Eighteen #2
She feels warm and like she’s melting as an image materializes in her mind of him in a classroom, hair messed up from him raking his fingers through it while trying to make a point.
It’s easy to picture him lecturing passionately about a particularly riveting topic, gesticulating, engaging students.
“Why don’t you tell your dad you want to do that?”
He barks out a laugh, followed by a wince.
“Fuck no. Are you kidding me? He’s been planning for me to join his firm from the moment I was born.
With my mother’s political star on the rise, he sees our entire family as an opportunity to implement change in this country.
Image and reputation are the most important thing to him. ”
“Why does your mom stay with him?”
The words are out before she can think.
He doesn’t appear angry, though—he’s more resigned than anything.
“I wonder about that all the time,” he says.
“I love my mother, but she aspires to a much higher office, and I think that with my father by her side, she can get there. Tale as old as time, right? Money buys power.” He sighs.
“Cynical take, I know. I think they love each other, but it’s more about what they can do for each other’s reputations than anything else. A mutually beneficial partnership.”
She doesn’t hide her grimace.
“Bleak, right?” he says.
Charlie takes a slow, deep breath. “My parents hate that I work at The Wild Rue. I—” She hesitates before deciding to go for it. “My mother called me a whore the first time she found me kissing a boy.”
Wes gapes at her, shock followed quickly by anger flashing across his face.
“Charlie—”
But she keeps going. “I grew up being told I had to act a certain way until I got married. That the only way to live was to do what God and the Bible said. But that never felt right to me, and now that they know I work for a clinic that prescribes contraception, treats gay, nonbinary, and transgender patients, and performs abortions, I am a disappointment in their eyes.”
She doesn’t believe she’s ever been this honest with Wes, and a flush crawls across her cheeks, her skin prickling.
“But I know I made the right decision when I quit catering to their expectations. I struggled with guilt for a long time, but it was my choice to stop trying to be the perfect daughter, and I’m stronger for it.
” She sighs, tapping her now empty coffee mug.
“Everyone deserves to live their life on their own terms without other people’s ideas being shoved down their throat.
Parents should teach children important things, like how to be kind and forgiving, smart and resourceful.
But they should also respect them as individuals and allow them to form their own opinions and values and how to decide what’s best for them, what makes them happy.
You shouldn’t do something because it’s what others want. ”
While she wants to look away, she clings to a shred of boldness and holds her gaze steady.
“For what it’s worth,” she adds, “I think you’d be a great teacher.”
Wes clears his throat. “I’m so sorry, Rogers.”
She waves him off. “I’ve moved past it. It hurts sometimes, but I’ve known for a while that family doesn’t need to be blood related. But sometimes it’s hard to let people down.”
He smiles softly. “I can’t imagine you letting anyone down.”
She doesn’t look away. “Can’t you?”
His smile fades, and he studies her for longer than necessary. Finally he says, “What happened freshman year?”
Silence suffocates the room. Her brain buzzes, short-circuiting at the sudden change of topic.
She’s never told him. Never thought he cared—his popularity across campus ensured that he never wanted for friends.
Now, though, the hurt in his eyes fills her with aching remorse.
It’s the same pain she’s been feeling all along.
She stares into her empty mug, finally understanding that not only did he hurt her, she hurt him back.
“One day we were friends.” He swallows thickly. “And then you just disappeared. With no explanation.” She looks up as he runs his hand through his hair. “I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what happened, overanalyzing everything I could have done wrong.” His eyes shine with raw emotion.
She can’t tell him the truth. Not all of it—that she fell in love with him, but he broke her heart with cruel words, and she knew he’d never feel the same about her.
She swallows around the sudden tightness in her throat. “You left me at that party. The stoplight party. I didn’t want to go, and you promised you wouldn’t leave my side. But when I left the bathroom, you were gone.”
She doesn’t add the worst part—how overhearing him and Mia talking about her completely wrecked her, but alarm crosses his face when he realizes what she’s talking about.
“I know it’s stupid,” she continues. “I should have told you, but I was too hurt. I thought I didn’t matter to you because you broke your promise. You were—are—Wesley Quinn. I thought you had everything, so why would I matter?”
He begins shaking his head even before she finishes. “You were the only real friend I had that year, Rogers. You made my life better. It felt like everyone else wanted something from me that I couldn’t give them.”
Tears prick her eyes at his words, but she holds them back. When he covers her fingers with his, something lifts from her shoulders despite not confessing everything, a heaviness she didn’t realize she’d been carrying all this time.
“I’m so sorry. I never meant to break a promise or lose your trust. I didn’t even think. Mia came up to me—”
“You don’t have to explain,” she says quickly.
He squeezes her hand. “Do you think we could try again?” She tilts her head. “Being friends?”
She exhales, the words piercing her already-cracked armor.
Can she do that again? Be friends with him while also continuing her experiment?
I don’t fuck my friends.
A chill sweeps through her at the crass memory, but she shoves it aside, finally admitting to herself how much she’s missed him, how vulnerable she can be with him after growing up feeling isolated.
And aside from how he makes her body sing, how he knows which spot on her neck makes her moan, how he listens to her wants and needs and pulls pleasure from her veins, his teachings have made her more confident, provided her with a better understanding of how good sex can feel with the right partner.
Yet fear still holds her back. Fear of allowing him back into her life just so he can break her heart again.
She casts him a tentative smile. “Sure, Quinn. We can try.”
He grins, breathtaking and genuine, the smile she’s always loved the most. Despite her trepidation, it shoots a deep, comforting warmth through her like she’s swallowed the sun.
“Since we’re back to being friends…” He shoots her a sidelong glance, suddenly appearing much more alive. “Will you show me your ugly sweater?”
Ten minutes later, after she shows him and he laughs so hard his headache returns and she informs him he can’t take more ibuprofen for another three hours, she excitedly spills the details of the newly concocted Great Sexpectations Expo while he chugs more coffee and water.
“I mean, ideally we’d get a musical guest or a comedian to perform—that’ll bring in a larger crowd and generate more publicity.
But the only person I know who might be able to put me in touch with someone like that is Theo.
” She breaks off a chunk of the breakfast bar she pulled from the cupboard, handing the other half to Wes.
“Do you think it would be too much to ask him for another favor?”
Wes chews thoughtfully. “I have a better idea.” He swallows. “Why don’t you come to my mother’s holiday party next week?”
She frowns. “How will that help?”
“Senator Rebecca Belvedere-Quinn’s holiday party is always a big spectacle.” He takes a sip of coffee. “My dad uses it to network and schmooze. People from the press come, and other members of Congress, and several celebrities who’ve endorsed my mother over the years.”
Charlie bites her lip. “I don’t have experience networking.”
He grins, all confidence and self-assured charm. “Leave that to me. I’ll help you. I guarantee the majority of people in that room would love to attach their name to a cause like the clinic.”
Her stomach bubbles with nerves at the idea of being surrounded by so many important people.
Wes leans forward. “Rogers. The expo is an incredible idea. If anyone can plan it, it’s you. Let me help in the one way I can.”
Her heart flips. It’s due to pure excitement about planning, she tells herself, not his enthusiastic praise.
“All right.”
He grins. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes. I’ll go. But”—she points a finger at him—“I reserve the right to leave at any time.”
He holds out his hand, and she takes it. “Deal.”
When she tries drawing back, he holds firm, his eyes insistent, green sparking against brown.
“I promise I won’t leave you alone this time.”
The sincerity in his words quiets her mind even as she tries to suppress her flickering hope.