Page 392 of Power Play

“That isn’t what I said.”

“You told Briggs not to let me near you.”

“So you went around him.”

“I went to watch you play. I kept my coat over your jersey and my hat on. Nobody knew who I was, and you couldn’t have seen me from the ice.”

My attention dropped to the strip of blue visible beneath her partially opened coat. The bottom of my number reached her thighs.

She’d worn my jersey. She hid from me, but she wore my fucking name.

Every emotion I’d fought through the game rose again. The empty seat beside Bliss, the crowd screaming while I searched the faces around my friends, and the stupid, desperate part of me that kept believing she might appear if I looked one more time pressed against my ribs.

“You were there.”

“I told you I would be.”

“I told Briggs to keep you away from me.”

“He did. He didn’t know I went because nobody did.”

I dragged both hands over my face and pressed my palms against my eyes until colors burst behind them. “This is so fucked, Charm.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you agreeing with me.”

She closed her mouth.

The refrigerator hummed behind her. Sauce spread between pieces of broken glass while snow melted from her coat onto the tile. I should’ve told her to leave. The second cabin was less than a hundred yards away. I could move aside, give her room to avoid the mess, and watch her walk out.

Briggs wasn’t there to get between us, though. No one stood inside the lodge to tell me I’d already said everything that needed to be said, and I hated how grateful I was for that. Some part of me had been waiting for another fight because the last one ended with a locked door and half the words still trapped inside me.

Charm bent toward the broken container.

“Don’t.” I caught her wrist before her hand reached the glass.

Her skin was cold beneath my fingers. We both looked at where I was touching her, and I released her before stepping back.

“You’ll cut yourself.”

“I was going to pick up the larger pieces.”

“And then you’d cut yourself.”

“I can clean it.”

“I said I’ll do it.”

I retrieved the broom from the pantry and swept the broken glass into a pile while Charm remained near the counter. She knew where the paper towels were, and I knew she would wipe the sauce from the cabinet before she left because she couldn’t tolerate leaving a mess for someone else to handle. We moved around the same kitchen with the old familiarity of my apartment, and recognizing it became another thing I resented her for making me feel.

“I heard you signed,” she said.

I pushed the ruined food into the dustpan. “News moves fast.”

“The group chat went nuts.”

“Glad I missed it.”