Page 46 of Power Play

I could kiss her.

The knowledge moved through me with enough force that my attention dropped to her mouth. Charm noticed, and her lips parted as the entire afternoon narrowed into the space between us.

Then I stepped back.

Disappointment crossed her face before she could hide it, followed by enough embarrassment to make my stomach tighten.

“Tuesday,” I repeated.

Charm adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Tuesday, Ryan.”

She turned toward the parking lot, and I watched her walk away while every instinct in me fought over whether stopping had been the right choice.

Kissing Charm would’ve been easy. Stopping after that was the part I didn’t trust.

She was my friend, and our people were tangled together too deeply for me to treat her like some woman I met at a bar and wanted for a night. Charm already carried enough pressure without adding whatever reaction Lance and Crystal would have to their daughter getting involved with a tattooed Chicano hockey player who came from the kind of childhood people like them probably donated money to at Christmas.

I didn’t care what either of them thought about me. I cared what their opinion would cost her, and that distinction mattered more than I wanted it to.

It also gave me a respectable reason to keep my distance. The rest of it was fear dressed up like self-control.

Books had always been easier than people. Houses changed, promises disappeared, and people who were supposed to stay could vanish without warning. Stories stayed where somebody put them. I could open a book years later and find the same words waiting in the same place, untouched by everything that happened after I closed it.

Charm had never felt dangerous when wanting her was mostly physical. I could blame that on a white bikini at the lake, long legs stretched beneath the sun as she walked across the beach, and a dick with no respect for friendship. I’d spent years managing it because wanting her body didn’t require me to believe in anything.

Today, I’d watched her come alive across from me. I’d heard her laugh too loudly, argue with dead philosophers, challenge me back, and speak without waiting for permission. The careful version of her disappeared one piece at a time, and every piece she gave me made something inside me reach for more.

That was what scared me.

I knew how to lose people. I knew how to survive after they were gone. What I didn’t know was how to trust the feeling tightening inside my chest while Charm walked toward her car, especially when every instinct I had was already telling me to follow her.

She hadn’t given me a single reason to believe she didn’t want me too. I should’ve been relieved that I stepped back, but relief wasn’t anywhere inside me as the distance between us widened.

“Charm.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder.

I had already spent the entire afternoon giving myself reasons to leave her alone. Apparently, I didn’t trust a single one of them enough to let her drive away.

“Wait.”

3

Charm

Ryan should’ve taken me back to my car after the Book Nook.

We had already spent more than two hours arguing over dead writers, dismantling my notes, and drinking enough coffee to make my heartbeat feel slightly unreasonable. He had given me an essay Professor Klein described as reluctantly persuasive, called me his fairy in Spanish, and somehow turned Mary Wollstonecraft into the most productive academic experience of my life.

That should’ve been enough Ryan for one afternoon.

Instead, he balanced three books against one tattooed forearm as we crossed the parking lot and said, “I’ve got more reference material at my apartment.”

I adjusted my bag higher on my shoulder. “How much more?”

“A lot.”

“That sounds vague.”