Charlie
The rest of the conference dragged by, each minute feeling like a day. By the time we ended the Saturday afternoon session, it was all I could do to haul myself upstairs, change, and make my way to the bar. I knew everyone would be at the final mixer being held in the ballroom next to where we’d had the conference, so I found my safe haven in the relatively empty beach bar out back.
I chose a seat at the bar, my sandy feet dangling off the tall stool as I ordered my first drink of the weekend. That drink quickly turned to two, and two to three, and before I knew it, the sun had set, the beach growing dark behind me as dusk settled in.
My fingers trailed the sugary rim of my fifth fruity margarita as a cool breeze swept into the bar. At least, I thought it was my fifth. I hadn’t kept an accurate count, and I didn’t really care as I lifted it to my lips, hoping the alcohol would burn away everything else that stung — like the fact that I was killing my husband, that I didn’t know if I could stay with him, and that I still loved Reese, even when I wished I could stay away from him.
It’d been almost a month now since Cameron asked me to give him another chance, and the thought of enduring the pain I felt in my chest for another month made my stomach lurch. To make matters worse, I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling that pain. Cameron had to be sick, knowing I was away with Reese, and Reese had agreed to wait for me — to respect the time I’d promised Cameron.
I didn’t deserve either one of them.
Why did I think my happiness mattered anymore? The truth was they’d both be better off without me, and I should have to endure life alone. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.
But inside my heart, I didn’t.
Under the bad decisions I’d made in the past few months, I knew my heart was pure and true. I had loved Cameron with every ounce of love and care I possessed. I had tried to wait for him, to let him come back to me on his own time. I had suffered through lonely nights, cold rejection, empty promises.
I may not have been perfect, but he’d hurt me, too.
And in the back of my mind, Reese’s question played over and over. If I stayed and Cameron went back to the way he’d been the past five years, would it be enough?
No.
Not even close.
Thunder rolled quiet and low off in the distance, and I took another sip of my drink, head fuzzy as I tried to imagine my life. With Cameron, it was hard to picture anything other than what we’d lived since the boys died.
I could faintly remember a time before, when we were happy, when we were blissfully happy. He’d given me a glimpse of that the previous weekend, when he’d taken me back to Garrick, and back to a room we made memories in. And Cameron was opening up to me, he was letting me in, he was giving me a piece of himself he was never able to give before.
I loved him. I missed him. I didn’t even want to leave for the conference because we were having so much fun at home. I wanted to stay in his arms, in that house where he was beginning to peel back his layers and let me inside.
Still, Reese had a point, and it stuck with me long after I left his room last night.
If I stayed, would Cameron be the old Cameron, the one I fell in love with, or would he go back to being the one who’d hurt me and let me feel like I didn’t matter at all to him?
I blinked, imagining a different life, one where I was with Reese.
I saw us living in his quaint house, me sprucing up the front garden and choosing new linen colors in his bedroom. I pictured us as renowned teachers at Westchester, the couple everyone loved to talk to, the one everyone wanted to be. I saw late nights at his piano, heard our moans under his sheets, felt his arms wrapped around me.
But when I tried to see past that, to a family, to having children and joining my parents for Christmas, I couldn’t. Because those memories had already been created by Cameron, and I didn’t know how to erase him.
What if I never could?
I sighed, sucking a large gulp of margarita through my straw. I wondered if the answers lay at the bottom of this glass, since I hadn’t found any in the last four.
I felt him take the seat next to me before he said a word. His presence was electrifying, one that buzzed with a mixture of invitation and warning. He tapped on the bar, and as soon as the bartender saw him, she smiled, whipping up some sort of drink without him saying a word.
Of course. Even the staff knew and loved him.
I stared at his forearm on the bar next to mine, tracing the lean muscles and dark hair.
“You’ve been in the sun,” I noted, taking another sip through my straw. His skin was a golden tan, a beautiful bronze, the color of caramel.
“Spent the day on the beach after we were cut loose today,” he answered.
His voice was thick and a bit raw, like he hadn’t slept. I felt his eyes on me, but I kept mine on the bar — on his arm, my arm, how close they were, how much space they’d have to cross to touch.
“Speaking of which, I thought you hated the beach.”
“I do,” I confirmed. “But I love margaritas.”
I took another large slurp, and Reese chuckled, his forearm leaving the bar next to mine for a second before returning. I imagined he ran his hand through his hair, or perhaps scratched an itch on his jaw. He’d let his beard grow in a bit over the weekend, just a little scruff. I wanted to touch it, too.
“It kills me, you know,” Reese said after a moment, his voice low. “Watching you right now, knowing there’s so much on your mind, so much that’s hurting you.”
I stopped drinking, but kept my lips on the straw, my feet still kicking under the chair.
“I wish I could crawl inside that mind of yours and face all your demons for you.”
My heart squeezed, but I shook my head on a laugh.
“They’re some mean motherfuckers.”
“I believe that,” he said quickly. “But, I’d fight them, anyway.”
I propped one elbow up on the bar, leaning my cheek on my palm as I finally turned to face him. His face was just as tan as his arms, his nose a little red at the tip. I met his eyes, another roll of thunder sounding in the distance as I watched him.
“Why do you care?” I asked. “About me, I mean. I never talked to you after you left Mount Lebanon, not even when everything happened…” My stomach twisted. “Why do you still care about me?”
Reese smiled, his gaze falling to where his hands rested around his glass before it rose up to the thatch ceiling of the bar. “Why does rain fall in the desert? Why are diamonds made from dust?” He shrugged. “Some things just are, Tadpole — no matter how difficult or impossible the circumstances.” His eyes found mine again. “I care about you because there is no other choice for me, and I love you the same.”
Butterflies buzzed to life in my stomach at his words, and I smiled, nudging him with my knee under the bar.
“Such a poet.”
“And I didn’t even know it,” he added with a grin, but it fell quickly, his eyes searching mine. “Talk to me.”
I sighed, sucking down the last of my drink before signaling to the bartender that I’d like another. I knew the hangover in the morning would likely kill me, but it was worth it to numb the pain tonight.
“You might need a cigarette.”
“I quit.”
I frowned. “You did? When?”
“The day after you asked me to.”
I thought back to the Sunday we’d spent mostly in his bed, the ending of our one and only weekend together. He’d lit a cigarette after we’d made love, and I joked about him needing to quit.
I couldn’t believe he’d actually done it.
My eyes traveled back to where the bartender was mixing my drink.
“I’m sorry I locked you out last night,” I said first, my voice as unsteady as the ice floating in my new margarita. “It’s just… it’s all so much for me right now. I can’t think straight. Nothing makes sense. And the things you said, the truth of them, I couldn’t handle it.” I shook my head. “Cameron has been talking to me more.”
Reese took a sip from his glass. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I know you don’t want to hear this, but we had an amazing weekend together. He came back to me,” I said, and then I shook my head. “No, it was more than that. He came back, but he also showed me layers of him I’d never seen before. We talked about how he felt after we lost our boys. He let me in on how it affected him. And we laughed, Reese.”
“You deserve to laugh.”
“It had been a while since I laughed with him,” I confessed. “Truly laughed, anyway.”
Reese spun his glass between his hands on the bar. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
Another rumble of thunder found us, this one stronger, the breeze picking up as the storm rolled in.
I sipped on the fresh drink the bartender delivered, cringing at the strength of it. But I sucked down more, anyway. I needed liquid courage for what I was about to say next.
“He cheated on me.”
Reese stilled, his hands pausing on the glass, but he still didn’t look at me.
“Cameron. It was about a year after we lost the boys. I… I walked in on him one evening at work, trying to surprise him. I wanted to take him out for dinner.” I laughed, recalling the memory as if it were happening in that very moment. I could still see her navy pencil skirt gathered at her hips where she straddled him, could see her red manicured nails on his shoulders — the same color as her lips when she turned and smirked at me from where she sat.
“There’s this girl he works with often,” I said. “Natalia. She’s from one of the sister companies my uncle founded in New York City. She comes here a lot, though, to the home office, and she and Cameron are always on the same projects together.” I swallowed, stirring my drink with the straw. “She’s gorgeous. Long, tan legs, bright blonde hair, and she has these… eyes,” I said. “They’re like a crystal green, almost like cat eyes. She’s sexy.” I laughed. “She’s literally everything that I’m not.”
Reese turned to me then, and he opened his mouth to argue, but I shook my head.
“No, seriously, Reese. It’s a different level. And I don’t know, maybe part of me expected it when I showed up that night. She was sitting on him in his chair, straddling him. I walked in, and when I saw them, I dropped my purse.”
A flash of the sound of that, of my keys and purse hitting the floor, collided with the thunder at the beach bar.
I closed my eyes.
“Cameron threw her off of him, of course. Chased after me. He kept saying he was sorry, that he could explain, but when we got home that night, he had nothing to say for himself.” I shrugged. “He just held me and begged me for forgiveness. He told me there was no excuse, and he would never forgive himself for hurting me.”
“But you forgave him,” Reese said. “Didn’t you?”
“I did,” I admitted, something between a laugh and a cry leaving my lips. “But I never forgot. And I think that’s part of the problem, you know? This past weekend, I felt him — the old him. He made me laugh, he made me feel wanted, and I felt every beat of my heart still pounding with the love I’ve always had for him, for the love I always will have,” I said. “But, I’ll never forget what he did. And it’s not even really the sex,” I admitted. “That, I think I can forget. But I’ll never forget that when I needed him most, he found comfort in someone else. When I was breaking, when I was grieving, he was with her — letting her in, letting her comfort him when it was all I wanted to do.”
I shook my head, taking a quick drink before I ran my hands back through my hair. It was frizzy and sticky, not used to the Florida humidity.
“And I know that’s ridiculous, because look at me. Look what I’ve done with you. I’ve done the same thing, betrayed him the same way, but—”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “At least, it doesn’t feel like it to me. I mean, maybe it is. Maybe we’re both going to hell.”
Reese chuckled at that. “Don’t worry. I’ll build us a big mansion there before you two arrive. We can all live happily ever after.”
I tried to smile, but failed, reaching for my drink, instead.
We were both quiet for a bit, listening as the thunder got closer, a few flashes of lightning illuminating the bar now and then. After a while, Reese turned to me, pulling my hands off the bar and into his lap. I had no choice but to meet his eyes then, and when I did, I found just as much pain and sorrow in his as I knew existed in mine.
Maybe that was where our love was born, mine and Reese’s — between the lines of our scars.
“One thing I love about your heart is that it continues to love, even when it’s bruised and beaten. You have always been the girl who loves, Charlie. You loved me when I was a stupid, bored, depressed teenager,” he said, smiling. “And you love your husband still, even when he has hurt you. It’s okay that you still love him. It’s not what most others would do, and that’s what makes it amazing.”
He paused, his grip tightening on my hands.
“But, it’s also okay to let him go, if that’s what your heart is telling you. Just because you’ve given him so much of your life, so much of your heart, does not mean he is entitled to the rest of it. You deserve to be happy, truly happy, whether it’s with him or me or some lucky bastard you haven’t met yet, or hell, even without any man at all.” Reese smiled. “But, what I want you to know is what he did to you, it is not a reflection of who you are. It does not mean you weren’t good enough, or pretty enough, or sexy enough, or interesting enough,” he said. “You are all of those things and more, Charlie. You are the most sensational woman I have ever known. And your worth is not defined by him.”
My eyes bubbled with tears, and I watched Reese through them, his features morphing as his words settled in my bloodstream along with the alcohol. I hadn’t even said that I’d felt those things — that I’d felt less than after what Cameron had done — but Reese had heard me, anyway. He’d known the whisperings in my heart before I’d even heard them, myself.
And it was then that I realized that no matter which direction I went, no matter which man I chose, both would exist in me forever. They were valves in my heart, and I could not beat on without both of them present in some way.
One tear slipped free, and I laughed, pulling my hands from Reese’s and swiping them over my face. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m a mess.”
“Yes, you are. But, you’re the prettiest damn mess I’ve ever seen.”
I shoved his shoulder, and he laughed, catching my hand in his and lifting it to his lips. He pressed a kiss to my knuckles just as the rain started to fall, soft at first, but quickly turning to a downpour. Reese peered up at the roof before he gazed back at the beach, and his eyes found mine with a mischievous smile.
“Come on.”
He tugged on my hand, pulling me from my barstool, but I held onto the bar with my free hand.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Just come on.”
“We haven’t paid.”
He huffed, tapping on the bar to get our bartender’s attention. “Can you add our drinks to my room tab, Leila?”
She nodded, but I still hadn’t moved. I just stared at him, at where he held my hand in his.
“Damn it, Tadpole, stop being so stubborn and just trust me.”
I laughed, my hand still gripping the bar until he tugged me forward again. I stumbled into him, and Reese steadied me before jogging toward the beach. I couldn’t protest before we were out from the cover of the bar, the rain soaking through our clothes, and Reese just kept running.
He pulled me by the hand until our feet touched the ocean, and then he stopped, and I ran right into him, crashing into his chest. But Reese caught me effortlessly, the rain pouring down loud and chaotic around us as he pulled me into him.
“I’m getting soaked!” I screamed over the rain, laughing as Reese wrapped his arms around me.
“Exactly!” He smiled, shaking his head fast and hard, spraying me with even more water. “Let it wash it all away. Let it take every thought, every doubt, every anxiety — consider the rain your spin cycle, Tadpole.”
He gripped one hand then, spinning me in the sand as I laughed and laughed, the rain flying off me as I twirled. Thunder clapped around us, and Reese pulled me back into him, my hands landing on the wet t-shirt that stuck to his chest.
Lightning flashed, and his lashes dripped as he watched me, eyes searching mine under the warm Florida rain. There were a million questions in his eyes, most not meant to be answered, and I was thankful he didn’t whisper even a single one out loud. Instead, he framed my face with his hands, his fingers sliding between the wet tendrils of my hair, and then he leaned in, and he kissed me.
He kissed my lips the very same way the rain kissed my skin — with gentle ease and purpose. He wanted to wash away the confusion, the pain, and with every kiss he took more and more of each. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him into me more, our chests pressed together as the rain poured down.
I didn’t know what would happen next, but in that moment, he was all that I saw. We were all that I felt. He rained down on me, and I drowned in his love, lungs adapting to breathe under water.
“Take me somewhere,” I moaned into his lips as he gripped my ass through the wet fabric of my dress.
Reese groaned, kissing me harder before he broke contact and searched the beach for an escape. We were the only ones that I could see, everyone else inside and sheltered from the rain. When he spotted a lifeguard stand, he tugged me toward it, and we sprinted through the rain again.
He stopped every now and then to kiss me, his hands fisting in my hair or tangling in the straps of my dress, and once we were under the cover of the stand, he pressed me against the wood, his lips on a hot trail from my neck to the swell of my breasts.
“Someone will see us,” I breathed.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
I giggled, looking around us as he lifted the hem of my skirt long enough to peel my soaked panties down my thighs. I couldn’t see anyone watching — not on the beach and not in any of the bars or hotels behind us. It was dark, only the lightning revealing us with each flash, but the stand only provided so much shelter. If someone wanted to see us, they could.
Still, when my panties hit the sand and Reese ran a hot hand up the inside of my thigh, his fingers sliding just between my lips, I realized I didn’t give a fuck, either.
Let them watch.
He didn’t enter me this time, just slid his fingers between my lips, groaning with appreciation at the wetness he found. It was a different wet than the rain — silkier, hotter, born from desire for him instead of from the clouds.
Reese kissed me hard again as he tore at the buttons of his shorts. He pulled them down just enough to free himself of his briefs, too, and then he lifted me.
My ankles wrapped around his backside, hands clawing his shoulder for any kind of grip, and we both moaned in unison when he slid inside me — hard and fast and mercilessly. He hit me deep, withdrawing just an inch before he plowed in even more, and I ran my nails down his back, desperate to feel him, to make him feel me.
Reese made love to me under the cover of rain, the thunder colliding with our sighs and moans for the soundtrack of the night. Every sigh was a flash of lightning, every kiss a burst of wind, and every time we touched, I felt the storm surge inside me, forever reminding me of the half of my heart that belonged to Reese.
The rain washed away the pain, just like Reese said. It washed away the confusion, the hurt, the scars and the questions. I laughed and loved, leaving all the what ifs behind, reveling in the feel of the water on my skin.
Yes, the rain took all that had weighed on me that weekend, but in turn, it revealed the sinner who lived beneath that weight. Everything I felt was wrong, every kiss was a sin, every touch a transgression. And I couldn’t even find it in me to pray for forgiveness.
I would take whatever punishment would come for my crime, because the truth was as clear as the sky once the rain subsided.
I wasn’t sorry at all.
And I didn’t want to quit Reese Walker.