Cut Free (The Sublime Book 4)

by Julia Wolf

  I sipped the girly cocktail I’d ordered and settled back in my cushy seat.

  “Thank you for today,” I said.

  Charlie ran a hand over his sleek hair and smiled softly. “You’re pretty easy to please.”

  “I guess that’s what happens when you grow up going to only three places: school, the club, or home.”

  “The club?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “My family belongs to this country club. Their entire social lives revolve around it. There’s tennis in the spring, the pool in the summer, racquetball and indoor soccer in the cooler months. My mom doesn’t work, so her time is spent at the club, event planning with the other ladies who lunch.”

  “I knew you were fancy.”

  “I’m not going to deny I grew up with money. But everything about my childhood was stifling. There was so much pressure to be ‘the same.’ Everyone attended the same synagogue, but only on high holidays because we were religious but not religious, kids were expected to go to college and not some lowly state school or trade school, children played approved sports like I mentioned, and if you dared color your hair something other than a color found in nature or wore jeans with a tiny hole in them, you were mocked and shunned. My parents worried deeply about offending other members if one of us made a social misstep.”

  “I’m probably your parents’ worst nightmare. I’m like the exact opposite of all those things and I sure as hell didn’t grow up with money.”

  I shook my head. “Right now, I’m their worst nightmare. Edward’s family belongs to the club too, so you can imagine their reaction when that ended. We haven’t spoken since.”

  Charlie looked stunned. I had only told Rachel and Frannie about my parents disowning me and they’d had the same reaction. I wished I could say I was surprised, but when I chose to leave Edward, I knew what my parents’ response would be. They were more worried about smoothing things over with Edward’s parents than how I felt.

  “You could never be a nightmare. You’re a dream,” Charlie said.

  “Thank you, Charlie. That’s just...thank you.” I sighed. He had no idea what his sweetness did to me. He was always so nice, so thoughtful, and for someone who wasn’t used to that kind of treatment, it meant more than it probably should have.

  Our waitress brought by plates of food, ending the topic of discussion, which was a relief. Talking about my childhood was always a downer. I didn’t want to be down with Charlie. He was fun, he was adventure, he was everything happy and good. He made me feel like I could be those things too.

  After we ate—goat cheese fondue was my new favorite food group—Charlie drove us back to Tiber City.

  “Am I a rebel yet?” I asked when he pulled into his parking spot behind his building.

  “You’re getting there. I have mad respect for how willing you are to let me take you where I think you should go,” he said.

  We started walking slowly toward my building, our day together coming to an end.

  “I trust you, Charlie. Besides, nothing we’ve done has been very scary.”

  We stopped in front of my building and he leaned one shoulder against the brick, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “You were a little scared when you realized what we were going to do today,” he said with a playful smile.

  “Only a little,” I said softly.

  Charlie held his arms out. “Come here.”

  I giggled and walked into his embrace. He squeezed me tight and kissed the top of my head.

  I gasped. “You kissed me!”

  I felt his chest vibrate against my cheek as he laughed and held me against him.

  “Since you’re always trying to kiss me, I thought I’d make it easy on you and get our first kiss out of the way.”

  I leaned back and frowned up at him. He pushed my bangs aside and rubbed the line between my eyebrows with his fingertips.

  “You’re really cute when you try to look angry,” he said.

  He watched me as I captured his hand in mine and brought it to my lips, leaving a soft kiss on his warm skin.

  “There, now I’ve kissed you,” I said.

  Charlie pointed to his cheek. “Do I get my do-over yet?”

  Without hesitating or letting myself think it through, I rested my hands on his shoulders, stood on my tiptoes, and pressed my lips to his scruffy cheek. I lingered there, but it wasn’t nearly long enough.

  He clutched his chest. “Ah, so that’s what I’ve been missing all my life. Your lips on my skin.”

  I laughed and swatted at him. “I’m going to bed. We have a long run tomorrow.”

  “That’s how it’s going to be? Butter me up with a kiss, and then remind me about the fourteen miles I’ll have to drag myself through at an ungodly hour?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  He nodded back. “Worth it. Good night, Eliza.” He gave my hair a tug, then sauntered down the street, his hands in his jeans pockets.

  Every day with Charlie was a whirlwind, and I was just along for the ride. But oh, the seats were comfortable, and the view was fantastic. I hoped somehow there was a way this ride would never end.

  Ten

  My shears slid across the back of her neck, slicing through her hair like warm butter.

  She started to look up, but I held her head in my hands.

  “Keep your head down please, Victoria,” I instructed.

  “Sorry, Eliza, I always forget!”

  I tilted my client’s head even farther down so I could see the precise angle I was cutting in the back of her hair. Her hair was not unlike my own: black and pin straight. I had been doing her hair for several years, and today, I was transforming her shoulder-length hair to a jaw-length bob angled severely from back to front.

  My client was quiet while I carved her hair into blunt lines and sharp angles. Some of my clients were chatty and they came to me because I let them talk. With them, it was more of a monologue than a dialogue. And then I had clients more like me, who savored the hour of peace in my chair.

  Victoria was a corporate accountant in the middle of tax season. She needed the peace. She also worked with my ex, and he’d been the one who referred her to me. I thought she might stop coming to me when Edward and I broke up, but she had stayed consistent with her regular appointment every other month.

  Once her hair was dry, I checked my cut again. The angle of her hair was so precise, it gave me butterflies in my stomach. I ran a flat iron through her hair to get it perfectly straight and rechecked her cut one last time. I worked more slowly than some of the other stylists in my salon, but my clients came to me for my perfectionism, not my speed.

  I walked Victoria to the reception desk and stayed while she checked out.

  “I’ll see you in two months,” I said after she made her next appointment.

  She ran her hand down her sleek hair and smiled. “You will. Hopefully life will have slowed down just a bit by then.” She started for the door, but then turned back around. “I almost forgot! Edward said to say hello.”

  I forced a small smile. “Okay. I’ll see you soon!”

  She frowned when I didn’t give her a message to take back to him, but then left without comment.

  Edward and I had been broken up for six months and hadn’t spoken since the night Frannie and James came to pick me up so I could leave him. He’d scared me that night, but while Frannie and I had waited in the car, James scared him enough that he hadn’t contacted me unless I initiated it. And I had only texted him to make sure he wasn’t home when I went to pick up the rest of my things from the house we’d shared for three years.

  So, no, I wasn’t going to say “hello” to Edward through Victoria. I didn’t want to know what he was up to or even how he was. I didn’t want him to think there was even the tiniest of openings to worm his way back into my life. I had lost a lot when our relationship ended: my home, my piano, and my relationship with my parents. Truth be told, I would have given up a lot more for the freedom I now had.<
br />
  I had to admit, the last few weeks, since Charlie shook up my life, had been the most spectacularly freeing time I’d ever experienced. I was playing piano more than ever, sometimes with Charlie, but mostly on my own. I was also training for a marathon—something I’d wanted to do for as long as I’d been running. He’d taken me out of the cage I’d allowed my life to be in and showed me there was this whole world out there if only I was willing to see it. And I was willing.

  “Wanna come over and hang out after work?” Rachel asked when she came to the desk.

  I nodded. “Yep, I do!”

  “Awesome!”

  “You have a wedding project you need help with, don’t you?” I asked.

  She tried to look innocent by batting her eyelashes at me. “Can’t a girl just ask her friend to hang out?”

  “Of course. But am I going to be tying ribbon while we hang out?”

  She grinned. “Maaaaybe…”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I’m in.”

  We walked to Rachel and Joe’s place after work. Once we each had a glass of wine and a plate piled with cheese and crackers, we sat in the living room and got to work on her wedding projects.

  Rachel held up a spool of burlap ribbon and a picture of a bow. “Can you recreate this? They’re going on the chairs along the aisle.”

  I held out my hands, and she passed the supplies over. I took a sip of my wine and got to work on recreating the complicated bow.

  “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Rachel said.

  I laughed, but didn’t look up from the ribbon. “We see each other every day at work!”

  “I know, silly. But it’s not the same as this. What have you been up to?”

  “Running, rehearsing the songs for your wedding, and hanging out with Charlie.” I rushed the last part of my sentence, hoping Rachel would focus on the first part.

  “Hanging out with Charlie, huh?”

  No such luck.

  “Yes, as friends! He’s kind of hard to avoid since we run together every morning and I play piano at his shop.” I looked up from my project to find Rachel smiling at me. “No,” I said.

  She laughed. “I didn’t say anything!”

  “I can hear your thoughts. We’re friends!”

  She shrugged. “So were Joe and I, and look at us now! We’re getting married in three weeks!”

  “And I’m very happy for you, but that’s not my story.” I looked around the living room. “Where is Joe, by the way?”

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “He’s at the brewery with your boyfriend!”

  I threw the bow I’d just finished at her. “I’m not playing at your wedding!”

  She threw the bow back at me. “You better or you’ll be shunned!”

  “Fine, but no more Charlie talk! Let’s wedding talk.”

  I knew that would distract her. Her eyes got dreamy and she looked like she would float away at any second. I had never known a couple as in love as Rachel and Joe. I had never looked at two other people and known they were absolutely perfect for each other. Seeing them together gave my romantic heart life.

  After Rachel talked about the decor, the farm, the music, the food, and the rabbi, she turned her attention back to me.

  “Are you ready for your date with Alex tomorrow?” she asked.

  I’d been so busy, I had almost forgotten about it. “Yeah, it should be fun,” I said.

  She cocked her head to the side. “You don’t seem as enthusiastic about it as you did when you asked me to set you up. I know Alex is excited.”

  “No, I am! I haven’t kissed anyone in a long time. I’m worried I’ve forgotten how.”

  “Kissing is the best,” Rachel sighed.

  “As you might imagine, Edward was a terrible kisser. All tongue and stiff lips.”

  Rachel snorted. “Gross. He didn’t go down on you and he was a bad kisser?”

  Ugh. Yeah, Edward had very rarely gone down on me. He’d said he just didn’t enjoy it, and why should he be forced to do something he didn’t enjoy? It was hard not to get a slight complex about it.

  Leaning my head back on the couch, I looked up at the ceiling and thought of something more satisfying. “I just want to be kissed. Like a really good kiss I feel all the way to my toes. I want a man to grab my hair and take everything he wants from my mouth. I want to be breathless and have sore lips and chafed cheeks from his stubble. Is that too much to ask?”

  A voice much too deep to be Rachel’s said, “I don’t think it is.”

  I was dead. I knew that voice. I didn’t want to look, but I had to. I sat up and there was Charlie, leaning against the entryway of the living room, arms crossed and a smirk on his face.

  “Hi, Charlie. Where’s my man?” Rachel asked.

  He gestured over his shoulder. “In the kitchen. He bought a case of beer at the brewery so he’s putting it away.”

  Rachel hopped up and ran out of the room, and Charlie sauntered closer. I was trapped under piles of tulle and burlap and ribbons, so I couldn’t escape my humiliation. What was up with me and Charlie and kissing?

  “Hey, Miss Eliza,” he said.

  He sat down next to me on the arm of the couch, and I looked up at him. “Hi, Charlie. Have fun with Joe?”

  “I did. What have you been up to?”

  I waved my hand at all the wedding supplies. “Rachel promised me wine and I somehow ended up buried under a mountain of tulle.”

  He lifted a bow off my lap and examined it closely. “Why am I not surprised you’re a talented bow maker too? Is there anything you can’t do?”

  I laughed softly. “There are so very many things I’m not good at. Just wait until you know me better.”

  Charlie’s warm eyes met mine. “I think I know you pretty well. How many miles have we run together now? That’s hours of talking. I can’t think of one thing you’re not good at.”

  “Is this where I list my flaws? Because I’d rather keep you under the illusion that I’m perfect.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’re perfect…”

  I swatted at his arm, and he dodged me, laughing.

  “So violent, Eliza!”

  “See? I have a horrible temper. Watch it.” I gave him a menacing look.

  We smiled at each other, and I sighed on the inside. This was what it was always like with Charlie. Even when we ran fourteen miles last weekend and both of us were exhausted at the end, we still made each other laugh. And he was right, we talked endlessly. Most of it was light, joking back and forth, but laughter was exactly what I needed right now. I’d been serious most of my life, always studious and working toward a goal. But Charlie gave me a sense of a new beginning. I didn’t quite feel like a rebel yet, and even though I desperately needed an amazing kiss, I was happy, and god, it had been too long since I’d been truly happy.

  “Joe and I were going to sit on the porch with a couple beers. Want to join us?”

  “Sure.” Was he not going to say anything about what he overheard? That was very unlike him.

  Charlie held his hand out and pulled me up from the couch, ribbon sliding to the floor. He kept my hand in his until we were outside where Rachel and Joe were already rocking.

  He grabbed two beers from the table by the door and handed one to me. “Wanna swing?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a swinger?”

  “With the right lady, I could swing all night.”

  A laugh burst out of me. “I don’t even know what to say to that.” I bent down and kissed Joe on the cheek. “How’s it going?”

  Joe nodded. “Really good. I can finally breathe now that the spring concert’s over.”

  “I got to see it this time! Joe’s students are the cutest things in the world. Imagine one-hundred fourth and fifth graders playing ‘Roar’ on instruments they’ve only had for a few months. I was impressed at how good they were,” Rachel said.

  Joe grabbed her hand and rubbed his thumb over her engagement ring. “I’m h
appy you got to be there, sweet girl.”

  I glanced at Charlie. He was taking a long swallow of his beer, watching our two deeply in love friends.

  “Are you counting down until school’s out?” I asked.

  “Yeah, this year I am like never before. I get out two days before the wedding, and then I get a solid week with my wife on our honeymoon.”

  Rachel sighed and laid her head on Joe’s shoulder. She whispered the word “husband,” and he kissed the top of her head.

  I pushed Charlie over to the swing on the other side of the porch to give their adoration of each other a little space.

  We sat on the swing and swayed gently as we drank our beers.

  Charlie leaned over and whispered, “So, that’s what it looks like.”

  I looked at him, his face only inches from mine. “What?” I whispered back.

  “Being wildly in love,” he answered.

  “That’s what their ‘wildly in love’ looks like,” I said.

  “What did yours look like?”

  “I haven’t had it yet,” I said. “What about yours?” I was thinking about his marriage. He must have been wildly in love to get married so quickly.

  “Nope. Haven’t had it yet either.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, I’m not sure it’s for me. I’m pretty sure Joe and Rachel are the exception, not the rule.”

  I bit my lip and studied his face. He was so open, so easy to read most of the time. But sometimes I thought I didn’t really know him at all. Which was probably true since we’d really only known each other a few weeks.

  “I think it’s out there. You just have to be open to it,” I said.

  He cocked his head to the side. “Are you open to it, Eliza?”

  I nodded and leaned closer to him. “I am. I have a date tomorrow. My first since the breakup.”

  Charlie exhaled slowly and edged away ever so slightly. “Really? And who is the lucky gentleman?”

  “Are you guys talking about your date?” asked Rachel.