Chapter 3 Charisma
CHARISMA
Idrank the damn coffee.
It was hot and strong and exactly what I needed, warming me from the inside out while the blanket handled the outside. T.J. sat across from me in his armchair, watching me like he was afraid I might shatter if he looked away. That wasn’t entirely unreasonable, given the state I’d shown up in.
"Your brother," he said after a while. "Does he know you're coming?"
"Sort of. I tried to call, but it went to voicemail, so I left a message saying I was on my way and needed a place to crash. Then I lost signal before he could call me back." I laughed, but it came out hollow. "He's probably worried sick by now."
“What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
“Dagger. Dagger Wells.” I watched his face for recognition, but there was nothing. “He lives in a cabin somewhere around here. We just found each other at Christmas—DNA test thing—and he’s been trying to get me to move here ever since.”
T.J. shook his head slowly. “Don’t know him. But I don’t know anyone around here. I keep to myself.”
That made sense. I scanned the cabin around us. It was comfortable but sparse, the furniture practical rather than decorative. No photos on the walls. No personal touches that I could see. Just a man-sized dent in the couch cushion and a stack of paperbacks on the side table.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Three years.”
“And you don’t know your neighbors?”
“I know they exist. That’s enough.” He took a sip of his coffee, watching me over the rim. “You should get out of those wet clothes. I’ll find you something to wear.”
He stood before I could respond and disappeared down a short hallway. I heard a drawer open and close, then he returned with a folded stack of fabric—a flannel shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring waist.
“Bathroom’s through there.” He nodded toward the hallway. “Towels are under the sink if you want to dry your hair.”
I took the clothes from him, my fingers brushing against his. A spark of something shot up my arm—unexpected and electric—and I saw his jaw tighten like he’d felt it too.
“Thank you,” I said. “For all of this. You didn’t have to—”
“Go change, Charisma.”
The way he said my name made my stomach flip. Low and rough, like the word had to fight its way out of his throat.
I nodded and fled to the bathroom before I could do something stupid, like ask him to say it again.
The bathroom was small but clean. I peeled off my wet hoodie and work uniform, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked terrible—my mascara was smeared, my hair was tangled, and that awful bruise stood out like a brand on my arm.
But beneath the mess, I was still me. Still the girl who’d aged out of foster care at eighteen with nothing but a garbage bag of clothes and a stubborn refusal to let the world break her.
Still the girl who’d worked double shifts and skipped meals to make rent, who’d taken a job at The Naughty Fork because the tips were good.
That girl had learned long ago that men were going to stare at her body whether she got paid for it or not.
And that was why I was still a virgin at twenty-three. No man had ever made me feel like anything more than a collection of curves to be ogled and grabbed and commented on.
I pulled on T.J.’s flannel shirt, and it swallowed me whole.
The hem hit mid-thigh, the sleeves hung past my fingertips, and it smelled like him—cedar and leather, with warmth beneath it that made my stomach tighten.
I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and stepped into the sweatpants, cinching the drawstring as tight as it would go.
When I looked in the mirror again, I barely recognized myself. Not the Naughty Fork girl in the tiny shorts. Not the viral meme. Just a woman in borrowed clothes, standing in a stranger’s bathroom, wondering how her life had taken such a sharp turn.
I found T.J. in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. He glanced up when I walked in, and his eyes traveled over me slowly—not the way men usually looked at me, assessing and hungry, but something else. Something that made heat bloom in my cheeks.
“Soup,” he said, turning back to the pot. “Nothing fancy. Just canned stuff. But you should eat something.”
“You don’t have to keep taking care of me.”
“Someone should.”
The words landed in my chest and stuck there, sharp-edged and sweet. I moved to the small kitchen table and sat down, tucking my bare feet up under me.
“Why do you live out here all alone?”
He didn’t answer right away. He just ladled soup into two bowls and carried them to the table, setting one in front of me before taking the seat across from mine. The same position as before. Close enough to talk, far enough to think.
“I needed to disappear for a while,” he finally said. “Clear my head.”
“For three years?”
His mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. “Some heads take longer to clear than others.”
“What did you do before? Before the mountain?”
“Army. Fifteen years.”
That explained the posture. The controlled movements. The way he seemed constantly aware of everything around him, like he was cataloging exits and threats without even thinking about it.
“Why did you leave?”
He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at his soup. When he spoke, his voice was different. Heavier.
“There was a woman in my unit. Stacy Fletcher. She came to me because one of the officers was harassing her. Cornering her. Making comments. Touching her when no one was looking.” His jaw tightened.
“I told her to report it. Go through proper channels. I thought if she did everything right, the system would protect her.”
I already knew how this story ended. I could feel it coming like a storm on the horizon.
“It didn’t,” I said.
“No.” He looked up at me, his eyes dark with old pain.
“They retaliated. Found some bullshit reason to discharge her. Last I heard, she’d moved back to her hometown, but I lost touch.
Don’t even know if she’s okay.” He set down his spoon, his appetite clearly gone.
“I told her to speak up, and it destroyed her life. I should’ve done more.
Should’ve gone with her, backed her up, raised hell.
Instead, I gave her advice and went back to my bunk and told myself I’d done my part. ”
“That’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not. But I was part of a system that failed her, and I didn’t do a damn thing to fight it.
” He met my gaze, and something passed between us.
Recognition. Understanding. “When you told me what happened to you tonight—some asshole grabbing you, you defending yourself, the whole world turning on you for it—I recognized that story. I’ve been carrying it around for years.
And I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch it happen again and do nothing. ”
My throat tightened. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. No one had ever looked at me and seen past the surface, past the body that drew stares and comments and unwanted hands. No one had ever been angry on my behalf.
“Can I show you something?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He nodded.
I pulled out my phone. The battery was down to twelve percent, no signal, but the video was saved—I’d downloaded it before I left Springfield, some masochistic impulse to keep the evidence of my own destruction close.
I navigated to my photos and handed the phone across the table. He watched in silence. I couldn’t see the screen from where I sat, but I knew exactly what he was seeing. Me in my Naughty Fork uniform, standing at a table, my voice carrying across the restaurant.
“Does anyone know where this man’s mother is?” I heard myself say. “She missed a lesson.”
I could see it in my head as though I were watching the video myself. The camera shaking with the person’s laughter. The comments rolling in at the bottom of the screen.
When it ended, T.J. set the phone down very carefully, like he was afraid of what his hands might do if he wasn’t deliberate about controlling them.
“Where’s the part where he grabbed you?”
“They didn’t film that part.”
“Of course, they didn’t.” His voice was ice and barely contained fury. “And the bruise on your arm? Is that in any of these comments?”
“No.”
He pushed back from the table and stood, pacing to the window where snow still battered against the glass. His shoulders were rigid, his hands flexing at his sides.
“T.J.?”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t sound fine. He sounded like a man holding himself back from putting his fist through a wall. “I just need a minute.”
I got up from the table and crossed to where he stood. I didn’t know why. Didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew that something in me was pulling toward him like gravity.
“No one’s ever been angry for me before,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s always been at me. For what I’m wearing.
For how I look. For existing in a body that makes men think they’re entitled to touch me.
” I reached out and put my hand on his arm, felt the muscles tense beneath my fingers.
“I’ve never let anyone close because of it.
Never trusted anyone enough. I’m twenty-three years old, and I’ve never—”
I stopped, my cheeks flushing hot.
He turned to face me now, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that stole my breath.
“Never what?”
“I’ve never been with anyone.” The words came out barely audible. “Not because I didn’t want to. Just because no one ever made me feel like they saw me. The actual me. Not just the body.”
He went very still. His gaze dropped to my mouth, then back up to my eyes, and I watched him wage some kind of internal war. His hand came up slowly—so slowly—and cupped my jaw. His palm was warm and rough with calluses, and I leaned into it without thinking.
“Charisma.” My name again, that same rough scrape, but softer now. Almost reverent. “I need you to be sure about this. Because if you let me kiss you right now, I’m not going to want to stop. And I’ve spent three years not wanting anything, and I don’t know how to do this halfway.”
My heart pounded so hard, I was sure he could feel it. “I don’t want halfway.”
Something broke behind his eyes. Permission, maybe. Or the last of his resistance.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. It was three years of isolation colliding with twenty-three years of loneliness, and the impact was devastating.
His mouth claimed mine like he was starving, one hand tangling in my hair, the other gripping my hip and pulling me against him until there was no space left between us.
I gasped against his lips, and he swallowed the sound, deepening the kiss until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but hold on.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard. He straightened but his eyes were still closed.
“Bedroom,” he said roughly. “Now. Unless you want to stop.”
I didn’t want to stop.
I never wanted to stop.