Incinerate

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over fucking this one up so badly, but I’m glad you’re happy. I’ll always love you, Charlotte.” He leans down, surprising me when he kisses me on the lips—a soft, gentle one.

I’m shocked that his lips are on mine, and I have a mental freak-out, not knowing what to do. Deciding against confrontation, I press a quick peck against them before pulling away. Smiling up at him, I return his words. “I love Knox, but our time together was special. As a friend, I’ll always love you, too. ” Leaning up, I place a soft kiss on his cheek.

“I understand. I sincerely hope you’re happy, Charlie,” he says, pulling away. “You deserve it.”

Smiling at him, I finally feel at peace with what happened between us. Then I turn away as he strolls down the hall, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Knox

I’M IN a daze. A goddamn fucking daze as Charlie pours her heart out to me. When I hear the words “I love you” cross her lips, it takes everything in me not to haul her up and stake my claim, but at the last minute, I remember where we are. I’m ready to respond, to tell her that I feel the same way, but she silences me, like she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. Moments later, I’m alone as I watch her disappear into her dad’s room.

So I leave her to visit her dad alone and head to the coffee shop, where I drink cup after cup of shitty coffee. I look at my watch and decide she’s had enough time when Doc Branch sits down across from me.

“I guess you had the same idea I did,” she says, smiling at me.

Shrugging my shoulders, I toy with my coffee cup. “I figured they could use some time alone together without me hanging in the background. I know you tried to keep it simple last night without freaking Charlie out, but now that I have you, give it to me straight. Just how bad is it?”

She sighs before taking a sip of her coffee as she looks away from me. “It was bad,” she admits, emphasizing the was, “but as soon as they figured out what was wrong and got him stable, everything looked like he was going to be okay. What I told you two was true. If he hadn’t been here—or around someone who would’ve known to perform CPR properly—well, I don’t even want to think about that. Anyway, he’s going to be fine, but he’s going to have to make some lifestyle changes to prevent another heart attack. And I’m going to make sure he does.”

Gri

She sets her chin. “I don’t give a damn. If I have to prepare every single meal, pour out every bottle of beer, I’ll do it. I won’t have him scaring me like that again.”

Eyeing her, I drain the last of my coffee, ready to go see my girl. “Is it serious?” I ask.

“I think so. Or well, it’s getting there at least. This scare definitely has me reevaluating things,” she says, and I nod in understanding.

“I don’t put it past a Davenport to go to extreme measures to get your attention,” I joke, and she laughs.

“And you two? Is it serious?” she asks, echoing my question. When I pause, she touches my arm. “Sorry. I know it’s none of my business. Her dad worries about her, after all that happened.”

“She loves me,” I answer, tossing her a bone, not caring for it to be a secret anymore.

She raises her eyebrows at me. “She does?” she asks, and a smug smile forms on my lips.

“She does,” I confirm. “I love her back.”

It’s the second time in the past forty-eight hours that I’ve said it out loud to someone other than Charlie. Standing up, I’m rejuvenated, anxious to finally let her know.

“And it’s about damn time I tell her.”

Doc Branch smiles at me. “Don’t let me keep you.”

And I don’t. Leaving the coffee shop, I’m energized, excited, and more than ready to pour my heart out. But as I step off the elevator, my excitement falters when I see them. When I see him.

As much as I want to charge down the hallway and scoop her up so he knows she’s mine, I remember how she responded when I went all crazy over her sparring with Chris. Instead, I move off to the side and watch as Charlie interacts with her ex, the professor, who’s all decked out in a suit, looking professional, successful. Branson’s words echo in my mind. You know she’s just going to end up leaving you, too. I shake the words out of my mind, knowing I can’t let him get to me again, but then I see him embrace her and whisper something in her ear.

It isn’t until she leans back that I find relief, but it’s short-lived as I watch him lean in, placing his lips on her. She stills, but then I see her lips press back against him before she quickly pulls away. They exchange a few more words before she gives him a kiss on the cheek. I may not be a lip-reader, but I know what I love you looks like, and my blood runs cold as I watch her say those words. A moment later, he turns to leave and his eyes widen when he recognizes me. Passing by, he gives me a simple head nod, and then he’s gone. When I turn back to Charlie, she’s already gone back in her dad’s room.

What the fuck just happened? Was she not just telling me the same damn thing an hour ago? Why the hell would she tell him that, too? And then fucking kiss him? My girl’s lips were on another man’s, and it takes everything in me not to punch something right now. I’m ready to burst into the room and back her against the wall, show her that there’s no way she can go back to him. I’m too fucking gone to lose her now. She’s engrained in my mind. She’s in my heart—fuck, she has my heart—and it wasn’t until now that I truly realize how much I’ve come to need her. Because the thought of not having Charlie? The thought of her with someone else? I’m not sure if I’d ever recover, and I’m scared as hell that I’m about to find out what it feels like.

And just like that, his fucking voice fills my head again. One day she’ll wake up and want something, someone more. Might as well get used to it.

Chapter 36

Charlie

IT’S BEEN two days since that day in the hospital. Two days since I told Knox I love him. Two days that I’ve been trying not to regret it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I told him. I couldn’t keep the words inside any longer, and I wanted—I needed—him to hear it from me. There was just something about being there in the hospital that made me tell him. And I’m glad I did—well, I was.

When he came back from getting coffee, Dad was still asleep. He quietly slipped into the room and didn’t say a word. At first I thought he was trying to be silent for Dad’s sake, but after trying to talk to him and getting one words answers, I realized there was something more to it.

I didn’t think he saw Drew, and I knew I should tell him that he had stopped by. At the time, though, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to get into right in the middle of the hospital. I figured I’d tell him later when we got home, but I chickened out, not wanting to mess with his already weird mood. As a result, it’s been two days of him spending hours in the gym. Two days of him barely touching me. Two long, torturous days that have me walking on eggshells, trying not to say the wrong thing.

He comes with me every time to the hospital, where Olivia and I hover over Dad, but he sits in the corner, reading War and Peace, which is exactly what he’s doing now.

Watching him, I’m wondering how I can fix this. I can feel him pulling away from me, and it’s scaring the shit out of me. I’m terrified that I spoke too soon, that he wasn’t ready to hear it, and that maybe I was being selfish in my need to say it. He’s been speaking to his mom every week or so, and he even went and had lunch with his parents before we left for Florida. I guess I thought that since he was patching things up with them, maybe—maybe—he’d be ready to really put a lid on the past. On Megan. But maybe I was wrong, and the fact that he’s shutting himself in again is making me extremely nervous. I’m already teetering over the edge.