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And know that he would still tell her good morning tomorrow. That he would be there if she wanted to talk to him.
About the weather.
Or biological warfare.
Or her sister and her niece.
She wouldn’t. She would never want to talk to him about it, not that last part anyway. But he would always listen.
Overcome with guilt—she’d used him, she’d used a really nice guy for sex—she sank to her knees in the tub and bowed her head. He wouldn’t mind the sex part. Tatum wasn’t born yesterday; Charlie wanted her. But what if he expected more from her now?
Worse, what if he didn’t?
17
“What’s eating you?”
Charlie heard Mal, but he ignored him. He’d been ignoring Mal and Sev for the past several days. Mal’s ridiculous mouth had slowed down and cleaned up a bit since he’d started seeing Everleigh, but Sev didn’t know when to shut up. Charlie had heard three different stories now about the girls he and Sev’s buddies had run into a few times at Tetris. Sev had complained every time he told the stories that meeting girls at Tetris didn’t lead to alley hookups as it had for Mal.
Still pissed at Tatum and a little bit hurt, though damned if he would admit that to anyone, Charlie kept his mouth shut and tended to the drywall tape and the mud, now and then swinging his trowel a little harder than necessary.
Thankfully, Sev was too into himself to notice, and up until now, Mal was too into Everleigh to realize something was bugging Charlie.
Bugging him.
Tatum had gone from mind-fucking him to flat out fucking him. Maybe Charlie had been used before, but this was the first time it mattered. The crazy, frenzied fucking at Tatum’s place had been the best sex he’d ever had. Right up until she stood up and walked out of the room. Even then, he might have been able to shrug it off. But then she’d closed her bedroom door and locked it. As if she worried he would barge in after her.
“Nothin’.” He kept his eyes on his coffee when he answered Mal.
He’d seen her since. Every morning, in fact. And he’d called a generic good morning or hello to her each morning and then steered clear of her. He had no idea what demons she was running from; he only knew that she’d become his own ghost in his head—not his heart. Tatum Pettit had made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with his heart.
“What the fuck, man?” Mal nudged him. Charlie counted to three before he looked at his brother, afraid he might grab that elbow and twist Mal’s arm behind his back and tell him to fuck off. “You haven’t said a total of three words in the past week.”
Mal’s eyebrows were drawn down in a severe frown. He looked worried. That was worse than the constant digs and jokes. Charlie made damned sure not to look around for Tatum. He didn’t want her to see him pissed off. If she was looking, if she was watching him, he didn’t want her to know he was still stewing over what had happened between them.
“Get back to work, man,” he mumbled to Mal. Usually, giving either of his younger brothers a direct order like that wouldn’t fly. He wasn’t their boss, and if the tables were turned and either of them told him even in the nicest way to get back to work, he’d balk. But Mal only nodded. He stared at Charlie a moment longer and finally slipped by him to get out from behind the counter.
Charlie sighed when he heard Mal and Everleigh saying goodbye—on a good day, he would be happy for his brother. Today, as with the past several days, the lovey-dovey display made him restless.
“Let’s go, dickhead.”
“Malachi.”
Charlie snorted despite his foul mood. He turned in time to see Mal hook his arm around Sev’s neck to lead him back to work. Their mother stood watching them with her arms folded over her chest and a severe frown on her face.
“Yo. Charles,” Sev hollered. “Let’s get back to work.”
Charlie flipped him the bird.
When Mal had shoved Sev out the door, Charlie turned to find his mom looking at him.
“If you boys can’t behave respectably in my coffee house, you can fill a thermos at home when you come to work.”
“No one saw me,” Charlie muttered.
Adele aimed a quirky eyebrow at him. “Wanna bet?”
He groaned and nodded. “You’d miss me if I didn’t come in every day,” he reminded her as he straightened from the counter and took a drink. “I am your favorite.”
