14. Skylar
The sound Charlie made vibrated through her, settling low in her belly, turning her knees liquid. Charlie Carnell, the boy who never faltered in front of a crowd, had lost his composure because of her.
Heat flooded her skin. Her fingers tightened in his hair and she tugged him closer, greedy for more of whatever had made him groan like that.
Jake had kissed her plenty. Sweet kisses, comfortable kisses, kisses that were warm blankets and Sunday mornings.
This was nothing like that.
This was a lightning strike. This was freefall without a parachute. This was hot and desperate and she couldn’t get enough.
Charlie’s hand gripped her hip, pressing her back against the door. The cold wood bit through her jacket but she didn’t care because his mouth was hot and demanding and his thigh had slid between hers. The pressure sending sparks racing up her spine.
Every fumbling encounter with Jake, every time she’d stared at the ceiling wondering if this was all there was, every quiet disappointment she’d swallowed. None of it had prepared her for the way Charlie Carnell kissed, starving and desperate. Mercy help her, she wanted to be consumed.
His hand slid up her ribs. His thumb brushed the underside of her breast through her shirt. A moan slipped out, unfamiliar and raw. She’d never sounded like this before. Never wanted anyone enough to lose control.
More. She wanted more. Wanted his hands everywhere, wanted to drag him inside and lock the door and forget every reason this was complicated. Her hand slid down his shoulder and found his heartbeat hammering against her palm.
She pulled back just enough to breathe. “Come inside.”
His forehead dropped to hers, chest heaving against her own.
One hand curved around her hip, thumb stroking the bare skin where her shirt had ridden up.
His ragged breath warmed her mouth. Under her palms, his shoulders had gone rigid.
His fingers pressed into her hip, then loosened, then pressed again.
Then his grip loosened. The heat in his eyes went flat. “I shouldn’t do this.”
The words cracked through her like a dropped lens, sudden and sharp and irreparable. Skylar blinked, her thoughts scattered, unable to catch up. “What?”
Charlie stepped back. His hands fell from her hips. Cold air rushed into the gap he left.
His jaw was tight, his eyes dark with pain he wasn’t trying to hide.
“I can’t.” He turned his face away. “This was a mistake.”
The word went off like a flashbulb behind her eyes, white and obliterating. Mistake. She’d been dissolving against him thirty seconds ago and now she was a mistake.
“Is this about Poppy?” The question tasted bitter on her tongue. “Because she’s not even home. She gave us her blessing, Charlie. She doesn’t care.”
“It’s not about Poppy.”
“Then what? What just happened?”
He shook his head, already retreating down the porch steps. His face had shuttered closed, every trace of the man who’d kissed her like she mattered locked away.
“I shouldn’t have.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I have to go.”
Then he turned and walked to his car.
Skylar stood frozen on the porch, her lips still swollen, her body still thrumming with the ghost of his hands. The Audi’s engine turned over and the headlights swept across the lawn. The red taillights shrank down the street and disappeared around the corner.
The October cold finally registered. Her fingers were numb and her chest ached, hollowed out and scraped raw.
She’d let herself reach for him. Yet he’d walked away like it was nothing.
Her lips still tingled from the scrape of his stubble. Her skin still hummed where his hands had been. Skylar pressed her palm flat against the door where her back had been moments ago, the wood still warm from her body heat.
She’d offered herself, unguarded, stripped of every wall she’d spent years building, and he’d called her a mistake.
She went inside and slammed the door. The frame shuddered behind her.
Three days later, Skylar still couldn’t get the kiss out of her mind. Or the feel of his hands on her body.
She worked, studied, and slept. But Charlie Carnell haunted her.
On the bus, she stared out the window and remembered the scent of his car.
The ocean and fresh-cut grass clinging to the leather seats.
In the library, she replayed the kiss until her skin flushed and she had to press her cold hands to her cheeks.
At night, she lay in bed and felt the phantom weight of his hands on her hips, his thumb stroking that sliver of bare skin, and the ache between her thighs refused to ease no matter how many times she tried to relieve the tension.
He didn’t text or call.
She told herself she didn’t care.
Her body called her a liar.
The extra five hundred dollars from the sponsors’ tent sat in her bank account.
She’d done the math twice. With a thousand dollars earned, she could quit the hospital and still make rent.
The late shifts had been killing her anyway.
Now she slept seven hours a night instead of four.
Her hands stopped shaking from exhaustion.
Her ancient laptop wheezed and stuttered through her editing software, freezing twice while she tried to crop a shot of Charlie walking off the field after the interception, but at least she had the energy to curse at the device properly.
Her phone camera had been limping through assignments all semester, pixel-starved and slow to focus, and Professor Moran’s patience had limits. The last round of feedback had been three sentences: composition was strong, technical execution was not, and she needed a real camera.
The box sat on her desk beside the photo her mother had taken.
Black cardboard and a silver logo. Seven weeks since Charlie delivered the replacement camera.
She had moved the box once, from the counter to the desk, so Poppy would stop leaving sticky notes on the lid that read OPEN ME in glitter pen.
Skylar stared at the box from the doorway of her bedroom.
A real camera. Professional glass. The kind of lens that could capture the grain of a wooden counter, the curve of a hand wrapped around a phone, the particular softness in a man’s face when he forgot anyone was watching and wrote the sentences he couldn’t say out loud.
Her hand drifted to her collarbone.
She grabbed her jacket and left for her shift at the diner.
The box stayed closed.
Her grandmother called Tuesday evening.
Skylar wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder while sorting returns in the library’s back room. “Hey, Grams.”
“Hi, sweetheart.” Beneath the brightness sat a tension. “How’s school?”
“Good. Busy.” She shelved a textbook and reached for the next. “Any word from the electrician?”
A pause. “He pushed again. Something about a part on back order. He’s saying mid-November now.”
Mid-November. Six more weeks with a panel that had already failed inspection.
The shop’s license renewal was tied to December thirty-first, and her grandfather’s stubbornness about working around the violations made Skylar’s jaw ache from clenching.
Faulty wiring. The same words the fire marshal had used eleven years ago, standing in her grandmother’s kitchen.
“Is Gramps still running the lifts with the back panel like that?”
“You know your grandfather.”
“Grams.”
“He says the problem is isolated to the rear circuit.” A small laugh that didn’t reach far enough. “I miss you, sweetheart. The house is too quiet.”
Her stomach knotted and pulled tight. Eight hours away while the people she’d left lived with wiring that didn’t meet code. The same slow rot that had killed her family, dressed up as a back-ordered part and a contractor who kept pushing dates.
“I miss you too. I’ll call this weekend, okay?”
She hung up and pressed the phone against her forehead. The promotional bonus from Senior Night was weeks away. The part needed to be there by then.
Her phone buzzed.
Jake:
Hey Sky. Stopped by the shop today. Helped your Gramps clear out the back room so the electrician has space when he finally shows. Your Grams sent me home with lasagna.
The text glowed in her palm. Safe. Familiar.
Jake, who had never once made her feel like the ground was shifting beneath her feet.
Jake, who checked on her grandparents without being asked.
Jake, who belonged to a life that made sense, a life with clear edges and solid floors and no one calling her a mistake on a porch at midnight.
She typed back.
Skylar:
Thanks for checking on them. Miss Ironwood.
She didn’t type: I kissed someone six days ago and I can still feel his hands and I am losing my mind.
Jake’s reply came fast.
Jake:
Come home for Thanksgiving. Bonfire at the quarry. Like old times.
Like old times. The phrase should have warmed her. Instead, the invitation landed muted, like sunlight filtered through frosted glass.
She pocketed the phone without answering.
The apartment was cold when she got home. Poppy’s door was closed, a thin line of light beneath.
She plugged in her phone, turned the screen facedown, and went to bed without looking at the box.