Charlie

Sleep is for the weak. Or for better men than me. Men who don’t make the love of their life cry. Men who don’t dig themselves into such an awful, disgusting hole that experts haven’t even invented a tool yet for digging them out.

You can bet your ass I’m going to try, though. I’m going to claw my way toward the sunlight, because I’ve felt it on my face. And I don’t know how to live any other way now. Give me Ever, or give me death.

Death, coincidentally, is pretty much synonymous with my condition.

When it became obvious I wouldn’t be reaching Ever with modern technology or face-to-face, I started writing the letters. A week ago. I haven’t seen or touched or smelled my girl in a fucking week. After what happened with my father, the academy gave me time off and it’s a good thing, too, because maintaining my usual sparkling hygiene has been a challenge. Also eating. I don’t eat anymore. Flat out cut it from my daily schedule, and apart from visiting my father in the hospital, I’ve been doing nothing but writing letters. And mailing them to Ever.

My hand gets stiff, I shake it out and dive back in. I’m documenting every single moment I’ve spent with Ever—this requires a good deal of math, a calendar and some estimating—and there isn’t anyone or anything that can stop me. Except for a straitjacket.

And so on. In total, I think I’ve written ninety letters. Every time I finish one, I put a stamp in the corner, walk down to the blue post box on the corner of my block and drop it in. Looking like a fucking homeless mental patient in my grease-stained sweatpants. Jack and Danika have taken turns trying to haul my ass into the shower or convince me to go see Ever in person. But they don’t know my plan.

You would think I never wanted to form another plan as long as I live, right? Well this one is different. The letters are only phase one. I want her to open her mailbox and have it stuffed full of my heart on paper, every day. I want her to read them and think about them. To understand that I’m a fuckup, but I’m a fuckup with good intentions that loves her beyond reason.

Once I’ve convinced her of that? I’ll roll out phase two.

You don’t want to miss it.

Ever

Maybe I’m a pushover. I don’t know. But dammit if Charlie didn’t have me back with the fourth letter I opened. Sue me.

He’d engaged in some really backhanded business, though, so I’m letting him sweat. I need to be sure he won’t try to deceive me ever again. He may have won me back with the perfect honesty of those letters, but I’m still a touch angry. It would be impossible for me to get over lies and humiliation at the drop of a hat. But I can’t pretend my heart hasn’t spent the last two weeks with Charlie, uptown at the hospital. I miss him so much, my chest feels like an oversized, crushed aluminum can.

I engaged in a little cyber research myself and found Danika on Facebook, allowing myself to check in once per day to make sure Charlie’s father is still doing fine. If something awful happened and there was a turn for the worse, I would be in a cab uptown without stopping to put on shoes. Charlie is my guy. Right now, I’d like to sock him in the stomach and give him the silent treatment for about a year, but I love him.

I love him more with every letter.

The one that won be back should have been the worst letter of all. Seriously. How could I not catch on to his game, when he’d been standing two blocks away after my speed dating fiasco? I should have hugged you on the sidewalk that night, his letter said. You were waiting for me to hug you, but I didn’t realize it until I knew you better. Now I look back and see things I missed and I never want to miss them again. Thank God I know you better now. I went about doing it the wrong way, cutie, but knowing you is my life’s greatest accomplishment. Better than passing the lieutenant exam could ever feel. Which is why I’m not taking it. If gaining something causes me to lose you, it’s not a gain at all. It’s a loss of the best thing I’ve ever had.

Oh, Charlie is taking the exam. If I have to drug him and cart him there in a wheelbarrow, he will be there to pass it with flying colors. We will find a way to make time for one another when his job becomes hectic. It’s his good fortune he wound up with a girl who likes to spend a fair bit of time alone. And it’s my good fortune that I ended up with a guy who is willing to set aside his life’s ambition to make me happy. I’ll be happier if he achieves it, though, and I will make sure Charlie knows it.

As soon as he stopped sending letters and came to see me.

Although, speaking of alone time, I haven’t had much of it lately. After coming clean about pointing Charlie in the direction of my speed dating event, my roommate has been extra sweet, cooking meals and letting me have control of the DVR. I’ve forgiven her, too, but I’m waiting to reassure her until I make it through season five of Supernatural.

As for my mother, we’re getting closer every day. Especially since we had our talk about my love life and how I’d dated to bring us closer together. My happiness can’t be designed around capturing a feeling I didn’t have growing up. It has to grow with the future. We’ll find things in common, she and I, but this is my life and there’s only one way I want to live it. With Charlie. Hard or easy. Confusing or clear. Shouting or silent. Likely, all of the above.

Speaking of Charlie . . . what is taking him so lo—

Sirens go off outside my kitchen window—police car sirens—and it’s so unexpected, I scream at the top of my lungs, but the sirens are so loud, you can’t even hear me. Oh my God. Oh my God. There has been like, an explosion or a crane collapse and I’m going to die. I’m going to die, and I didn’t even tell Charlie I forgive him yet. I’m only wearing a towel, but I run barefoot through the living room, straight to the kitchen window and frantically scan the street below.

Dozens of police cars cram into my block, all of them flashing their lights and blaring their death sirens. But I can’t figure out where the crisis is taking place. Which probably means it’s in my building. Great. I shimmy forward onto the sink, craning my neck to look down at a hundred uniformed officers, maybe more and . . . and there’s Charlie. Standing on the hood of a police car.

He lifts a hand and the sirens cut out. Just like that.

While I stare dumbfounded, he lifts a bullhorn to his mouth. “Hey, cutie.”

I’m in total shock, but his voice is muffled through the closed window, so my hand works frantically to disengage the lock and push it open. “Charlie,” I call, sounding like I swallowed a frog. “What is this?”

“It’s your last letter.” How dare he look at me with his heart in his eyes when I’m three floors away from him? “Do you, uh . . . want to go get dressed? I doubt anyone down here is complaining—myself included—but I’m a little sensitive about people telling me how hot you are. That’s going to be unavoidable if you’re naked.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks and I look down. The towel. It snagged on the sink when I was looking out the window. I’m literally showing the entire avenue my rack. “Shit!” I hurtle myself backward off the sink onto the kitchen floor. After taking a moment to die a small death, I wrap the towel around me—securely this time—and gain my feet once again, making sure it stays in place as I lean out the window. “I’m decent.”

Charlie gives me that slow smile, like we’re in on a secret together, and my embarrassment evaporates like mist. He looks awful. On the surface, he’s as sexy as ever, in his academy uniform and bristly cheeks, muscles for days, but I can see he’s been sleeping about as well as I have. As in, not well at all. I just want him to end whatever production he has planned and come upstairs, so I can stuff him full of leftovers and take him to bed, but he lifts the bullhorn again before I can make the request.

“I love you, Ever. I love you so much.” There’s definitely some male groans happening around him, but he doesn’t even flinch. “There won’t be a day in my career where someone doesn’t call me Romeo or Casanova because of this—and you know what? If you forgive me right now for what I did, I’ll smile every single time I hear those nicknames. Because I’ll know it was worth it. It would have been worth it every day for a hundred years. And I’ll know I’m the lucky bastard who gets to come home to you every night.” The bullhorn drops down to his thigh. “Please, Ever,” he shouts. “I’m miserable.”

My eyes are like sprinklers. Tears are actually squirting from my ducts and all the while, I’m laughing. I’m laughing because this man is so incredible. “Who goes around ruining someone’s dates, Charlie? Who does that?”

“I don’t know.” He covers his face with the bullhorn a moment, then he’s speaking into the mouthpiece once more. “Probably someone who’d do something like this . . .”

A song pipes up from one of the police car stereos, amplified through the speakers on top of the vehicle. As soon as I recognize it, the crying-laughing jag starts up again. All I can do is watch as officers climb out of their cars, their expressions totally deadpan as they sing “My Type” by Saint Motel.

Halfway through the song, Charlie calls to me again. “Take a good look at all these cars, Ever. I’ll be washing them for a year to pay for this.”

My heart is going to expire from happiness. I’m clutching at my chest, laughing, tears spilling onto my arms, rolling into the seam of my mouth. All I can think about is getting Charlie upstairs, into my arms, so I make a blind grab for the keys on my kitchen counter, dangling them out the window a moment, before dropping them into Charlie’s waiting hand.

A cheer goes up. Sirens go off again. Charlie is off the hood of the car so fast, his form blurs on its way toward the building. Mine probably does, too, as I make a mad dash to the door, throwing open deadbolts and twisting locks. The door opens immediately . . .

And there’s Charlie. All haunted eyes, stubbled cheeks and twisting hands. I launch myself at him, not caring one bit about the towel any longer. His strong arms are heaven around me. Perfect, unbreakable, never-letting-go heaven. The sound he breathes into my neck as I’m lifted off the ground is relief in its purest form.

“God, Charlie. God.” I’m sobbing and holding on to him for dear life. “Look what happens when you harness your powers for good instead of evil.” His laugh is hoarse and it vibrates my neck. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.”

“No, I’m a moron. I’m a desperate, exhausted moron who can’t spend another second without his girlfriend.” His blue eyes find mine, tired, but intense. “I have you back, Ever?” His voice is choked, beautiful. So, so beautiful. “Do I have you back?”

“You’ve had me back for days,” I whisper, my knees shaking. My stomach. “If you’d come to find me, you would have known.”

He grips my shoulders, stroking them up to my face. Cupping my cheeks. “I wanted to show you how hard I’ll work. To make you happy. To correct myself when I screw up.” His mouth hovers over mine and we moan. We moan, because it’s been too long since we kissed. “I needed you to see. I’ll keep you loving me. I won’t take it for granted. I’ll treat you, and this love, like the gift it is. You trust me, Ever?”

“Yes.” I wind my fists in his shirt and tug him close, close as possible. “Will you trust me to know what I can handle? When I’m missing you or you’re gone too long, I’ll tell you and we’ll work it out. But you’re taking that exam, Charlie. What’s important to you is important to me.”

“Of course I trust you, cutie.” His laugh is gruff and disbelieving. “And of course you wouldn’t let me back out of the exam. I should have known.” He shakes his head slowly. “At some point, I’ll stop forgetting I fell in love with the most incredible girl on the planet, I swear.”

“Anyway, someone who can juggle the police academy and execute sabotage at the same time can handle being a lieutenant and still keep his girlfriend happy.”

“That’s cute,” he breathes, walking me backward toward the bedroom, his expression awed. “Real cute. Thinking you won’t be my wife by the time I make lieutenant. You haven’t learned how determined I can be by now?”

We fall backward onto the bed, my towel a thing of the past. Charlie’s lips are just above mine, brushing them together. I watch as he notices my bed is covered in the letters he’s been sending. Every single one of them kept me company as I tried to sleep. And his eyes take on a damp quality, his jaw flexing.

“I’ll make you a deal.” He reaches between us, unfastening his pants, both of us laboring to breathe within seconds. “When I pass the exam, you let me put a ring on your finger. Vows in your mouth.”

“Done,” I gasp as he thrusts into me, my back arching off the bed. “I love you so damn much, Charlie Burns.”

He releases a ragged groan into my neck. “I love you more than life, Ever Carmichael.”