The Damian effect was still with me. I’d felt it the whole morning since I’d let myself think of him, and it prevented my usual freak-out when the guys came in. I almost felt like a normal person. I was just standing here, doing dishes. No idiotic questions burst out of me like a backward fart, and I hadn’t even felt the usual amount of anger toward Keith when he came in. That would change, but for now, I almost felt melancholy.

As if sensing he was safe, Reese Forster walked in with Juan Cartion right behind him and a couple other players too.

Normal Charlie would’ve categorized every single person. I would’ve taken note of what they were wearing, how they were walking, how I thought they might’ve smelled. All of it.

But melancholy Charlie only looked at him a moment before finishing my pan and putting it through the washer.

See? Normal.

I could do this.

Thoughts of the ex-soulmate who had shattered me were going to be my friend for the next three weeks.

These three weeks were going to suck.

I inhaled, feeling my lungs tremble, and swallowed over a couple knives in my throat. My hands shook slightly when I reached for the next round of dishes, but then I firmed everything. Whatever. I could do this.

It’d been a year. I should’ve dealt with the Damian trauma long before now anyway.

I’d have to look up nearby therapists at this rate—or write my book. Shit. I’d forgotten that was the main excuse for coming out here. Yes. Maybe I should plan to actually work on that thing.

I don’t know why I looked up. Might’ve been the hairs on the back of my neck shifting. They didn’t stand up. It wasn’t that type of feeling that was trickling down my back, but it was an awareness.

I glanced up and that nice soft trickle ramped up in volume. I was scorched to the bone.

Reese Forster was staring at me.

He sat at a table a few yards away, and while his teammates were talking, he was looking right at me.

I paused with the dishes.

The whole thing only lasted a second or two, but the world melted away. I felt a pounding in my chest. Maybe it was my heart. Maybe it was Damian wanting to tear out of me. Whatever it was, I swallowed over that damn lump that seemed permanently lodged there, and I stopped what I was doing.

Until he looked away.

One of the guys spoke to him, and he turned to answer.

The spell was broken, but I felt the remnants still inside of me.