Chapter 28: THE CHARM OFFENSIVE

Georgia

He was easy where Puck was hard, and I told myself that was a good thing. That ease was what I should want, after everything - after the burning touches and the confusing silences and the constant, exhausting work of trying to decode a boy who never gave me a straight answer. I deserved simple. I deserved someone whose presence didn’t come with a warning label, someone who wouldn’t leave me lying awake at night trying to piece together the meaning behind a single glance.

Darcy finds me at lunch three days after our first meeting, sliding into the seat across from me like an old habit rather than a new one. The other students at the table shift to accommodate him without comment, as though his belonging there had already been decided somewhere I wasn’t consulted. I notice the ease of it, the way the world seemed to rearrange itself around him without friction, and some small, wary part of me filed that observation away before I could examine it too closely.

"You skate like you’re angry at the ice," he says, without preamble, stealing a fry from my tray like he’s done it a hundred times before. "Most people skate like they’re asking it for permission. You skate like you’re settling a score."

"Maybe I am," I say, startled into honesty.

"With who? The ice, or your mother?" He watches my face when he says it, and something in his eyes sharpens, interested, like he’s found a thread he intends to pull.

"That’s a very specific guess," I say, recovering, keeping my voice light even as my pulse ticks up.

"I pay attention." He shrugs, easy, unbothered, and steals another fry. "It’s a skill."

I don’t answer that, but I don’t leave, either. There’s something disarming about being studied so openly, without the furtive glances and careful deflections I’d grown used to from everyone else at Rosethorne. When he asks about my last competition, my worst landing, the exact rotation I under-rotated on, he listens to the answer instead of just waiting for his turn to talk. Somewhere in the middle of my explanation, I stop bracing for whatever this is supposed to cost me, and the realization surprises me - how long had it been since I’d spoken without calculating the price of my own words?

The days that follow settle into an easy rhythm - lunches, walks between classes, conversations that don’t require the vigilance I’ve gotten used to with everyone else here. No watching for micro-expressions. No parsing careful deflections for what they’re avoiding. Just conversation, uncomplicated and pleasant, the kind that lets me exhale for the first time in weeks. I find myself looking forward to the small, ordinary moments of his company, the way his presence asks nothing of me beyond what I’m willing to give.

"You look less tense than usual," he observes one afternoon, his tone light, hands tucked into his pockets as we walk toward the library.

"Is that a compliment?" I ask, one eyebrow lifting.

"An observation," he corrects, mild and unbothered. "You carry a lot of tension in your shoulders. I notice things like that." He glances at me sideways, warmth easing into his expression. "It’s nice, seeing you a little more relaxed."

"Maybe you’re just easy to talk to," I say, testing the words as they leave my mouth.

"I do try," he says, his voice dipping into self-deprecation that somehow doesn’t feel humble at all, more like confidence dressed up as modesty. I find I don’t mind it the way I might expect to. There’s something almost soothing about a person who knows exactly what he is and doesn’t bother pretending otherwise. Maybe that’s what I’d been missing - not softness, but certainty, someone who didn’t seem to be hiding a second self behind the one he showed me. With Darcy, what I saw felt like what I got, and after months of trying to read between the lines of everyone around me, that plainness felt like a kind of relief I hadn’t known I was starving for.

Then, gradually, small comments start slipping into our conversations, easy and offhand, delivered with the same light charm as everything else he says.

"Puck Hale," he says once, apropos of nothing, turning the name over like he’s tasting it. "Families like his tend to have a certain reputation. All that old money, all that careful polish. Makes you wonder what’s actually underneath it."

Something tightens in my chest, a small flare of defensiveness I don’t examine closely enough to stop before it’s already out of my mouth. "He took a slap shot to the ribs at practice last month and finished the drill before anyone noticed he was hurt," I say, my voice sharper than I intend. "And he’s had a dozen chances to touch me and hasn’t, not once, not even by accident. That’s not nothing. You don’t know him."

"Maybe," he allows, his shrug easy, unbothered, his gaze steady on me in a way I can’t quite read. "Just something to keep in mind."

It happens again a few days later, another small, elegant dig - something about how the Hales expect a certain deference from everyone around them, how exhausting it must be, standing that close to someone with so much weight on his shoulders and so little patience for people who don’t fall in line. He delivers it the way he delivers everything, without malice on the surface, just a thoughtful observation dropped into the conversation like a stone into still water, and I find myself watching the ripples spread before I can stop them, unsettled by how deliberately each word seems chosen.

"That’s not fair," I say, my hands curling at my sides before I’ve fully decided to defend him. "You’re making him sound like some kind of tyrant. He’s not like that."

"You sound very certain," he murmurs, his head tilting, studying me the way someone studies a puzzle they’ve already half-solved.

"I am certain," I hear myself say, my tone firm and immediate, and something in me pauses at how quickly I jumped to his defense, how little thought went into it before the words were already spoken. The realization sits uncomfortably in my stomach, a small betrayal of whatever careful distance I meant to keep. I hadn’t meant to sound like that - like someone standing guard over a person who hadn’t asked for protection, who probably wouldn’t have wanted it even if he had. And yet the loyalty had risen in me anyway, quick and instinctive, as though some part of me had already decided where I stood long before my mind caught up.

Darcy watches me for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he smiles, slow and knowing, like he’s just confirmed something he’d been quietly testing for, and I feel a small chill move through me despite the warmth of the hallway around us.

"Careful," he says, his voice soft, almost gentle, the warmth in it not quite matching the sharpness underneath. "That one’s not as safe as he looks."