Chapter 27 #2
“Itssokay,” he slurs, eyes pinching shut.
He clenches my waist as I press harder. And god, his touch feels so good. A bubble swells low in my throat as it hits me, the reality of what just happened. “Charlie, I—I was so scared I lost you.”
His forehead drops to my shoulder, breathing labored. “Me too. You were all I could think about.”
The tears I’ve been fighting spill over my lash line. “All I could think about was how I wished I’d told you I love you.”
Charlie lifts his head. “You love me?”
The sight of him utterly wrecks me. The amazement, the affection, the splintered hope, the wet eyes. I huff a snotty laugh and cup his face. “Yeah. I do.”
His smile stretches with wonder, the relief washing over him all at once as his hands move to my hips. “Say it again,” he murmurs, stunned.
“I love you so much, Charlie.” And then I kiss him.
The first kiss we shared today was heat-of-the-moment greed, a need for one more taste. The second kiss was laced with raw desire. But this one, tainted with sweat and the acrid scent of blood and wet insulation, is a homecoming. How did I ever think I could live without him?
When we part, I peel back the compress. “Bleeding’s mostly stopped.”
Charlie chuckles. “Can’t imagine how you managed that when you’ve got my heart pumping so hard.”
I flick a hand out sideways. “Something, something, power of true love.”
His dazed expression is so soft and happy that an ache pinches behind my sternum. I made him suffer for so damn long.
Clearing my throat, I climb off of him and shake out my crimson stained shirt, pull it back on, and stand. Then I offer a hand to my husband. “Let’s get out of here.”
My hip protests as I sink my weight into it and help Charlie stand, then again when I pry his backpack from the rubble. Nothing I can’t push through.
I start to walk. “River said the car’s—”
But Charlie snares me back, drawing me to his chest and holding me so close I don’t know where I end and he begins.
I don’t want to find out, either. As his kiss crushes against my forehead with ferocious intensity, I loop a finger through the gold ring at his chest hanging outside his collar for once.
“Uh—Win?” River clears his throat.
But it doesn’t deter Charlie. No, my husband only takes his mouth off of me when he decides he’s done.
River’s shoulders sag, the corners of his mouth downturning as he looks between the two of us, completely unimpressed. “So, uh, no disrespect or anything, and I’m glad you’re alive dude, but . . . who the fuck are you?”
I choke on a cackle. I should get onto him for talking to complete strangers like that, but after everything that’s happened today, delirious laughter is the only reaction that makes sense to me.
We survived. Everything else is gravy.
Charlie snorts and mutters in my ear, “Definitely related to you.” He clears his throat and says at a volume River can hear, “Your brother-in-law, actually. Charlie. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
River’s brows pull down in confusion, then spring right back up as realization hits. “Oh, shit. You’re that Charlie.”
“Is there another Charlie I should know about?” my Charlie stage-whispers to me, making me giggle.
But my little brother looks pissed.
“You guys almost died. And you’re laughing right now?” River’s glare sharpens as he sizes Charlie up, then flicks to me. “And . . . you’re still married? I thought . . .”
“It’s a long story.” I sigh. “I’ll fill you in later.”
River’s jaw sets in the same way it does every time I tell him something he doesn’t want to hear, and my stomach sinks.
It took months to get him somewhere stable, longer to help him adjust to life down here in Texas, away from our parents and everything he’d ever known.
What if Charlie’s too big of a wrench to throw into everything? What if—
I take a deep breath, squeezing Charlie’s hand at my side.
We’ll figure it out—the three of us.
I look between the two most important men in my life, warm, tingling gratitude washing over me. “C’mon. Save the pissing contest for later, Riv.”
“Whatever,” he grumbles. “Couldn’t get ahold of nine-one-one either—no signal. Which I guess is fine, considering you guys felt fine enough to give each other hickeys and shit while I was trying to call for help.”
There is a hickey on Charlie’s throat, but River has the timing all wrong, and now isn’t the time to unpack any of this shit anyway. “Hey, we weren’t—”
“Bro, I know what a hickey looks like.” River scowls and turns on his heel, stalking toward the tree line. “You get onto me for them all the time. Don’t tell me the tornado took aim at his neck.”
“Will you ple—” I lift my leg to scale the pile of crumbled stone and follow him, but my hip grinds and sears with pain. It flares down my thigh like the smoke stream sinking beneath a firework. I groan, hand flying to my joint, and River whirls.
Charlie grips my waist. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” I growl, leaning into him.
“Here.” River’s at my other side, taking Charlie’s backpack from me. He swings it on his shoulder then ducks under my arm, sandwiching me between them.
I squirm against their support. “I’m fine. Charlie’s more hurt—”
Charlie huffs a laugh, pain instantly carving into his expression. “We’re both messed up here, Winnie. I’ll lean on you. You lean on me. Okay? Let me help.”
I look up at him, eyes welling all over again, and nod. Without a lick of grace, the three of us hobble toward the car parked in the trees.
I wish I’d let Charlie help sooner. I wish I’d let him tend to my wounds instead of hiding them from him like a coward. This is what he would’ve done for me—I know it, deep in my soul. He would’ve asked me where it hurt. He would’ve kissed it better.
Instead, I ran. Because I didn’t understand the language of feelings or how to acknowledge anything that wasn’t: I’m fine, it’s fine, nothing’s wrong.
All I knew was the turmoil that knotted inside me, that slept in the cracks of the foundation of my parents’ rambler back in Kansas, that no one in my family ever spoke of.
All the things we swept under the rug, despite the fact it was thin and flimsy and we all knew exactly what was under there.
But loving someone means letting them in.
Charlie’s the reason I know this. His love was the model my parents never gave me.
Growing up, their twisted version of it fit like a shoe half a size too small—it slides on your foot but rubs it raw with blisters, toughening the skin with callouses over enough time.
Charlie was the first person who taught me vulnerability didn’t mean weakness, and letting someone see how your scars formed didn’t mean you were opening yourself to be hurt.
If I’d never allowed myself to be changed by his love, I’m not sure I would’ve been strong enough to make the call to take River away with me at all.
I just wish I’d let Charlie see everything.
I wish I’d laid bare with all my mess—let him see this fractured kaleidoscope of who I am, and trust that he’d love me through it.
Two years ago when everything fell apart in the space of a breath, I was pulled so deep underwater I couldn’t kick my way back to the light.
But we’re here now. The sun is shining, speckling through the clouds, and I’m going to show him all my tattered pieces.
He deserves the truth.
The only question is if he’ll still want me once he knows.