AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, I know.” He nodded. Tatum watched him lift his coffee for a sip. “My sister told me that. But there’s only so much staring at a ceiling a guy can do.”
Tatum supposed that was true, but when she couldn’t sleep, she turned her TV on old sitcom reruns on any channel she could find and stared blankly at the screen for a few moments before falling asleep on the couch. Worked like a charm for her.
Until the nightmares started, anyway, and drove her back to wakefulness.
“There’s no way you had a streak of thirty-seven questions right.”
Charlie drew back as if Tatum had slapped him. “Are you accusing me of lying or being dumb?”
This time she snorted so loud, he couldn’t miss the sound. Not to mention the way he was watching her, his eyes adoring her as if she were the only woman in the world.
“Almost,” he said softly.
Tatum frowned and shook her head. “Almost what?”
“You almost smiled.” He shrugged. “You’re beautiful without a smile. I wonder if you might break the room if you did smile.”
His words, though intended to be a compliment and she knew that, dug under her scars and poked painfully at old wounds.
“I have—” She reached to close her laptop, ready to scramble out of the place to get away from him. But Charlie shook his head and stood, hand up to interrupt her.
“Stay here and work,” he said quietly. “My mom would have my ass in a sling if she thought I ran you out of here.”
3
Running her off.
Charlie huffed out a frustrated groan as he turned the final corner on his way back home. Pretty sad that he might run her off because he’d complimented her. But he’d seen the look on her face—the deer in the headlights panic—when he told her she was beautiful. She’d barely stomached him sitting at the table with her, looked at him like he was speaking Greek when he asked her about the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and she’d reached for her laptop when he wondered aloud how pretty she would be if she smiled.
He wouldn’t admit it to his brothers, or any of his family, but it stung that he’d had to scurry away from Tatum like a cockroach running from light. Damned Mal had had no intention of getting involved with anyone, and here he was sporting an adorable blonde like a new haircut, and happy as Bozo driving a clown car. Charlie, on the other hand, wanted to find that special someone. He’d always believed in true love. His parents had always been perfect role models for all of them of what love should be, and Charlie wanted that life.
He wanted love. And a wife. Kids. A picket fence. Maybe a dog.
Before now he’d never set eyes on anyone to make him feel weak in the knees, to turn his head when she walked by in old, worn jeans and a faded Fleetwood Mac t-shirt. Granted, he knew love was more than attraction. Again, he’d grown up with his parents as role models. But he also knew his dad was still wowed every day looking at his mom, because the old man made a show of saying so.
And Charlie was wowed by Tatum.
He didn’t even know her last name. The only reason he knew her first name was because she’d told his mom and Everleigh. The woman usually regarded him with the patience of an ice queen ready to freeze him with her laser eyes. That she’d talked to him for a second today had gotten his hopes up. So much so that he’d gone and said something stupid, he guessed, to scare her away. And now, here he was on the last leg of his five-mile run, just about home to his bedraggled looking brick bungalow where he lived alone.
Maybe he’d just get a dog and forget chasing women. Woman. He wasn’t a skirt-chaser, not like his older brother Pete had been before he met Vianne. Charlie had dated, but he’d always been a one-woman kind of guy. Even in high school. Two serious girlfriends had left him for bigger and better things—his high school sweetheart had broken it off with him when she left for college. The last he’d heard she was a successful attorney in Baltimore, so he’d forgiven her choice to break up with him. His college girlfriend, however, had crushed him. They’d been together for three years, and Charlie had been ready to buy a ring, put down earnest money on a house, and start their real lives together. She had other ideas that included accepting a job in Seattle, hooking up with a financial guru there, and having his baby before Charlie could even process that she was gone.
So, apparently, he’d been in love. But he’d been there alone.
He slowed his pace to a jog and finally he walked up the drive to his back door. Pulling the key from his pocket, he looked around as he stuck it in the doorknob and popped the door open. At least his place was usually tidy, living alone. Not that he would mind a little bit of mess if it meant a family.
His night stretched uneventful and boring in front of him. Hell, he’d rather work than sit in the house alone. All his buddies were married, a few of them had kids now. They still hung out now and then, but that whole family thing put a damper on the impromptu things they used to do. He supposed he could see what Sev was up to, but Mal was most likely with Everleigh tonight.
Charlie shook his head again in amazement that Mal had settled into a relationship. From what he gathered, Everleigh hadn’t pictured herself falling for one man, any more than Mal wanted a monogamous relationship. Charlie was happy for his brother, even if thinking about it much made him a little green with envy.
In his bedroom, he toed his running shoes off and stripped down for a shower. He didn’t want to hang out with Sev. As the youngest of the Murphy brothers, Sev was still into the club scene and the random hookups. Charlie wouldn’t mind grabbing a beer, maybe catching part of the Cardinals game on TV, and having a burger and fries somewhere. But he had no interest in drinking enough to feel like shit tomorrow, and zero interest in hooking up with some young girl, no matter how hot she might be.
Now, if he could manage to find a way to hang out with Tatum? That would be perfect. He didn’t have her phone number. Couldn’t find it on WhitePages.com since he had no idea what her last name was. He knew she lived in the Sage building down the block from the restaurant and the coffee house, but he didn’t know what apartment was hers, and he couldn’t go knocking on random doors looking for her.
He turned the taps on the shower and then took care of business at the toilet. Even put the seat down when he was done. He’d grown up with sisters, so he was courteous. Didn’t help that his oldest sister, Breena, had hammered the notion into him—specifically into his upper left arm. She’d had a hell of a punch even when she was a damned beanpole in middle school. She’d always managed to make him look at fault, too, so he was always in trouble with his dad for bugging Breena.
Then again, his sister had taught him other things, too. Like how to fight back and throw a punch at Pete, his big brother. How to dance. She’d coached him through asking that first girlfriend out, too—the high school sweetheart who’d dumped him for college. So, maybe he would owe her something, gratitude, if nothing else, if he ever met the perfect woman.
That thought brought Tatum to mind again. Maybe she wasn’t the perfect woman for him. How the hell would he know? She wouldn’t give him the time of day just to get to know her. Damned if he didn’t want to try, though.
