Knocking Boots - Willow Winters Page 0,73

all I do is grab my purse and get the hell out to face him.

I imagine what I’ll blurt out:

I really liked you and even fell for you and you hurt me.

I miss you and if I hurt you, I’m sorry.

… also. I’m pregnant and I swear I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t think it was possible.

Shit… shit, shit, shit. I can’t say that to him. What if he really does think I’m a liar? What if he thinks I used him? Oh my God, I just can’t take this.

“You didn’t answer my calls or texts,” Charlie explains before I’m even six feet from him. He’s already standing, right in the center of the path.

I stare at him for a long moment, at his downcast expression and his regretful posture. He usually takes up all the space around him, but now he’s meek.

Sweeping my hand out, which causes my purse to fall off my shoulder, I gesture toward the doorway. “Do you want to come in?” My heart is frantic, although outwardly I’m trying not to show it. It feels like it’s all just too little too late. Too many days passed. Too many truths weren’t shared. This is where it all implodes.

“I… I have something I wanted to tell you,” I admit to him and it takes all the air in my lungs to do it.

Charlie ambles inside not taking his eyes off me, and I close the door behind us both. The click seems louder than usual. I put my keys down in the bowl and hang up my purse, then walk over to where Charlie has seated himself on the edge of the couch.

I look at him for a second, then sit on the bed, my butt pushing back my pillows.

“Talk to me,” he says.

“About what?” Nervousness pricks at the back of my neck. Does he already know?

“Just… tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. I want to know.”

Thump. “You sure?” I ask like a silly naïve girl.

“Really. Even if it’s all bad stuff about me, I want to know. I want you to get it out.”

His eyes plead with me, and I know I have to tell him. I can’t hide this from him, not with him here, asking what I’m thinking. I need to be strong and tell him what happened. I look down at the comforter, swallowing thickly and picking at the threads.

“I feel like you broke up with me even though we weren’t together,” the words slip out before I can catch them.

“We were together and I don’t want to break up.”

“I thought… I meant-” I start to say, but he cuts me off.

“You mean more to me than I told you. You do. You mean a lot to me.”

“Why did you--” I can’t even place what he did or what happened that made me feel that way. “Maybe I just got in my head or--”

“No. I’m sorry, Grace.” He holds my gaze, and I feel it. I feel his sincerity. “I pushed you away and I’m sorry. I meant something to you too, right? You did want me?” he questions like he doesn’t know the answer.

“Of course I did. I still do. I don’t think I could ever not want you.” Surprise catches me in its grip, watching the relief roll through his shoulders.

It’s quiet for a long time, the sound of my heart beating faster and faster filling my ears. Tell him. Tell him about the pregnancy.

“You told Diane it was fake--”

“Diane?” her name comes out like a curse from my mouth as my ass pops off the bed. “What the hell did she tell you?”

“It doesn’t--”

“The hell it doesn’t matter!” I could kill her right now. What right did she have to come between Charlie and me?

Charlie doesn’t have patience for my reaction. “Listen to me Grace. Just listen to me.”

With his pleading words, I carefully sit back down, the bed creaking in the silence and I make a mental note to never speak to Diane again unless it has to do with work. She’s not my friend. There needs to be a boundary between her and I and I’m the one who has to set it. Gesturing for Charlie to continue, I wait for what he has to say before I tell him the whole truth.

“It doesn’t really matter because I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should have asked you. I thought it was over. And I’m sorry. But I want you,