Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,33

less, so I knew with crystal clarity that this—us—whatever was happening between me and Charlie was worth not just walking away or minimizing or pretending it wasn’t more than I’d ever had.

Her chin came up as she knelt to tie her boot. “I’m not running.”

“Then why are you backing toward the door?”

“I’m tired,” she said, voice going chilly. “We both should get some rest.”

I took a step toward her. “Charlie—”

“I need to go, Garret.”

I grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

“Let go of me!” she shouted.

Freezing, I dropped my hand. “Baby—”

A shake of her head, feet taking halting backward steps into the hall. “I need to go,” she said. “I have to go.”

She was shaking, her pretty blue eyes filled with tears, her face pale, expression confused and terrified and—

More guilt. More regret.

I didn’t stop her when she grabbed her jacket and purse from my station, didn’t chase after her when she fumbled with the lock on the front door, didn’t do anything but watch her leave on unsteady legs.

Charlie needed some time to come to terms with what had happened between us.

It was a lot, and I wasn’t feeling so steady myself.

I’d let her cool down overnight, give my own mind and heart some time to settle, and then tomorrow when she came in, we’d talk it out.

There. Easy enough.

A solid plan.

I cleaned up my station and stumbled up to bed, exhaustion a heavy current through my body.

But it still took me a long time to find sleep.

It would have taken me even longer if I’d known that Charlie wasn’t coming back into the shop.

Thirteen

Charlie

I ran down the dark street, heart pounding, legs weak, hands shaking.

That . . . had been the single most intense, fulfilling, incredible experience of my life and—

I’d run away.

Why had I run?

Shouldn’t I want more of that incredibleness that Garret just offered up on a silver platter? Shouldn’t I crave the way he’d made me feel, the careful way he’d held me when we’d finished, how he’d lightly brushed his fingertips up and down my spine?

“I don’t know,” I muttered, shoving my key into the lock and yanking open my driver’s side door. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know why I’m running.”

Lie.

I managed to start my car, albeit with fumbling fingers, but instead of immediately driving away, I paused, forehead on my steering wheel. My breaths came in rapid inhales and exhales, my eyes stung with tears.

That had been . . . so, so much.

Too much.

More than I’d ever had, and Garret was just so fucking incredible and sweet and talented and he liked me.

And . . . I liked him.

No, I more than liked him.

I cared about him. In one week, he’d managed to burrow himself under my protective armor, to get close enough that I’d confided in him, and I—

Was falling. Hard and fast. Plummeting toward some previously unknown feeling, at least for someone who wasn’t my parents or Dave.

I could love this man.

Just thinking that made my heart spasm.

Because talented, beautiful Garret was only here for a short time. Because funny, smart Garret would surely see that I was just a broken, scared girl underneath everything, someone that everyone in my life had left behind without a second thought—

Not fair.

My parents hadn’t left me.

But my grandmother had.

She’d taken one look at me and bolted, shoving me away, not bothering to rescue me from a shitty situation, not caring enough to learn to love me. She’d seen me and gone.

And I’d been alone.

Now I was afraid Garret would do the same. I’d been fine before he came, but now I knew what I’d be missing if he was out of my life, and that the gaping hole he’d leave when he moved away would never heal.

I’d found funny and sweet, smart and talented . . . and one day, he was going to look at me and see that I wasn’t enough to keep him here.

In the meantime, I’d keep falling, plummeting down in my emotions, growing from caring and liking, into loving and wanting him in my life forever. But eventually, he’d go.

Eventually, I’d be all alone again.

That was why I was running.

I couldn’t have the way Garret had looked at me tonight change. It would shatter me to see his expression filled with indifference, or worse, with scorn.

I couldn’t have him leave me.

So, I left first.

“I had to leave,” I whispered to myself, lifting my forehead off the steering wheel, and steadying myself.

Then I drove home.

Alone.

I was taking a sick