Page 82 of Power Play

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

The call ended.

I remained sitting on the bed for another moment while the apartment settled around me. When I stood, the mirror caught me again. My eyes started traveling downward out of habit, searching for the next flaw before I could stop them.

I turned away.

The drawer stayed closed while I went to change out of the clothes my mother liked.

For that night, I let the decision be mine.

5

Ryan

The Furnace Grill was loud enough to make pretending everything was normal easy. The lunch rush had packed every table near the windows, servers moved between booths balancing overloaded trays, and the open kitchen sent out the smell of burgers, fried onions, and whatever bullshit Briggs had ordered in quantities meant for a small family.

He sat across from me with three baskets spread around his plate, one knee bouncing beneath the table while his phone vibrated facedown beside his drink for the fourth time in less than ten minutes. Nobody mentioned it, which told me everybody had noticed.

Easton stole another fry from Cade’s basket and earned a slap across the back of his hand.

“If you touch my food again, I’m breaking a finger.”

“You say that like I need all ten.”

“You need at least nine to hold a stick correctly.”

Briggs pointed a mozzarella stick toward them. “This is why neither of you will survive marriage. You have no respect for shared resources.”

“You threatened me with legal action five minutes ago for touching your ranch,” Rider said.

“That was theft.”

“You ordered six.”

“I plan ahead.”

I reached across the table and took one of Briggs’s mozzarella sticks. His eyes narrowed as I bit into it.

“See, Ryan understands exactly what he’s doing. He steals with confidence.”

“That’s because I respect you enough not to lie.”

“You’re all parasites.”

The waitress dropped another basket at the end of the table, and Briggs immediately pulled it closer before anyone else could touch it.

The bullshit came easily with us, which was why Cade had suggested lunch in the first place.

Briggs had appeared on ESPN the night before in one of those preseason college hockey segments where analysts sat behind a desk and spent twenty minutes predicting which players scouts would be watching before the season even started. His name had been near the top of the list. They replayed saves from last year, talked about his size, reaction time, lateral movement, and the kind of NHL ceiling people had been whispering about since his sophomore season.

The group chat had exploded before the segment ended. Briggs responded with a picture of his television and the caption THEY USED MY GOOD SIDE, followed by eleven messages arguing that goalies technically had no bad side because masks improved everyone.

His grandparents had apparently recorded the segment twice. His grandmother called him immediately afterward crying hard enough that Briggs spent most of the conversation assuring her nobody was dying.

Everything about last night should’ve been good.

Then his parents saw it.