Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
A feminine hand with vermillion red stiletto tips twines its fingers through a lush, vibrant bluebonnet bouquet, the colors of it so rich and intense even the thin shroud of Charlie’s leg hair doesn’t dull it.
It’s unexpectedly sexy, seeing something so beautiful and delicate spanning his muscular thigh.
They’re the flowers I clutched when I promised him forever.
Coincidence, maybe. They’re also an iconic symbol of Texas, the state he was born and raised in.
I trace the art up and down, my cheek pressed to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat as we lie tangled up on the desk.
I want to stay in this glass bubble moment as long as I can.
His palm glides up my naked back. “That was . . .”
“I know,” I mutter. I suppress a giggle against his sternum. “You still eat pussy like it’s your job.”
He laughs too, squeezing my ribs. “I’d probably be paid better if it was.”
I round another lap of the blue blooms and swallow. “What’s the story with this, Flower Boy?”
“Reckless decision.” Amusement lilts in his voice and he presses his mouth to the top of my head. “Garrett talked me into it. Thigh seemed like an easier place to hide for work purposes. But it’s grown on me.”
“I never pegged you as the tattoo type.”
“What? You never did something dumb after someone broke your heart?” He means it to come off lighthearted, teasing. But after being so thoroughly turned inside out, I’m too raw to take it that way.
Shame descends on my body like the flu, churning in my stomach, heating my skin by a dozen degrees.
I don’t know how to begin to reconcile the situation with River, with my mom, but I also don’t know how I’m going to walk away from my husband for a second time.
I push up on one arm, creating space between us.
But, god, looking at him like this is a mistake.
He’s bruised with all my want.
“I left a few marks,” I rasp, brushing the shapes I dented in his skin with my teeth, the pink beginnings of a hickey on his chest. “Sorry.”
He rubs the side of his neck. “Don’t be. They’re souvenirs.” Softer, he adds, “Something I get to keep.”
There it is.
He doesn’t see this happening again.
And why would it? The moment we shared together was pure bliss, but rekindling our relationship is something else entirely.
I’ve fought so hard to compartmentalize my world into parts—my life before Charlie, and my life with him.
But now that the lines are blurred, I don’t know how to make sense of it all, can’t figure out how to marry it all into one.
I’m just not sure how to walk away again.
I can’t decide if the glimmer in his eyes is sadness or hurt or disdain, and I’m not really sure I want the answer. His name is thick in my throat as I choke it out, “Charlie—”
“It’s okay,” he says gently, bringing my hand to his mouth to punctuate his defeated words with a kiss on the inside of my palm. “At least I get a real goodbye this time.”
The granola bars in my stomach lurch. Is that what this was for him? One last time? The thought makes me ill, my guilt over what I’ve done burrowing even deeper in my bones.
“No,” I choke out, tears blurring my vision as I shake my head.
The words spill out quicker than I can think through them.
“I’m not—I don’t . . . Dammit, Charlie. I miss you.
I miss us. I’m so sorry. Being with you today was so .
. . I mean, god, it was like no time’s passed.
Right? We’re good together.” My feverish gaze bounces like a ping pong ball across his face as I sniffle, desperate to find the right words.
“I don’t know if I want to say goodbye again, I—”
“Don’t do this,” he says stoically.
I freeze. The warden’s office spins around me.
On a heavy sigh, his hands claw back in his hair, pausing to clench at the crown of his skull. As he releases a slow, controlled breath through pursed lips, more tears build along my lashes. He swallows.
“You don’t get to leave without warning, lead me on for months about if you’re coming home or not, only to tell me you’re not, conveniently never send the divorce papers and leave me wondering what the fuck you want, only to run into me here, sleep with me, and think it gets to be this easy.
” A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You don’t get to spring this on me after only a few hours together and pretend like saying you’re sorry fixes everything. ”
I angle my neck up, attempting to stave off tears as my lip wobbles, all my usual defenses blown to pieces. “Is that—is that what you want? The papers?”
There’s a reason I haven’t sent them. The thought of losing him—really losing him—makes me feel like I’m ripping apart at the seams.
His eyes flare, so dark and stormy they’re more gunmetal than ice, piercing me with ease as he wrenches up on his elbow.
“You think I would’ve made love to you like that if that’s what I wanted?
” He closes his fist around his wedding band sitting beneath his collar bones, eyes narrowing.
“You think I’d still be wearing this if that is what I wanted? ”
I chew the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. “I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want your apology right now. I need to know where your head is at. If you want this or not. Not that you miss me. Not that you think we were good together. Not that you want to sleep with me. I need to know if you want to be married to me.”
My clammy skin unsticks from his as I sit fully and turn, sweeping my legs over the edge of the desk.
Shaking hands slip my bra over my shoulders, clasp it behind me, as I try to untangle the threads of racing thoughts in my head.
If I was the sort of person who got to live a charmed life, I’d be his wife until I took my last breath. Of course I want to be married to him.
But should he want to be married to me?
With all my baggage and the awful cloth I’ve been cut from and all the secrets I’ve kept about it all?
With all the freedom he’d have to give up to be with me now?
For years, with him, I thought I could be someone new.
But it doesn’t matter how hard I push; I cannot outrun the place I came from.
Two years ago, I made this choice for him. Not for me.
“It’s not that simple.” My whisper splits down the middle and I jerk my shirt over my head.
Charlie is silent. I snatch my underwear and don’t dare look back at him as I slide off the desk.
“Do you know,” he grates, voice low with subdued anger, “how hard it’s been to watch you blindly believe in these ghosts, when you couldn’t find a way to believe in us?”
I rub at the tears sliding down my cheeks with one hand and jerk my shorts up with the other hand. The little button, the silver zipper, are the only things holding me together.
“You left me via voicemail.”
I armor my arms across my chest and pinch my eyes shut, wilting under the pain flecking his hoarse voice.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, Winnie.” His voice breaks on my name, the one he helped me reclaim.
A whimper cracking off in my throat, I whirl to face him. “You didn’t do—”
A shrill ring projects from his crumpled pants on the floor and we both glance at it. “I need to get that,” he mutters.
Still stark naked and unabashed, Charlie swings his legs off the desk, grabs his glasses, and secures them back on his face.
Not meeting my eyes, he bends and fishes his phone from his pocket, resting a hand on his hip as he answers, the harsh light of his screen cutting through all the gray. “Hey.”
As if in response, the sky grumbles overhead as thunder echoes somewhere in the distance. Phone still pinned to his ear, Charlie gathers his clothes, tosses them on the desk, and sifts through them as his brows furrow.
“Yeah, yeah. Got it. I will. Uh-huh. For sure. Yup, I did that first thing. Yeah. See you later.” Setting his phone down, he bends over to pull on his boxers, ass muscles shifting with the movement.
“That was the guys,” he says flatly. “Nothing on the ground yet, but storm’s looking really good.
It’s been dropping tornados all across northwest Texas—heading this way. It’s picking up speed like crazy.”
I’m hollowed, a fetid core of an apple scooped out with a jagged knife and I don’t know what my next move is. Of course I want him. But leaving him was for his own good. He deserves better than being roped into my mess.
But I can’t let him go either.
As he buttons his pants, he swipes across his phone screen, then stills, fingers resting against his zipper. “Damn,” he breathes. “That is one tight velocity couplet. Nasty storm.”
I have no idea what that means, but the awe lifting his voice tells me enough: this storm’s going to be very good for his crew’s goal. Which means not so good for everyone on the ground.
“We need to get up to the guard tower.” He yanks his T-shirt over his head, ruffling his hair as he carefully pulls the collar past his glasses.
I nod, grateful to have an out from our conversation.
“And Winona—you owe me a hell of a lot more than an apology. You can start with the truth.” He pulls on his boots, avoiding my gaze.
“Because I know this didn’t all come from something stupid my mom said.
I’m not sure our marriage will ever work if you can’t be honest with me about why you really left. ”
Setting my jaw, I slip my sneakers back on. “We both know I was never good enough for you.”
“Do we? Do we both know that, Winona?” He grumbles, “Bull-fucking-shit.” The room lights as lightning flashes, casting his face in dark shadow as he snatches his button-up from the desk, then his backpack, shoving the soiled shirt inside it.
“I’ve fought like hell for you from the very first time we met.
It was always me. Asking you out. Asking you for more. Asking you to marry me.”
“Just because you wanted me doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve better.” I grab my camera and follow him toward the exit.
“And who said you get to decide that? All on your own? Without even talking to me?” He stops short and pivots; I brace so I don’t run into him.
The rage I wanted earlier, the rage I know I deserve, slants down at me in his eyes.
“No. You don’t leave a happy marriage because you suddenly don’t feel worthy.
That’s a fucking cop out and you know it. ”
I look away. What do I even say? Where do I even begin?
He has no idea the extent of it. Stiffly, I grab my backpack and swing it over my shoulder, wishing I could disappear into myself, turn back time, undo everything.
If I’d never asked for his number that day in the dressing room at Colby, if I’d never believed the fallacy I could become someone new and soft with him, none of this would’ve happened. I never would have hurt him so deeply.
“Sleeping together was a mistake,” I bite out. Eyes downcast, he swipes his hand over his bruised neck painted with the shape of my teeth. “It was selfish and self indulgent and stupid of me. I shouldn’t have done that. It clearly gave you the wrong idea.”
We stare at each other haggard, deflated, equally wrecked.
“I love you, Winona. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.” He swallows. “But there is a lot more I need from you if we’re ever going to fix this. And right now, I’m not sure if you’ll ever give it to me.”
The knife twists even deeper, and so many ugly feelings bubble up in my chest. I wish I’d never run into him today.
It would’ve been easier to mourn him forever than to face this.
The walls he skillfully tore down today, stone by stone, slot back into their rightful place and I close the gates on all this pain.
“Maybe I should just stay down here. Record some more.” Lifting my chin defiantly, my expression neutralizes alongside my tone. Perfectly bored. Entirely unaffected. “Wouldn’t want to get in your way.”
His head cants in a half-shake. “We’re not splitting up. I’m not taking any chances.”
“I’ll go to one of the cell blocks. You think this giant stone prison isn’t safe?” I spread my arms wide. “I’ll be fine.”
He rubs at his chest—the spot where I now know his ring hides beneath the fabric. “Things can shift in an instant. I’m not taking risks like that just because you want to run from how hard all this is.”
My jaw flexes and I lie through my teeth. “I’m not trying to run.”
“Sure.” He scoffs. Palm swallowing the door handle, he opens it to the hammering storm. He looks at me over his shoulder, the hard lines of his expression softer. “Please. Come with me.”
It feels like it was ages ago he caught me when I fell out of my turn and whispered I got you like a promise, lips crushed to the top of my head. The same instinct flares in his pupils now—that want to keep me safe. Another kindness I’m not worthy of. But I won’t deny him this one.
“Fine.” I brush past him and walk right into the rain.