My eyes shot open.The room was bright. The blankets luxurious. My heart raced like it had already been awake and went on a jog.
Where was I? A bedside table with water, my glasses, and medicine. Gaps filled in in rapid succession.
Leaving Pete. The show. The pictures online. More filming. The literary agent. It all slammed into me at once, causing the tension behind my eyes to tighten.
The hotel bar.
Charlie.
Harrison and Emma.
Charlie talking … And … something else. A secret? A confession?
Had I overshared?
I groaned and rolled my face into the pillow.
I’m the real Charlie.
I gasped and sat up so fast my head spun, and a wave of nausea sucker punched me. He’d said that.
I know.
But that couldn’t mean what I thought. It couldn’t be that RC was Charlie. But what else could it mean? Had he said it? Or was two vodka tonics enough to cause my overactive imagination to full-on spiral?
I stood up, hands outstretched like I could stop the world from spinning out around me.
“Focus,” I told myself out loud.
Splashing water on my face in the bathroom like a man in an action movie, I stared at my reflection, water dripping down, and willed my memories to solidify.
I had imagined it. I was dreaming. We were talking. He was talking about the woman he loved. He was saying that he had to tell me something.
I groaned and pressed a fist to my forehead. What was real?
Here are facts that I know to be true about both Charlie and RC:
One, doesn’t drink.
Two, lives in Southwest England.
Three, attended the funeral of his friend.
Four, has two best friends.
Five, there is a woman he wants but can’t have …
A tingling sensation traveled through me. Well, this was a compelling list.
This wasn’t happening. I was contriving some fantasy to help deal with my growing feelings for Charlie. I had been bombarded with guilt last night coming here. Maybe a little because I was fresh from a breakup—though, to be honest, probably not as much as I should be.
What had kicked my conscience into overdrive was the idea that I had been betraying RC somehow. I had finally acknowledged my feelings for RC while simultaneously allowing my crush on Charlie to run wild. I had wanted him to stay last night. Charlie. I had wanted him to kiss me, and I feltbadabout it. Not that Charlie was even trying to sleep with me. An image of him lying across from me in bed flashed into my mind. He’d been so gentle with me. For being so large, he took such care not to jostle me. With his eyes narrowed in concern, he looked as though all my worries were his too.
I sighed loudly. I had it bad.
All these emotions conflated as my brain tried to excuse my having feelings for two different people. Tried to make up a reality where all the dreams I ever had could come true. My brain had always been good at finding pieces of facts and twisting them into a story that fit my narrative.
I just needed to breathe and calm down. Even if Charlie Downing was my RC, I couldn’t just ask at this point. I needed him to tell me. He was obviously painfully private.
