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“You know the events.”
The way he said it changed everything.
I stared at him. “What does that mean?”
Ryan’s breathing remained controlled, but the tendons stood out across his hands when he flexed his fingers. My eyes dropped to the scar tissue over knuckles I had kissed, held, and watched move over my body without understanding what else those hands remembered.
“I know you broke it that weekend at the cabin,” I said. “I know you and Briggs had a fight before I got there. I know you ended up at the hospital. I know Milwaukee still honored your contract.”
Ryan’s eyes locked on mine.
“What?”
“You know the ESPN version.”
My stomach dropped. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and for the first time since I stepped onto the patio, my anger made room for something colder.
“What don’t I know?”
His expression shifted just enough to answer before his mouth did.
“Aura and Bliss never told you?”
I stared at him. “Told me what?”
Ryan looked through the glass doors. Guests had gathered near the tables closest to the patio, and Rider stood at the bar with his phone in one hand, his attention fixed on us despite the conversation Briggs appeared determined to maintain beside him.
Ryan reached for his glass, then left it on the railing. “I’m not doing this here.”
“Ryan.”
“Not tonight while I have to stand beside Cade, smile at hundreds of people, and wait for your father to decide how publicly he wants to remind me I’ll never be human enough to sit at the same table as him.” He pulled off his hat, dragged one hand through his hair, and shoved it back into place. “I don’t need his shit and yours at the same time.”
“I’m not Lance.”
“No, you aren’t.” His face tightened with exhaustion that hurt worse than anger. “But right now, you’re so busy trying to prove you can save us that you aren’t listening when I tell you I’m barely holding my shit together.”
The fight inside me staggered.
Ryan retrieved his drink. “I said we’ll talk later because I meant it. I wasn’t dismissing you. I was trying to keep this from happening in front of everyone we know.”
“I didn’t understand.”
“That’s the fucking point, Charm. You don’t understand. You never have. You treat my boundaries and warnings like suggestions. I don’t think you’ve ever fucking heard me.”
He moved toward the patio door, and every old instinct demanded I catch his arm, block his path, and force the conversation to finish before I allowed him to disappear into another crowded room. Uncertainty still felt too much like abandonment when Ryan created it.
I let him pass.
He stopped beside me, and for one second I thought he might touch me. His hand flexed at his side before he forced it into the pocket of his jeans.
“I will talk to you,” he said. “Not now.”
Then he walked inside.
I remained on the patio with my hands shaking, and I looked down at them without trying to hide it.
