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All in the span of twenty-four hours.

And every time, a common denominator: should have been there, should have bought it back, should have made it to her.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.

Enough to press on my chest and knock the air out of my lungs on bad days.

“Look at me, Oli,” Charlee says, keeping her index finger under my chin. Her eyes soften, like a featherlight brush on my cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Tears well up again in her eyes and trigger mine. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats until her sobs and the words blend into one. She drops my chin to clutch the jacket at my shoulders, her tiny, fragile body shaking with her heaving breaths.

“You couldn’t have known, sweetheart.” I hold her tight against me as my hand sweeps down and up her back. Her tears mixed with mine soak my jacket and break my heart a thousand times over.

When she pulls away after a moment, her eyes search mine, questioning, full of hesitation and doubt. My gaze drifts to her lips long enough to provide the answer to her question.

Slowly, her lips brush mine in invitation. I kiss her, this time more fervently, my hands cupping her face and drawing her even closer, as if this might be the only kiss I’ll have the chance to steal. Something in me breaks. The last rampart collapses and lets everything through. No corner of my body is spared by the surge of raw emotions wreaking havoc from within. Sadness, grief, shame. These I’m used to. But not the almost painful relief of kissing Charlee. Finally. As if my body has been deprived of it for so long, knowing it needs her lips, her taste, her warmth to be whole.

Her answer is swift and feverish. She drops all pretense and presses her mouth to mine as though our tomorrow isn’t promised. Our lips part, and I taste the salt of our tears mingling with the delicious sweetness of her tongue against mine, inhaling her sugared scent until the world around us blurs.

I didn’t know how much I needed her lips until she laid them on mine. How much the soft ways in which she kisses me would patch the holes left by my guilt. How much her mouth would ease the pressure that’s existed in my chest since that dreadful night.

I blamed myself for not making it to her, for leaving her in the dark for so long, for making her believe she didn’t mean anything to me. And I feel her pain in every flick of her tongue. Pain for me, for herself, for what we could have been. For what I’ve lost. I feel the whisper of her forgiveness. Of her understanding. I feel and hear everything she doesn’t say but puts into our kiss.

And that’s all I need to lose myself in her.

I suck on her bottom lip, and she rewards me with a whimpering sound that alters a fundamental part of me. It rewrites my brain chemistry to make the need to hear it again my core desire. Finding other ways to get it out of her.

“Take me home,” she whispers against my mouth as her fingers scrape the hair at the base of my neck. “Please.”

I nod, my lips still on hers, still tasting her. “I’ll take you home, Charlee,” I say, pulling back. “I’ll take you home and we’ll talk, and if you want more, I’ll give you more.” I make sure she looks at me and sees how much I mean my next words. “But I need you to promise me that you won’t ever say again that you were someone I passed the time with. Or I’ll never forgive you for thinking yourself as meaningless to me.”

Her chin wobbles, but she swallows her rising emotion and nods, stroking my cheek once. “Promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

COMFORTABLE

Charlee

Another kind of tension fills the truck on the drive back. My body is hyperaware of every move Oliver makes, like Earth can’t shake the sun’s orbital pull.

The restaurant.

Guilt and shame will come, and Lola’s words are already coming back to me with the strength of a slap in the face. Oliver is worth fighting for a hell of a lot more than you have so far.

But if I allow those feelings to pass through now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop crying for the next five days. I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive myself for thinking the worst of him. So for the moment, all I can do is rearrange the memories, sort through the dozens of scenarios I created for myself and forget them one by one as the truth dawns on me.

Oliver didn’t leave me. He didn’t abandon me.

Much remains unknown, and more questions arose with his confession than I have answers to, but I can no longer question this truth.

And oddly, that’s enough for me.

I don’t need all the details. I don’t need all the answers. Not right now. Not when the only thing I allow myself to feel is my need for him and how right it felt to kiss him. Not when all I can think about is how to get his lips on mine again. Fast.

“Almost there,” Oliver says, eyes on the road, and I don’t know whether he said that to me or to himself. I can’t tell if he’s sensing my restlessness or if he’s just as on the edge as I am.

He nearly trips out of his truck when we arrive at the house but grabs the door before he hits the ground face-first.