Page 307 of Face Off

“Because loving Charm wasn’t something you did wrong, and you’ve spent fifteen months treating every part of it like evidence against you.” Cade holds my gaze through the mirror. “You deserved to tell her then. You still deserve to tell her now.”

I finish fastening the button, but Cade’s words remain beneath my ribs, stirring everything I’ve been trying to quiet. There was a moment when loving Charm stopped being something happening to me and became the truth around which every other part of my life rearranged itself. She never knew when it happened because I was terrified giving her that truth would make her run—or worse, leave me standing there after learning she didn’t feel it too.

I don’t tell Cade whether I’ll say it. He doesn’t ask. He pushes away from the wall and reaches for his tuxedo jacket, leaving me alone with one more truth I may have to give Charm before I go.

Thirty minutes later, five hockey players look almost respectable.

Briggs’s bruised eye is impossible to miss, but after three periods of hockey, the explanation will hold long enough for Cade to marry Bliss without his bride committing aggravated assault before the ceremony. Easton adjusts Briggs’s collar while Rider complains that his own tux makes him look employable.

I finish buttoning my shirt and knot my tie in the mirror. My hands remain steady even though my chest has felt carved open since I clicked confirm on that flight.

Cade steps behind me once I have my jacket on. He doesn’t ask permission before clipping the silver tie bar into place, straightening it with the concentration he usually reserves for a final face-off. Our eyes meet briefly in the mirror, and everything he could say already exists between us.

He knows I’m ecstatic for him and Bliss. He knows there is nowhere else I would be today and no role I would rather have than standing beside him while he marries the woman who became family to all of us.

He also knows I’m dying inside for the second time.

I turn and take the boutonnière from its box. Cade holds still while I pin it to his lapel, careful not to stab him minutes before his wedding. Neither of us speaks because with Cade, I have never needed to explain every silence. He knows the difference between one meant to punish and one I’m using to survive.

This time, I won’t disappear inside it. I won’t cut off the people who love me or pretend rage is enough to build a life around. I’ll go home. I’ll answer the phone. I’ll keep playing, start reading, cooking more than four meals because I am now responsible for holding Briggs together, and finding reasons to exist outside the woman I may never stop loving.

Cade holds my gaze, then grips the back of my neck once before releasing me.

I guess that was the only promise he needed.

24

Charm

The reception is close enough to over that the room has begun dismantling itself around us. Half-empty champagne glasses sit between abandoned centerpieces, jackets hang from chair backs, and the remaining guests move in loose groups between the bar and dance floor as though nobody wants to be the first to admit the night is ending.

Aura and I wait outside the bride-and-groom changing rooms while Bliss changes into the second white dress she chose for their departure. She insisted we remain nearby in case the straps need adjusting, which they will, because Bliss has spent the last year refusing to acknowledge that gravity applies to clothing she loves.

From the alcove, I can see Cade standing with Easton, Rider, and Briggs near the ballroom entrance. Briggs’s bruised eye looks worse beneath the fading makeup, but the story about taking an elbow during their hockey game has survived every suspicious glance Bliss has given him. Cade keeps himself positioned between her and Briggs whenever they occupy the same space, apparently prepared to protect the first hours of his marriage by physically preventing his wife from committing a felony.

Aura follows my attention. “Do you think she believes them?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you think she’ll wait until after Aruba to investigate?”

“Absolutely not.”

The door behind us remains closed while someone laughs near the bar. I look toward the entrance again, expecting to find the same four men.

Ryan walks into the ballroom.

His tuxedo is gone. A white Inferno T-shirt stretches across his shoulders, the collar sitting close beneath the ink covering his neck. His jeans are faded, his black Adidas clean, and his hat is backward over his hair. He looks exactly like the man who used to walk into every room at KFU and make my body notice before my mind had time to protect itself.

Then I see the suitcase rolling behind him.

His black duffel is strapped across the extended handle, and the sight of both pieces of luggage sends my stomach plummeting hard enough to make me grip the edge of the doorway.

Ryan crosses toward the guys.

He isn’t carrying clothing for tomorrow or moving his things to another room. Nothing about him looks temporary. He looks showered, changed, packed, and ready to step out of this castle without coming back.

I move before thought can become panic.