Page 224 of Face Off

“Go back to the party, Charm.”

Her face crumples. “I need to talk to him.”

“No, you don’t.”

“That’s Lance. My mother is leaving him, and apparently everyone knew except me. Ryan just—”

“This is exactly why you cannot go after him right now.” Cade’s voice remains low, but it cuts straight through hers. “He is barely holding himself together, and you’re already making what happened to him about what nobody told you.”

“I am not.”

“You are.” Cade plants himself more firmly between us when Charm tries to move around him. “There is nothing you can do to fix this, and there is nothing you can say that will help him right now. Go back to the party.”

“I’m not leaving him like this.”

“I’m not asking!” He shouts, not to scare her but to shut her up and listen.

Bliss reaches Charm, still crying as she wraps both arms around her waist. Charm fights her hold, desperate to reach me, but Cade doesn’t move.

He looks past her at Bliss. “Pip, take her. I’ve got him.”

Charm shakes her head. “Ryan, don’t walk away from me.”

I pace several steps into the darkness before turning back because even leaving the terrace feels impossible with this much rage trapped inside me.

“I’m not doing this with you right now.” My voice fractures beneath the force required to keep it from becoming another shout. “I cannot carry whatever you’re feeling about your parents while I’m still trying not to go after your father again. Stay here! For once, fucking listen to me!”

Cade approaches me carefully. “Come on. We’re walking.”

“I don’t need a fucking walk.”

“Then you can pace beside me while telling me how much you don’t need one.”

I drag my hands over my head again. “Fuck!”

“I know. Keep moving.”

Charm calls my name, but Cade catches the back of my neck and turns me toward the dark lawn. He doesn’t try to settle me, tell me it’s over, or demand that I calm down. He simply matches every furious step while I leave the terrace still swearing, still shaking, and still fighting the urge to turn around.

Behind us, Bliss holds Charm in place while Cade walks with me into the night.

18

Ryan

Cade stays beside me as I cross the lawn, but he does not try to slow me down. I walk until the terrace lights disappear behind the trees, turn at the edge of the garden, and come back hard enough that he has to pivot to keep pace. The night air hits the blood drying along my mouth and cools the sweat beneath my shirt, but it does nothing to lower the temperature inside me.

Every time I hear Lance call my mother a whore, I turn around again.

Every time I see the satisfaction on his face after he went for Briggs, I walk faster.

“Fuck!” I drag both hands over my head and pace toward the stone wall bordering the garden. “I should’ve hit him.”

“You put him on the ground.”

“I should’ve fucking hit him.”

“You would’ve kept hitting him.”