I take a swig of beer and lead Charlotte back to my sofa as she eyes me with curiosity. “I’ll show you,” I answer, plopping down on the navy blue cushion. I watch her bubble butt grow rounder and even fuller as she eases down beside me. For a second, I want to throw the photo album on the floor and tear her clothes open. I want to lick every part of her, taste every inch of her skin, and swallow every bit of her sweet nectar. My cock twitches, but I snap out of it, forcing myself to focus. I told her I would bring her here to talk, nothing else. Unless she shows me that she wants more, I’m going to be a man of my word.

I take another mouthful of beer and run my hand over the cover of the album. It feels like the pictures inside, the details and the moments were a lifetime ago, and at the same time, like they were only yesterday.

“Come on, let’s see what’s hiding in here,” Charlotte nudges me playfully. “Got a bunch of pictures of you done up in camo, maybe posing with a gun as you burst out of the water? Isn’t that what they show on the commercial for the SEALs,” she jokes. “I bet you were their cover boy, weren’t you?”

“I must have those in another book,” I smile and crack the cover open. “This one is all…”

“It’s me,” she breathes the words lightly running her fingers over an aging picture of little Lottie King with her frizzy afro and pink overalls, sticking her tongue out at the boy behind the camera. Me.

“Yep,” I let my eyes scan the page as memories swirl back in full force. “And Marcus. And me.” I turn the page and Charlotte laughs as a much younger version of her brother who is holding up a bullfrog proudly while in the picture below I’m showing off on the monkey bars in the park.

“I forgot how you used to carry that camera around all the time,” she sits up straighter and pours over the pictures. “Didn’t you get it as a gift or something?” Charlotte looks up at me, her eyebrows reaching skyward and her brown eyes softening.

“Yeah, my Mom gave it to me for my birthday,” I nod and finish my beer in one gulp before putting the bottle down on the end table.

“You were obsessed with taking pictures,” Charlotte flips the page and laughs loudly as she glances down at herself in puffy pigtails, giving me the finger. “I forgot how bratty I was to you guys,” she chuckles.

“You just kept me in line,” I smirk. “I deserved it, most of the time,” I look over at her as she flips through the book. I’ve seen these pictures more times than I can count. Watching her reaction to each new page is impossible to look away from.

Charlotte crinkles her nose at the pictures of the dog taking a crap, boy stuff, and she laughs until she’s gasping for air at the picture of Marcus dressed up in spandex with a blanket for a cape.

Charlotte taps her finger on the picture and tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes as she struggles to breathe.

“What’s so funny?” I glance down.

“That’s my bodysuit I wore to dance class,” she giggles at the skin-tight onesie Marcus wore under a pair of blue shorts in his homemade Superman costume.

Laughter bubbles up inside of me, “Really? I didn’t know that.” I wrap my arm around her as she flickers through more pages, each one that she flips, turning into later years of our childhood.

“Oh, look how handsome you two looked for prom. I remember I was so jealous of, what was the name of the girl you took?” She tears her eyes away from the past and looks up at me.

“Fiona.”

“Yes, that’s right. Fiona,” she spits out the name like a bitter taste on her tongue. “I never liked her,” she lifts the page.

“You didn’t know her.” I laugh.

“What I knew, I didn’t like,” she turns over the cardboard page and stops, her fingers hovering over the envelope tucked into the back of the album. “Is that?”

“It is,” I lift up the letter Charlotte wrote to me fourteen years ago. She gave it to me as I was getting ready to board my bus to start my new life in the military.

Her hands shake as she holds out the envelope and fat tears fall over her cheeks. I remember I looked over her head to see if Marcus might be with her, but he wasn’t. The friendship was already dead by then. Prom night could never be taken back.

 

“I don’t know how I’m going to get through you leaving. I don’t know how I’m going to keep living my life without you in it,” Lottie sniffed. At thirteen, she was tall for her age and her limbs seemed to be growing faster than her body.

“I’ll be back someday, I promise,” I answered.

“No, you won’t,” she cried. “I know I’ll never see you again.” I remember how her heartbreak made her voice crack. How her chin trembled as she tried, but lost the battle to hold back her tears.

“Listen, I’ll be back. You have my word on that,” I looked into her eyes. I knew for years that Lottie had a crush on me, but it wasn’t until that moment that I saw the depth of it. She’d always been my best friend’s little sister. The annoying one who tattled on us or tried to follow us around like a lost puppy dog. It wasn’t until I was ready to leave that I could see a glimmer of who she would grow up to become.

“I’ll miss you,” she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, trying to be brave. Lottie pulled the envelope from her back pants pocket and shoved it into my hands then marched away quickly.

 

She didn’t know I watched her walk away. She didn’t know I saw her collapse against the doorframe to the bus station and shake as tears spilled from her. She didn’t know I witnessed her heart being torn in two. Because I boarded the bus, took my seat and watched from the window as it pulled away.

“You still have my letter? Why?” She searches my face with her chocolate eyes and leans into me.

“Because I wanted to remember what I was coming back here for,” I admit, “I promised you that I would return, remember?”

“I do,” her fingers intertwine with mine and she looks up at me with wonder.

“I’m a man of my word, Charlotte. That’s one thing you can always trust. I promised you I’d come back and I did. Your letter, through all these years, grounded me, it kept me rooted here, it brought me back here… to you.”

Charlotte leans into me, her breast brushing against my hand as her lips tenderly press against mine. I let go of the album and it drops to the floor as I scoop her up from the sofa and pull her into my lap. Wrapping my arms around her, my tongue presses against her lips and they open for me. I can taste her desire, the fire that never stopped burning for me, her desperate need. I know it all too well, it’s the same things I’ve been feeling since the night we went home together. Since the night destiny and fate danced through our lives and brought us back together.