Page 255 of Break Away
She went still immediately when her mother’s eyes dropped.
It lasted half a second, maybe less, but I caught it. Charm caught it too, because she moved her leg away from my hand like my touch had burned her instead of steadied her.
That was the first thing in that house that pissed me off enough to make me smile.
Not because I was embarrassed. Fuck that. I’d been looked at worse by people with less money and heavier hands. I’d been sized up by foster fathers deciding if I was too much trouble, by cops who saw tattoos and barrio before they saw a man, by coaches trying to decide if my temper outweighed my talent. Lance and Crystal Harlen didn’t scare me. Their money didn’t scare me. Their house didn’t impress me. A big table and a gated driveway didn’t turn a man into a king.
The problem was Charm.
The problem was the girl beside me pulling away from my hand because her mother looked. Because Charm had never denied me. Not once.
I leaned back in my chair and let my arm rest against the edge of the table, loose enough to look bored, controlled enough to keep from dragging Charm’s hand into mine where everyone could see it. She felt my shift beside her. I knew she did because her eyes flicked to my face, soft and nervous and begging me without saying a word.
Behave.
That was what she wanted, so I did.
For her.
Lance lifted his wineglass and looked at me with the lazy confidence of a man who’d never had to wonder whether a room was safe before walking into it. “Charm tells us you’re doing very well with Flint.”
“I am.”
“Semi-pro can be a difficult world,” he said, turning the stem of his glass between his fingers. “There’s a great deal of uncertainty. Constant travel, tougher injuries, limited guarantees, and not much financial security.”
“Sounds like most jobs if you’re not born with one waiting.” I held his gaze. “Financially, I do more than fine.”
Charm’s fork paused halfway to her mouth.
Across the table, her mother blinked once.
Lance didn’t. I gave him that. He took the hit clean, still smiling like he admired a man who didn’t duck. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“It’s the way men look at it when they’ve had to earn the right to be in the room they’re standing in.”
Charm’s hand found the edge of my sleeve beneath the table. Her fingers barely touched me, a whisper of pressure against my wrist, but I knew what she meant.
Stop.
I turned my hand just enough to brush my knuckles against hers.
Not a surrender. Not an apology, but a promise that I was still in control.
Lance watched that too. He didn’t look down, but his eyes sharpened, and I knew then he hadn’t missed a damn thing happening under his table. He saw his daughter reaching for me. He saw me letting her. He saw that whatever fantasy he had about me being some rough little phase Charm would outgrow didn’t match the way her body leaned toward mine when she was scared.
Good. I hoped thependejosaw it.
“So,” Lance said, setting his glass down with a soft click, “what comes next for you if hockey doesn’t develop the way you hope?”
Charm’s breath caught beside me.
I smiled at him, slow and mean enough that the room cooled around us. “It develops.”
Her mother gave a light laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “Confidence is certainly important.”
“It is when people keep mistaking it for luck.”
Lance’s mouth tightened for the first time all night. Tiny movement. Barely anything. Enough.
