“I think you woke the whole hospital,” she said, but she was smiling, her black eyes warm at the sight of Graham. “Is this Reese?”
Reese’s eyes flicked to mine before he crossed the room with a wide smile, holding out his hand for Christina. “So nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you over the years.”
“Well, I wish we could have met under better circumstances,” she said, smoothing her hand over her hair once Reese stepped back. “I’m a mess right now.”
“You look beautiful,” Graham argued, leaning in to kiss her forehead before taking the seat next to her.
Reese stood with his hands in his pockets, and his eyes found mine with a crease resting between his brows.
“Hey Charlie,” he said. “Cameron.”
He didn’t even look at Cameron when he said his name, and Cameron barely nodded in response to the greeting. My brother watched the whole exchange curiously, and his eyes locked with mine, more questions there than I had answers for.
I cleared my throat.
“So, are you hanging out here for a while with us, Reese?” Christina asked.
“I don’t want to be in your hair too long,” he said with a smile. “Just wanted to come by and meet you, and give this guy some shit.” He wrapped his forearm around Graham’s neck and knuckled his head.
Graham shoved him off, laughing. “Yeah, trust me, babe. No one wants to put up with Reese Walker longer than a few hours.”
“Sorry,” a voice said through our laughter, and my heart kicked up into my throat at the sight of Blake swinging inside the room. “I didn’t like any of the flowers they had down there at the shop. I mean seriously, not one bouquet with roses? They’re, like, the most universal flower.” She shook her head, leaning up on her toes to kiss Reese’s cheek.
I gritted my teeth.
“Oh! Hi, Christina. I’m Blake, Reese’s girlfriend,” she said, leaning in to hug Christina. The flowers she held smacked against the back of Christina’s bed and tangled up in her IV wire, but Blake was oblivious. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” Christina said, but I could tell by looking at her that she was a bit overwhelmed now, and once Mom and Dad barreled in the room, her anxiety showed even more.
The volume in the room rose exponentially, everyone talking over each other and laughing, but I just stared at where Blake hung on Reese’s arm.
He watched me, our eyes connecting long enough for me to lower my brows in question.
What is she doing here?
But he couldn’t answer, and judging by the way his tail was tucked between his legs, I guessed he wouldn’t have an answer I’d like even if he could.
This was my family, our family — the same one he couldn’t come with me to see the night I got the call. But now, here he was.
With her.
“Oh, Charlie,” Graham said, talking loud so he could be heard over where Mom, Dad, and Blake were laughing by the door. “Reese and I were thinking of taking a drive later out to the old park we used to all play. You know, take a little trip down memory lane. Want to come?”
I just stared at Reese, trying to calm myself down. I knew he wouldn’t have brought Blake if he had a choice, but in that moment, I couldn’t rationalize, and I couldn’t make excuses for him.
I was pissed.
Cameron seemed to pick up on my energy, because he squeezed my shoulder, offering my brother a smile. “Charlie and I were actually just about to head out. We’re going to go home for the night, check on the birds, catch up on a few things.”
“Oh, of course,” Graham said, and yet again, he watched me with curious eyes. “We’ll see you guys Monday for dinner? As long as the doctors still agree to let Christina go that day, that is.”
“Yeah, we’ll see you then,” I answered sharply, jumping up out of my chair. I needed out of the room, away from Blake, away from Reese.
I quickly kissed Christina’s cheek and hugged my brother and parents, carefully maneuvering the room so that I could avoid Blake and Reese. Cameron followed behind me, staying in the room longer than I did to say the more proper goodbyes and accept gratitude from my family for all he’d done that week. I waited outside the door, arms crossed, nose flaring like a dragon.
“Charlie,” Reese said, joining me in the hall. “Please, don’t leave. We can go.”
I just stared at him.
“Come on, don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to…”
“Bring your girlfriend to my sister-in-law’s hospital room?” I finished, my voice low but menacing. “Huh. Wonder how it happened, then.”
Reese’s expression flattened, but he didn’t have time to offer an excuse before Cameron joined us in the hall. He put an arm around my shoulder, turning me toward the exit.
“Ready?” he asked, his eyes hard on Reese.
I just nodded, not leaning into him but not leaning away, either, as he walked us out of the hospital. I didn’t look back at Reese even once.
“You okay?” Cameron asked once we made it to the parking lot. We’d driven separately, since I’d been late on Wednesday, and I dug through my purse for my keys with shaky hands.
“I’m fine. I’ll see you at home?” I said, but I didn’t wait for an answer before I yanked open my door and climbed inside. I couldn’t look at Cameron, and I couldn’t take the way he was looking at me.
I peeled out of the parking lot before Cameron even got in his car, and I took the long way home.
Reese
All I could do was curse under my breath as I watched Charlie go.
Cameron had his arm around her, and though she didn’t exactly lean into his touch, she still looked comforted by the way he held her. And that murdered me.
I blew out a frustrated breath, making my way back inside the crowded hospital room with Blake’s eyes on me like lasers. She smiled a little at my return, though I could see the questions she wasn’t asking me.
She had insisted on coming when I got the call from Graham. I tried everything I could to get her to stay, to let me go on my own, but she was like a bull once her mind was made up. There was no reasoning with her, not without telling her the real reason why I didn’t want her to be here.
“Everything okay?” she asked me, her voice low where we stood off to the side. Graham was by Christina’s bed, the two of them in conversation with his parents.
“Yeah. Thanks for the flowers, that was nice of you.”
She smiled, glancing at the vase, but she found me with questions still spinning behind her big, blue eyes.
“Charlie seemed upset that we were here.”
“She’s not,” I assured her. “They’re just tired, been through a lot in the last two days. I think they both needed rest.”
“Sure,” Blake said, nodding, but I knew she was biting her tongue. “You two are close, huh?”
I didn’t answer. I was smart enough to see that trap before my big foot stepped right into it.
“How come you never mentioned her before? Back in the city?”
I cleared my throat. “We didn’t keep in touch when I left. There was nothing to say.”
“Oh,” she said, forcing a smile. “Well, that’s nice that you were able to pick right back up when you came back to town.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Blake glanced around, running a hand back through her hair as a shiver ran down her back. “I’ve had enough of hospitals. They’re so sad,” she said, voice soft. “I’m sure Graham is glad you could come.” She paused. “I know I’ve been so happy that I have you to come home to after everything going on with my dad.”
I blew out a breath, opening one arm for her to hug me. She leaned in, nuzzling her cheek against my chest.
“I know. You’ve been through a lot lately. Are you sure you want to be here?”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s nice to get away from my own thoughts for a while.” Her breath was hot on my neck as she peered up at me. “I’m just so thankful for you being here for
me, Reese — for everything. Just like how I was there for you when… when everything happened. I just, I’ll never be able to thank you enough. I know you understand more than anyone.”
My throat was tight then, and suddenly the hospital room was too small to take an adequate breath.
She was still staring at me when Graham joined us, and I let out a breath of relief as low as I could, releasing her from my grip.
“Hey, you ready to go?” Graham asked me.
“Yep,” I answered, looking back at Blake. “We’re going to go out to the old park for a while, shoot basketball and catch up. You going to be okay here?”
Blake didn’t look happy at our conversation being cut short, but she nodded. “Of course. I’m sure there’s something I can help with around here.”
“Okay. I’ll be back soon.”
I kissed her temple before zipping out of the room like it was on fire, and Graham followed. He chuckled when he caught up with me, glancing back over his shoulder before meeting me with a raised brow.
“Blake is… something.”
I smirked. “That she is.”
“Her and Charlie have beef?”
I stopped short when we reached the set of double doors that led out to the elevators. “What?”
“Charlie was looking at her weird, like an enemy. And my sister doesn’t have any of those. Do they not like each other?”
I feigned nonchalance, opening the door for us and pushing the elevator button once we were through. “They’ve only met once before. I think Charlie was just tired.”
“Yeah,” Graham said, watching me closely. “Could be. Were you with her the other night?”
A flush ran over my face before I could cool it, and I couldn’t even answer. I just avoided Graham’s stare as we stepped onto the elevator.
“At the school event,” he clarified once the doors closed behind us. “She said she had a meeting. Were you there, too?”
I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. It was for the end-of-the-year gala thing. We’re both up for awards.”
“Nice,” Graham said, but I still felt him watching me. “It ran late.”
“That’s Westchester,” I said, trying to laugh. “You remember how intense they are about school functions, don’t you?”
At that, Graham seemed to lighten up a bit. “God, do I. I wanted so badly to go to a normal school like you and Mallory.”
He chuckled, but all the color drained from me at the sound of my sister’s name.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Reese.”
“No, no, don’t be,” I assured him as we stepped off the elevator. “It’s not like I can’t talk about her.”
That should have been a true statement, but it was a bold-face lie — one I was too ashamed to admit to anyone out loud.
“Has your game gotten any better since you left Pennsylvania or am I about to run circles around you like usual?” I teased when we pushed through the doors to the parking lot, trying to change the subject.
“Please,” he said with a scoff. “We both know you were better with the girls and your stupid piano, I was better with everything else.”
We continued talking shit the rest of the way to the car, and it seemed all questions about Charlie and my family had been left behind us — at least, for now.
For the next few hours, we played basketball and caught up, and just like I’d felt with Charlie, a little piece of home clicked back into place having Graham back in Mount Lebanon.
But in the back of my mind, his sister was all I could think about.
I knew that across town she was stewing over me showing up at the hospital with Blake. I had to explain what happened, and I couldn’t talk to her until I saw her back at school — and that was a full weekend away.
Ever since I moved to Pennsylvania, weekends were my worst enemy. They were days away from Charlie — days she spent with him. And right now, I knew she felt betrayed. She was pissed, and she had every right to be.
But I’d make it right when I saw her. I had to.
All I could do was tick down the minutes until Monday.
Charlie
Late that night, I sat in the aviary with Scarlett and Rhett, feeling as numb as a hand without circulation.
I sipped on hot chamomile tea, watching the birds sleep, hoping the combination would somehow lull me into a sleep that night, too. My thoughts were loud, and none of them made any sense. It was a constant cycle of absolute nonsense, twirling and twirling, taking me down in a heartbreaking wind tunnel of truth.
Somewhere on the ride home, with the windows down, the warm May air whipping through my hair, I realized that it wasn’t that I was mad at Reese.
It was that I was jealous of Blake.
That realization had sucker punched me, the truth of it stealing my breath away. I was jealous of a woman I barely knew, because she got to go home to Reese every night. He swore to me they weren’t doing anything, that he was being strictly a friend to her now, but the fact was that she was still in his bed every night.
And I wasn’t stupid enough to think they didn’t touch.
That made my stomach roll, the thought of it, and I imagined it was only a muted form of what Reese must have felt every night I left school to go home to Cameron.
Cameron. My husband. The man who had shown me more than ever this past week that he loved me truly, whole-heartedly, in a way far different than Reese. It was different in the sense that it was comfortable and dependent, steadfast like a river with a never-ending source.
I was with him all week, and yet I’d also thought of Reese that entire time.
When did I become this person?
Even when I was quiet and reserved, when I didn’t have many true friends, I was always proud of who I was. I was a daughter, a friend, a teacher, a wife. I was honest and true, sweet and kind, always thinking of others before myself.
But this year had changed me.
The new year had snapped me from one person to another, from old Charlie to new, and they sat on opposite sides of the spectrum. Where I used to place others before me, I now only thought of myself. I wanted things — truly wanted them — and I took them instead of waiting or asking. I acted first, thought later. I hurt those around me without realizing it, or maybe I did realize it, and I just didn’t care.
It was like staring in the mirror and seeing a completely different person, like a bad dream I couldn’t wake from.
I couldn’t go back to the woman I was before. I didn’t even know who she was anymore.
I also didn’t know what — or who — was the catalyst that sent me from old Charlie to new.
Was it Reese? Did he wake me up, change me, ignite an old burning flame when he came back into town?
Was it Cameron? Did we hit our breaking point, one coming all along? Was it his lack of care, his years of apathy, that somehow transitioned me from one point to another?
Or was it me?
Was it a quiet giant within my soul, one that had been sleeping, waiting, hoping it wouldn’t have to emerge? Was it the real me, the one who’d always been there, only just freed from her chains?
The answers never came, not with the chamomile and not as the minutes ticked by, taking me later into Friday night.
“I brought you more hot water,” Cameron said, shaking me from my thoughts as he entered the aviary.
He held his hand out for my cup, pouring it full with steaming water from the tea pot in his hand before he sat it on the table beside me.
I was seated in the hammock, folded into it like it was a chair instead of lying down flat, and I swung back and forth lightly, pushing off the ground with my bare toes.
Cameron dunked my old tea bag in the new hot water, handing me the cup before grabbing one of the small stools from the corner. He sat it down right in front of where I was on the hammock, folding his hands between his legs with his elbows balanced on his knees as I steeped the tea.
“I have wondered about the thoughts inside that beaut
iful mind of yours for the last few months,” Cameron said, his eyes bouncing between mine. “It’s maddening, knowing there is so much that troubles you, and yet not knowing what.” He paused. “This must be how you have felt with me our entire relationship.”
I traced the lip of my tea cup with my finger. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t even know what’s going on up here,” I said, tapping my temple.
Cameron reached forward, taking my tea cup from my hands and sitting it on the table next to the pot. He wrapped my hands in his then, covering my cold knuckles with his warm palms.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Not tonight, okay? It’s been a long day, and I—”
“No, I have to say it tonight,” Cameron insisted, squeezing my hands. “This has waited long enough.”
There was an urgency in his voice, mirrored in his soft caramel eyes, and that tone had my heart accelerating before I even knew the subject on his mind.
“What is it?”
Cameron swallowed, his eyes dropping to where his hands held mine before they resurfaced. “We need to talk about Natalia.”
And with just the sound of her name off his lips, my stomach dropped, landing somewhere below the hammock.
“Cameron, please,” I tried, shaking my head. She was the absolute last thing I wanted to talk about in that moment.
But he squeezed my hands, smoothing his thumbs over my knuckles.
“I know it hurts,” he said. “Trust me, I know. But, we never talked about her, about what happened — what really happened — and with everything…” His voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard, his eyes on mine. “I just have to tell you this, okay? You need to know the truth.”
“I know the truth,” I told him, pulling my hands from his. I crossed my arms over my middle, sitting farther back in the hammock. “I saw the truth, remember?”
A flash of red struck behind my eyes — her red nails, red lips, red bottom of her heels. I could still see Natalia straddling my husband like it was happening right here and now in the aviary.
“You saw only part of it, and the part you saw told the wrong story.”
What He Always Knew (What He Doesn't Know Duet Book 2) Page 17
