Page 211 of Power Play

“Yes.”

“We could save water.”

“You’re leaving eventually.”

Ryan grinned. “Go.”

I gathered the clothes I had brought and headed for the bathroom while he returned to his duffel. The door clicked shut behind me, and for the first few minutes, I let the shower drown out everything waiting on the other side.

Klein’s revision. Design studio. My mother’s messages. Wednesday night at the Westerly and the conversation I had promised Ryan I would finally have.

I stood beneath water hot enough to turn my skin pink and tried to imagine telling my father that Ryan was my boyfriend. I practiced the words silently, but Lance’s answers came faster than mine.

This isn’t like you, Charmagne.

You’re being impulsive.

We’ve given you every opportunity, and this is what you’re doing with it?

Charles would’ve understood what was at stake.

Pressure climbed into my chest until I couldn’t draw a complete breath. I pressed both palms against the shower wall and forced air into my lungs while the water struck my back. My heart beat too fast, and the room felt smaller every time I inhaled.

I counted the grout lines between the tiles. Six across. Eleven down. I started again when I lost my place, clinging to the numbers until my breathing stopped scraping painfully through my throat.

The panic eased, but the disgust it left behind remained.

My gaze dropped over my body. Water tracked across my stomach and hips, distorting everything beneath it. I turned slightly and looked again, searching for whatever Ryan had seen when he knelt in front of me last night and called me beautiful.

I couldn’t find it.

All I saw were places that curved too much, places that needed to be tighter, and a body that could betray me in the navy dress my mother had chosen. My fingers pinched the skin near my waist before I could stop them.

Ryan was twenty feet away packing for another road trip after spending last night handing me pieces of himself he had never trusted another woman to hold. He had asked me to call when I panicked, yet I stood beneath the shower measuring my body with my hands and trying to decide whether I could get through the rest of the day without eating.

Shame twisted through me. I released my skin and forced my hands beneath the water.

The urge to check again remained.

I shut off the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and stared at my reflection while droplets slid from my hair to my shoulders. My face looked pale without makeup, my eyes too large and my cheeks too full. I turned away before the mirror could give me another reason to hate myself.

The hot water had loosened muscles that had no sympathy for the fact that I needed to function like a normal college student. It hadn’t made me feel better. Counting, checking, and making rules about food had given me the temporary illusion of control.

I hated that my mind still reached for those things whenever fear became too loud.

Music drifted from somewhere beyond the bathroom door before I finished squeezing the water from my hair.

Country music.

I frowned. The song was familiar enough that I recognized Riley Green before I could place which one it was. After wrapping the towel more securely around myself, I opened the door and followed the music down the hallway.

Then I heard Ryan singing.

I stopped in the kitchen doorway.

Ryan was singing “Change My Mind” while making coffee.

He had apparently decided I was still in the shower because there was no self-consciousness in him. His back faced me, black sweatpants riding low on his hips while the tattoos I now understood stretched across his shoulders and disappeared beneath the waistband. His phone rested beside the coffee maker, and he sang along while measuring grounds like this was something he did every morning of his life.