For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,83

insisted.

Kate just pointed at Rhaven. "Her look was." And with a grin, she left.

The door was barely closed before he was toying with the feminine curls in Rhaven's hair. "I love this. The shaved part, the color, the curls. It's very you."

"Yeah?" she asked.

He nodded to prove the point. "Don't get me wrong, you're cute as a guy, but you're hot as a woman."

She playfully slapped at his chest. "Yeah, yeah." Then she turned for the couch. "Braden?"

Oh, that sounded bad. He braced for the worst. "Yeah?"

"Am I still your girlfriend?"

"I'm hoping you are," he admitted. "I also know that a lot just happened. How'd your family take - "

He didn't even get to finish the question before her phone began to vibrate. Rhaven's face went pale and her eyes held the screen like she was holding something poisonous. That was a look of pure fear, so he slid the phone from her fingers. The name on the screen was simple: Dad.

"Rhaven?" he asked. "What did they say?"

"Nothing," she breathed. "I ran before they could."

So, before she could stop him, he swiped at the screen. "This is Braden."

Her father's voice was on the other end of the line. "Is he there?"

"She," Braden corrected.

"Yeah, right," Bill mumbled. "Is she ok?"

Braden just looked at her and lifted his chin. "You ok, babe?" Rhaven jiggled her head in a nod, so Braden decided to put that into words. "She's hanging in there. It's been rough, it sounds like, but I just got here."

"Where's here?" Bill begged.

"Uh, the Pinnacle Royal in Denver," Braden said. "She's been set up in a pretty nice suite, and - "

"What?" Bill asked. "How?"

Braden chuckled. "Bill, your daughter's pretty well connected. Rhaven's best friend, Kate, all but runs these hotels and she's dating, Adam, the man who owns them. Rhaven's safe. She's also worried about you."

"Me?" he asked.

"Mhm," Braden agreed. "Well, and her brother. She's terrified you won't accept her as a woman."

"Braden!" Rhaven hissed.

He patted the air to calm her down, then mouthed, "I got this."

"I don't understand what he's - she's - going through," Bill admitted. "Tyler's been trying to tell me what it means to be transgendered, but I still don't get how that works. I mean, she just picks a new name and starts wearing women's clothes?"

Braden moved to the couch across from Rhaven and eased himself down. "It's a little more complicated than that." He caught Rhaven's eye. "Hey, can I lay it all out for them?"

"I guess," she said, the words almost too soft to be heard.

"I don't have to, Rhave. That's your ball game, but you looked scared as shit when the phone rang, and this is one thing I can do to help."

"Please?" she begged.

He nodded. "Ok. Bill? Here's the thing. Do you feel like a man?"

"Yeah?"

"Why?" Braden asked. "Because you've got a dick? Because you stand to piss? Because you're strong and can lift heavy things? What if you got in an accident and lost your penis? Would you suddenly think you're a girl?"

"No..." Bill said. "I'd still know I'm a man."

"And she just knows she's a woman. The problem is that the stuff on the outside doesn't fit. It's like wearing a shoe that's the wrong size. It chafes, it makes her feet look wrong, and it's just flat-out uncomfortable, because she knows it's wrong. When she was born, they said you had a son, right? But they judged that by her genitals, and people are so much more than that. We're made of thoughts and ideas and emotions. We say she was 'assigned male at birth,' because she's never actually been a male. She was just told she should be."

"Oh," he breathed. "But... "

"It's kinda confusing," Braden assured him. "And around the time puberty hit, she probably got depressed, and you started thinking she was gay because she looked like a boy and checked out the other boys, right?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "And I don't care about that. Ethan's my child! I mean Rhaven." The man sighed again. "I've called her Ethan for twenty-two years, Braden."

"It's a habit now," Braden agreed, "and changing that will take work. See, I met her as Rhaven. For me, it was hard to call her Ethan, so I get it. But what matters is that you try. That you can accept that this is her, and she's a woman - even if her body is going to require a little medical intervention."

"Medical?"

"Hormones," Braden explained. "She's already taking them, and she's going to look