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He let go of my arm, passing us all before I could protest to any of that, and my fri
ends whistled, laughing. They probably thought Charlie was going to own my ass so my parents couldn’t, but I most certainly knew what this was about.
I tapped my buddies’ fists, going along with the ruse. I got some jostling about how I was about to get my butt handed to me, but I took it. I was no snitch. If Charlie didn’t want his business out there, I wasn’t going to share it.
We were in his Lexus not long after that. He’d inherited a good portion of my grandparents’ assets after they died. Grandma Helen had been a homemaker but Grandpa Lindquist had a lot, and the assets had been split half and half between my mom and Charlie.
Charlie had never gotten rid of their car.
He still drove the same thing Grandpa Lindquist did, his main car and not the one he’d been driving the night of my grandparents’ accident. The Lexus he’d only used for in-town driving, not road trips like he did with Grandma Helen.
The soft leather seats warmed with heat when Charlie turned the car on, but the car didn’t move.
We just sat here.
Quiet.
In fact, I only heard Charlie’s breathing, husky and labored. He was still amped up but something told me not because he’d caught me tonight at a college party with my friends.
“It’s wrong, you know,” I said, starting right in on him. Just because I kept his secret didn’t mean I agreed with it. I tipped my head back. “You shouldn’t be doing this. Coach is a good man.”
He was good to us, the best coach ever. He didn’t deserve his wife to be two-timing him.
The declaration only made Charlie laugh, and that enraged me. I’d kept his fucking secret, hadn’t I?
“You know nothing, Robin,” Charlie informed me. He hadn’t called me that in so long. Not since we were kids and used to play the superhero game. The other guys were the rest of the Justice League, a game we all used to love. Charlie wet his lips. “Coach hits her. Did you know that?”
I blinked, shaking my head. “What?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Black and blue when he’s angry, or just because he fucking feels like it.” The back of his head touched the seat. “She hides it under her clothes.”
Something I guess he would know.
The thoughts had me thinking about how messed up this was, but not just because the woman was married and in an abusive relationship.
I mean, Charlie was a student. She wasn’t his teacher, but still, a student. I didn’t know how old our principal was, but the age didn’t matter in this situation considering their current roles to the other.
“Even still, what you’re doing is wrong,” I said, making him laugh again. “You’re a student. You guys shouldn’t be messing around.”
“We are both consenting adults,” he stated, facing me. He frowned. “And you got some nerve preaching your moral compass to me.” He shook his head. “How much fucking shit do I keep from Royal and December about all the crap you get up to? All the girls you fuck around with at six-fucking-teen. Coming to parties like this and getting baked and shit—”
“We’re not even in the same ballpark,” I seethed, making his eyes lift. “I’m not in the wrong here. The shit I get up to is nothing like what you’re doing.”
It was nothing like it—at all, and he had no right comparing the two.
“Well, aren’t you just perfect, Robin.” He angled around to look at me. “Just fucking perfect and have it all together.”
“I never said that.”
He laughed.
Until, well, he didn’t.
Until he was in my face and giving me a look he’d never given me before. A look of darkness and laced with so much heat and aggression. Charlie had never stared at me this way.
“Newsflash, kid,” he said to me, eyes scanning mine. “Sometimes shit isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s hard for some of us to have it together all the fucking time.”
I never said that he had to, and I never made him feel like it had to be that way. Shit wasn’t perfect. Not for me either and especially not for him.
