"What did he do now?" he asked.
"Trust me. You don't want to know."
"You're probably right. Do you want to grab dinner or is your stomach still upset?"
Her stomach groaned. She was hungry, but the guilt of lying to him was eating her alive. "Not really. I think I'm going to head to Jules' house. He's been grumpy because I've been here all weekend."
Sam pulled her into his chest and wrapped his big, beautiful arms around her as he kissed her forehead the way she loved but didn't deserve. "You sure you want to go over there if you're not feeling well? You can stay here tonight and rest. Maybe you can go tomorrow?"
She wanted to stay with him but she knew she would crack if she did. The only way she was going to keep her sanity was to see Jules. He was her escape and the only person she could turn to right now. Sarah didn't want anything to do with her because she was lying to Sam. Frankly, Charlie couldn't blame her. The longer she kept it a secret, the heavier the weight grew.
"Nah, I should go see him. I think he wants to talk, anyway." She prayed he wouldn't ask what about. The last thing she wanted to do was have to make up another lie and then try to keep them all straight. Before she'd know it, she'd hang herself in her web of lies.
He sighed and kissed her again before letting her go. "All right, if that's what you want to do. I won't force you to stay."
Guilt hit her like a freight train right in the gut as she looked up at him. "I had a great time this weekend," she said, searching his eyes.
"You sure? You just seem like you were somewhere else," he said as his frown deepened.
Charlie cupped his face and kissed him softly at first and then deeper. He groaned before he pulled away. "You better not start that or I'm not going to let you leave this house."
She gave him a genuine smile and touched his cheek before she walked toward his room to gather her things. Sam was right on her heels and wrapped her in his arms from behind when she set her bag on the bed.
"I'm going to miss you," he murmured into her neck.
"I am, too." She turned to face him. "Sorry if I didn't seem with it. I just have a lot on my mind."
His brows crinkled and he looked worried all of a sudden. "Anything you need to talk about?"
Shit.
"No. No. Just stuff with Jules. The usual drama. I'll be fine." Vomit burned the back of her throat. Lying by omission may be one thing, but she'd planned on telling him as soon as she figured out the specifics. Still, telling him a flat out lie like that made her sick. Charlie was a lot of things, but she liked to think a liar wasn't one of them. Their relationship blew up the year before over what he thought she lied about, so what the hell was he going to do now?
Sam watched her curiously, like he didn't quite buy what she was telling him, but he let it go without another word and simply nodded. It killed her. She wanted to tell him right then but she didn't know how or even where to begin. It just wasn't possible yet. There was still too much to figure out. How long she had left to live and what kind of impact it would have on everyone. She couldn’t drop that kind of bomb on him yet without all the facts.
Without another word, she turned away from him and packed her bag. He sat on the edge of the bed and silently watched her every move. It made her feel on edge and wonder if he was judging her or if he knew what was going on and was just waiting for her to tell him what he already knew.
Is that even possible?
Charlie forced herself to calm down and take a deep breath. She grabbed her bag off the bed as headed toward the living room. Sam looked like he wanted to say something but he didn't. He just frowned and chewed on his full bottom lip. They stopped at the front door. The mood had already shifted and all she wanted to do was get out of there.
Rising up on her toes, Charlie kissed Sam quickly. "I'll call you later?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Have fun with Jules."
He tone was almost hollow. She knew something was wrong. Maybe he could sense she was lying but she didn't want to get in to a fight with him and make everything worse. She needed to go.
Giving him a small smile, she slipped out the door to her truck and felt like the biggest piece of slime that ever walked the face of the earth. For the first time ever, he didn't follow her out or even stand in the doorway to watch her pull out of the driveway. Sam wasn't stupid; he knew something was up.
The question was, did he know what was really going on?
✦✧✦✧✦✧
From the moment she'd come to his house Sam knew something was off, he just couldn't put his finger on it. The longer the weekend went on, the more it bothered him. Charlie was distant and he could feel in his gut she was keeping something from him, but he wasn't sure how to bring it up without starting a fight.
Alex pranced into the living room and threw her magazines and nail polish kit down on the coffee table. "Hey, Sammy. Where'd my Char-Char go?"
"She left," he responded as he flipped the channel for the third time in a row.
"Uh oh. Trouble in paradise? You two seemed off this weekend." She shrugged and dug through her small tote, only to set different polishes out all over the table. He couldn't stand the clutter, but Alex was the biggest slob on the planet and he'd learned to just let her work through her 'nail painting process.'
"So you noticed it, too? It wasn't just me?"
She glanced up and shook her head. "Nope, it’s definitely not just you. Something's up. You guys fight or anything?"
Sam thought about it for a second, replaying the past week in his head trying to think of anything that stuck out. "No, not that I know of. She was sick last week so I didn't see her. We talked, but not much. Now that I think of it, she sounded off then too. I wonder if something happened that she's keeping from me?" He watched Alex hoping she could give him some sort of insight he was missing.
Alex stopped what she was doing and gazed up at him, "Look, you know how she is. The girl holds everything in when something is going down and she doesn't want anyone to worry. Yet, who does she go to when she needs someone to talk to?"
His jaw locked in place when he realized where she'd run when she left his house. "Jules," he growled, suddenly jealous. "Why does she always confide in him? Just like with her doctor appointments? She always takes him instead of me. I'm supposed to be her partner in this. I'm her boyfriend. It's supposed to be her and me, not them."
Sam jumped up and paced in back of the couch, running his fingers though his dark hair that was getting too long.
She sighed and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Sammy, jealousy isn't a good look on you. You can't be mad at her for doing what she's always done. You guys have only been together for a year. Jules has been in her life for her entire life and he's been her only constant. You can't expect that to change overnight. Have faith in her that she'll tell you whatever's going on when she's ready. You can't force it or you're going to push her away."
Sam leaned over the back of the couch, gripping the back of it tight with his fists. "She's lying to me, Al. I can't stand to be lied to. She looked me right in the eye and told me everything was okay and I know damn well that was a lie. The girl doesn't have a poker face. Her eyes sold her out and it killed me. It's killing me to not do or say anything about it."
Alex picked up a cotton ball and started removing her current polish. "Then you need to decide what's more important, Sam: your pride or her. We've been down this road before and I thought you would have learned your lesson when you almost lost her before. If you push her before she's ready you may not get another chance...but you do what you want."
His frown deepened knowing she was right. "When the hell did you become the all-knowing one in this family?"
She just shrugged and let out a small laugh. "I know girls and I know how I would feel if I was her. If I wasn't ready to tell my man something and he came at me demanding it, I would shut down and then shit would hit the fan. Just hang in there. She'll come around."
Just standing around was makin
g him go insane. Searching for his phone, he decided to text her and see if maybe she'd be willing to be a little more forthcoming if she didn't have to face him.
Did you get to Jules house okay?
And then quickly followed it up with another.
If anything is bothering you, you know I'm always here for you.
It never took her long to respond, so the fact that he was staring a hole in his phone and it hadn't gone off yet made his heart sink.
Radio silence. Something was definitely wrong. "Stop it," Alex called from the other room.
"Stop what?" he asked playing stupid.
"Just leave it alone. If you want to keep busy, go make us some breakfast. I'm starving."
"I'm just making sure she got there okay. That's all." He didn't like the way the lie tasted rolling off his tongue.
"Who's the liar now, Sammy?"
The ping of his phone made his heart almost jump out of his chest as he swiped the screen to check the message. Only it wasn't from Charlie, it was from Alex.
Make me some nom noms. My stomach be a growlin’.
"You're such a wench."
"Yes, but a hungry wench and you love me."
"That's debatable." He tossed his phone on the counter and pulled everything out of the fridge that he'd need to make his famous big breakfast. Slamming pots and pans around, Sam had bacon frying in one pan and olive oil warming in another for the hash browns he was chopping up. As soon as he dumped them into the popping oil, his phone pinged from the counter top causing his stomach to flip flop again but he quickly realized it was Alex screwing with him again. "It wasn't funny the first time and it definitely isn't now."
"It wasn't me," she said hunched over her hands in the living room, engrossed in painting her nails.
Sam quickly washed his hands and dried them on the towel hanging from the oven handle and sprinted to his phone. It was from Charlie.
Yeah, I'm here.
"That's it?" he fought the urge to throw his phone against the wall and watch it shatter into a million pieces. It'd been almost an hour since she'd left and that was all she could say? He knew Charlie had been through a lot and he still had a lot left to learn about her but he was done with the secrets.
The smell of something burning pulled him out of his brooding thoughts.
"Shit," he growled and flipped the now burnt hash browns and bacon. "I hope you don't mind everything well done now."
"What's got your panties in a twist even more now? It is never, and I mean never, okay to burn bacon. Do you understand me, Samuel Dean Greyson?"
Alex pointed her finger at him trying to imitate her mother. However, the look on his face made her realize he wasn't in a joking mood anymore. "What happened, Sam?"
He pointed at his phone. "That happened."
Picking it up, she looked at his messages and then frowned at him as she sat down at the breakfast nook. "Oh."
Alex glanced up at him and then quickly looked away.
The frown on his face and the deep pull of his brow line made his handsome face intimidating. "Oh? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You pushed, Sam."
"How the hell did I push? By telling the love of my life that I'm here for her? Well, excuse the hell out of me for caring, but I know in my gut something is going on and she’s hiding it from me."
"Yeah maybe she is, but maybe you're also blowing something small way out of proportion. Like this. She didn't respond to your second text the way you wanted her to and now you're flying off the handle like a mad man. This isn't like you and honestly this crazy jealous side of you scares me. So, if this is how you respond to shit, I don't blame her for wanting to keep things from you."
He was taken aback. Could she possibly feel that way? Was he really acting like a lunatic? If his own cousin was afraid of him, was Charlie too? Sam turned all the burners on the stove off and moved the pans over. He was done cooking and the food was ruined anyway. He plopped down on the stool next to Alex and laid his head on his forearm on the bar in front of her, defeated.
"It's okay, bud. You're human. You're allowed to get a little crazy sometimes, and hey—I'd rather you turn into a nut job with me than around her."
Sam shook his head. He just couldn't get a grip on his feelings. "I just don't understand this shit. Why am I acting like this? I need to talk to her and find out what's going on. The last time I assumed something, I was completely wrong and you're right; it damn near cost me everything."
Alex rubbed his back, trying to make him feel better. "Say it again."
He lifted his head and peered back at her. "Say what again?"
Giving him her best attempt at an innocent smile, she shrugged and said, "The part where you said I was right."
Sam groaned and buried his head again wishing for once his life with Charlie could be uncomplicated. He'd been foolish enough to think that the complications in their relationship had ended once she was no longer his student. Little had he known that there were obviously more skeletons in her closet that he still wasn't yet privy to.
✦✧✦✧✦✧
The drive to Jules' house was a blur. Charlie wasn't even sure how she made it there in one piece. She ran in the front door without bothering to spare pleasantries with Callie and took the stairs two at a time. At last, she closed Jules' open door behind her and collapsed on his bed in a heap. She began sobbing the second her face hit the pile of crumpled blankets.
Jules hopped up from his gaming chair on the other side of his bed and scrambled over to her wrapping her in a bear hug. "Hey. What the hell happened? Did he do something to you? Do I need to kill him…? Cuz I totally will."
She shook her head adamantly. "No. He knows I'm the biggest liar on the planet. He's going to tell me to fuck off, Jules. I'm a walking hypocrite."
Jules did his best to soothe her by rubbing her arms and kissing her hair. "How does he know? Did you tell him?"
"No."
"Then what are you talking about, Charlie? I don't get it?"
"Just the way he looked at me. He could see right through me. He knew I was lying and it was gnawing at me just being in the same room with him. I can't keep doing this." She sobbed and held onto him like he was the only thing keeping her from completely shattering.
"Okay. So, we need to figure how the best way to tell him then. I'll be with you every step of the way. I told you that you weren't in this alone and I don't think he'll be mad at you when he understands why you held back telling him."
She pulled back to look up at him, wiping away her tears, "He hates liars. He loathes them. You saw what happened last time he thought I lied to him and that was only about my age. What do you think he's going to do when he finds out about his kid, Jules?"
Jules cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. "He may get pissed and he has every right to be, because this is huge and you did keep it from him, but he'll get over it. You need to tell him. If it's tearing you apart like this and he obviously knows something is up with you, things are going to blow up in a bad way. You don't need the added stress."
It pissed her off the way he was always the voice of reason when she needed him to just take her side and be immature and hysterical with her. "Fine."
"Go clean your face up—because you look like you got hit with the ugly stick—and then we'll go raid the fridge while we hatch a plan," he stated with a sly grin walking toward his Xbox to turn it off.
She had to laugh. Jules was the only person she would ever let talk to her like that and live to tell the tale.
The water felt cool against her pink, splotchy cheeks as she caught her reflection in the mirror. The startling contrast between her red swollen lips, puffy eyes and pale almost hollow looking cheeks caused her to do a double take. She stretched her skin and turned her face side to side, all the while hoping to God she didn't really look that way.
She poked her head back into Jules room as he was texting someone. "Do I really look this sickly all the time?"
>
He shrugged and gave her a sympathetic smile. "You're sick, Charlie, and you've lost some weight lately, but you'll gain it back soon."
The reality of it all was upsetting until she caught a glimpse of her phone case in Jules' hand out of the corner of her eye. Frantically, she checked her back pockets with her hands and then jumped across the bed after him. "What are you doing? Who are you texting?"
His face paled and he held the phone out of her reach. "Nothing bad, chill. He sent you a message, I just responded before you could say something stupid that you'd regret." He handed the phone back to her and she grabbed it out of his hand forcefully with a glare that should have made him drop dead where he stood.
Charlie's heart beat rapidly in her chest as she prepared herself for the worst. She had no idea what the hell Jules would send Sam. When she scanned the messages and realized he'd only told him yeah she was there but nothing to the other message, she was relived.
"You still had no right to text him, Julian! See, I told you he knows!" She shoved the screen back in his face.
"Knows what? What's with all the yelling?" Callie asked as she walked in the room with a basket full of folded laundry.
"Nothing," they answered in unison.
Callie rolled her eyes and pulled out his top drawer to put away his socks and underwear. "Well, that's convincing and just puts all of my concerns to rest."
They needed to diffuse the situation and keep Callie out of it or things were going to quickly worsen. "Seriously, dip-shit? Your mom still does your laundry and she puts it away?" Charlie deadpanned. No one had done her laundry since she was big enough to climb on top of the washer to turn it on.
"You're just jelly," he said, catching on to what she was doing.
Callie filled the bottom drawer and pushed it shut with her foot. "Jelly is something you put on toast, Julian, not a substitution for the word jealous." She turned to face the two of them. "I know the two of you are up to something. I can smell it in the air. So, whatever it is. Don't. You," she pointed at Charlie, "are in no condition to be a part of any shenanigans with this one," she finished pointing her thumb at Jules. "Got it?"
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