It’s not that I want to run away from my phone. It’s that I want to be running.

If that happens to be in the opposite direction of that tormenting piece of plastic, then bonus for me.

I can almost feel it buzzing, even though I left it back in Charlie’s suite. Oh, shit. Did I turn the ringer to silent? It should be too early for them to be bothering me, but that’s no guarantee. Doesn’t matter what my parents want to discuss. I’m not interested. I got the point at dinner. And what the fuck is Rolly doing, sending me messages? If it’s about the apartment, he can handle that himself. Drop stuff off at my parents’ house or at their apartment in the city. 

Or throw it out.

It makes no difference.

My feet carry me along the trail, popping in and out along the tree line. It’s a regular storm of emotions brewing in my brain, and I can’t make sense of any of them.

I’ve got to corral them somehow, get them in order.

The strongest one is a deep satisfaction about last night, no pun intended. Everything else might be going to shit, but we’ll always have last night. Charlie was…

I can’t begin to describe it.

But I’m fucking scared, too. He’s going to know there’s not much more to me than meets the eye, and he’s going to know before we leave the island. I’m not interested in the long-term. I’m not interested in making another commitment that’s going to leave me with another broken heart, standing alone in the wreckage of my own life.

I want to go stand at the swim-up bar and have whatever wicked cocktail they make back there—the one with way too much alcohol in it—but I can just see Charlie frowning, ever so slightly. It shouldn’t make me think twice, but it does. It also makes me think of the promise I made to myself when I got on the plane. I promised myself that I’d figure out a course of action to follow for the next stage of my life, and I haven’t done that. Aside from a couple bursts of productivity, I’m no closer to coming up with a plan than I was when Charlie first looked me in the eye.

I was, however, pretty quick to dismiss the idea of promises entirely. He wasn’t wild about that, either.

I stop in the middle of the trail, hands on my hips. He saw me from the balcony, so he knows I’m still alive, but I feel a twinge of guilt at leaving him sleeping like that. He looked so peaceful. How could I wake him up?

Now I’m out here, by myself, trying to make sense of something that might never make sense.

That thing, more than anything else, is a single fact: I’m in love with Charlie Cash.

God, it’s so fucking embarrassing, but I woke up this morning with it filling my heart, mind, and spirit. If I’d answered any one of the harassing calls from Rolly and my parents, that would have been the first thing out of my mouth—that’s how strong it is. I laugh out loud at the thought of telling them everything that’s happened since arriving at this resort. My parents would be appalled. Rolly would probably try to congratulate me, like I had to overcome some kind of personal battle to even set foot here. 

If being in love feels like a certain quiet kind of desperation that’s overlaid with joy, then this is it.

Rolly was an asshole. I was never in love with him the way I’m in love with Charlie.

But is it real?

He waved at me from the balcony, and the expression on his face couldn’t hide the sheer relief…along with something else. He’s...relaxed. He saw me from the balcony because his head wasn’t buried in his work. At least I’ve done something to improve his life, even if it’s only temporary. 

Temporary.

God, I don’t want this to be temporary.

But it has to be.

There’s no way around it. I’ve got nothing to offer Charlie, and even if he thinks he loves me, there’s no way he can until I’ve told him the truth about my life. Until he knows about the challenge I’m facing. He thinks he knows what it is. It’s not a lie that my sister’s death affects me to this day. It catches me off guard, like it did in the restaurant, all the time, out of the blue. But that’s not the only thing. 

That’s not the only thing, and he deserves to know.

It’s just that…I don’t want to be that way for him.

There’s a curve in the trail and I pick up the pace. 

I’ve been out here long enough, and now my feet are carrying me to somewhere instead of away. There’s an ache in my chest that’s entirely different from the pain I let myself feel last night. It’s an excitement that hurts.

I’m running straight back to Charlie.

* * *

I burst into the suite, still at a run even though I had to ride the elevator to get here. I need to see him. I need to be with him. I’ve been pretending that this is another party, another way to keep myself numb, but it’s not.

It’s not.

Where is he?

I want to see him so badly. Where, where, where?

He’s not in the living area, or in the massive bedroom, or in the bathroom.

“Charlie?” I cry out, even though it’s probably useless and falling on deaf ears, since he’s probably gone to get breakfast. Or out for a run. Or…it doesn’t matter. He’s not here. That’s what counts.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, and dart toward my suitcase. I’ll take a shower, get dressed, and by then, if he’s not back—

“Hey.”

He stands leaning against the doorway to the balcony, and my heart does a flip-flop at the sight of him, his sandy hair tousled from bed, wearing only the shorts he slept in last night. “Are you okay?”

His voice is so genuine that it almost—almost—brings me to tears again. But I’m done crying. I don’t want to be that person. I never wanted to be that person.

“I thought you left,” I say, and my voice cracks.

Charlie smiles, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve been on the balcony since I saw you running. Josie, are you sure you’re—”

I run at him and he opens his arms at the last moment, gathering me up, absorbing the blow from the collision. He kisses me hard, like he knows exactly what I need in this moment, and I feel everything in me relax even as desire blooms again.

“Let’s go somewhere,” I demand between kisses. “Come on. It’s gorgeous out. We need to have a good time. We need to get—”

“Showers first,” Charlie says wickedly, and carries me inside.