Page 422 of Face Off

“That feels hostile after I located your missing woman.”

“She located you.”

“Which demonstrates excellent judgment.”

“Briggs.”

“I’m moving.”

Charm returns to the phone. “He’s looking for pants.”

“Don’t help him.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

A door opens on her end before Briggs announces that he has located something with a drawstring and deserves recognition for overcoming adversity.

“Go inside my apartment,” I tell her. “I’m turning around now.”

“Drive safely.”

“You too.”

“I’m already here.”

I close my eyes as the meaning moves through me again. “I know, mi hada. You came home.”

Her voice softens. “So did you.”

The call ends after neither of us manages to say goodbye.

I descend the steps beneath Charm’s loft and look through Encanto’s front window one more time. The glass dress glows on her desk, surrounded by the life she built while learning she could survive without me.

I’m not asking her to abandon any of it.

I’m asking her to bring all of it with her.

I return to my truck and point it toward Milwaukee, where Charm is waiting inside my apartment because we finally chose the same future without requiring the other person to choose it first.

36

Charm

Briggs opens Ryan’s refrigerator and stares into it as though the contents have personally betrayed him.

“This is fucking bleak.”

I lean around his shoulder. “You live six doors down. How are you surprised?”

“I’m not surprised. I’m disappointed that another grocery-shopping opportunity has passed without personal growth.”

He begins removing containers one at a time. Chicken. Rice. More chicken. Something green sealed beneath plastic. Six bottles of BodyArmor occupy the top shelf with every label facing forward.

“Meal prep is where joy comes to die,” he announces.

“There’s beer in the bottom drawer.”

Briggs drops into a crouch and yanks it open. “I take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about him.”