandon me.
I had built that divide without any of them knowing it was happening.
Every secret became another piece of the wall rising between people who loved one another.
Beneath those secrets lived the parts of myself I continued hiding—the food I refused, the measurements I memorized, the panic I disguised, and the hatred I turned against my own body whenever I couldn’t control anything else.
Nobody knew how deep any of it went.
Rider struck the cue ball harder than necessary. It missed the pocket, rebounded from the rail, and rolled across the table before stopping near his hand.
“All of you need to shut the fuck up.”
Every head turned toward him.
Rider set the cue across the table. “The guys go calm Ryan down. You two calm Charm down. We try to get him back here so you guys can have your men, and you dumb fucks can have your women.”
“That is the worst mediation I have ever heard,” Aura said.
“It’s also the only one happening.” Rider pointed toward Easton. “You stop yelling at her like you want to spend the weekend sleeping in my room.”
Easton’s mouth tightened.
Rider pointed at Aura. “You stop forbidding a grown man from supporting his friend because that shit sounded insane the second it left your mouth.”
Aura folded her arms. “I know.”
“Good.”
He looked toward Cade and Bliss. “You two are disgustingly in love. You’ll survive sleeping in separate buildings for one night.”
Bliss wiped beneath her eyes.
Finally, Rider turned toward me.
His face wasn’t angry, which made what followed harder to hear.
“You have two choices. Suck it up or leave.”
Aura stepped toward him. “Rider—”
“No.” His gaze remained on mine. “I’m not trying to be cruel. Charm, you’re one of mine, and I protect mine.”
My throat closed.
“Ryan is one of mine too. You can’t be in this lodge if he comes back and doesn’t want you here. That’s a hard limit.”
“I know.”
“No sneaking over, waiting in his room, or catching him alone because you think if he looks at you long enough, he’ll remember he loves you.”
The bluntness pulled the air from my lungs.
“He remembers,” Rider continued. “That’s why he can’t be near you.”
Tears spilled over my lashes. “I’ll stay in the other cabin.”
“If he comes back?”
“I won’t come here.”
“Even if Bliss and Aura ask you to?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you hear him?”
The question struck somewhere raw. “What do you mean?”
“If he loses it. If you hear him yelling, breaking shit, crying, or anything else that makes you think you’re the person who should comfort him.”
My lips trembled.
“You stay away,” Rider said. “Right now, you’re the reason he needs comfort.”
“I understand.”
He studied me for a second before nodding. “Okay.”
The fight didn’t disappear. It lingered inside every silence and withheld glance while the afternoon moved forward.
Cade pulled Bliss aside. Easton and Aura disappeared into the kitchen, where their voices remained low enough that I couldn’t hear the words but sharp enough to reveal the argument continuing.
I carried my bags to the second cabin myself. Nobody offered to help, and I was grateful.
The walk through the snow gave me enough privacy to cry without making everyone watch. The smaller cabin was beautiful and quiet, with warm wooden walls, blue blankets folded across the beds, and a fire already burning in the living room.
Ryan had done this too.
He chose the place because he remembered that Vivi needed somewhere quiet. He entered the code, turned up the heat, and made sure her room was ready before I arrived.
He remembered everything important.
From now on, when Ryan remembered me, I would be the woman who looked at the floor.
I unpacked nothing. My suitcase remained beside the door while I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands until Bliss and Aura came looking for me.
They entered without knocking. Bliss sat on one side of me, and Aura took the other.
None of us spoke for several minutes. The quiet felt different from the silence inside my father’s study because nobody waited for me to produce the correct answer.
They waited for the truth.
“What happened at Ryan’s apartment?” Bliss asked.
I closed my eyes. “I told you.”
“You said he took the key and made you leave.”
Aura’s shoulder pressed against mine. “Tell us all of it.”
I forced myself back into the apartment.
Ryan packing. The books beneath his duffel. His red-rimmed eyes. The coldness that replaced every version of him I knew.
“He said I wanted his thick Chicano cock and a prop for my rebellion against my parents.”
Bliss inhaled sharply.
Aura’s face hardened. “He said that?”
“He was trying to make everything ugly.”
“He succeeded,” she muttered.
“He wasn’t wrong.”
Both women looked at me.
“I did call him my boyfriend,” I continued.
“I said it to him and my parents, but I never told either of you. I slept in his bed, took his key, let him buy me books, teach me Spanish, and love me in every way I needed. Then I kept the truth away from the two people who should have known what he meant to me.”
“That doesn’t mean you used him for sex,” Bliss said.
“It feels like I did because I took every private part of himself he made me earn, including his body, and still gave him reasons to believe sex was all I wanted from him.”
Aura studied my face. “What else?”
“I grabbed his arm when he tried to leave.”
Bliss’s hand closed around mine.
“He ripped away and yelled at me to get my hands off him. Then he held out his palm and demanded the key.”
The empty place on my ring returned against my skin.
“I couldn’t remove it because my hands were shaking. Ryan took the entire ring, ripped his key free, and dropped the rest back into my hand.”
“Did he hurt you?” Aura asked.
“No. He made sure he didn’t touch me.”
The answer quieted something inside both women.
“He opened the door and told me to leave in Spanish.”
“What did he say?” Bliss asked.