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Charlie again.
Who the fuck is Charlie?
Something hot and unpleasant spreads in my chest like an unchecked plague.
It's jealousy. I'm not unfamiliar with the feeling, but I am surprised that I feel it for this girl.
It spreads in my chest, expanding until it's infected every inch of my body. I feel hot under my skin. Like my blood is boiling. The idea of her one person being another man makes me feel crazy. Last night, I wouldn't have cared.
Except maybe I would have. Maybe I’m lying to myself now, because when she told me she was engaged to my brother, I’d wanted to take down this whole fucking world.
I wanted to slay every man, until the only one left was me. That thought—it's pure insanity. I am not an insane, irrational man. I am slow and decisive. I pride myself on that. But this tiny woman, this girl, she affects me in a way I struggle to admit even to myself.
“Who is Charlie?”
Her eyes bounce to mine. “My friend, like I said.”
That hot thing in my chest, it gets hotter. It feels like it's boiling under my flesh now. Bubbling. About to burst.
I don't know how to question her about the gender of her friend without making my new obsession with her obvious.
Jesus, is this how Cash felt about Wrenlee? How Kane felt about Nevaeh?
Those women had my friends so wrapped up in chaos, they’d nearly lost their minds. Hell, they’d both manipulated the women into falling in love with them. Trapped them, even. I’d stood back and watched the show, vowing that I’d never do crazy shit like that. Lunacy.
Look at me now.
“Why only one friend?” I ask, hoping for more information about her. If she feeds it to me, I'll devour every scrap.
I hate her for this.
“Mom didn't like it when I had friends.”
“But she liked this Charlie, person?”
She lifts a small shoulder. “She knew about Charlie, kind of. But Charlie never came around, and I never went over to Charlie's. We text, and we saw each other at school. That's pretty much it.”
The life she paints for herself isn't a life I can imagine.
I know Remira Laurier. I know her parents. Well.
I knew them.
Remira wouldn’t have given a shit who Olympia spent her time with, as long as Olympia hadn’t been invading on her time.
They’d never been home. Never been present for their children. They had nannies and cooks and maids, and anything money could buy that their little hearts desired. But what those girls never had, was a mother and father. Not really.
It had been the one thing my own mother hadn't respected about her best friend. The one thing she had told me over and over that she did not like. Unlike Remira to her girls, my mother had been present for me and Darius. She'd been around. She'd wanted to spend time with us, made time for us. She had loved us, and I had loved her. Losing her is still my worst pain.
“Tell me about Charlie.”
The skin between her eyes wrinkles. She's confused, and she doesn't trust me. I can see that plain as day.
She shouldn't. The first chance I have to get rid of her, I'll do it. I really don't care where she lands, if she lands on her feet or on her ass, as long as she doesn't land in my space.
I feel my jaw tighten, and work to relax it.
Her voice sounds smooth like honey as it spreads through the dark. “Charlie knows me. She understands me.”
