she’s able to give me a withering, assessing look, taking in my wet hair before drifting down to the rest of me. “He’s got a big cock, little Chi-O. Perfect in my hands, and so hard. Ask him about that. Good luck taming him.” She flutters her lashes and tosses a strand of hair over her shoulders. She sashays past me to the door, and then she’s gone, every willowy, beautiful inch of her.
“Charm, for fuck’s sake, don’t believe a goddamn word she says. I thought it was you—”
“Stop.” I raise my hand and he clams up. Inside, I’m falling apart, but I make my face inscrutable, schooling myself, part of me wanting to chase after Dani and pluck her eyeballs out.
But I won’t.
She’s not worth it.
He gives up on waiting for me, shaking his head and moving closer. “Charm, don’t let your head go to weird places…” He inhales a breath. “Please, believe me!”
He watches me, his fist to his mouth, as I tilt my head up. His bare, muscular chest heaves under my scrutiny. My gaze traces the lines of his lips, and I think about the way he kisses me, as if he can’t get enough, as if I’m the very center of his world.
Yet…
He didn’t come after me last fall. In fact, he went so far as to stick Dani to his side to keep me away.
He needed distance then.
And he does now too, still keeping his heart hidden.
“Your face isn’t right. Charm, stop, just stop thinking that shit! I’m telling you the truth—I woke up and she was there and for half a second, I thought she was you. She’s not the kind of girl I want! I never fucked her last fall and I haven’t tonight—”
“I believe you. I do,” I say, surprised by the calm in my voice. “I know how girls like her operate. I can see her sneaking in here and crawling into bed with you. You aren’t a liar.”
He bows his head over me, hands reaching out and cupping my face. “Thank God. Thank God. I thought you were going to freak out.”
Oh, I am freaking out.
I pull away from him, my forehead furrowing, the adrenaline finally reaching a point where my head pounds with it.
I lick my lips, an empty feeling inside me getting bigger, growing until it’s a looming awful monster, until it’s all I have, a black hole in my chest, pushing him out and bringing those insecurities from my past back in, curling around me.
“You’re upset. What are you thinking?” His words are soft.
What am I thinking?
I think about that aching darkness you get when you lose something you love.
I know there are things you can’t control. I can’t control him. I can’t control what city he ends up in after the draft. I can’t control women who lust and fawn over him. Those are battles I can’t fight because they only tear me down.
Who wants to live like that?
At the end of the day, all we really have is trust and faith in the people we choose to love, and I don’t have that. I don’t—no matter what I’ve been telling myself these past few weeks. My faith was thin to begin with, and now…it just brings everything back into focus, sharp with edges that hurt.
I feel wetness on my cheeks, and I’m startled by it, quickly wiping the tears away.
He makes a strangled noise and comes toward me, but I take a step back until I’m hanging on to the doorknob, my hand gripping it.
“Don’t touch me right now, okay?”
He closes his eyes. “Charm…baby. Don’t leave me. You promised you wouldn’t—”
“Blaze, please, stop talking.”
He huffs out a big breath, his lips thinning.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, just thinking, but neither of us move. I put a hand to my chest, willing my heart to be okay, to slow down, but it doesn’t. It hurts, actually twinges, and I stop an awkward laugh. So it’s true—your heart really does break.
I take in a deep breath. “Dani…you didn’t sleep with her, and I want to be clear: I believe you. She came in here and you didn’t know.”
He nods. “I had no clue.”
“But someday, somewhere, there’ll be another girl—maybe on the road, maybe in whatever city you end up in. You’ll have a girl hanging on you, and she’ll be perfect, and you’ll forget about me, Blaze. Otherwise, why haven’t you told me—” I stop.