.jpg)
by C. A. Harms
“Well, I had to do something to drown out the images of you and some skank fucking in the showers at the gym.” She mumbled it, but I heard her clearly. And I had three girls I needed to have a talk with.
Why in the hell had they even brought that up?
“Charlie,” I began, but she covered my mouth with her hand and began shaking her head from side to side.
Apparently, it was something she didn’t want to talk about.
I led her to her room and started to help her from her clothes, but she swatted my head away. “I got it,” she assured me. “And I want my panties back, too.”
She moved across the room and entered her bathroom, closing the door behind her.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and tapped out a mass message to three guys that better warn their women.
Brock: Which one of your women decided it was a good idea to tell Charlie about my gym locker room mistake?
Why the hell would they even be discussing that shit? It was before Charlie and me.
I could hear her in the bathroom moving around, and it made me nervous that she was drunk and attempting to get herself cleaned up and ready for bed.
I kept imagining her falling and hurting herself.
My phone chimed, and I practically snarled at the message.
Radley: Meg said she’s so sorry, it slipped.
I should have known.
***
I had a pot of coffee ready, along with a stack of toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I may have been trying to give Charlie a distraction from the shit she was fed last night.
I was still fuming from that shit.
I heard her moving around, but she still had not emerged from the bedroom.
When I was just about to go after her, she stepped from her room fully dressed. I hadn’t bothered to put anything on over my boxers that I slept in, and it bothered me that she looked as if she had been ready to leave.
“Going somewhere?” I asked, gaining her attention.
“I was going to go over and see my dad,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were making breakfast.”
“Are we gonna talk about this? Or do you just plan to avoid me?” I leaned forward on the counter, bracing myself. It was more because I felt the need to do something with my hands.
“It’s okay,” she started to say.
“No, it’s not okay,” I interrupted her. “Because if it was okay, you wouldn’t have gotten shit-faced after I left last night. You wouldn’t have refused to let me help you get ready for bed, and you wouldn’t be fucking trying to get as far away from me as fast as you can this morning.”
My irritation was only growing.
“That shit happened before I even met you. Before you and I started dating and long before I fell in love with you.” I gripped the edge of the counter. “It seems kind of juvenile to judge me based on shit that happened before us.”
I could see the moment I made a mistake. Maybe juvenile was a word I should have avoided.
“What I’m trying to say is I’m not picking on you about your past conquests and using them against you.” I hoped she would ignore my slip-up and we could keep this civil.
“First of all, don’t ever tell me I’m acting like a child, Mr. Happy Dick.” She tossed out the name all those bastards used to describe me when I first arrived in North Carolina. And I had another reason to be pissed at the idiots.
“Second, of all my conquests.” She hmmphed. “My past experience consists of two men. Three, counting you, and none of them were random strangers. From what I hear, you had a different girl every other day.”
“Again, that was before you,” I said, fighting my irritation. “And I don’t see the reason behind us reliving those times.”
“Because I’m sleeping with you, that’s why,” she hollered out, throwing her hands up in the air. “Your past does have something to do with me. Especially if one of those whores gave you something you could pass on to me.”
Had she kicked me in the nuts, it would have been less painful.
“So you think that I’d put you at risk like that?” I asked, still trying to keep from flying off the handle.
She didn’t answer me, but I could see by the look on her face she was feeling the same regret I was feeling moments ago for the words I spoke.
“Brock.” She took a step toward me, and I pushed back from the counter.
“Go see your dad,” I told her as I picked up the platter of food I had sitting on the snack bar. Bending over, I placed it on the floor, allowing both dogs to have a feast.
When I walked past her, I didn’t even pause.
“I got my own shit to handle today,” I told her.
I took a little extra time getting myself ready and gathering my things that were scattered around her room. Once I walked back out to the kitchen and found it empty, I reached into my pocket of my jeans for my keys and came in contact with lacy material.
Memories of last night came rushing back, and it only pissed me off more.
I pulled the panties from my pocket and tossed them on the counter, then bent down to pat the heads of both Roxy and Romeo. They were both following me around as if they sensed that everything had just gone to shit.
Chapter
Thirty-One
Charlotte
It’d been two days since I talked to Brock, yet it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was a mixture of things really.
Shame.
Guilt.
But most of all, I felt like an idiot.
I’d judged him based on his past. A past I knew about. Maybe not the details but the basics of.
I was wrong, and in the end, I’d hurt the guy I loved.
But when I had finally gotten up the nerve to go to him, he wasn’t at work. I called, and it went to voicemail.
When I questioned Adam about where he was, he just told me Brock needed some time away.
Which only enhanced my guilt.
With the parole hearing approaching, my mind was already all over the place. My father was slowly falling to pieces, and even though he tried to hide it, I could see right through the façade. He was a terrible liar and an even worse actor.
I should have known when I returned home to find my condo empty and the panties I wore our last night together atop the kitchen counter that things were bad.
Now I knew they were.
He was gone, and no one would tell me where he was. My biggest worry was that I’d screwed things up for us.
Never once since we got together had Brock ever made me feel as if I wasn’t enough. It was actually the opposite.
He was always so attentive, so sweet. He was perfectly happy just spending an evening with me, and I had to make a past part of our present. A past that he had already told me he was ashamed of. It wasn’t fair to him.
I finished my last class of the day and then gathered my things, fully intending to leave, when Natalie walked into the studio.
“Hey you,” she said timidly, and I knew that it was because of the events that had unfolded with Brock. “Got a minute?”
“Of course,” I said, lowering my bag back to the floor and moving toward the chairs that lined the back wall of the classroom.
I was nervous and allowed my mind to think that maybe she was here to tell me that Brock thought ending things was for the best. My heart was racing, yet I thought I did a good job at hiding it.
“What’s going on?” I asked, immediately internally cussing myself for sounding so eager. I may have as well shouted, Please tell me where Brock is.
“Listen,” she said, repositioning herself to face me directly. “I know everyone had pretty much been walking around here on eggshells, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve learned the hard way that nothing gets resolved by pretending it didn’t happen. And it sure as hell doesn’t get resolved by pussy footing around, either.”
“I agree,” I told her, and she seemed pleased.
/> “Good,” she said, “because I’m about to tell it to you straight. And you may not like everything I have to say, but someone has to. Since everyone else is bolting from the room the minute you enter, that leaves me.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling as if I had misjudged this tiny little spitfire. Natalie and her take-charge attitude was a surprise.
“Brock flew home to visit with his parents.” My stomach dropped instantly. “You really hurt him when you threw that shit at him about having some type of STD.”
“I never said he had…” I didn’t get time to finish.
“You may not have come out and said those exact words, but you know you were referring to that very thing when you came at him with your frustrations of his past.” I couldn’t argue with her, because that was exactly what I meant.
“He cares about you, Charlie,” Natalie assured me, but I already knew that. I never questioned that. “He has a dirty past, but so did Adam. You have to look past that. Throwing it in his face isn’t fair.”
“I know,” I said. “I was hungover, and I know I was wrong. But considering he’s gone at this point and not taking my calls, I really don’t have a chance to apologize.”
“That’s why I came here,” Natalie continued. “He’s supposed to be back tomorrow night.”
Excitement raced through me.
“I love him,” I told her, and she smiled. “I was jealous, because until that point Brock and I had been pretty simple. Our time together wasn’t full of spontaneous sexual events. Then I realized he had lived a life like that.” The idea still made my stomach ache. “What if he gets bored with me?”
“There is a difference between you and all the times before you,” Natalie assured me. “He loves you, Charlie. He didn’t have any feelings for those women; it was all just lust. A need driven by nothing but selfish reasons.”
I took in a deep breath, knowing what she was saying was so very true.
“You didn’t see him before he left, but I can assure you he was lost.” Though she pretty much gave it to me straight and made me feel worse than I already had, I respected Natalie.
Everyone else thought if they shrugged off my questions enough that eventually I’d just stop asking.
“Thanks, Nat.” I appreciated her honesty so much.
***
It was a little past eight when my doorbell rang. The dogs began jumping around with excitement, and I did my best to calm them. I had a feeling or more like I’d hoped the person on the other side of the door was Brock, but I wasn’t sure.
When I looked through the peephole, my heart raced with excitement when I found that it was him standing on the other side. I was puzzled as to why he wouldn’t use the code, but I guessed with recent events it wasn’t that strange.
It did, however, make me feel uneasy.
I wanted to go back to the day before everything went to shit and change it all.
I wouldn’t have acted like such an asshole. I wouldn’t have said the things I did to him, because he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve any of it.
I disarmed the alarm and pulled open the door. Instantly, Romeo and Roxy pushed me out of the way and practically tackled him. He laughed and bent down, kneeling before them as he allowed them both to express how much they had missed him.
It was adorable.
It hadn’t escaped me that Brock had yet to look at me. And I tried to fight the nauseating feeling inside me, because nothing about the way he was acting felt right.
When he finally stood, he reached behind his back and pulled out an envelope. “Here,” he said, holding the envelope out toward me. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” I took it.
“Something you need to see,” he insisted.
I slipped my finger beneath the seal and pulled the contents out. I didn’t even have to look at it in detail to know they were test results of some kind.
I looked up at him in confusion.
“You know if that me being clean was ever a concern of yours at any time, all you had to do was ask.” Oh shit. My stomach dropped. “I would have been honest,” he continued as I fought against the racing of my own heart. “Hell, I would have gotten tested again if these results weren’t good enough for you. But it was the way you went about it.”
“Brock, I…” I stopped when he reached into his other back pocket, pulling out yet another envelope. “Here are my most recent results,” he said as he placed the next envelope in my hands.
My throat ached, making it almost impossible to form words.
“I’ve never felt so dirty,” he stated, making me feel like my stomach was being squeezed tightly. “I never thought you would be the person who would make me feel that way.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched him turn around and walk away. Even if I wanted to scream out for him, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I felt so sickened. So disgusted that I’d hurt him the way I did.
The whimpering sounds of Romeo and Roxy were confirmation they were feeling the loss of his presence too.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Brock
“You planning on hiding out here every night?” Adam asked as he walked into the kitchen behind me, carrying his son against his chest. “Because I was really getting used to walking around naked; now Natalie is forcing me to wear pants.”
“Don’t let me stop ya from airing out your junk,” I said without giving him an answer to his first question.
“Have you seen her?” He prodded me with yet another question.
Apparently he wasn’t planning on allowing me a way around this.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her,” I told him as I turned from the fridge, holding a bottle of water in my hands. “I stopped by there on my way back into town long enough to give her my old test results and the ones I got when I was visiting Mom and Dad.”
“You seriously got retested?” he asked with amusement.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Aren’t you taking this a little too far?” Adam chuckled.
“No,” I said confidently. “I’m disappointed in her, because she actually thought I’d put her at risk. I’d never do that to any girl, least of all Charlie.”
“Shit like what you’re going through always hurts worse when it’s coming from someone you love.” Wasn’t he telling the fucking truth. “But, brother, you gotta let it go. The girl feels terrible.”
I gave him a curious look, wondering how the hell he knew what Charlie was feeling.
And as if he read my mind, he continued. “Natalie talked to her, and from what she says, the girl is feeling pretty damn low about the entire thing.”
“What did she say?” I asked, fishing for details.
“Nat talked to her, not me.” Before he could say anything more, I was moving toward their bedroom.
“Don’t go harassing my wife, dickweed,” Adam hollered down the hallway. “And you better knock first.”
Yeah, the last thing I needed was to see Natalie naked. Adam would for sure break my neck.
After a light knock, the door came open, and Natalie stood there wearing the biggest damn robe I’d ever seen.
I arched a brow, and she looked down at herself and rolled her eyes. “It’s your brother’s idea of a joke.” She turned around, and in big bold letters across the back were the words “Adam’s Wife.”
“He’s a little possessive, isn’t he?”
She rolled her eyes. “Aren’t all of you?”
She had a point, which reminded me.
“Adam told me you talked to Charlie.” Nat crossed her arms over her chest. “Mind sharing a little of what you two talked about?”
“Just girl talk,” she said.
I knew it was a hell of a lot more than just that.
“Okay, fine.” Natalie gave up the secrets kept hidden. “She’s worried about not being enough for you. Not being able to keep you happy.”
I was momentarily speechless. “What?” I asked, fin
ally able to form the word.
“She thinks that because of your past and the wild behavior you once lived by that you’ll get bored with her,” Natalie began to explain. “So that night when she started hearing stories about your past, she kind of freaked out. And it caused her to question what you two have. Technically none of those things should have been shared, but they were, and in the end it made those fears in her worse. She has this crazy idea that eventually she’ll be left heartbroken because you’ll default back to your old ways.”
I shook my head, thinking how absurd this all sounded.
“She feels like in the end you’ll need more than she gives you,” Natalie added, and my mind was still blown.
“That’s insane,” I told her, and it was. “I’m perfectly happy with Charlie, and never once have I ever acted otherwise. Or at least I don’t think I have.”
“Brock.” Natalie reached out and placed her hand on my arm, regaining my attention. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the way that you’ve acted or haven’t acted. I honestly think it has everything to do with her own insecurities.”
***
I had tossed and turned for hours last night.
After Natalie and I talked, I tried to call Charlie but found that her phone went straight to voicemail.
Now I’d been waiting for the last hour for her early morning class to end because we needed to talk.
It was time that we put all the shit of the last week on the table and sort it out. Because it wasn’t getting any better with time.
“Excuse me.” A soft whisper came from my left, and I turned to find a cute little brunette smiling down at me.
“Can I help you?” I asked, still remaining seated.
“I was wondering something,” she said as she bit her lower lip. She was trying to pull off some seductive alluring look, but it wasn’t working for her.
“Okay,” I said, hoping that she’d get this shit over with and move along.
I could see a few of her friends, or I assumed they were girls she knew, staring at us from a few feet away. They were whispering back and forth, but their eyes were glued to us.