Page 229 of Power Play

“I’m looking at the dress.”

“What about it?”

I pulled the fabric away from my stomach and watched it settle back into place. “Nothing.”

“That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“It fits.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

The answer pressed against my teeth, but admitting that I had measured myself three times since his bus left felt humiliating. I couldn’t tell Ryan that I had skipped lunch and spent the drive home calculating whether the wine at dinner would make my stomach look different beneath the fabric.

“It doesn’t look right.”

“According to who?”

I stared at the woman in the mirror. “Me.”

“Take a picture.”

“What?”

“Send me a picture of the dress.”

“I’m not sending you a full-body picture before your game so you can evaluate whether I look acceptable.”

“Good, because that isn’t what I’m doing.”

“Then why do you want one?”

“Because I want to see my girlfriend before she walks into that restaurant and burns her father’s birthday dinner to the ground.”

Despite everything, my mouth twitched.

“I’m not burning anything down.”

“You’re telling them about me. Same difference.”

The teasing should have helped, but the pressure beneath my ribs kept climbing. I muted the call and opened the top drawer of my dresser. The measuring tape sat beneath my underwear where I had hidden it after returning from Ryan’s apartment.

My hands moved faster than my thoughts.

I wrapped the tape around my waist and pulled it until the numbers aligned. The measurement was the same as it had been that morning. I tightened the tape anyway, watching the number drop when it bit into my skin.

For several seconds, relief softened the panic.

Then the relief disappeared because I knew I had cheated the measurement.

I checked again, first around my waist and then my hips. Ryan’s name remained bright on the phone screen beside the muted symbol while I stood in the dress he wanted to see, measuring whether my body deserved to be inside it.

When I unmuted the call, my breathing was steadier.

“Sorry.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”