Page 52 of Power Play

“I cannot drink sauvignon blanc from something that says Great Lakes, Great Problems.”

“You can use the hockey mug.”

“That is somehow worse.”

He poured anyway and held out the Great Lakes mug.

I accepted it with the dignity of someone enduring hardship beautifully. “This apartment desperately needs me.”

The joke escaped before I considered how intimate it sounded.

Ryan went still.

His gaze dropped to the mug in my hands before returning to my face. Something unguarded moved through his expression before he locked it down again.

“Yeah?”

The low note beneath the word made my stomach flip.

I took a drink to buy myself time. “Your organizational systems are hostile.”

“My books are organized.”

“By what method?”

“I know where everything is.”

“That isn’t a method. That’s memory.”

“It works.”

“Until you suffer a head injury.”

“I play hockey. That argument has weight.”

I smiled into the rim of the mug while he leaned back against the counter.

His eyes stayed on me, quiet and intent. The apartment seemed smaller without becoming uncomfortable, and I suddenly became very aware that there was no Bliss in the next room. No Cade shouting from a couch. No Briggs opening Ryan’s refrigerator without permission.

Just us.

“You’re different here,” he said.

My fingers tightened around the mug. “How?”

“Less careful.”

“I’m drinking wine from promotional stoneware. I’ve abandoned every principle.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

The humor remained in his expression, though his voice had lowered.

I looked toward the books on the coffee table. “Maybe your apartment has a calming lack of standards.”

“Or maybe you know I don’t give a fuck whether everything about you is perfect.”

The words landed too softly to defend against.