15. Charli
15
CHARLI
Standing in the bathroom, I plant my hands on either side of the sink and stare at myself in the mirror.
It’s weird—I haven’t really spent a lot of time looking at myself since I got here. Which is new for me. When I was with James, he would always expect me to look my best, and if I turned out with anything other than the most perfect makeup and pristine outfit, he would turn it into a reason to get mad at me.
But now? Now I have none of my usual beauty stuff. Nothing much more than a hairbrush and some face wash. And somehow—I feel like I look more myself than I ever have before.
I grab the clothes from where I dumped them on the floor, the steam still rising off my body from the scalding hot shower I just took. It feels so good, getting into a real routine here, starting to relax and allow myself to settle in now that they know the truth about me. Of course, I might not have wanted it to come out like that, but sometimes you’ve just got to come clean and pray that it works out for you in the long run.
And…for now, it seems to have done just that. It’s been a few days since I told them about what happened with James and me, and I keep waiting for them to change their minds—keep waiting for the moment they’re going to flip out and decide none of this is worth all the trouble. Dax, especially.
But they don’t. They still want me here. Chuck and I even slept together—and damn, that delicious body against mine is all I’ve been craving ever since.
Which is just another layer on top of the spectacularly confusing cake that has been baking since I’ve arrived here. How is it, exactly, that I’ve managed to get involved with all three of them? Sure, it’s just a kiss between Dax and me so far, but…but I get the feeling it will become more, in time.
Or maybe I just hope it will. Because my body is awakening again after so long under lock and key, and I want to make the most of this new craving for pleasure in any way I can.
With James, I just let him do what he wanted to me—pretty much checked out of any of our sexual encounters, lying there and allowing him to do what he needed to do so he would get off and leave me alone. God forbid I try and turn him down, which always led to a storm of screaming and accusations about how I must be cheating on him, demands to know where I’d been getting my satisfaction since I didn’t want it with him. No, it was just easier to lie there and let it happen.
As a result, I became utterly disconnected from my body, from my pleasure. How could I even think about that, when I was just trying to keep him satisfied and off my back?
But being with the guys here, feeling their hands on me, their want for me, it’s…confusing. And exciting. And everything else, all at once, and I don’t know what to make of it.
Suddenly, a knock on the door draws me out of my reverie. I jump, and quickly button up the shirt Callum loaned me. I’ve been living in his clothes lately, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t love the smell of his skin so close to mine, even if it’s nothing more than necessity.
“Sorry, I’ll be out in a second,” I call.
“No rush,” Callum replies. “We’re just having a drink. You want one?”
“What are you having?”
“Scotch. Well, what passes for it out of Chuck’s brewery, anyway.”
I grin and bite my lip. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to drink that’s been intended for actual fun, as opposed to just wiping out my current reality.
“I’d love that,” I reply. “I’ll be out in a second…”
I finish getting dressed and toweling off my hair, and then head out of the bathroom to find the guys in their usual seats around the crackling fireplace. The smell of wood and char fills the air, and Callum glances around to hold a glass out to me as I move closer to them.
“Thanks,” I murmur, gazing down at the amber liquid in the glass before me. “How strong is this stuff, exactly?”
“Strong enough,” Chuck replies, and he shifts slightly to make room for me on the large loveseat he’s on, to the right of the fireplace. Opposite us, Dax sits, and he nods at me in greeting—just a quick motion, but a far cry from how cold he’s been to me up until now.
“That’s what I like to hear,” I reply, and I lift the glass to my lips. As soon as I taste the stuff, I wince, and burst out laughing.
“Holy hell, Chuck,” I protest, turning to him. “This can’t be legal. You could take paint off cars with this!”
“In theory,” he replies, chuckling. “But I prefer to keep it for us.”
I take another sip—it still burns, but the good kind of burn, the kind of burn that warms you up on a cold night like this. There’s a large bottle on the small table in front of the fireplace, and I’m already eyeing it, wondering if I can stomach another glass, when Callum begins to speak.
“It was our dad who taught us to brew,” he remarks, and I notice Dax stiffen at once. The three of them haven’t told me much about their father. I know he died just before I met Callum, and he’s the one who got this cabin for them, but that’s about where it ends. But here’s Callum, offering me a chance to get into it a little with them—and I’m more than willing to take it.
“Oh, yeah?”
He nods. “Yeah. He came out here a lot, in the last few years. Right, Chuck?”
Chuck pauses for a moment, staring at Callum—but then he nods too.
“Yeah, he was up here all the time,” he mutters.
“It was the only place he didn’t feel like he was going crazy,” Dax adds. “Can’t say I don’t know what that feels like.”
I glance between the three brothers, trying to work out if I can ask what’s really on my mind. Finally, I swallow down the second-guessing and come out with it. If I’ve come clean with them, then I’m within my rights to ask a few questions of them too, right?
“What happened to your dad?”
Those words hang there for a long moment. In that instant, I’m sure I have overstepped. The tension in the room is palpable.
“It’s okay,” I quickly add. “You don’t have to—I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t?—”
“No, it’s fine,” Chuck cuts in, and the other two nod.
“Yeah, you told us what happened with you,” Dax remarks. “If you’ve got questions about us, you deserve to hear the answers.”
I chew my lip, glancing between them. Whatever this is, I can tell that it weighs heavy on all of them, and I hate the thought that I might have pulled up whatever this is from the depths of their memory when all they wanted was to leave it behind.
“He wasn’t well, after he came back from service,” Chuck continues, speaking slowly, like he’s not used to putting this out there so bluntly. “He was…even when we were growing up, he had a hard time. Nightmares, flashbacks, shit like that. He tried his best, brought us up here every chance he got, but I guess it could only do so much to keep him from going back to that place, when he was a SEAL.”
Silence, again. Chuck takes a long sip of his drink, and then speaks once more, gazing into the fire, like the flames give him some kind of respite from the conversation we’re having right now.
“Maybe he would have been alright in the long run,” he admits. “But it was when we joined up that it got hard for him. He heard what we went through, and he knew better than anyone, what that was like. It brought it all back to the surface for him, and he—he couldn’t live with it. Not long after Dax got back, he…” He trails off.
My lips part in shock. He doesn’t need to fill in the rest, I can already tell what he’s getting at. “He…?”
Chuck nods. “He ended it,” he replies, bluntly. “Couldn’t cope with living like that any longer. Our mom didn’t last much longer after that either. She blamed herself—she got sick, the stress of it, and…”
He shakes his head. I reach out for his hand and squeeze it tight, wishing I could do the same for all the brothers in this moment.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I breathe. “I had no idea…”
“I never wanted to tell you about it,” Callum admits. “Because—because I thought you would make yourself sick like my mom did, worrying about what might happen to me.”
“You could have spoken to me about it,” I whisper to him. “I would have—I would have understood…”
He manages a small smile. “Yeah, that was what I was worried about,” he murmurs. “I was worried you wouldn’t do the right thing for yourself and you’d try to help me. That’s why I left. I didn’t want you to let your sweetness drive you to stick by me when you should have been out living your own life.”
I can feel tears prickling my eyes. I hate this. I hate knowing that he thought so little of himself, that he didn’t believe he was worth the trouble it would have taken to be with him. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere, if I’d known what he was going through—shit, I would have done anything for him to just come out and tell me, instead of trying to conceal it, trying to force me away from this side of himself.
I take another sip of my drink, trying to ground myself with the sharp bite of it against my tongue. It’s so much to take in. But it all makes sense. The pieces that have been so scattered since the night he left me are beginning to fall into place, and I’m starting to fit them together.
“And that’s why you came here?” I ask, when I find it in me to speak again. Dax lets out a snort, almost derisive, though I know it’s not aimed at me.
“That’s why they dragged me up here,” he replies. Callum and Chuck look over to him, and it’s clear that they’re not sure what to make of this sudden outburst. There’s still tension there, heavy in the air between them and their brother, as though the memories of everything that happened to bring them to this point are all too fresh.
“Because you were ill,” Chuck reminds him quietly. “You were?—”
“Because I was fucking losing it after my unit got killed around me,” he shoots back, blunt. “Because I couldn’t live in the real world after that happened. Because I would have ended up like Dad if you guys didn’t get me out of there, shit?—”
He stops himself dead in his tracks, inhaling deeply and slowing his words. I can tell it’s not easy for him. Whatever nightmare he’s been through, it still clings to the top of his mind, and I wonder if he’ll ever truly feel free from it.
“You saved me,” he mutters, staring down at his drink. “That’s why we came here. Because they wouldn’t let me lose myself the way we lost our father.”
He exhales slowly and nods to his brothers—the closest thing he’s going to get to effusive gratitude. Callum smiles back at him, and Chuck raises his drink slightly.
I glance around at the three of them. It’s hard to believe that things could ever have gotten that bad for them, really. The way they carry themselves now, for the most part…it’s with such confidence and certainty that I can’t imagine them ever having to fight against the odds like that.
“Do you feel like…has it worked?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “Coming here? Getting away from everything?”
“In some ways,” Callum replies. “Most ways, really. It took me away from all the bullshit that would trigger me back in the city, and I can control everything out here, the way it all goes, how it looks, how each day unfolds?—”
“Apart from Dax’s attitude,” Chuck cuts in, drawing a laugh from around the room.
“Yeah, well, can’t have it all,” Callum concedes. “But…yeah. It’s been the right choice for me.”
“And me,” Dax agrees gruffly.
I sigh heavily, staring into the fire.
“What is it?” Callum asks softly, sensing the shift in my attitude.
“It’s just…I’m glad for you, I really am,” I reply. “It makes me so glad to know that the three of you have this place, and that it’s helped you. I just…”
I trail off. I don’t want to sound selfish, or like I’m making this all about myself, but the weight of everything I’ve been through still hangs heavy over my head, even here.
“I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel that way.”
“What do you mean?” Chuck asks, a furrow appearing in his brow as he laces his fingers through mine. To my surprise, neither Dax or Callum comment on our sudden closeness—have they talked about it already, what’s happening between us? Maybe. I guess it’s not what matters right now.
“I mean, with James,” I admit. “The way he got inside my head, the way he—the power he has in this state. I don’t feel like I’m ever going to be able to get away from him, or what he’s done to me. Unless I spend the rest of my life in hiding, and that’s not exactly the existence I had imagined for myself, you know?”
I shake my head. “It feels like I’m always going to be running from him,” I continue, the words spilling from me faster than I can stop them. “And now that he’s sending people out here, to this place you’ve worked so hard to build, I just…”
I find the words hitching in my throat. I hate how helpless I am in the face of this. Running from that man has landed me here, among these men who are actually worth something, these men who are decent and kind and have offered me a place to stay when it feels as though everything else is falling apart. And I’ve dragged my past with me, and that past might destroy them even as it takes me down too.
“I can’t let him take this from you,” I murmur. “And I hate that I might have made you a part of this.”
“You didn’t make us a part of this,” Dax replies, his voice almost sharp, like he’s annoyed I would even see it that way.
I glance up at him. “What do you?—”
“We might not have had a choice where you crashed your car,” he replies, leaning toward me slightly. “But we had a choice to keep you here. You told us everything, and we decided we still wanted you in this cabin. Here, with us. Is that not enough to convince you?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. The way he’s speaking, it’s almost fierce, like he can hardly believe I would doubt them like this. And I suppose it’s only fair. They’ve made it clear that they’re not going to let me go anywhere, and instead of believing them, all I can think about is how this can go wrong.
“And besides, that motherfucker has no idea what he’s getting into with us,” Dax continues, leaning back in his seat again, a grin crossing his face. “He might think he knows how to handle this, but he doesn’t have a fucking clue.”
“But it’s his father I’m worried about,” I admit. “That was what he always used to get what he wanted, his father, he’d use him to?—”
“And if his father’s someone with any real power, then there are people who want to bring him down,” Chuck adds. “People who will be very interested to hear what his son has been using his influence for. And those people will probably be very interested to hear what you’ve got to say about the way he’s treated you—and how he used his dad’s power to make that happen.”
“I don’t know about that,” I mumble. “Nobody really cares about what I have to say…”
“That’s not true,” Callum fires back, his voice sharp. “People do. Whatever shit he’s spun to you about where you stand in the world, he’s only done it because he’s scared that you’ll suddenly realize you’ve got a whole lot more power than he ever wanted to give you credit for.”
I look up at him, raising my eyebrows. Within me, something begins to awaken—something that hasn’t been there for a long time. This sense that, maybe, I might be the one holding the cards here, after being certain for years that James was the one dealing them.
“He showed a side of himself to you that he doesn’t let the world see,” Callum continues, leaning toward me, speaking quickly. “And that means you have something on him. You just need some way to prove what he’s been doing, and he’s dead to rights. And so is his father.”
When he puts it like that, I can’t argue with him. It just sounds like it makes perfect sense—of course I have the power here. Of course I’m the one deciding how this is going to go. I feel the smallest hint of a smile creeping up the corners of my mouth, and I wonder, just for a second, if they might be right.
“See? There’s my girl,” Callum laughs. “You’re in control here, Charli. You can bring him down.”
“And anything you need from us—we’ll give it to you,” Chuck adds.
Dax nods in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t like the thought of that asshole out there, walking around like he owns the place,” he mutters. “I look forward to wiping the smile off his face…”
As the three of them continue to talk, I lean back in my seat and lift the drink to my lips once more. It might be the alcohol, or it might be the fact that I’m suddenly feeling optimistic in ways I haven’t in a long time—but whatever it is, the future suddenly feels a little more manageable.
As long as I have these three on my side, I can take on the world. And I know I’ll win.