CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHARLIE
MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY
“The right woman won't run away.”
Luke had said it firmly enough that I wanted to believe him, but I hadn't—I didn't .
And every day since Stormy had arrived, I awoke with the chilled fingers of dread and fear wrapped around my heart, certain I'd find myself alone in my bed. But every day, my eyes would open to find her still there. Always asleep. Always wearing a smile.
Then, just like that, the sickening feeling of being left would dissipate quickly, and we'd begin our day.
We’d take a shower together, and I’d make us breakfast before opening the gate. Then, we’d take a nice drive through the quiet, empty cemetery to the parking lot, where, together, we’d heave the two iron sides of the gate open. Afterward, we'd go our separate ways. I would begin my work for the day, and she would either head back to the cottage or get into her car to do whatever it was she had to do around the city before heading to work.
At sundown, I'd lock the gate and head back to the house to draw or read before returning to the gate, happy to see her return. I would then make dinner, and after, there was always the promise of sex and deep, wonderful sleep, void of nightmares.
Suffice it to say, I was content, and although it seemed silly and extreme to declare it the best week I'd ever had, I was also never one to use my head when it came to relationships. But Luke had said the right one wouldn't be afraid of that, nor would she run away, and as the days went on, I found myself growing less cautious and more hopeful that Stormy could, in fact, be her .
The right one.
I wish Luke were here , I thought as I pulled into a parking space just around the corner from Salem Skin. He would like Stormy. She had enough in common with me to make this work, but the similarities in personality she shared with him startled me.
Sometimes, she even made missing him a little more bearable.
***
I got out of the truck and walked down the street to the shop, keeping my head down to avoid eye contact with the pedestrians on the sidewalk around me. On my way, I passed the open door to a tarot reading shop, the earthy scent of nag champa drifting along the November breeze. I didn't look inside to grab the attention of a woman standing near the doorway, her long skirt the only thing visible to my downturned gaze, but she spoke anyway.
“Your old soul has seen many things, but the other has now seen more,” she said, her old voice a whimsical, singsong whisper against the cacophony of cars and chatter around me. “She was sent for a purpose. You have no reason to doubt.”
Stormy was waiting for me at Salem Skin. It was her day off, but she'd gone in to set up some new supplies in her station. I had dropped her off after swinging by Jolie Tea, and she'd asked me to pick her up later in the day. She'd asked if I wanted to grab some dinner, maybe go on a real date, as she’d put it, and I'd reluctantly said yes.
She was waiting, but I stopped anyway to raise my eyes to the silver-haired woman in a gauzy-looking purple top and long, flowing black skirt.
“Were you talking to me?” I asked almost defensively and more than a little spooked.
“I was,” she crooned with a flutter of her eyelids.
She wore no makeup, and her skin was heavily lined with age. But there was a soft, gentle quality in her features and a youthful sparkle in her gray eyes that told me she must've been stunning years ago.
Honestly, she still was.
I studied her suspiciously, and she huffed a short laugh.
“You believe as much as you are a skeptic,” she concluded from my gaze. “But you already know. It's time to take a step forward now. The past is of no use to you, and it's all right to let go.”
A muscle in my jaw jumped as I ground my teeth together, fighting against the angry words I wanted to spit into her face. But when I collected myself enough to speak, all I asked was, “Who told you that?”
She took a deep breath and dropped her chin, returning to her busy work of arranging crystals on a wire display.
“You shouldn't keep her waiting, Charlie,” she said casually, palming a smoky quartz point and holding it up to the hazy light filling the shop. “You've both waited long enough.”
***
In a daze, shaken and disturbed, I pushed through the shop door. Blake was sitting on the bolstered leather couch in the waiting area, his ankle crossed over his knee. He looked up from his phone to acknowledge me with a lift of his chin.
“Hey, man. How's it going?”
I tried to push down the residual effects of the tarot reader's words and act normal as I stuffed my hands into my leather jacket, taking a step toward Blake.
“All right. How are you?”
“Good,” he replied, dropping the phone to the cushion beside his and standing to extend his hand by way of a friendly greeting. “Stormy said you were picking her up today.”
We shook as I nodded. “She in the back?”
He told me she was, and I was about to head that way when he stopped me.
“Hey, listen. I'm getting out of here in a few minutes to pick my wife up and go to dinner with Cee and her husband, Shane. You guys are welcome to join us.”
Stormy and I hadn't been on an actual date alone, never mind with two other couples, and instinct told me to decline the invitation without a second thought. But then Melanie came to mind, like a specter from the past passing through a vacant hallway. How she'd given herself up for my brother and his demons. How resentful she'd become and how, in the end, she'd been nothing but a shadow of what she used to be. I didn't want that to happen to Stormy, and if being together meant that sometimes, she'd want us to spend time with her found family, then I'd have to accept that for what it was and tough it out.
So, I forced my head to nod. “Sounds good. I'll run it by Stormy and see what she says.”
Blake seemed happy with that answer as his lips quirked into a friendly, approving smile. “Cool. Tell her to text me if you decide to come, and I'll add you guys to the reservation.”
With a smile and a, “Will do,” I turned to head through the velvet curtain and down the hall to where I heard music coming from Stormy's workstation in the shop. From spending so much time in her presence, I knew the singer was Hozier and that she was a big fan. I'd started to like his work myself, and as I stepped into the doorway to listen to her sing, I realized it was the first time I'd adopted a likeness for something from a person who wasn't Luke or my parents. She'd already begun to influence me in ways that no other woman ever had, and while I knew it wasn't a negative change, the knowledge still managed to tickle my nerves with alarm.
“It's time to take a step forward now.”
The tarot reader's old voice filled my head as I watched Stormy's fluffy black knot of hair bob around to the beat of the song. She knelt on the counter, one cabinet door open before her to reveal boxes of stainless steel needles and forceps. She unloaded the cardboard box beside her, stacking the equipment on the shelves as she sang along in a voice I'd found soothing in the past week. Husky, unique, and melodic.
She tried to juggle too many boxes in her hands, and one slipped from her grip. It fell to the floor with a clatter, and she cursed under her breath as she looked down beneath her perch on the counter, about to drop the others to retrieve the one from the floor.
“I got it,” I said, making my presence known and stepping into the room.
As I crouched and picked the box up, handing it to her waiting hand, she smirked. “How long were you standing there?”
I stood and took the rest of the boxes from her hands, stacking them with the others in the cabinet. “Just a minute or two.”
“Creep,” she teased, taking the last package of forceps from the box. “Finally. God, I feel like I've been doing this for hours.”
“Because you have,” I reminded her with a quirk of my mouth.
She responded with a sheepish smile as she gestured to the row of hanging cabinets. “These are all jam-packed now. I might've gone a little crazy when I ordered supplies.”
I shrugged and stuffed my hands back into my pockets as I turned to rest against the lip of the countertop. “Well, now, you don't have to worry about it for a while, right?”
Nodding, she hopped down from the counter. “Yeah. Like, the next five years.”
There was something in the way she moved around the space, carefree and casual, that made me smirk. To think that this woman, who I'd shared my bed with for the past week, made a living from poking fresh holes into flesh sent a rush of excitement through my veins, and if I hadn't been so hyper- aware of the need for cleanliness, I might've insisted on using the convertible chair used for clients for something other than piercing. Something like laying her back, spreading her legs, and burying my face …
“What's that look for?” Stormy asked as she caught my gaze.
I shook the salacious thoughts from my head. “Nothing. Hey, uh, Blake mentioned that he and Cee were going out to dinner with their respective spouses and—”
“Are you asking if I want to go on a triple date with you?” She cut me off with a twinkle in her eye as she grabbed her coat from the hook beside the curtained door.
I crossed the room to take the heavy wool coat from her hands, holding it open so she could slide her arms through the sleeves. “I might be.”
“Are you okay with going?”
I smoothed the thick, soft fabric over her shoulders and held my hands there as I took a moment to appreciate the sentiment. There was no judgment in her tone. No hidden resentment that might imply she'd like to go, but wouldn't for my benefit. None of the usual attitudes or annoyances of previous relationships had seeped into anything she said so far, and as I'd previously taken note of, it was nice .
It was nice to simply be without worrying about what I could be doing to unintentionally fuck it all up.
“I think so,” I replied honestly, lifting my eyes to the floor-length mirror, finding hers looking back at me.
Her smile broadened, black lips framing white teeth. She lifted her chin, tipping her head back against my chest.
“We look hot,” she commented, lifting a hand to lay it over mine, still resting on her shoulder.
I'd never once thought to compliment my own appearance, let alone go so far as to use the word hot . The grin I gave back to her was one of amusement and incredulity as I shook my head, our gazes both affixed to the mirror.
“Hot?”
“Together, I mean,” she corrected, as if it made it better. “Like Morticia and Gomez.”
Her smile relaxed into something a little more serene as she settled back against my chest, her hands both now touching mine. The more I looked at our reflection, the more I reluctantly agreed. We complemented each other, or maybe it was that she complemented me , making this exterior unable to shake off the gloom somewhat happier, content, and much, much less lonely.
“I think it's just you,” I teased. “You make me look good.”
“I”—she turned around to face me, swinging her arms up to loop lazily around my neck and tipping her head back—“don't think you give yourself enough credit.”
“And I”—my mouth dropped to brush against hers—“think you should text your boss and let him know we're coming before he gets pissed off.”
Stormy's eyes lit with amusement, brighter than the lights above our heads. “You're intimidated by Blake?”
She sounded doubtful, like the thought was absurd, and I scoffed.
“I'm pretty sure Blake could intimidate anyone,” I countered, laughing, just as incredulous.
“Not anyone ,” she said a bit smugly as she loosened her hold on my neck to dig her phone from her pocket. Then, as she began to type, she added, “And if you think he's scary, just wait until you meet my brother-in-law.”
***
I'd spent much of my life being afraid of something or someone. While I appreciated that Stormy might not have found much to be scared of when it came to her friends, particularly Blake, I couldn't share the sentiment. In my experience, most people deserve to be feared—or at the very least approached with caution. Blake had made it very clear that he'd taken a big-brother position in Stormy's life, and although he'd also claimed to not be the fighting type, I knew better than anyone what big brothers were capable of.
So, I muddled through dinner with simple replies and careful glances around the table. I didn't speak unless spoken to, and my attention remained more on Stormy and my plate than anything else. But my apprehensive demeanor aside, her friends were nice, and they didn't once give me reason to be nervous. It was just who I was at my core, and at thirty-eight, I wasn't sure there was much I could do to change that.
“So, are you guys going down to your parents' place for Thanksgiving?” Cee asked Stormy, flipping her purple dreads over her shoulder before digging into a pile of nachos.
The mention of Connecticut set an eclipse of moths free in my stomach, and suddenly, I had even less interest in the burrito bowl I'd ordered.
Stormy nodded as she took a bite of her hard-shell taco, sending a flurry of crumbs to the table. “Yeah. Thanksgiving at my parents' house, and then we're going to Charlie's friend's wedding the next day. I figured we'd just spend the weekend in Connecticut since we'll already be down there.” She turned to address me with a wide-eyed plea. “Right?”
A dizzying rush of panic urged me to tell her every horrible thing that had ever happened to me within the Connecticut state lines. Then, she'd know why I didn't ever want to go back, why I felt I couldn't go back. She would understand, and she'd insist on her family coming up to Massachusetts instead. It wasn't a far drive. If we were capable of driving south, surely, they were capable of traveling north.
It was a nice thought, albeit a desperate one, but I wouldn't suggest it here in the presence of her friends.
So, I nodded and forced a smile. “Right. M-makes sense.”
“If we stay overnight at my parents' house on Thanksgiving and Friday, then maybe we can stay overnight at my sister's place on Saturday. She's in River Canyon, and I've been dying to see her house since Soldier redid the kitchen.”
My heart skipped a beat, though I couldn't understand why. “Soldier?”
“Oh, that's my sister's husband. I told you his name is Soldier, right? I thought I mentioned that.”
Perspiration coated the palms of my hands. “O-oh, right. Yeah, you probably have.”
Dread pushed the rice and beans in my gut aside, filling the space until I thought I might vomit all over the table.
What the hell is wrong with me?
It had to have been my anxiety getting the best of me. The thought of meeting Stormy's family and being back in a state that had never wanted me was slowly eating away at me, to the point of wishing I'd indulged in something harder in my glass than water.
That's all it is. That's all. I’m fine.
Soldier …
Connecticut …
My heart rate sped up. My mouth went dry. I ran a hand over my bearded chin, grasping at reality and this table and the people around me, seemingly oblivious to my slippery hold on the shreds of calm.
Breathe. I have to breathe.
Connecticut … the house … Luke …
Soldier …
God, why do I keep thinking about his name?! I’ve heard it before. I know I have, but …
My trembling hand reached for my water glass. Twitching fingers slipped off its surface, wet with condensation, and embarrassment heated my cheeks as my eyes darted up to survey the table. Blake, Audrey, Cee, and Shane were wrapped in conversation, oblivious to my fumbling fingers. But when my gaze fell to my left, locking eyes with the watchful stare of Stormy, my heart leaped to my throat.
She cocked her head and mouthed, What's wrong?
I shook my head and blinked rapidly as I looked away, successfully lifting the glass to my lips this time.
But she laid her palm over my clenched knuckles, and I turned my attention back to her, my eyes meeting hers once again over the glass.
“I see you, Charlie,” she whispered, for my ears only. Reminding me once again that she managed to see things nobody else could—or was it just that they'd never been interested? “Tell me what's going on.”
It would be easy to avoid the topic. I could pretend to not have heard her, snatch a piece of the conversation between Cee and Blake and their respective significant others I wasn't currently listening to, and coolly slip myself into the mix in the way I had seen Luke do a hundred times in the past. The whole thing would be swept under the rug until we returned to the cottage, where she might or might not attempt to pick up where we'd left off. But in the cottage, there was also sex—the best distraction of all—and then there'd be sleep and the hope that she wouldn't bring it up again in the morning.
But there was a tug in my rumbling gut, pulling me in the direction of laying my secrets down. Presenting them all like a hand of cards. Take ‘em or leave ‘em . It was growing more and more exhausting to keep them locked up within my weary heart, and, oh, how equally dreadful and exhilarating it seemed to share them with someone else.
That someone could be her.
And what if she leaves?
I wasn't sure I could stomach the thought of waking up alone again after knowing what it was like to have her wild black hair splayed over my pillow.
But secrets could only remain buried for so long before they were unearthed, and the longer I kept them hidden, the angrier she'd be when they inevitably came out.
And nobody said it all had to happen at once.
Start small. If there is such a thing.
So, I trained my gaze on her hand, covering mine, and muttered, “Not now. Later.” And then, suddenly, I was terrified of being alone with her, scared of reliving the memories I tried so hard to forget.