Page 201 of Power Play

“It can be.”

I studied him for several seconds before the question that had been sitting beneath my tongue since Chicago finally escaped.

“What happens now?”

Ryan went still beneath me. He didn’t look alarmed or angry, but the quiet attention settling over his face made me immediately wish I could pull the question back.

“That came out very eighth grade.”

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t rescue me.

I narrowed my eyes. “You could help.”

“I’m thinking.”

“That’s never comforting.”

He slid his hand from my neck to my shoulder. “What do you want to happen?”

The question landed differently than I expected. Ryan wasn’t going to name this for me or tell me which words I was allowed to use. He had spent weeks asking me to choose him, and now he was waiting for me to do it without hiding inside an answer he provided.

I flattened my palm over his chest and felt his heartbeat beneath it. “I want us.”

Something softened in his face. “We already agreed there isn’t anybody else.”

“I know. I mean more than that.” My nerves tightened, but I refused to let them silence me. “I want you to be my boyfriend.”

Ryan’s entire body went still beneath mine.

The word sounded almost embarrassingly ordinary compared to what he had trusted me with last night, but it mattered. It gave us a place in each other’s lives that couldn’t be dismissed as hanging out, tutoring, or whatever careful explanation I invented when someone looked too closely.

His fingers tightened slightly against my shoulder. “Say it again.”

“I want you to be my boyfriend.”

A slow, satisfied warmth moved through his expression. “That sounds pretty fucking good coming out of your mouth.”

“I had a feeling you might like it.”

“I like it a lot.” His gaze moved over my face. “What’s scaring you?”

The question found the anxiety I’d been trying to hold down before I could disguise it.

“I need to tell my parents.”

His expression sharpened immediately. I continued before he could misunderstand what I meant.

“I’m not asking to hide you, Ryan. I need them to hear it from me before Bliss tells Daniel Bennett, who tells Knox who see’s my mom every day, or somebody says something around somebody else and it gets back to them.”

Ryan watched me carefully.

“The truth is, they’re going to be cruel.” Saying it aloud hurt more than I expected. “They’re going to have opinions about you, hockey, Flint, where you came from, your tattoos, and every stupid thing they can find that doesn’t fit whatever version of my life they already decided I’m supposed to have.”

His expression hardened, but I kept my hand over his heart.

“I need to face that.”

“Alone?”