Eighteen
Stepping out of her bedroom the next morning, Charlie pauses when she spots Sy standing at the kitchen counter, wearing jeans and a sweater, drinking coffee.
“Good morning,” Charlie says slowly.
Over the rim of her large yellow coffee mug painted with a bright sunflower, Sy raises her brows. “So, quick question.” She tilts her head in mock thought. “Why is Wesley Quinn snoring on our couch?”
Charlie grimaces, turning to the man in question, unable to keep from studying him at his most vulnerable.
Stretched across all three cushions, he snores lightly, mouth hanging open.
He’s still fully dressed in the outfit he arrived in the night before, but his white button-down is untucked and unbuttoned at the neck, his black slacks wrinkled.
His gray sock–clad feet hang off the end of the couch next to his gray suit jacket, which lies draped over the sofa’s arm.
Something in her softens as she takes in his imperfections.
Charlie sighs. “How much coffee did you make?”
Last night, after stumbling through her door, Wes kicked off his shoes and made a beeline for the couch.
“Quinn!” Charlie whisper-shouted, horrified when he flopped onto his stomach, stretched his legs, and hugged a throw pillow to his chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Wanted to see you,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.
Ignoring the lurch in her stomach, she shook his shoulder. “You can’t stay here. Quinn, come on, I’ll call you a ride.”
But it was too late—he was already snoring. She stared at him with stunned bewilderment. There was nothing else she could do, so she went to bed. But not before setting a glass of water on the coffee table. She wasn’t a monster.
“He showed up here last night drunk out of his mind.” Charlie wraps her palms around her own coffee mug, peering across the room at Wes’s sleeping form. “I offered to call him a ride, but he was asleep before I even got the words out.”
Sy huffs. “What on earth is going on, Charlie?” She watches her with a mixture of concern and bafflement. “You hate his guts for three years, and then suddenly you’re tutoring him and asking for an introduction to his friend, and now he’s showing up here drunk?”
The word hate rings like an alarm in her head. Does she still hate him?
Did she ever actually hate him?
The question makes her dizzy. Charlie wants to explain everything to Sy, knows an explanation is long overdue. They share everything; Sy is the closest thing Charlie has to a sister.
But she’s also afraid of what her friend will think. She’s afraid Sy will see how irrational it is to give Wes access to the most intimate parts of her simply because she can’t seem to let him go and he makes her feel impossible things.
“Would you believe me if I said it’s complicated?”
Sy frowns. “Depends on the complication.”
Charlie sips her coffee, stalling. “We’re kind of…” She presses her lips together. “Fooling around, I guess.”
“Charlotte Jane Rogers.” Coffee mug abandoned on the counter, Sy stares at her, hands planted on her hips. “Please tell me you are not participating in a casual fuck buddy situation with the boy who”—she mouths—“broke your heart.”
“If you want to be technical about it, we’re not fucking,” Charlie mutters.
Sy makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, and Charlie prepares herself to hear her roommate’s very appropriate argument against what she’s doing, but then Wes groans. They both snap their attention to the couch, where he blinks open his eyes and grimaces, another groan escaping.
“That’s my cue,” Sy says. “I’m meeting Bri to talk. Not sure what’s going to happen, but I might be gone for a while.” She chews her bottom lip nervously.
Charlie squeezes her hand. “Good luck.”
Sy flashes her a pointed look, brows raised. “You too. We’re not done talking about this, young lady.”
Setting her mug in the sink, she grabs her keys from the counter, wiggling her fingers before departing.
Charlie sips her coffee as Wes slowly sits up and leans forward with yet another groan. Resting his elbows on his knees, he covers his face with his hands.
“Good morning,” she says.
Tilting his face toward her, he peers at her through narrowed slits like every second he’s upright is taking a physical toll on him.
“Is it?” he quips.
Despite her hurt and ire, she takes pity on him.
“Can I get you some coffee? Or ibuprofen?”
He spots the water on the coffee table and heaves a sigh before reaching for it and drinking the entire glass in one go. “Both would be great,” he croaks. “Thank you.”
She retrieves the ibuprofen from a drawer next to the silverware, fills another mug with coffee, and carries both to the couch. Perching next to him, she extends the mug and opens her palm.
“Thanks.” He swallows the pills before taking a long gulp of coffee. “Glad you remembered I like it black.”
She hums. “Well, when you drink jet fuel, it’s hard to forget.”
His mouth twitches as he peers at the mug’s contents. “Do you still make yours with that processed creamer that doesn’t need to be refrigerated and three sugars?”
Ignoring the bloom of warmth in her chest—he still remembers her exact coffee order from when he would bring it to their library study sessions—she slurps her coffee noisily. “Every morning.”
He rests his head in his hands again, grimacing. “Gross.”
She waits despite the hundred questions bubbling on her tongue.
Finally, he lifts his gaze, green eyes full of remorse. “I’m sorry I missed the party, Rogers. You have to believe me when I say I wanted to be there. More than anything.”
Surprise at his unprompted apology ripples through her, and it must show because he frowns.
“It was my dad. I was literally stepping out the door when he called and said there was a car waiting to bring me to DC for a client dinner. When I told him I had other plans, he reminded me of my obligation to continue the Quinn legacy.” A muscle clenches in his jaw.
“It sounds like the flimsiest of excuses, but I promise it’s true.
I didn’t tell you because I thought I could make the end of your party, and by the time I realized I wouldn’t, we were at our third bar, and I just said fuck it and got blitzed on top-shelf liquor. ”
He rakes a hand through his hair, mussing it even more.
“When my dad wants something, he expects you to do it without question. It’s been like that my entire life.
I don’t think he sees me as my own person, just a machine of his design with no opinions or thoughts of my own.
” He huffs out a hollow laugh. “He even wanted me to go to college in NYC so I could be closer to him. But I wanted to go to Archwood. A small act of rebellion, I guess, but it was liberating.” He flashes a wry smile.
“Yet he still manages to get to me here.”
As she listens to his confession, watches this rare moment of vulnerability, something inside Charlie thaws.
The dark circles under his eyes make sense now, the exhaustion she often glimpses in his powerfully built body.
The slump of his shoulders, the despondency in his voice tugs at her in a way she doesn’t want to examine too closely for fear it’ll reveal that she does not truly hate this man.
She once thought he had the perfect life. Thought he had everything he could ever want handed to him on a silver platter.
Now, after his unexpected raw and poignant admission, she realizes she misjudged him. She understands how it feels when someone fails to see you as an individual with your own separate dreams.
“Why did you come here last night?” she asks.
He rubs a finger over his temple. “I was drunk off my ass, Rogers. My subconscious must have known I was supposed to meet you and guided me here.” He frowns. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
She shrugs, shoving down the sting of disappointment at his answer. What was she expecting, anyway? “It’s fine. I was awake.”
He sips his coffee, leaning back against the couch with another soft groan.
“What would you do if you could choose anything?” she asks. The question has been on her mind for weeks.
He shoots her a puzzled glance. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to be a lawyer,” she states.
He frowns. “How can you tell?”
“Because you’re fucking miserable. You’re not stupid, Quinn—”
“Gee, thanks—”
“—yet you don’t give two fucks about LSAT prep.”
He studies her, smiling softly. “You always were good at reading me.”
She says nothing, watching him.
He sighs. “I want to teach.”
“Oh,” she says. “That’s—unexpected.”
“I’ve thought a lot about it,” he explains.
“Sophomore year, I went on a volunteer trip to Costa Rica. We spent a week in a community where we helped build houses and sanitation areas, but there was also a group of kids who wanted to learn English.” He takes another sip of his coffee.
“So after we finished for the day, I’d spend a few hours teaching them.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I must have done something right because by the end of the week, most of them had a pretty good grasp of the basics.
I specifically remember loving the way their faces lit up when they suddenly understood something.
It felt like I was finally making a difference, even if it was only for a brief period of time.
It was gratifying in a way I’d never experienced in my life. ”
His confession leaves her breathless. “That’s…amazing, Quinn.”
An attractive pink colors his cheeks, an uncharacteristic nervousness flickering across his features.
“I guess I’m good with kids. You remember Willis, the security guard at my dad’s firm?
He needed someone to watch his grandkids last summer when his wife was going through chemo, so I offered.
His grandson, Andrew, loved the museums we went to and apparently keeps asking his mom when he gets to see me again. ” He smiles.