Cameron
I had less than two hours in the car to breathe some life into Charlie.
Ever since the evening of our dinner at The Kinky Starfish, she’d been like a turtle that had retreated into her shell, refusing to poke so much as a toe out, let alone her head. She woke up, went to work, came home, ate dinner, gave me what little energy she could in our conversations, and then she was right back to bed.
And I was running out of time.
Two months wasn’t long, and here I’d already lost almost two weeks. I needed to get her away from the house, away from the every day… away from him.
My heart had done a little jump for joy when she agreed to let me take her out of town this weekend, but it would be a pointless trip if I couldn’t reach inside the shell she was hiding under and coax her out.
“We’ve got a couple hours in the car,” I told her once we were outside the Mount Lebanon city limits. “Feel free to kick off your shoes and get comfortable.”
“Okay,” she said softly, but her tired eyes stayed glued on the trees we passed outside her window. She was leaning so close to her door that I couldn’t reach over and rest my right hand on her knee, but I left it open on the center console — just in case.
Ideas for how to get her to laugh popped through my mind like lottery balls as I drove, and I waited for one to jump out and stick. I should have asked Patrick if he had any ideas before I left, since it had been his suggestion to take the trip. Then again, my time with Patrick was already packed, and I needed every minute he had to filter through my own shit.
I met with Patrick for the first time the very next evening after Charlie rejected me in our bed, and I’d been with him every day since — save for Saturday and Sunday. Charlie thought I was working late again, and as much as I hated it, I let her believe that was the truth. I didn’t want to tell her I was talking to a therapist until I had something more substantial than that to say.
Like that it was helping.
The first session had been the most difficult, my head hung between my shoulders as I wrung my hands together and confessed what a horrid husband I’d been to my wife since we lost our children.
It felt a little like the one and only time my father had dragged me to church with him, when I’d sat outside the confessional as he told the man inside it all of his transgressions. He’d been tasked with a handful of Hail Mary’s to absolve his sins, but I knew there was nothing I could do to ever make peace with mine. I only wanted to try — not for me, but for Charlie.
I wanted to be the man she deserved, though I’d never be the one who deserved her, in return.
Patrick had sent me away with homework after every session. Sometimes it was to write about a memory, something from my childhood, and other times it was answering a list of questions I’d never even thought to ask myself. One of them that stuck with me long after I’d let the pen drop on the page I wrote on was, “What do you love about your wife, and what do you think she loves about you?”
Answering the first half of that question was like adding one plus one together. Loving Charlie was effortless — it always had been.
Since the moment I met her, I knew she was unlike any other girl I’d known before her. The way her cheeks tinged when I held her hand, the way she smiled fully only to bite her lower lip like she wished she could take part of that smile back, like she was showing all her cards at once, the way her soft eyes searched mine every time she asked me a question, like she was hearing the answer I gave and also the one I didn’t at the same time — it was all part of what made Charlie the one and only girl I ever let inside my head.
Because I trusted her to see me, the real me, and not run away.
Those small truths were what had drawn me into Charlie, what had made me want her, but it was what I found after months of spending time with her that made me love her.
It was how intelligent she was, how she was always reading and learning, talking to others like they were more of a lesson than anything she could find in a classroom. It was how she cried for stray dogs and cheered for couples getting engaged at the park we used to walk in together, even when she had no idea who they were. It was how she held me the night I told her what happened with my father, and instead of saying she was sorry, she told me she was thankful to him.
Because everything that had happened in my life, whether good or bad, had somehow led me to her.
Then, she told me she loved me, and I knew my life would never be the same again.
My reasons for loving Charlie were endless, and each sentence I wrote about her brought me back to the fact that I could not lose her. But in order to keep her, I knew I had to dig deep, into a part of myself I never wanted to touch, or see, or let be seen. That’s what I was doing with Patrick — even when it hurt.
The second part of that night’s homework had been impossible to answer.
I knew Charlie loved me. That was perhaps what I loved most about her, the way she loved me. The way she saw me, cared for me, understood me. But to answer the question of why she loved me, of what she loved about me — it was impossible.
Because I didn’t understand it. I never had.
I didn’t see anything inside me worth loving. I was an unwanted child, both by my mother who was killed and my father who killed her — even by my grandparents who were stuck with me after the murder. They cared for me, they loved me enough to put me in hockey and get me thinking about college, but even still, I knew I was something they never asked for. I was a burden.
I’d tried to love Charlie right.
Since the moment I realized I loved her and she loved me in return, I vowed to be everything she needed in life — and that was well before our wedding day. But I’d failed her, and for that reason, I couldn’t think of a single reason why she should love me.
But maybe, just maybe, I could change that.
“Are you hungry?” I asked when we were a little over an hour into our drive.
Charlie shook her head, gaze still fixed out the window. I wondered what she was thinking.
“I’m okay.”
I frowned. “Are you sure? We haven’t eaten dinner yet, and there’s a stop coming up that STRIPES!”
The word flew out of my mouth before I could stop it, and Charlie jumped a little before looking over at me with wide eyes.
“What?”
It had been habit, calling out the object marker sign as we passed by it. The yellow and black stripes slanted at an angle toward the road, indicating an obstruction, and I drove slightly to the left to avoid a small breakage in the road just before a bridge. Charlie still stared at me, and even I was surprised I’d called it, but I realized it may be the perfect opportunity to break through to her.
“You heard me,” I said, feigning confidence. I adjusted my hold on the wheel and turned to her with a wry smile. “Stripes. Whatcha taking off, first?”
Charlie’s mouth popped open, a mixture of emotions crossing over her features as she processed. She went from shocked, to confused, to marginally amused, and back to disbelief again.
“You’re kidding, right?” she said, leaning up in her seat.
But she was smiling. That was a win.
“Stripes,” she deadpanned. “As in, the car game we used to play when we were in college.”
“The one and only.”
It was a road trip game we played, mostly when traveling to parties off campus or making our way across country for spring breaks. Any time you saw that stripes sign, you called out STRIPES, and everyone who didn’t call it first had to take off an article of clothing. First person to call stripes three times won, and everyone else had to strip completely at that point.
Charlie laughed, crossing her arms as her eyes found the road in front of us. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not playing that. I’m thirty years old,” she pointed out. “And you’re thirty-one. We’re adults.”
“So? You still have great tits, and I want to see them. Strip.”
&n
bsp; Charlie’s jaw dropped again and I belly laughed, tossing my head back before meeting her eyes with a challenging gaze.
“Did you just say I have nice tits,” she said, but already she was laughing, too. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that. Ever.”
“Well, it’s true,” I confessed. “Now, are you going to strip, or is my girl backing out of a challenge because she’s too old?”
Charlie laughed incredulously, her arms still crossed as she shook her head at me. She opened her mouth to argue again, but then simply closed it before she leaned up and stripped off her socks from her feet. She’d already taken her boots off earlier, and she sat back with one eyebrow cocked, popping her feet up on the dash.
“There,” she said. “Happy?”
“I mean, I would have much preferred the shirt, but I’ll take what I can get,” I teased.
Charlie chuckled, looking out the window again as her now-bare feet bopped along to the song on the radio.
She was peeking out of her shell, and I knew I had to make another move while I had the chance.
I slipped my phone from the center console, thumbing through it until I found the song. Once Ain’t No Mountain High Enough started playing, I tapped the plus volume button on my steering wheel, watching Charlie as I did.
At first, she didn’t respond, other than to cast me a confused glance as to why the music was suddenly so loud. But as the melody floated in and she recognized the familiar intro, she smiled.
“This always makes me think of the summer before our senior year,” she said. “Remember? When we all drove up to Erie?”
“I do,” I said. “Ready for the duet?”
She scoffed. “Oh, please. Like you’ll sing. I tried to get you to for years and—”
But before she could finish the sentence, I was already belting out Marvin Gaye’s first verse, and for the third time, Charlie’s mouth hung open.
I finished the first verse, using my right hand to grip an imaginary microphone as I tilted it toward her.
But she didn’t sing. She just gaped.
“Come on, don’t leave me hanging,” I said as Tammi Terrell’s part faded out. I sang Marvin’s next little part, still holding the microphone for her to jump in, and then, just before the chorus hit, I saw another sign.
“STRIPES!” I called out, and then I pulled the microphone back, belting out the first part of the chorus as Charlie whipped around just in time to see the sign pass by.
She turned on me, mouth open in a surprised smile, but she only paused a moment more before she ripped her shirt over her head and spun it around like a rodeo rope as she joined in on the chorus. We both laughed our way through the words, though I was more than a little distracted now that her simple, nude bra was exposed. My hand drifted over with the microphone, but as she leaned to sing into it, I dropped down lower and cupped her breast with a squeeze.
Charlie swatted my hand away, still laughing as the second verse kicked in, and then she threw her hand up and pointed out the window.
“STRIPES!”
I’d seen the sign, too, but not before her. So, I held the wheel steady with one hand, stripping out of my sweater before peeling it off that arm and tossing it toward Charlie. She caught it on a laugh, and then the second chorus started.
We sang loud and entirely off key, but neither of us cared. And when I looked over in the passenger seat, I saw Charlie — all of her.
I saw her when she was nineteen and nervous, her hands tucked between her thighs in my old Pontiac.
I saw her eyes wide and lips parted as I slid inside her for the first time.
I saw her under a white veil as she promised to love me for the rest of her life.
And the way she looked at me, the way she tilted her head to the side just an inch, I couldn’t be sure what she was thinking, but I did know one thing.
She still loved me.
Even if I didn’t know why, I knew she did.
The song faded out, both of us still bopping along, and she leaned one elbow on the console with her hand propped on her chin.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
I slowed, glancing at the road once more before my eyes found hers. She watched me with brows bent together, like being near me hurt her as much as it healed her. I framed her chin with my pointer finger and thumb, lowering my lips to hers slowly and purposefully, as if that kiss was my only chance to keep her outside of her shell. I’d finally coaxed her out, and now I needed her to stay.
My eyes found the road again, ensuring I was driving safe before I glanced back at her. She was still watching me, a small smile on her lips now.
“I love you.”
I rubbed her lower lip with my thumb, tracing where I’d just kissed her. “I love you, too.”
When my eyes glanced back to the road, I smirked, leaning in to press my lips to hers once more.
“And Charlie?”
“Yes?” she breathed.
I smiled wider, kissing her nose.
“Stripes.”
Charlie tilted her head again, then she whipped around just in time to see the sign fly by.
“Damn it!” she yelled on a laugh, then she poked my ribs over and over as I laughed, too, trying to dodge her jabs. I memorized her laugh in that moment, the way it left her lips at different decibels, the tone of it sweet and song-like.
I wanted to bottle it up and keep it forever, just in case I ever wanted to take a sip of this night again. Later. In another time.
In a time when maybe she wouldn’t be mine anymore.
“So, I have to strip now?” she asked.
I just lifted a brow, because she already knew the answer.
Besides, I was too busy tracing the lines of her face, tacking them to the foam board of my memory, hoping to keep her there forever.
But when she reached behind her, eyes on me as she unclasped her bra, everything else faded away.
And I prayed to God for more time.
Charlie
“That was so fun,” I said as Cameron unloaded our bags from the trunk.
He threw them over his shoulders, closing the trunk and reaching for my hand as my mind ran over the memories that resurfaced from the evening.
“I can’t believe how much the campus has changed,” I added, offering to take my bag from him. He just shook his head, tightening his grip on my hand. “The old bonfire pit is gone. I mean… gone.”
“Guess they needed a Science Center more than drunken bonfires.”
“They’ve got their priorities wrong.”
He chuckled at that, opening the door that led into the hotel lobby. When I stepped inside, a wave of familiarity washed over me, and I frowned.
“I’ve been here before.”
Cameron smirked, dropping our bags by my feet as he dug out his wallet.
“I’ll go check us in. Be right back.”
He made his way to the desk as I looked around the run-down lobby, wondering why it felt so familiar. I also couldn’t help but question why it had been the place Cameron chose for us to sleep that night. To say it was a little shabby for his usual taste would be an understatement. The carpeted floors were stained, the lighting low and dingy, with various bulbs burnt out and not replaced. We were one of very few cars outside, which didn’t surprise me being that our university was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Still, I was surprised we hadn’t driven back into the city for the night, to a more grand hotel.
Then again, I’d given up on trying to figure out any of Cameron’s moves that night.
From planning a spontaneous weekend trip to singing in the car on the ride out to Garrick, he’d surprised me. What had surprised me most was how he’d managed to turn my entire night around — maybe even my entire week.
It had been surreal, driving around campus, seeing all that had changed since we were students there. He’d wanted to take me to the old bonfire pit at the end of the night, after dinner at the small diner on campus, of course, but the pi
t had been demolished and replaced by a modern, all-glass and steel building.
So instead, we’d sat at the edge of the dock on the campus lake and recounted all the nights we’d spent around that fire pit, from the night he’d nearly punched one of his fraternity brothers for ogling me to the night he’d told me about his parents.
That was the night I told him I loved him.
He’d taken almost three months to say it in return.
I didn’t mind waiting for him, though — not back then. With Cameron, his word meant something to him. There was so much thought and intention behind every sentence that left his mouth, and I knew that if and when he did tell me he loved me, he would mean it.
Maybe more than anyone had ever meant it before.
And when he did tell me, I’d felt every part of my heart squeeze at his words. We were napping between classes one lazy, rainy afternoon, and he woke up before me. I opened my eyes to find his there staring back at me, and he swept my hair out of my face, told me he loved me, and leaned in to seal that confession with the sweetest kiss of my life.
I was smiling at that memory when Cameron returned from the front desk, holding up a key card between his thumb and index finger.
“Come on,” he said, picking up the bags again. “Let’s get you to this room.”
“Anxious to get me alone there, Mr. Pierce?”
Cameron eyed me. “You were stark ass naked in the seat next to me for the last half hour of our drive into campus, and I couldn’t touch you. Does that answer your question?”
I flushed, biting my lower lip as he reached for my hand and dragged me down the hall to the elevators. “It was your idea to play Stripes,” I countered. “To be fair.”
“There’s nothing fair about you being naked when I can’t touch you.”
I laughed, but inside my stomach flipped inside out. The last time he’d tried to touch me, I’d rejected him — the same way he’d rejected me so many nights in the last five years. It wasn’t that his touch didn’t still elicit a need within me, but that night, Reese had been the main man on my mind.
I didn’t want to touch Cameron when I was thinking of Reese.
What He Always Knew (What He Doesn't Know Duet Book 2) Page 7