Page 45 of Power Play

“Why?”

“Because you’re supposed to be the student.”

“I’m going to figure you out.”

The certainty in her voice made me smile.

“Good luck, mi hada.”

“I’m very persistent.”

“I know.”

She gave me a look that said she heard something underneath the answer, but she let it go.

For now.

“Tuesday at noon?” she asked.

“Book Nook.”

“You’re very attached to this place.”

“They let me bring my own books and don’t ask why I’m swearing at dead writers.”

“That is good customer service.”

We walked toward the door together, close enough that her arm brushed mine once and then again. The second time, neither of us moved away.

Outside, the summer heat rolled across campus and wrapped around us after hours beneath aggressive air-conditioning. Students crossed the sidewalk between buildings while traffic moved lazily along the road beyond the parking lot.

Charm stopped beneath the awning and turned toward me. “Thank you.”

I adjusted my cap. “Don’t get soft on me.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. You don’t owe me anything.”

Her eyes moved over my face. “You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep trying to turn everything into a debt.”

The words hit harder than I meant them to, and Charm’s smile slipped before I could pull them back. I watched the retreat happen in the quiet rearrangement of her expression, the same one I’d seen all afternoon whenever something came too close to whatever she kept protected beneath the polished answers.

I stepped toward her. “Tuesday, mi hada.”

Her lashes lifted. “I thought that belonged to the lesson.”

“It belongs wherever I want to use it.”

“That sounds possessive.”

“It is.”

The honesty surprised both of us.

Heat climbed into her cheeks, but she held my gaze. That was new too. Charm had spent years looking away whenever the attraction between us became too obvious. Today, she’d flirted with me across a table, watched my mouth while I spoke Spanish, let me touch her face, and stood close enough that one step would put my body against hers.