F*CK CLUB_SHAME

by Shiloh Walker

  Sometimes, she hung out with a few of the ER nurses and they seemed to mesh with her just fine. Apparently, they weren’t concerned with the fact that she had an IQ that some considered freakish.

  And if Dr. Ryder McKade had heard about it, he either wasn’t concerned or he didn’t see it as a hurdle, because as he eyed the chair across from her, the only thing she saw in his gaze was good humor...and interest.

  His eyes were brown instead of blue, his hair blond instead of brown but he looked at her with a smile instead of a scowl and Charli had to admit, sometimes being alone sucked.

  So when he prodded her, “Is this seat taken?” Charli answered with a shrug.

  He dropped down and put his tray on the table. “There’s a bet running around that you’ll flay my skin from my bones for even thinking about asking you out,” he announced.

  She ran her tongue across her teeth, amused despite herself. “What are the odds?”

  “About seventy thirty, last I heard.” He paused a beat. “And no, I didn’t place a bet. Seemed crass.”

  “Were you afraid you’d lose or certain you’d win?” she asked, leaning back in her chair as she studied him.

  He had a killer smile, she had to admit.

  He gave her one of them and echoed her position, practically lounging in his seat as he responded, “Neither. Like I said, it seemed crass. Should I have placed a bet?”

  “No. You’re right. It’s very crass.” She reached for her drink and took a sip, cocking her head as she continued her perusal of him. “Are you over here to ask me if I really graduated from high school when I was fifteen?”

  He winked at her. “I was sixteen. You beat me. Just barely.”

  Charli burst into laughter and felt the last of her reserve melting.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I TRIED, MAN.” CON eyed the man lying in the bed with worried eyes, watching as the nurse approached.

  Shame barely flicked him a look, his eyes too focused, too locked on the ceiling. A muscle bunched in his cheek.

  “I told you not to bother her,” Shame said, voice hoarse. He twitched as the nurse sat down next to him, flinched when she touched him. But as she started to prepare the medicine that would feed into the already-prepared line, he didn’t even move.

  Con might have been impressed, if he wasn’t so worried. He didn’t know what was in the medication—pain medicine or what. But for Shame to let somebody else touch him...

  Shame’s eyes flicked to his and he scowled at his friend.

  “It wasn’t bothering her,” he insisted. “I just thought...hell. You should have somebody other than me or Riley coming around.”

  “Shawntelle was here the other day,” Shame said, voice curt. “And Bree came by last night. My sister comes by. I’m fine.”

  But he wasn’t.

  Con knew that.

  It had been well over a month since Charli had moved, well over a month since she’d been back to Bardstown.

  She’d turned over power of attorney for the house to him and Con, insisting she’d be too busy to come back and handle the sale, whenever it happened.

  And it had happened just this past week.

  She hadn’t even been there to pack up the house.

  A moving company had handled it.

  She’d cut Bardstown and Shame out of her life.

  She still called Riley and Con, but she did everything she could to get them to come to her rather than coming back home to visit. For the most part, Riley had been giving in to her. Con hadn’t. Not up until a few days ago when he’d figured, if he was going to get his sister to give in, it would probably be easier if he actually talked to her.

  But she hadn’t given in.

  Hadn’t changed her mind.

  Shit, she hadn’t even asked about Shame. They’d been sitting there for close to thirty minutes before he even mentioned his best friend and then she’d immediately shut Con down.

  “So, this is how it’s going to be?” Con asked, watching as the nurse started the medicine on a slow drip.

  He’d been through this before, so from here on out, there was nothing that came as a surprise.

  Except Shame’s lackadaisical attitude toward Charli.

  Shame rolled his head on the pillow to face Con, his eyes tired. “It’s okay, man. I didn’t expect anything to change. She moved out, hasn’t called, hasn’t said or done much of anything that’s made me think she wants to talk to me. So...it’s all right.”

  Con almost exploded, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good.

  “HOW CAN HE JUST LAY there and say it’s all right? We both know it’s not. He’s going through this alone and the one person he wants with him doesn’t even want to talk about him!” Con exploded, pacing the confines of his brother’s office like a caged tiger.

  Riley eyed him narrowly.

  “You do remember we got customers out there, right?”

  Con turned a snarl on him.

  Riley lifted his hands.

  He’d been holding down the ship mostly on his own the past few weeks. He was okay with it because he knew what Shame meant to Con. Shame meant a lot to Riley as well, but Shame and Con were practically brothers. The only thing that separated them was the fact that they’d been born to two different women, and both of them resented that fact.

  Well, maybe Con resented it more than Shame did, considering some of the shit that Con had to tell him about Shame and Charli.

  It had come as a punch in the face, but Riley didn’t hold it against either Shame or Charli.

  Although he wished to hell Shame had gotten his head out of his ass a little earlier in the game.

  “You need to remember something, Con,” he said, feeling like a father more and more these days, and not just because he was adopting Bree’s son. “You were the one to tell me that Charli has been in love with Shame for years. Now try to figure out what she must have felt like, finding out the news about the cancer, learning that he wasn’t going to fight it. It had to have been a punch in the gut.”

  “But he—” Con started to argue, then he stopped. “She left, man. She just left.”

  “Can you blame her?” Riley said softly. “We’ve all lost enough, and he pretty much announced he was just going to sit back and die. Who’d want to watch that?”

  Con gripped the edge of the table and stared off at nothing. He wanted to argue. He wanted to fight. It was in his nature

  But he knew it wasn’t going to do any good.

  These were choices that were outside of his control.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Charli

  RYDER KNEW HOW TO KISS.

  Almost a month into their relationship and she could admit that. He knew how to kiss, and he touched her like he knew how to do other things.

  If only she could get past one little thing, she might just let him do those other things, too.

  He didn’t push her.

  He didn’t even act like it was a big deal when she pulled back and called a stop to things.

  He took it all in good-natured humor, but she saw the glint of hunger in his eyes and it was enough to let her know that he did want her, and that he wasn’t going to disappear just because she eased away after a couple of make-out sessions.

  It should have been enough to make her reticence give away.

  Except...that one little thing.

  Max.

  He haunted her dreams.

  Too many times, she woke wondering how he was doing and her facile doctor’s brain tried to chart the course his cancer might be taking since he was refusing treatment.

  It had been three weeks since Con had attempted to bring him up during conversation and she wished she hadn’t cut him off so abruptly because now Con said nothing about his best friend. They met for lunch once a week and she could ask him at any time.

  But asking wouldn’t help her cut this longing for him out of her heart and soul.

  Knowing wouldn’t ease the pain she lived wi
th night and day that he was going to be gone from her life sooner or later.

  Forever gone.

  “You look distracted,” Ryder said, his hand gripping hers as they strolled along the walking bridge that connected southern Indiana to Louisville, Kentucky. They’d just finished eating at one of the little bistros on the Indiana side and she was torn between inviting Ryder to her place and just kissing him goodnight once they reached his car.

  They’d met at the river.

  They often did.

  It was her suggestion and he’d never argued with her, although she suspected he was on to her reasoning behind it. If they came in separate cars, it made it easier for her to avoid inviting him inside when he dropped her off.

  She was still holding on to the old hope and she needed to stop it.

  If Ryder wasn’t enough to make her forget Max, then chances were, that guy didn’t exist.

  But when she tried to bring Ryder’s face to mind, it was Max’s she saw.

  “Charli?”

  She glanced over at him, pasting a smile on her face, but it was one she didn’t feel. “I guess I am. It was a rough week.”

  “I heard.” He squeezed her hand. “There were four lockdowns at the hospital. It’s one thing to deal with it when you’re on the surgical floor. Another thing to be in the ER where all the gangbangers might come looking for whoever shot whoever.”

  Charli grimaced. It had been an eye-opening experience, coming from a small hospital where most of the biggest accidents were because of drunk idiots on the streets, or drunk idiots in the house. Now they dealt with multi-car accidents, gang shootings and that was an average day at the university hospital where she worked.

  “Still glad you moved to the big city?” Ryder asked, clearly following her line of thought.

  “Some days.” She laughed a little, shooting him a look.

  The bright, rainbow-colored lights of the bridge played across his beautiful features and she felt a bump of feminine appreciation in her heart. But it was just a bump. Nothing more. Why couldn’t she feel more?

  And she knew.

  She wouldn’t be inviting him over tonight.

  HER ANSWERING MACHINE was blinking when she walked inside the small apartment.

  She’d come to appreciate it, although she missed her home.

  The big, sprawling farmhouse had been a larger part of her than she realized, and she’d known it would be hard to leave. She just hadn’t expected to find herself missing silly little things like the creaking of the building at night when she settled down to sleep, or find herself half lost in a kitchen that was barely big enough to be called that, all because it wasn’t her kitchen.

  Her kitchen was the big, old farm kitchen in the house where she’d grown up.

  “Not anymore,” she muttered as she dumped her purse on the counter next to the phone. She’d have to put it in its place as soon as she checked her messages. One thing about living in a place as small as the train car—there was no option of not keeping it neat.

  Otherwise, she’d be tripping over her own feet and her purses and her shoes on a regular basis.

  She had to accept the fact that her kitchen belonged to another family now. Maybe not even a family. She had no idea who the buyer was because Con and Riley had stepped up to handle that part.

  Sighing, she jabbed the button on the machine and frowned at the sound of Con’s voice coming out. She could count on one hand the number of times he’d called her home number and still have fingers and a thumb left over.

  “Hey, Charli. It’s me. Listen...so...I proposed!” He sounded excited and she found herself grinning at the machine, forgetting about her consternation. She was only mildly miffed that he hadn’t bothered to tell her he was thinking about proposing.

  She already knew the answer, too. He wouldn’t sound so happy if Shawntelle had said no.

  “She said yes!”

  “Of course, she did, dummy,” she told the machine. Now she really wished he would have called her cell phone and told her in person. He must have called while she was out with Ryder because there hadn’t been any messages before she left the apartment.

  “We’re having a party. You’re still off on Sundays, right? If not, call me. We’ll plan it in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday if that’s what we have to do, because you are coming. Text me or call me, just let me know! Also, Shawntelle says you’re going to be a bridesmaid. Hope you’re cool with that.”

  The call disconnected and she made a face at the phone. “Way to ruin the surprise of her asking me.”

  She grabbed her phone, about ready to call Con, but the time stopped her.

  It was almost eleven.

  He’d been at the pub, and it would be crazy busy. Plus, if she knew anything about her brother, he hadn’t kept quiet about the news, so half the town would probably be there.

  She eyed her keys longingly, pondered a drive down there.

  But she had to be at the hospital in just over six hours and it was almost an hour drive just to get to Bardstown from here. “You son of a bitch,” she groused. She grabbed the phone anyway and punched in a text, starting with...

  You son of a bitch! Why didn’t you call my cell! Congratulations, you moron. If you’d called earlier, I would have come down.

  Then she huffed out a sigh, deleted the moron comment and opted to end it with congratulations. She had to send a follow-up text to let him know that yes, she was still off on Sundays.

  And sometime in the next week, she should probably break it to Ryder that things just weren’t working out.

  “Or you could wait until after the party,” she said, grabbing her purse and shoving it into the closet.

  After all, if she had a date for the party, she’d automatically have a way to avoid even the suggestion that she talk to Max.

  And he’d be there. She knew he would. Unless he was already far sicker than she suspected, she knew he wouldn’t miss Con’s engagement party.

  No, she decided.

  She’d hold off having a talk with Ryder.

  She felt bad because she knew she was just using him as a buffer, but she’d rather deal with the guilt than deal with Max.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Charli

  “YOU’RE BRINGING A DATE?” Shawntelle asked, her tone neutral.

  Charli tightened her hand on the phone, staring down at the streets of Louisville from the railing. She’d opted to take her break on one of the balconies of the hospital rather than go outside and fight for space where there wasn’t a smoker within twenty feet of the door.

  Up here, the sounds of the city were somewhat muted, but she could still hear the engines of the cars below, still smell their exhaust.

  She really didn’t like living in Louisville.

  She’d thought she would, had thought she’d adjust.

  But she wanted to go back to her small-town hospital, back to her small-town life.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved the thoughts away and focused on Shawntelle’s comment. “Is that okay?”

  “Honey, you’re welcome to bring a harem if you want. I’m just...surprised,” Shawntelle said, ending with a faint laugh. “This guy you’re bringing...you two been seeing each other long?”

  “A few weeks.”

  She winced at Shawntelle’s telltale hmmmm.

  “Things serious between you two?” the other woman asked.

  “Like I said...we’ve been seeing each other a few weeks.”

  “Gotcha. How’s the sex?” Shawntelle replied.

  “Shawntelle!”

  “So you’re not having any,” came the tart reply. “Which means...things aren’t that serious, and you’re using this guy to try to forget about Shame. How’s that working out for you?”

  Charli stuck out her tongue at the phone, hating the other woman’s insight. “For your information, I don’t have to jump into bed with a guy after the first few dates in order to be serious about him.”

  “N
ah, of course not. But I know how you feel about Shame. You’re not going to bounce from one guy to the next, not without good reason. So, either this guy really knocked you off your feet, or...he was useful.” Her voice softened and she added, “It’s okay to need a distraction, Charli.”

  “Who says I need one?”

  Shawntelle was quiet a moment, then she said softly, “You haven’t so much as asked about him. Not even once, and we talk three or four times a week.”

  “I...” Charli opened, then closed her mouth.

  “Nobody gets over anybody that quick. Even if you do want to lie to yourself.”

  “I’m not lying to myself,” Charli said. Tears thickened her throat. “If anybody is lying, it’s him.”

  “So...tell him.”

  “No.” Charli pushed away from the railing. “I’m done with that shit. If he can’t fight for me, if he can’t fight for himself, then...what am I supposed to do? I can’t fight the cancer for him, Shawntelle.” Checking her watch, she said, “I’ve got to go. See you in a few days.”

  THE DAY OF THE PARTY came and Charli was relieved about one thing and pissed about another.

  It was blue skies and sunshine out, so the party would be outside as anticipated.

  She was also pissed, because she’d gotten a text from Ryder just a few minutes after she woke.

  He was one of the physicians on call for the weekend. He’d tried to switch it out with somebody else, but it hadn’t worked and he had to go in for an urgent consult.

  He wrapped up the text by asking for the address of the party and Charli realized abruptly, she had no idea where it was going to be. Feeling like an idiot, she texted Shawntelle.

  It took over an hour to get an answer, and Ryder texted her twice more.

  She finally texted him back and told him she had to clarify something, because she wasn’t going to let him think she’d gone all this time without checking where the party was going to be.