Chapter 27
CHARLIE
Charlie opened the door, paper bag swinging at his side. “Hey! I bring offerings of food.”
“Welcome back!” she called out, her gaze firmly on her laptop.
He’d hated leaving her here by herself earlier, the unexpected relief tingling across his skin as he placed the bag on the counter. “What’d you get up to while I was gone?”
She smiled at him. “Well, it’s been an interesting day, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah?”
“My publisher accepted my book.”
Charlie pumped a fist into the air, earning a giggle from her. “See, I knew it! I told you they’d love it.”
“And then,” she continued, “I talked to my Aunt Emily.”
Record scratch. What an awful way to celebrate something so great. “What’d she want now?”
Sam smiled once more and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I finally told her to stop calling. Blocked her and everyone else on that side.”
Quite the eventful day, indeed. Charlie wanted to cheer but restrained himself.
Even if she was happy with her decision, which she absolutely should be, he wasn’t sure how she felt about it all.
They were, at the end of the day, the only blood relatives she had left.
And the last thing he wanted was to make her feel bad with some over-the-top reaction.
“Proud of you, babe,” he finally settled on, meaning every word.
“Thanks. It felt really good,” she admitted coyly. Her lip pouted out when she glanced back at the screen, a tension there that didn’t match what she’d just said.
Charlie dug his hands into his pockets. “What’s with the sour face, then? You look like you’ve been sucking on a lemon.”
“Glad my face reflects my mood.” She pouted, leaning back to stretch her arms above her head, a sliver of skin peaking out from beneath.
He shook his head and patted the counter space in front of him. “Come here. Tell me what’s up.”
A hint of pink seemed to color Sam’s cheeks, but it could’ve been the sunlight against her face just as she turned to face him.
“I’m… I’m finding myself stuck on a critical part of my book, but I’m having a really hard time with it, so I’m frustrated. Nothing to worry about.”
Precisely something Charlie should be concerned with, as helping her with this book was what started everything. Something he seemed to keep forgetting.
He motioned again for her to join him in the kitchen as he pulled two large bottles of seltzer from the bag. “Come hither.”
She laughed. “For what?”
“Get away from your computer, and talk with me,” he replied, leaning back against the counter. “Clear your head for a bit, and have a drink with me.”
It had been a few days since the nightclub debacle, and, while Sam hadn’t given him any indication that she remembered anything, Charlie was exhausted from feeling awkward about it. If she didn’t remember, he could pretend like he didn’t either.
Beyond that, he missed her. Their conversations had been minimal between the chaos of Sam in the thick of writing, work, and the latest with Paul. Yet it felt like an eternity. He yearned for the effortless and laid-back manner they shared with one another over a hot cup of coffee.
Sam stood, giving one final stretch before joining him.
She accepted the seltzer he extended, popping the top of it off and clinking it against his.
“So? Tell me what’s on your mind,” he prompted.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the effect bringing a flush of color to her lips. She puckered them as she swallowed the sip she’d taken with a grimace.
He really needed to stop staring at her lips.
“I told you, it’s just book stuff.”
He laughed. “All the more reason to talk to me about it. It can’t be that bad.”
“Seriously, Charlie, it’s fine.”
“Sam,” he egged with a grin, drawing her name out, “you can tell me anything.”
There was something about the way her eyes darted to the side as she rubbed her arm that piqued his curiosity.
She shook her head. “Not this. It’s embarrassing, and it has to do with the romantic parts of the book but…”
“All the more reason to talk to me about it, right? I’m still helping you in that department.”
“Charlie…”
“Spill it, babe. It can’t be that bad,” he said before taking another swig.
“I don’t—I don’t have a lot of sexual experience.”
Charlie choked on his drink, slapping his hand over his mouth to prevent spraying her in the face. He coughed as he tried to force the liquid down the correct pipe—and to hide the intense wave of arousal that statement brought on. “Fuck, sorry.”
Sam seemed completely oblivious to the latter, instead starting to giggle, as if she realized how ridiculous this whole thing sounded. “I tried to warn you!”
He laughed, wiping his mouth. “You did. I’m sorry.”
“See? Now it’s weird. Let’s talk about something else.”
“No,” Charlie interjected for some reason, unsure why he would push her on the topic. “You can’t say something like that and not expect me to wonder what the hell that has to do with your book?”
She didn’t meet his gaze as she took another sip from her own drink.
“Well, I’m finally at the smut part of my smut book, but now that I’m here, I’m at a total loss.
I thought I’d have all these great ideas on how the scene would play out, what they would want, what they would do, what they would do to each other, but nothing. ”
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Nope, that wasn’t working. Charlie leaned forward on the counter to hide the reaction his dick was having right now.
“And your lack of experience is what you think the problem is?”
She shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. I just think it doesn’t help that I’ve only had one less-than-stellar, quasi-intoxicated sexual experience that lasted a grand total of ten minutes before the guy unceremoniously asked me to leave.”
“How romantic,” Charlie stated flatly, fighting the growl out of his voice.
He didn’t remember this particular event, and she’d certainly never told him about it—not that he blamed her. Granted, he’d never exactly been forthcoming about the handful of one-night-stands he’d had over the years, but that never seemed to be a topic either of them touched.
But the fact that anyone was less than eternally grateful to even be in her presence like that made his blood boil.
“Exactly. So, I currently have a smut book with no smut in it,” she stated. “And I’m not exactly drowning in dick right now, so it’s not like I could figure it out that way either.”
Charlie blinked a few times at her, surprised at her statement, when she seemed to realize what she’d said and clapped her hand over her mouth. Her green eyes were wide, a shocked gasp reverberating through her hand. “I can’t believe I just fucking said that.”
A nervous laugh tore out of her throat as her eyes met his, and he knew he’d do anything to make her laugh more.
He’d do anything she asked of him.
He cocked his head to the side. “How does one swim in dicks, exactly? Is that something you’d even want? Doesn’t sound all that pleasant for anyone.”
“Probably not logistically,” Sam rationalized, a giggle still lingering in her voice. “Which do you think would be better—swimming in a pool full of flaccid dicks? Or a bunch of hard ones?”
Charlie thought on it for a moment, of this ridiculous situation, before responding. “Flaccid for sure, it’d be much softer.”
She let loose the giggle she’d been holding back and nodded. “Very true. But we haven’t even established dick size. If we’re talking about a bunch of hard twelve inchers, that would be intensely uncomfortable. But if they’re flaccid, it might be pretty soft.”
Where this woman got her sense of humor, he had no idea, but he loved it.
“Oh, but a bunch of three-inch hard on’s wouldn’t be?”
She tapped her finger against her chin, staring up at the ceiling as she considered. “I guess it would be like swimming with a bunch of thumbs.”
At that, he threw his head back and laughed. Really and truly laughed. The kind that only Sam ever seemed to pull from him.
God, he’d never get over her, would he?
“What it must be like to live in your brain,” he offered instead.
She shrugged. “It’s made for some interesting reading material, I’m told.”
“I’m sure,” he replied, his smile feeling easy as it tugged at the corners of his mouth.
The temptation was there, right there dangling in front of his nose like bait.
Kiss her, hold her close, tell her all the things he wanted to do to her.
The things he’d been wanting to do to her for so long that he’d lost count.
But he held himself there, firmly on the other side of the line they’d etched into the sand.
He wanted so desperately to believe she’d meant what she said that night. That all these years of torture on his end were at an end. That it hadn’t just been a drunken confession on the heels of what they were doing.
The sting in his chest the night he’d overheard her and Angel talking, back when they were in college, ripped through him once more. He’d been so sure back then, after leaving home, that he’d almost convinced himself that maybe she did think of him in that way.
It had all come screeching to a halt with those six little words. I’ve never liked him like that.
If he didn’t repeat that in his head, he’d make that same mistake again. He’d convince himself that maybe her feelings had truly changed, that she saw him more than what he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was too afraid.
“Charlie?” Sam asked, concern etched into her features as she watched him curiously.
Shit, had he been standing there staring off into the distance?
“Hm?”
She glanced down at the ground before meeting his eyes. “Why haven’t we talked about the other night?”
Oh no. Did she remember something? Was she going to call everything off? Had he messed everything up?
Charlie forced a smile onto his face. “What about it? You had fun, right?”
She nodded, but she cleared her throat. “We did. I just… I-I feel like I should apologize.”
He blinked a few times. “What?”