“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” Layla said, ever the reasonable one. “Take a couple days and figure out your next step. You both owe it to each other to work through the first hiccup. If you decide you don’t want to keep being with him, you don’t.”
“What if I do…and he doesn’t?” I almost couldn’t get the words out. The coffee had cooled, but I no longer wanted it. The taste was acrid on my tongue.
What if I’d finally fallen for someone and got my heart broken? I’d spent so long running away from being hurt again that I was terrified to stop. Then Liam had kissed me and I’d forgotten to be afraid, if only momentarily.
Ember rubbed my back. “Then we’ll be here for you. No matter what happens, you aren’t alone, Charlie. Why don’t you get some rest? We’ll figure everything out in a couple hours.”
“I don’t know how to thank you guys.”
“You don’t have to thank us,” Layla said as she crossed to me and kissed my brow. “We’re your friends. No matter what.”
“You can take my room that way the monsters don’t bother you,” Ember added.
I looked at my two friends and ordered myself not to cry again. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank us,” Layla said cheerfully. “We fully expect payback whenever if and when our shit hits the fan.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said as I stumbled my way down the hall to Ember’s room.
I collapsed on her bed and wrapped myself in her sheets. As my eyes shuttered closed all I could think about was Liam. Too tired to cry anymore, I hugged a pillow close to my chest and fell asleep imagining it was him I was holding instead.
Chapter Twenty Six
Liam
I drove aroundin the rain for hours looking for her. I checked all of her favorite hangouts, her job. I even arrived for her first early-morning class, but she wasn’t there and none of her other classmates had seen her.
Walking back to my truck, having no idea where she could be, I was damn sure I couldn’t get any lower. My phone beeped with a message.
Tripp: Yeah, I’ve seen her. Ember mentioned Charlie’s staying at her place for a couple days. Why, what’s up?
Me:Thx, man. I’ll explain later.
The screen went black in my hands as I sat in the cab of my truck with the rain pouring down. I slammed the phone against the steering wheel until I heard something crack and then threw it in the floor well on the passenger side.
“Fuck!” I shouted.
I never wanted to hurt her. I promised myself before this ever started that I wouldn’t. The look on her face…I’d rather she’d scream at me…hit me…anything other than the look she gave me before she left. Like I’d betrayed her.
I drove home in a fog, barely noticing the downpour, and only making it there out of pure luck. Her parking space was empty. The house was quiet without her in it and I’d never noticed how much she seemed to fill the space until she was gone.
** *
Two weeks.
Two weeks and I hadn’t heard from Charlie.
Well, other than to come home one afternoon after classes and realize some of her stuff was gone. I’d texted Tripp and he confirmed Ember and Layla had come by to pick up some of her things. I could barely spend any time in the house without being bombarded with memories of her.
I took a page from her book and fled for the first weekend I had free from my new job. I couldn’t stand coming home and her not being there with food on the stove and a smile the second I opened the door. My bed was cold without her splayed across it. For a guy who’d spent several years chomping at the bit to leave a house full of women, I found myself aching to have her back.
And it pissed me off.
I tempted highway patrol by speeding the whole way home, but I didn’t pass the first trooper. It left me itching for a fight.
And I knew just where I could get one.
Orange dust streamed behind me as I drove a little too fast on the dirt road that led to what was soon to be someone else’s land. The thought didn’t help me calm down. I ground my teeth together and knotted my hands on the wheel, the leather scrunching in protest under my fists.
