A smile bloomed on her face. “Well, they’re all yours.”
It was an honor and I took it as such, guiding her back onto the mattress with the reverence she deserved.
A few minutes later, she was tugging the shirt off my body, and so began the wonders of exploration. We took it slow, marveling at the sensations we were both experiencing for the first time.
Inch by inch, we exposed more and more of ourselves to each other until there was nothing left to hide.
It was our awakening.
Time was stolen. Life outside was forgotten.
That tent became our palace and I lost myself…never to be truly found again.
Chapter Ten
Charlie
I shouldn’t have said it.
Why’d I say it?
Cards?
That song?
“Dreaming Alone.”
I never knew why I loved it so much until I stood in that motel room staring at Nixon and remembering how we lost our virginity together, in that tiny tent, in that amazing national park.
We spent ten days either hiking, dreaming or discovering the wonders of sex.
We didn’t go all the way that first night. Nixon had no protection, so instead we found different ways to reach climax. Talk about a heady rush. Nixon’s fingers were supernatural, his tongue a freaking wand of pleasure.
I’d kissed every inch of his skin, watched his face as my touch brought him to orgasm. It’d been a thing of beauty.
The next morning, we’d crawled into the sunlight and made it our mission to find condoms. I thought I’d be nervous and scared about actually going all the way, but experiencing it together like that somehow eased the pressure. We were figuring it out, like two partners in crime, laughing through that first awkward encounter where he came within twenty seconds, and then slowly learning and building until waking up beside each other led to hours of passion, then dozing, then more passion. We’d break for food—candy bars, usually. I remember licking chocolate off his lips. My giggles got sucked away by his hot kisses, and then we’d be naked again and trying out another position.
When we weren’t high on pleasure, we were hanging out—talking, dreaming, planning a future together.
Our excitement would lead to kisses and yes, more sex. It was a honeymoon of sorts, and I’d never experienced anything like it again.
I hadn’t slept with another man since Nixon.
I’d kissed a few but as soon as things got hot and heavy, I’d pull away. The thought of another man touching me in those intimate places just put me off.
My body belonged to Nixon Holloway. I couldn’t seem to give it to anyone else.
“Dreaming Alone” finished on a strong beat, jerking me out of my stupor.
I blinked and rubbed my forehead, struggling to breathe.
“You know, I just, um…realized I don’t have any cards. So…”
Nixon looked down at the faded bedspread and nodded. “We should probably have an early night anyway. There’s still a long way to go. I think I’ll just read, then go to sleep.”
I nodded. “Sure, yeah. I’ll just, um…” I indicated to the bathroom with my thumb.
“I’ll go find us some pizza.” Keeping his eyes down, he quietly walked out of the room while I zombie shuffled to the shower.
Closing the bathroom door, I pressed my forehead against the wood, shutting my eyes against the burning tears.
“What a waste,” I whispered. “It was such a waste.”
I’d wanted him for months. It hadn’t been love at first sight for me. But Nixon had grown on me faster than I expected. My serious crush started halfway through my junior year, and then came that awkward fear that I’d somehow screw things up if I let on.
So we kept playing a game of pretend, enjoying each other’s company and growing more in love as the days ticked by.
We spent every waking minute we could together.
His parents didn’t like me. I was a threat—unpredictable, too like Reagan for their fears to rest.
So we spent most of our free time hanging out at my place. My parents loved Nixon. Who wouldn’t?
We’d listen to music, play games, read beside each other…whatever.
Just be.
We were really good at just being together.
“Why Don’t You Love Me” filtered under the bathroom door.
I snickered and coughed out a cynical laugh. “Seriously?”
The music taunted me with another memory.
I used to lie on my bed, clutching a pillow to my chest and belting out those words, wishing Nixon would love me the way I loved him. Not even realizing that he did.
We’d wasted all of senior year.
And then that magical summer Nixon crossed a line…and it was perfect.
Until we got back to LA with our dreams firmly intact, only to have them torn to shreds by a father who knew I’d never be good enough for his son.
Chapter Eleven
Nixon
I didn’t sleep well. I spent most of the night hyper-aware that Charlie was in the bed just feet from mine. I had to dodge memories of how her naked skin felt beneath my fingertips, how hot her mouth was. It was so easy to relive that sensation of her wrapped around me while I came inside her. Even after all this time it felt fresh and crystal clear.
We’d belonged to each other in every way we could.
But that was back then.
Four years on and I belonged to someone else.
I should have been thinking about my last time with Shayna, but I couldn’t remember it. Every time I started picturing her naked body or feeling her beneath me, she’d morph into Charlie.
I groaned, feeling like a dirty cheater.
The phone beside my pillow vibrated, then started ringing. I jerked out of my foggy slumber and scrambled to answer it.
“Hello,” I croaked, rubbing my eyes and wondering what the time was.
“I miss you,” Shayna whispered. “Where are you right now?”
I rubbed my forehead, grabbing my watch to check the time.
Shit. It was ten o’clock.
I glanced at Charlie’s bed. She was still dead to the world, her hair a stormy blue sea on the pillow. My lips tugged into a smile before guilt reminded me that I was talking to my girlfriend. I swiveled back to face the window and whispered, “I’m still in Lexington, baby.”
“You haven’t left yet? I thought you were getting home as fast as you could.”
I winced and raked a hand through my hair. “I slept really badly last night, and your call actually woke me.”
“I thought you sounded groggy. You’re not hung over, are you?”
“No,” I snickered.
“What did you and Chuck do last night?”
“Nothing. I just went to bed early and read.”
“Typical.” She snickered. “You probably got so caught up in your book, you read until the early hours of the morning.”
I hadn’t actually, but I forced out a guilty chuckle. It wasn’t like I could tell her the truth.
“Well, drive safe today, okay? I need you home. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and as soon as school goes back I know you’ll be sucked into your studies again. You perfect A student, you.” The pride in her voice was endearing, pulling my lips into a smile.
“I’ll drive like the wind today, okay?”
“Don’t break any laws, but yeah. Get home to me.”
“I will.”
“You better.” She laughed. “Okay, I’m off to do my workout with the girls, and then we’re going shopping after work.” Her voice bounced around with excitement.
I raised my eyebrows, my stomach knotting.
Shopping with the girls.
It felt like a snippet into my future. My mind jumped forward to me in a suit, working long hours while Shayna went out and spent all the money, returning home with fistfuls of bags and thousands of dollars’ worth of bills.
I squeezed my eyes shut and
pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Love you, baby.”
“Love you,” I murmured and hung up, glancing over my shoulder when Charlie moaned and rolled over in bed.
Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and murmured, “What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock.”
She glanced my way and gave me a sad smile before disappearing into the bathroom.
We hadn’t really spoken much the night before. We quietly ate our pizza in front of That 70s Show reruns. I went to take a shower and when I got out, Charlie had her headphones on and was looking at pictures on her computer. I left her to it, read my book, then tried (and failed) to go to sleep.
So much for a last hurrah. All the road trip seemed to be doing was unearthing old, painful wounds that neither of us could talk about. How the hell did I come out and admit that deep down I knew I’d never been enough for her? I was too boring, and she’d quietly slipped out of my life to avoid having to admit it to my face.
That tent in Yosemite had been an out-of-world bubble, and when we returned to reality it must have hit her full in the face. Being trapped in a life with me was not going to work.
I’d spent hours locked in confusion, trying to figure out why she’d just gone.
Mom had been livid at Charlie for hurting me the way she did.
“I knew she was going to do something like this to you.” She’d rubbed my back and tried to make me feel better. “You don’t deserve this, Nixon. She’s not worthy of you.”
At first I tried to deny all her claims, but it was actually Dad’s calm reasoning that helped me see the truth in the end.
“She was unstable and flighty. The way she left is proof enough. Son, you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think staying with you would have made her feel tied down. You’re a rock-solid guy who deserves a woman who can appreciate you. It’s better that she’s left now rather than stringing you along only to wound you later. You have an amazing life ahead of you. Don’t let that girl and what she did steal any more of it.” Dad gave me a sad, heart-wrenching smile. “We have to protect each other. Don’t let this beat you, son. You hold your head high and you fight for the future you deserve.”
Dad probably thought his rousing speech had inspired me, but really it’d just helped me figure out that there was no point fighting when I didn’t have anything to fight for.
I wasn’t worthy of Charlie Watson. She needed some artistic guy who could drop everything at a moment’s notice, be spontaneous and fun.
Her boyfriend was probably just like that. She said they were on-again/off-again, and that suited her.
She would have been a caged bird with me.
Still, I wish she’d had the guts to tell me. The way she left hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
She stole a chunk of my heart the day she didn’t show up…and I’d never recovered.
Worry was thick in my chest as I drove to Charlie’s place.
I’d been calling her all day, but to no avail. She was outright ignoring me and I didn’t understand why.
We were supposed to meet up the night before but she texted me to say she had to bail. No explanation.
I tried to get into a conversation with her about it, but her only reply was: Tell you later.
The next day was later so I waited around, texting, calling, worrying.
Pulling up beside her little house, I glanced at her window. The curtains were drawn and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was sick.
I actually felt sorry for her as I ran up the path. I wanted to assure her that just because I’d seen her naked didn’t mean I’d be grossed out if she was sick. Just because our relationship had shifted out of the friend zone didn’t mean we couldn’t still be best buds. I needed her to understand that. It was vital.
Knocking on the door, I’d already started formulating my speech when her mother appeared.
“Hey, Mia.” I grinned. “Is Charlie okay?”
Mia’s smile was sad and resigned. Her gaze darted to the floor. “She’s not here, Nixon. She’s…gone.”
My forehead wrinkled. “Gone? What do you mean?”
“She’s, uh…left. Moved to Montana for a while. Her father’s driving her up there now.”
I nearly fell off the front step. “What?”
“Montana. Her aunt lives there. Charlie’s decided to go and stay with her for a while.”
“Why?” I kind of barked the word, confusion making my head reel. “I don’t understand. We had…plans.”
“Well, you know Charlie. Everything’s always last minute.” Mia’s voice was clipped, so unlike her.
I narrowed my eyes and she gave in with a sigh.
“She doesn’t want to hurt you. But I think it’s for the best.” She gazed past my shoulder, her face flashing with what I thought was anger.
“Is Charlie mad at me?”
“No.” Mia shook her head and finally looked my way, her eyes brimming with sympathy.
“What the hell is going on?” I whispered.
A tear trickled down Mia’s cheek and she brushed it away before it could get very far. “I know she’s your best friend and it must be very strange to have her disappear this way, but please trust that she’s doing this for you. What you had this summer can’t become reality.”
My cheeks flamed as I wondered how much Charlie had given away.
I’d told my parents about my change of plans, but I’d mentioned nothing about the sex.
“Some things just aren’t meant to be. Even though they feel right at the time, long term…” Mia’s voice trailed off and for a second, I had to wonder if she even believed what she was saying. “You need to go live your life, Nixon. Be the man you were born to be.”
It sounded like horseshit. The man I wanted to be was centered around Charlie. She was everything. She was the only one who ever made me feel like a man.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“I know.” Another tear tracked down Mia’s nose. She brushed it away and sniffed. “I wish I could explain it all. It’s very unfair and confusing for you.” Again, Mia’s voice turned hard and kind of brittle before wobbling with tears. “But she made me promise. She needed to go, and she needs you not to track her down.”
“Why? Why is she doing this?”
Mia’s lips trembled, her chin bunching as more tears fell. “It’s for the best. You two aren’t going in the same direction, and it’s better to end things now than break your hearts later.”
“But—”
“Please, Nixon. I know it’s hard, but you just have to accept what you don’t understand. You and Charlie don’t have a future together. Move on with your life.”
Charlie popped out of the bathroom dressed in a pair of shiny blue pants and a Chaos tank top. Grabbing her orange and purple checkered hoodie, she threw it on, then pulled her hair free. It fell across her shoulders and breasts, framing her cherub face.
My breath was stolen for a second, even though I didn’t want it to be.
She’d hurt me. I needed to feed off that, let it fuel me through the day. I had a girl at home who missed me, wanted me to hurry up and get to her side. Charlie left without even giving me the courtesy of a rebuttal, or a goodbye.
Grabbing my clothes, I headed for the bathroom. “We’re running later than I wanted, so hurry up and get your stuff organized. We’ll hit the road as soon as you’re ready to go.”
She nodded and got busy while I slipped into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My large forehead was crinkled with worry lines, my dark brown eyes void of any spark. I felt like my gaze had been dead since she left me. Even Shayna couldn’t make them sparkle the way Charlie had.
My parents spent the rest of the summer convincing me it was for the best. Charlie was a high school friend, and high school was over. It was time to step up and become an adult. By the time I started UCLA a few weeks later, I was hungry for the classes, the readings, the study.
I needed a distraction—anything to stop missing the girl who’d brought me to life.
Charlie was ready when I got out of the bathroom, so we packed up and grabbed a drive-through breakfast on our way out of town. I’d agreed to drive for the first half of the day and Charlie would take the second.
As I sipped my coffee, I kept stealing glances at her, even though I didn’t want to. I should hate the girl beside me, but she made it so damn difficult.
Her head was bobbing like she was singing along to music, but there was no music playing. It was starting to grate on my nerves. She hadn’t put on tunes like I expected, and the dead silence was a freaking killer.
Eventually I snapped, “What song is in your head right now?”
“Um…” She bit her lips together, her cute nose scrunching.
“Don’t make something up, just sing the words. Go.”
Her eyebrows rose. She obviously wasn’t used to snappy Nixon, but she hadn’t been around me over the last four years. My personality had slowly whittled away to turn me into the studious Nixon Holloway who liked nothing more than acing every class, studying on the weekends, and going out of my way to make my parents and Shayna proud. They were the people in my life who’d never let me down. It was my job to make them happy.
“Come on, Charlie. Sing.”
She cleared her throat, then softly sang, “Hey, I was doing just fine…”
I held my breath, her voice like a sweet caress as she rattled off the first couple of lines before looking at me.
“Do you know it?”
“No.” I shook my head, kind of annoyed that I didn’t. When we’d compared playlists, I thought I still had my king status. At high school I knew more about music than she ever did. I was the music king.
But Shayna wasn’t into it the way I’d been, and we just didn’t listen to it all the time at home.
“It’s called ‘Closer.’ It’s by the Chainsmokers.”
“Can I hear it?”
She cleared her throat and hesitated before pulling out her phone. She looked kind of reluctant as she scrolled through her music, and when the song started playing, I understood.
Rather Be (A Songbird Novel) Page 6
