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“I know.”
The heaviness remained, though it didn’t erase the last hour. Our problems waited beneath every joke, patient enough to know alcohol and chemistry couldn’t keep them buried forever.
Tonight wasn’t the confrontation.
Neither of us wanted it to be.
I nudged his arm lightly with mine. “We’ll keep the mezcal plan to quantities that preserve everyone’s bones.”
Ryan looked at me, and some of the tension left his face. “That sounds restrictive.”
“It’s a wedding, Ryan. Sacrifices are expected.”
His mouth curved again. “Fine. Moderate mezcal.”
“There’s no chance Briggs understands moderate.”
“We’ll assign Rider to him.”
Rider looked over. “I heard that.”
“You’ve been assigned,” Ryan told him.
“I decline.”
“Wedding duties are mandatory,” Bliss called from beside Cade.
Rider rubbed one hand over his face. “I should’ve stayed semi-professional and emotionally unavailable.”
“You’re still emotionally unavailable,” Briggs assured him. “You’re just loved against your will.”
Dinner approached while the bartender cleared empty glasses and promised Bliss the pink signature cocktail would be ready for approval tomorrow. Cade asked for water before anyone left the bar, and Aura ordered food from the kitchen after announcing that none of us would attend dinner smelling like a distillery.
Ryan slid a glass of water toward me.
I accepted it and drank while watching everyone return to the loud, familiar chaos that had carried us through college, trauma, championships, breakups, and every terrible decision between them.
Ryan remained beside me.
His thigh still touched mine. Neither of us moved enough to break the contact.
For one hour, we had remembered how easy we once were together. The jokes landed in the same places. Attraction moved between us with the same brutal certainty. He remembered my drink, caught my glass before it spilled, defended me before I needed him to, and recognized every shift in my expression.
I spoke Spanish to him, made him laugh, and sat close enough to feel the warmth of the body I still remembered in darkness.
No time had passed inside those pieces of us.
Fifteen months still waited everywhere else.
6
Ryan
The second Charm disappeared upstairs with Aura and Bliss, every man in the corridor turned toward me.
I made it to my room before Briggs caught the door with one hand and followed me inside. Rider and Easton crowded in behind him like the interrogation required witnesses. I dropped the box containing my tie bar onto the dresser and faced them.
“You’re worse than the women.”
