Page 257 of Face Off

By the time I finish, the bourbon in my glass was being refilled.

Nobody jokes. Briggs doesn’t make one invasive comment about my sex life, and Rider doesn’t attempt to break the weight with some dry observation. Easton watches me with his arms folded across his chest while Cade absorbs every part I had to violate our privacy to give them.

I trust these men with Charm. They love her, but they won’t protect her from a truth that might make her look bad. They also love me enough to understand that asking for advice means I have reached a place I cannot escape alone.

Cade studies me over the rim of his glass. “She gave you the truth you spent fifteen months believing she would never admit.”

“Yeah.”

“She stayed in front of the mirror,” Easton says. “She trusted you enough to let you see how bad it still gets.”

“Yeah.”

Briggs looks toward the fire. “And when she started drowning, you pulled her out.”

The resentment reaches my voice before I can hide it. “Like I always do.”

His attention returns to me. “What did you need?”

The question catches beneath my ribs because it is the one Charm never asked and he nods and points at me. “That shit, right there.”.

“I needed the woman I went to after her father called my mother a whore and tried to turn everything I survived into proof I was born beneath him. I needed her to see I was fucked up without forcing me to make a presentation about it. Asking her to walk with me was as close as I knew how to get to telling her I needed help carrying some of it.”

My voice roughens, and I look toward the lawn before any of them can see too much.

“She told me to go fuck myself. Then she came to my room, opened everything I said I couldn’t carry, and her pain became the only thing either of us could see.”

“You could’ve made her leave,” Rider says carefully.

“I know.”

“You could’ve stopped the conversation.”

“I fucking know.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Easton asks.

My laugh holds no humor. “Because she is the one weakness I keep mistaking for a choice.”

The answer settles over all of us.

“I knew I was selling myself out while I did it. I felt the exact moment I set down what I needed and made room for her instead, but watching Charm suffer still reaches me faster than whatever instinct is supposed to protect me.” I look toward the fire again, where she sits wrapped inside my jacket.

“She showed me how much she has changed, and I saw enough to believe we might have a chance. She also showed me that when both of us are bleeding, she still doesn’t know how to see anything beyond her own wound.”

Briggs’s expression tightens. “Did she realize what it cost you?”

“She didn’t.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I had already told her what I needed before she came to my room.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

My attention snaps toward him. “She should know I would never ask twice.”

Briggs doesn’t retreat, but understanding changes his expression.