Chapter 13
Charlie
The sheets in this Miami mansion are obscenely soft.
They have the kind of thread count that probably requires its own insurance policy—but I still can’t get comfortable.
I’ve been lying here for an hour, rearranging pillows, kicking off blankets, pulling them back on.
My body is exhausted but my brain refuses to power down.
It keeps replaying the same five minutes on an endless loop.
His hands fisting in my hair. His mouth hot and desperate against mine. The low sound he made when I arched into him—something between a groan and a growl that vibrated through my entire body.
And then: the way he practically pushed me away. The cold air rushing in to fill the space where his warmth had been. The look on his face like he’d just committed a crime he couldn’t take back.
My phone buzzes against the pillow, rattling me out of the memory.
Claire’s face fills the screen—a contact photo from two Christmases ago, both of us squeezed into matching ugly sweaters, her pregnant belly just starting to round under a reindeer with a light-up nose.
Her smile in the photo is pure chaos, like she’s mid-laugh about something only we would find funny.
It was only a few weeks later that she lost the baby.
I haven’t seen her smile like that since.
I answer before the second ring.
“I watched it.” Claire’s voice explodes through the speaker with the force of a small bomb.
“Charlie, I’ve watched it like a gagillion times already.
I have it saved. I have it bookmarked. I texted it to literally everyone I’ve ever met, including my dental hygienist, who now follows you on Instagram. ”
“You text your dental hygienist?”
“Yeah. Is that weird?”
“Super weird.” I sink deeper into the mountain of pillows, letting her enthusiasm wash over me like a warm bath. “Which part was your favorite?”
“All of it. Every single part. But when you got on the piano. Ugh, my heart. The speech about Dad teaching you how to play. The way you just—” She makes an explosion sound, complete with what I imagine are accompanying hand gestures.
“Your voice, Charlie. When you held that last note like you never wanted to let it go. You should’ve seen how the crowd was looking at you. You looked so at peace.”
Something loosens in my chest. “It felt different this time. Being up there. Like I remembered why I started doing this in the first place.”
“It was always in your DNA. Do you remember when we were twelve and you used to make me sit through full concerts in our living room?”
I laugh, the memory surfacing easily. “You said you loved those.”
“I was a captive audience. Under duress. You’d set up all your stuffed animals on the couch, bring out the guinea pigs’ cages. You just wanted as many bodies in a room as you could fit. I got up to pee once and you threatened my life.”
I clear my throat. “I might’ve been a little intense.”
She snickers. “My favorite memories. Just you, singing Mariah Carey covers, the guinea pigs squealing as your backup vocals. You were so happy. That’s what you looked like tonight. Really, really happy. And you didn’t even have to hog-tie anyone in the audience to get them to stay.”
“I never once hog-tied you. You were free to leave.”
“You would’ve cried.” I hear her shifting, settling deeper into what’s probably her own bed, thousands of miles away. “Besides, I was jealous.”
The admission catches me off guard. “Jealous? Of what?”
“Of the way you had this thing. This gift. It just radiated out of you. Even when we were kids, anyone could see it. You’d open your mouth and suddenly every adult in the room was paying attention to you instead of me.
” There’s no bitterness in her voice—just honesty, aged and softened by time.
“I was stuck with my participation trophies and my solid B in drama class. I didn’t have a creative bone in my body, and you were over there being special all the time. ”
“Please.” I roll onto my side, phone pressed to my ear.
“You were the pretty one. You had boys following you around like lost puppies from the time you were twelve. I couldn’t even get Jason Mercer to look at me, and I had a crush on him for two years.
And the first time he ever passed me a note in science class, know what it said?
‘Is your sister, Claire, still dating Aiden’? ”
“I don’t remember getting that note.”
“I also don’t remember crumpling it up and putting it in the trash,” I answer.
“Well, Jason Mercer was an idiot who peaked in middle school and now sells insurance in Kansas City. You dodged a bullet.”
“Damn, how do you know that?”
“Bed rest is so boring. I’ve watched all of Netflix and Hulu. I’ve now moved on to internet stalking our old high school class.”
“Riveting,” I deadpan.
Claire’s voice takes on a knowing quality. “And, by the way, what are you talking about? You had plenty of boys interested in you. You just never really wanted any of them back. It was just the chase for you.”
The words land in a tender place, stirring up memories I’d half forgotten. Notes in my locker with phone numbers scrawled in nervous handwriting. Promposals I declined as gently as I could. The confused, wounded faces of perfectly nice boys who couldn’t understand why I wasn’t interested.
I never knew how to explain it to them. Something in me was always waiting.
For a feeling I couldn’t name. A recognition I’d never experienced.
A special spark my mom practically prophesied.
I wanted my first love to be fireworks, blimps in the sky, a perfect story to rewrite my life.
I wasn’t going to settle for giving it up in the back of an old Chevy after homecoming.
“It wasn’t the chase. I just wanted big love. Forever love. Beauty and the Beast, the old couple from Up, Harley Quinn and Joker. You know the kind of love that becomes your whole world.”
“I don’t think you want what Harley Quinn and Joker have,” Claire says. “Pretty toxic.”
“The way he broke down prisons to save her—”
“After he basically put her there.”
“Okay, and when he rescues her from that vat of acid?”
“After he pushed her in? Geez, Charlie, you’re scaring me. Just say like Superman and Lois Lane.”
I laugh. “Fine. All I mean is I wanted a guy who’d move mountains for me. I wanted a guy that I’d move mountains for, too. Just that monumental, kismet feeling. You know?”
“Yeah, I get that, sweetie. But that’s not how real love works.”
I beg to differ. “I kissed him tonight.”
“What? Who? Grayson?”
“What? No. Grayson serves the purpose of a used lollipop stick.”
“What do you do with used lollipop sticks?”
“Exactly,” I emphasize. “At the end of this tour, Grayson is no longer my problem. I’m talking about Taio…who I very much want to remain my problem.”
“Taio…” Claire muses. “Is your…?”
“Bodyguard. Well, fake bodyguard. Real escort.”
“Oh. My. Fuck. That’s what the paparazzi actually got a picture of? You banging your bodyguard on the patio of Dad’s hotel?”
“No! Claire! They got a picture of me…trying to bang my bodyguard on the patio. But he wasn’t my bodyguard at the time. Just—”
“Your escort?”
“Not my escort. Just an escort. There was a mix-up. It was actually adorable. He was so embarrassed when I found the vibrator he brought.”
Claire’s silent for a moment. “Charlie, are you doing drugs? Like the hard stuff?”
“Claire,” I growl into the phone.
“Well, I’m sorry. You’re my little sister—”
“Barely.”
“—and you’re sitting here telling me you gave your virginity to an escort? After all these years of waiting for your big fireworks moment? Spence told me you were coming a little unraveled, but I’m getting ready to stage a family intervention.”
“Claire Bear,” I whine.
“I hate when you call me that.”
“I know but it shuts you up.” I put the phone on speaker and toss it on the mattress. Rubbing the side of my temple, I explain the only way I know how. “I didn’t sleep with him, but I really, really like him. A lot. And our kiss was…everything. I’ve never had a kiss like that before.”
“Aw, Charlie, you like him, like him? Then, that’s great. Where is he now?”
“Hiding from me, probably,” I admit. “I think I liked the kiss more than he did.”
“Uh-oh. Did you go in with too much tongue?”
Well, shit. I didn’t think of that. “How much is too much tongue?”
“If you can feel his tonsils, you’re in too deep.” She cackles at her joke.
“So helpful, sister. I’m so glad I shared this with you,” I say, my response drenched in sarcasm.
“Okay, okay, I’m being serious now. I’m sorry. How can I help?”
I stare at my kneecap, tracing the small, California-shaped birthmark with my gaze.
“I don’t even know what I’m feeling. My life is so intense.
Like constant sensory overload but whenever I’m around him it seems so simple.
And I really like that. He makes me feel like a normal person.
But I can’t figure out his deal—if he’s this sexual sensei who wants to rearrange my insides, or if he just wants to be my new best friend. ”
“Ah.” She draws the syllable out knowingly. “What are the chances he wants both?”
“Men never want both.”
“Men? Or you?”
Before I can answer, my bedroom door creaks open.
I freeze, staring at Claire’s profile picture, heart catapulting into my throat. A shadow moves in the doorway, low to the ground, and for one wild, hopeful second I think—
Black Cat rockets across the hardwood floor like a furry cannonball with an attitude problem.
He makes a beeline for my bed, launches himself onto the mattress with an athletic grace that seems unnatural for a creature of his considerable roundness, and immediately begins kneading my stomach like he’s preparing bread dough. His purr rumbles through my entire body.
I hold my breath. My eyes fix on the doorway. Waiting. Hoping.
But the doorway stays empty.
The hallway beyond is dark and silent. No footsteps. No voice. No Taio.