Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
CHRISTINE
“Oh no. What happened to you?” Fletcher covers his mouth with his hand as I swing the door open, but there’s no mistaking the amusement in his eyes.
I must look even worse than I feel. Defeated, I shuffle to the side to let him through, then lead him to the kitchen. He steps around me as he takes in the chaos—the broken sink, the tile falling off the wall, the remaining water dripping from the ceiling. I tried to clean up most of what I could reach. He frowns as he gets closer to inspect the sink and winces as he notices the mold.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else to call. Maybe I should’ve just texted you a picture. I hope you weren’t busy?—”
He turns to me, looking utterly bewildered. “I’m glad you called, Chris. Are you all right?”
I cross my arms over my chest. I changed into some dry clothes after calling him, but I can still feel how wet my hair is, and my makeup has seen better days. “Just mortified.”
There’s a strange softness in his eyes that I don’t know what to do with. But then he turns away, sets his hands on his hips, and sighs.
“The sink I could fix, no problem. The mold…I could do it, but I think we’re better safe than sorry. I can contact some guys I’ve worked with in the past. We’re gonna have to see how far it’s spread. You’ll probably want to find somewhere else to stay while they deal with it. I’d guess at least a week.”
I collapse onto one of the kitchen chairs, brace my elbows on the table, and rest my head in my hands.
“Good news is, I could do the ceiling in that same window, so when you guys get back, everything will be taken care of.”
“Until the next thing breaks,” I mutter under my breath.
“I know this is overwhelming, but it’s all fixable.”
The chair next to me scratches back against the floor, and Fletcher gives me a small, tired smile as he sits.
“Thank you for getting over here so fast. Wait—are you not working at the bar today?”
A weird look crosses his face. “I was. Didn’t really need two of us bartending. They let me off. How are your arms?”
“Oh.” I glance down. I took the bandages off this morning and all but forgot about them. “They’re fine. Just scratches.”
I startle as his fingers gently bracelet my wrist. He lifts my arm a few inches to inspect the wounds. I take the opportunity to get a better look at his face. Up close, the signs of exhaustion are a lot clearer. The bags under his eyes are dark.
“Are you all right?” I ask quietly.
His eyes flick up to mine, surprised. “Fine,” he says in the immediate way people always do when they don’t mean it. He smiles like he can tell I don’t believe him. “If you and Casey need someplace to stay, I have a guest room?—”
I open my mouth to protest.
“—which I know you won’t accept, but I needed to offer. This is already going to be an…expense. I don’t want you to have to pay for a hotel on top of it.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how expensive are you thinking it’ll be?”
He twists his mouth to the side. “It’ll depend on a few things—like how far it’s spread. Then you’ll have to put the whole kitchen back together.” He sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “I’d guess a few thousand. The sink and the ceiling I can do for free though.”
“No.”
“Chris—”
“ No . You can do it, but I’m paying you for it.”
He sighs and rubs his eyes. “I’m not just saying that because I like you. I’d offer the same to anyone in my life. People can just help each other, you know. It doesn’t have to be a transaction.”
I stare at him, and when he lowers his hand, he laughs.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised. You know I like you. I respect your reasons for wanting boundaries here, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
How I feel about you.
That is not at all the it was one night, it didn’t mean anything that I need. This goes beyond some mild awkwardness because we’ve seen each other naked. How I feel . In present tense. As in, it is currently ongoing.
I push up from the table. Then take a step back when there’s still not enough distance between us. This was a bad, bad idea.
“Right. So. If you would pass along the contact info for the company or whatever, I’d appreciate it, then I can take it from here.”
“Chris,” he sighs, and now I can’t look at him because I can still remember exactly how good he looked naked.
I remember exactly how it felt to kiss him. To have his hands on me. Inside of me.
I remember the way he whimpered and groaned in a way most men try so hard not to let you hear, and I have no idea why, because even just the memory of it has me breathing faster.
I remember the way he had me trembling, begging, out of my fucking mind with how good it felt.
I remember talking with him after. Sometimes about nothing at all, sometimes about things I’ve never shared with anyone because for some reason it was easier with him.
It was easy to laugh. To smile.
To let him hold me until we fell asleep.
It was all just…easy.
Until. Until.
“Chris,” he repeats, and his voice sounds different now. Like a question. A hope.
I hear him get up from the table, hear him come closer. I feel it. I can feel when he’s close. Feel when he’s looking. Feel him even when he’s across the room.
And when he’s not, I look for him. I wonder where he is.
And this is not the it was one night, it didn’t mean anything that I need.
My hands are shaking and I don’t know why. The room feels too small. I can smell his skin, even from here.
I turn around, and he’s standing close. Too, too close. His eyes burn as they meet mine. That mix of green and brown that has me staring into them, trying to find where one color stops and the other begins.
“This cannot happen,” I grit out through my teeth, but the words sound so small, so weak, that even I don’t believe myself.
He takes my face between his hands and kisses me.
I want to resist. I want to push him away. I want to tell him to stop.
But I fist my hand in his hair and pull him closer.
He backs me up until I press against the wall, his lips never breaking from mine. He groans into my mouth, or maybe I do.
I want more, more.
But he doesn’t touch me. His hands don’t leave my face, and I can feel how much he’s holding himself back. He frames my jaw with his thumbs to angle my face up to his, his fingers curling around the back of my neck as he kisses me slowly, deeply, in a way that’s almost tender.
In a way that I know means he’s about to let me go.
A whimper escapes me, and he pulls back an inch. He brushes my hair behind my ears and holds my face like it’s something delicate.
“This cannot happen,” I repeat, even though the words are small and hold no conviction.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
I search his eyes. “That’s it? Just okay?”
“I’m not going to talk you into this. I think I’ve made it clear where I stand. I want you. And I think you want me too.”
I should lie. But even if I did, I think he’d be able to tell. I’m pretty sure it’s written all over my face.
The lines around his eyes soften, and his thumb runs across my cheek. “I want you in whatever way I can have you. If you need to hide me to make that happen, I wouldn’t take it personally. Just let me be here. Let me be here for you.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. “Fletcher?—”
“And outside of this house, I’ll act however you want me to. Pretend I don’t know you, if that’s what you need.”
My heart drops. “You deserve better than that.” I lower his hands from my face and pull in a deep breath as I lean my head against the wall. How the hell did we end up here?
“Tell me you don’t think about me,” he says. “Tell me you don’t think about that night. Because I can’t stop thinking about it. All I do these days is think about you.”
I don’t say anything—I can’t. Because of course I’ve thought about it. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to stop. I haven’t had a moment of peace since it happened. Even when I’m not actively thinking about it, I can feel it somewhere deep down, the shift.
I’d thought maybe it was because it had been so long. Julian and my sex life deteriorated long before the marriage. The last time I had a one-night stand would’ve been over ten years ago.
And it definitely hadn’t gone the same way.
But if it wasn’t about that, if it wasn’t just the sex…I haven’t let myself think about that. I can’t .
“You’re too young for me, Fletcher,” I whisper.
“See, I’m not buying that.”
“You are a decade younger than me. That’s a big deal.”
He doesn’t respond at first, and when I look to him, a small, playful smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t men have shorter life expectancies on average? I think it’s six years. And you’re nine years older. So that pretty much evens us out. That leaves a three-year gap, if you’re being stingy. And three years is perfectly acceptable.”
I fight the urge to smile. He’s clearly thought about this before. “Your mental gymnastics are truly impressive.” Quietly, I add, “People would think I’m taking advantage of you.”
“If I was eighteen, I could see that. But I’m not some naive kid. But if you see me that way, then yeah, I’d say we have a problem.”
“Of course I don’t see you that way.”
“So that’s it then? You’re just worried about what other people would think?”
“No.” It’s not nearly as simple as that, but I don’t know how else to explain. “You know that I was twenty-three when I met Julian?”
Granted, that age difference was a lot more than nine years. At the time, I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into. Thought I knew what I wanted. Thought the playing field was even. And as much as I don’t want to, when I look at Fletcher, a part of me can’t help but see a past version of myself.
Fletcher is quiet for what feels like a very long time, his expression unreadable, but his eyes are locked on my face like he’s searching for something.
Finally, he says, “You are nothing like him. And this is nothing like that. This is something. You can’t tell me it’s not.”
He’s so close I can smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating from his skin.
“This might come across as insensitive, but things are bad already, aren’t they? People with their stupid fucking gossip—would it be so much worse if you add me to it? The way I see it, give them something to talk about. You’re giving them too much power, Chris. And they don’t matter.”
If that’s all there was to it, maybe I would.
“It’s not about…” I shake my head, a tear escaping from the corner of my eye.
“Then what?—”
“It’s Casey,” I all but sob.
I know I’m not a perfect mom. I might not even be a good one. But I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to be better than mine was for me.
And if there’s one thing she never, ever did for me, it was put me first.
Even having me. She made it all too clear she never wanted to. But at the time, she thought it would secure my dad, keep him from breaking up with her after they graduated high school like he’d been threatening to do.
And it worked. For a few years.
Until he left anyway.
Then all she had left was me.
Fletcher’s face falls.
“I can’t—I can’t do that to him—” I pull in a shuddering breath. “I can’t hurt him like this. I know you’d never hurt him. But the other kids at school? The people in this town? The way they’d look at him, the things they’d say? What about when he’s old enough to truly understand and is embarrassed of me? Resents me? I can’t do that to him. You want to know if I want this, but what I want doesn’t matter because I have to—for him—” I hiccup, every word coming out more breathless than the last.
He folds me into his arms and tucks my head beneath his chin. The floodgate breaks, and the tears I’ve been holding back all day, all month, for the past eight years, maybe even longer than that, run free.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“No. Don’t be. That’s all you had to say.” He strokes the back of my head. “I know you’re going through hell right now. Not just with the divorce, but I’ve seen the way people in town… You don’t deserve it. And I wish more than anything that I could fix this for you. But you don’t have to do this alone. Let me be here for you, even if it’s only when no one can see.”
Being on my own is nothing new. Even before I left home—even when I was married to Julian—I knew at the end of the day, the only person I could count on was myself.
But being used to it doesn’t make it any less exhausting.
And it wouldn’t be forever. Not long enough that I’d get so used to leaning on him that my own legs wouldn’t be able to hold me up anymore once he leaves, but just for now…just until the worst of this blows over…
“I know you think that’s unfair to me,” he continues. “But let me be the one to make that call. I’m asking you, just for a moment, to set it all aside. It’s just you and me standing here. And I want you to tell me how it feels. Because I feel like I don’t ever want to let go.”
All the fight left in me deflates. “And I feel like I don’t want you to.”
Slowly, I pull away and peel my eyes up to his. The way he gazes back, like the light of the sun itself is on fire behind his eyes—I know for certain no one else has ever looked at me like that. An emotion I can’t quite read weighs down his features. He almost seems…sad?
“You never called. After that night. Even before you knew who I was.” His voice is so raw, vulnerable. It makes my heart twist.
I swallow hard. “I wanted to.”
It’s embarrassing, actually, the number of times I had to talk myself out of it.
“I need you to be perfectly clear with me. What are we doing here, Chris?”
I lay my hand against the side of his face. “I want you. And not just…like this.” I smile a little and shrug. “I want you around. I like having you around. But I don’t want to confuse Casey, and I don’t want to make things worse for him.”
“So we keep this between you and me for now.”
I chew on my lip. “Is that okay?”
He rubs his nose along mine and nods.
“Are you sure?” I whisper. “Do you promise that’s okay?”
He takes my face between his hands, kisses me, and smiles. “I promise.”