Chapter 25
MYLES
You’d think that tearing up ratty carpet that smells every bit as old as it looks would be the perfect thing to keep your mind off the fact that you’ve just realized that you’re thirsting over your best friend.
Apparently not, because I haven’t been able to get Charlie out of my head for a damn second since I started.
Or since our hike yesterday, for that matter.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve picked up my phone to text him to see if he wants to come by later on or go for a walk. Each time though, I’ve talked myself out of it.
Trouble is, I don’t feel like I have a firm enough grasp on my intentions to trust myself around him right now.
Fuck. For all I know, he’s long since gotten over the feelings he had for me ten years ago. Probably even, considering how he’s told me he only wants to be friends.
And so what if he might be interested in more? Fuck buddies? Friends with benefits?
Hell no. Charlie deserves so much more than that.
He deserves someone who loves him.
My chest squeezes almost painfully as a ripple of something that feels way too much like jealousy courses through me at the thought of some other man loving Charlie. Becoming his person.
Doesn’t matter that I know that’s all I should want for him.
It’s just… He’s my person.
Forgetting that my hands are dusty and grimy with god knows what from the carpet I’ve already ripped up, I reach up and scrub my hand up over my face, through my hair, until it lands at the back of my neck.
The pressure in my chest builds, along with an ache at the back of my throat and a prickling behind my eyes.
For ten and a half years, I’d thought having Charlie back as my friend was impossible. The one thing I’d known though was that if the impossible ever did happen, it would be all I could ever ask for.
Well look at me now. Here I am with exactly what I spent a goddamn decade yearning for, and suddenly, it’s not enough.
I’m so fucking greedy for him, this new need is like the need to breathe.
It’s like the need for more of Charlie and more than just friendship between us is squeezing the air right out of my lungs.
I’ve never felt anything like this, and whatever it is, it’s like I’m losing my mind.
My phone buzzes with a message alert sound, and I dive for it, narrowly missing slicing my palm open on the strip of carpet tacking I’ve just exposed on the stair above me.
Rachel. Not Charlie.
I’m definitely a dick for how disappointed I am as I swipe open the message.
Rach has been nothing but awesome over the last couple months.
When I’d finally caved and gone out for drinks with her, first thing I’d done was make myself man up and tell her that I wasn’t after anything but hanging out as friends.
She’d tipped her head back and laughed before looking me dead in the eye and calling me an egotistical bastard. Next second, she’d followed that determination up with a hug and a lipsticky kiss on my cheek.
“I’m seeing someone already,” she’d told me, whipping out her phone to show me a picture of her wrapped up in the arms of a brawny, handsome man with waves of thick blonde hair and a kind smile.
“Ryan. He coaches the football team at a college in Tacoma. We’re kind of long distance right now, which sucks obviously, but we’ve been talking about moving in together. ”
“Rach,” I’d pulled her into another hug. “I’m so happy for you.” And I’d meant it.
Between Charlie and trying to keep up with my schedule of work on Dad’s house and the fact that Rachel goes to Tacoma to see Ryan as often as she can, the two of us haven’t hung out much since that night, but we text most days, and I can’t deny how good it feels.
Even though she’d been the first person I’d ever felt any attraction for as well as my first girlfriend, Rach has always been first and foremost my friend.
Never the way Charlie has been, but a good friend.
Under the superficial exterior she pastes on, she’s kind and sensitive, with one of the biggest hearts of anyone I’ve ever known.
She was the one who got me through the years in Riverside after Charlie left. I’d barely managed to drag my miserable, depressed, self-loathing ass back to school when September came around, but from the first day back, she just sort of latched onto me and wouldn’t let me go.
Rachel’s the only one I told what had happened.
Some of it, at least. I didn’t tell her that the reason I’d cut Charlie out of my life was that I’d realized that he was in love with me, and I didn’t tell her how sure I was that there was something fucked up and wrong with me for not being able to make myself want anyone.
I’d told her about my dad though, and how I’d lied to him and told him Charlie was this baseball prodigy and how he’d blown up when he’d found out I’d been feeding him nothing but BS about him all those years. I’d let her think that Dad had been the one who made me ghost Charlie.
The two of us lost touch when I’d left Riverside. We’d still been together until then, and Rachel hadn’t made a secret of the fact that she hoped I’d stay for her. For a while, we’d messaged some, but I know she was hurt, and our messages got fewer and farther between until they eventually stopped.
I’d be lying if I said I’d given much thought to missing her after that. Definitely nothing like I felt over Charlie being gone from my life. Now though, with her safely attached to Ryan and the pressure for anything but low-key friendship gone, I’m glad we’ve reconnected.
Reminding myself that it’s not Rachel’s fault that it was her rather than Charlie that texted me, I make myself read her message.
Rachel: Ry has to pick a friend up from the airport, so I’m back from Tacoma early. U want 2 grab a coffee with me and take a walk?
I’m halfway through typing out a response—thanks, but no thanks—when yet another wave of memory from yesterday washes over me.
How warm and smooth and solid Charlie’s back felt under my hand.
The way that sharp gasp of breath he’d let out had gone straight to my dick.
How, when he’d jumped down out of my truck when I’d pulled into his driveway, I’d had to literally clench my hands around the steering wheel to keep from reaching out after him and pulling him against me for what I’d tried to tell myself would only be a hug, just so I could feel his body one last time that night.
Along with all that though, there’s a deeper current of…something. It feels almost like missing him did, when he was gone from my life and I was sure I’d never have him back. It’s aching and heavy, and I don’t have a name for it except for longing.
Unless I want to risk blowing up my friendship with Charlie—a thing I flat out refuse to do—there’s nothing I can do besides ride this new chaos out, but I have to admit I’ve reached a point where I can’t do it alone. I don’t know that I’m ready to open up to anyone fully, but I need help.
I need a friend, and for this, that friend can’t be Charlie.