pings again with another angry text, and I ignore it for the second time. He is seriously going to kick my ass when he sees me, but I can’t leave her.
Now or ever.
She pulls herself up onto her knees so that she can see my face and I sure as hell hope she can’t read my expression right now. I let her down too many times before. I can’t do it again. I won’t. I’ll protect her with everything I have.
No matter what.
She places her hands on my shoulders and straddles me, pressing herself against my chest. “You’re the only person I trust, Xan. The only person I wanted to see after the accident, the only one I want to be around, the only one I want to…” Her lips quiver. “The only one I want, period,” she whispers.
I cup the sides of her face and lean my forehead against hers. “You’re the only one I want,” I say, my voice cracking the slightest bit. “You’ve always been that person, Char.”
“I want to believe that,” she whispers, tears streaming down her face. “I need to, because there is nothing else in this world that can make me as happy as you do. And for as much as you’ve hurt me, I can’t pull myself away from you. That makes me a real glutton for punishment,” she says with a sniffle-snicker.
“I was an asshole when you got back.”
“You were an asshole before I left,” she corrects.
I smirk. “Okay, fine. I have been an asshole for a long time. And I’m sorry. I made bad choices, and I regret them more than you know. But I’m going to make them all up to you. I know what I want, Char. It’s you. It’s always been you. Even when I hated you, I fucking loved you.”
“Same,” she says, hugging her arms around my neck.
When the third ping makes my spine stiffen, Charlotte pulls away slightly. “Who’s so desperate to talk to you? Those schmucks you call friends? Dipshits one and two?”
I snicker. “Nah. Not after the pickup game we just played.”
“You beat their perfectly coiffed little asses and now they’re pissed off and want a rematch?”
“Well, the beating part is true.” I run a hand through my hair. “But that’s not all. Chase was laying into me pretty hard about…stuff.”
Charlotte cocks an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. Just things he doesn’t understand. Things that help keep order.” I shrug. “And since I don’t like to be questioned about the way I deal with those things, especially when they are none of anyone’s business, I took off.”
“That sounds familiar,” she muses, tapping a finger to her cheek, the corners of her lips quirking upward. “Xander hears something he doesn’t like. Xander gets angry. Xander storms away because he bottles shit inside and can’t have a conversation without erupting like a soda can that’s been shaken.”
“I’m not that way with you anymore.”
“Hence, the reason why I can joke with you about it.” Her expression sobers. “But you really need to temper that whole thing. It’s not healthy to let things fester. They eat you alive after a while.”
“That’s a little like the pot calling the kettle black, yeah?” I ask, twisting a strand of her hair around my finger.
“No, see I wanted to tell you all of those things, but you blocked my number,” she teases. “I was very comfortable with telling you what a complete jackass you were.”
“Yes, I remember hearing that a few times over the past few weeks.” I drop a kiss onto her nose. “I’m so glad you feel healthier now that you’ve told me what you’ve thought of me over the past couple of years.”
“I feel like a new woman.” She giggles, the sound dying on her lips a few seconds later. “So if it wasn’t Chase and Asher, who keeps texting you? Your brothers?”
I shake my head. “My dad.”
“And you’re avoiding him because…?”
“Because I don’t want to hear what he has to say.”
“What if it’s not what you think?”
I lift an eyebrow. “If it’s not what I think, it can only be worse, and that’s more of a reason to stay away.”
“I think you need to go to him.”
“Oh, you do?” I slide a hand up the side of her shirt. “You really want to get rid of me that badly?”
She swats away my hand. “Never. But I just think, you know, you have a parent who actually wants to talk to you about something.