by Molly Lee
“Of course, you do.” She always did.
She could never sit still. I’d learned that—among other dark pieces of her past that made mine look like a fluffy PG-13 film—in the past couple weeks. Not only had she overcome some serious fucked up shit—like being abused by a family member she chose not to identify—she was using her sobriety to help others in positions similar to her past.
Everything I hid from her, kept from her intentionally, was only prolonging her time with me, and I knew it was selfish, but I liked her attention. I honestly didn’t want her helping anyone else at the moment, and I analyzed every single emotion I had around her until I was exhausted. I couldn’t tell if my want of her time to myself meant I hadn’t changed—like I desperately hoped I was working toward—or if it meant I was still the same monster I’d been when I’d tied Blake to me without giving a second thought about her choices.
“Justin,” she said, stopping me by putting her hands on my coiled forearms. She slowly unclenched my fingers from the fists they were in and I breathed out slowly, her touch cooling the racing thoughts in my mind. “You’re doing that thing where you grind your teeth and get all contemplative.”
“Well, I’m a thoughtful man.” I tried to joke, but it didn’t hit the beat I wanted. She didn’t crack the grin I’d come to hope for every time she came into the room.
“Sharing is caring,” she said, still holding my hands.
I tugged out of her grasp, shaking my fingers out like she’d burned me. “What’s on the checklist today, Charlie?”
She glared at me, but one swipe of that pretty pink tongue over her even pinker bottom lip and the frustration was gone. For her, anyway. I was still being the over-analytical guy, wondering if I was a demon for wanting something for myself after years of not knowing who or what I was. I still didn’t have a clear image of the man I’d become since entering the clinic but after daily sessions in the ring with Thomas, I knew I was closer to figuring it out than I ever had been before. Not that I’d ever tell him that. Wouldn’t want to give the neighborly doctor a big head.
“You’ll see,” she said, turning on her heels and swishing those perfect hips down the hallway. I followed, reminding myself not to drool but my mouth watered regardless.
Since Blake, there had been Lindsay—the tool’s crazy ex-girlfriend and the closest, easiest piece of ass around at the moment I needed it—and then there had been no one. I hadn’t even looked at a girl in that air after what had happened that night at Blake’s house…I couldn’t and I never thought there would be another instance where I’d ever want someone as badly as I did now…but I couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I tried to cut Charlie out of my chest, she kept cropping up there and making my heart beat in new ways. Each thump was soothing, not rage induced, pleasant, not painful, and the hope that grew there only magnified with each day we spent together.
She had this uncanny ability to make me feel…normal. To her, I wasn’t a guy who’d spent years hating himself and taking it out on the only person who every had really loved him. I was merely a man trying to overcome an addiction. I wished it was that simple—even though it was far from that.
I tried to shove the thoughts down into the deep dark hole where I kept every hope buried, and followed her into a room I’d avoided since I checked in.
“No, please not this,” I said, stopping in the opened doorway.
Charlie fastened me with a look I’d quickly realized meant she would get her way—it was a half-pout half-smirk with eyes that sparked with the dare to deny her. My heart thudded against my chest and need ached in my core.
“What’s the matter?” She asked innocently.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “This is worse than the library you took me to last week.” I glanced over her shoulder, my eyes grazing over the art room. “Pottery day? Seriously?”
“Why not?”
I stepped closer to her, inhaling her delicious strawberry scent. “Not really my thing.”
She spread her slim fingers—painted green today—in front of her face, ticking off facts. “Books aren’t your thing, punk rock isn’t your thing, baking isn’t your thing, and what was it?” She tilted her head, those green eyes exploring a mind I’d love to get a glimpse of. “Oh yes, spa day wasn’t your thing either.” She shoved the four fingers in my face before dropping her hand. “I’m beginning to think you don’t like anything, Justin.”
The words kicked me straight in the balls. Blake had said similar things to me in the past, but I wasn’t that man anymore. I knew it in my heart, in my soul. I was still a fucked sideways asshole with a habit I had to kick—but the man I’d been? The one who had broken Blake over and over again? I’d killed him that night—the night I woke the fuck up. I had drowned him. In vodka.
“Ready to give up on me?” I asked, forcing myself to stay present by focusing on Charlie’s green eyes which had flecks of gold in them when she turned her head the right way.
“Never. We’re just getting started.” She smiled at me, the look genuine and absolutely non-judging. It was refreshing, and I admired her determination. I hated to disappoint her.
Wow. I actually didn’t want her to think less of me. But how could I impress her when I barely knew how to impress myself?
“So,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “Pottery.”
I smirked. “You want to reenact the scene from Ghost?” Blake had once made me watch the chick-flick. Swayze was decent but making out while making a pot? Seriously?
“The part where he dies?” She pursed her lips, and I hissed in mock pain.
“Ouch. Good to know what you’re working toward.” I shook my head.
A light clicked on behind her eyes, and she flashed me a wild grin. “Would it help?”
“What?” I asked, completely oblivious to the track she’d jumped on. “If you killed me?” She often spoke too fast or jumped subjects so quickly I had whiplash, but it was unique to her and something I had started to look forward to, chaotic as it was.
She licked her lips. “No. If I let you spoon me from behind, run your clay-wet fingers over mine…would you talk to me? Like you do with Thomas and the boxing?”
I snorted out a laugh, but the visual burned hot and pulsing in my mind. God, I’d love to know what she felt like, how she would move underneath my touch.
That couldn’t happen.
“No.” I shut that door as quickly as possible.
She sank on her heels, her shoulders dropping slightly. “It was worth a shot.”
“You were bluffing,” I said as I followed her inside.
“Was I?” She took a seat at an empty potter’s wheel, and I sank onto the one right next to her.
I stared at her, taking in every inch of her face, every smooth line, every hint of gold in her green eyes. Shit, I didn’t have a clue.
She burst out laughing then, reaching over to my wheel and flipping the switch. “Don’t think. Just let your hands do the work.” She motioned toward her own where one hand wrapped around a hunk of clay and the other scooped up water from a bucket between us.
I swallowed hard and tried to think about anything other than her skin slick and wet, anything besides the visual of her delicate hands manipulating the clay before her with slow sensuous movements. It was useless. I saw her. And she saw me—for what I was or who I wanted to be or a combination of both, I didn’t know.
She worked silently over the clay, her movements fluid and strong and soft at the same time and all the blood rushed to my dick as a blast of want slammed through me. Charlie was more potent than any drink, any pill I could ever take. I wanted her more than the clink of ice in the glass and the crisp sound the bottle made when freshly cracked open. And she was the one person I shouldn’t want, not to mention I had no right to even think about being with anyone now. Not when I was still so raw, still so unsure of why I’d done the things I’d done.
“I said don’t think.” Her voice cut through my thoughts, and I shi
fted behind my machine despite knowing she had to have seen the raging hard on I sported. Fuck I might as well have been a teenager again. I set my hands to work on the clay, adjusting my grip and strength as it spun, going for water when I needed more movement.
I wondered what it would’ve been like if I’d met Charlie back then? Back before I’d dropped out. Before I’d been kicked out of the only home I’d ever known.
Blake’s brown eyes filled my mind, and I closed mine, keeping my hands on the clay. Shit, I wouldn’t ever take back meeting Blake…just perhaps, if we hadn’t started so young, fallen so hard so fast, maybe we wouldn’t have become toxic to each other. That’s what she’d called us…toxic…and I couldn’t fucking blame her. Not after waking up.
Fuck. We brought out the worst in each other by the end—only her at her worst was a thousand times better than me at mine. I sucked in a deep breath, mentally whispering for the millionth time, I’m sorry.
I let my mind wander then—eyes still closed as I pictured Charlie and how different things could’ve been if I’d been with her instead. She understood me so well because she had darkness in her soul, the same as me. She’d experienced worse and came out better for it on the other side. She gave me hope even when I knew I wasn’t allowed to have it. It hadn’t taken her years to peg me for who I was, only minutes. Her ability to cut right to the point and strip me of my defenses at the same time only made her more endearing to me, and for a moment, there in the art room of a fucking rehab clinic, I let myself pretend we had a future together.
Damn, I’d lose my guy card if Conner could hear my thoughts. It’s not that I didn’t think about what she would feel like underneath me because I’d given her silky skin quite a bit of thought. It’s just that every time my mind drifted that way, Blake’s cries would shut that shit down faster than a cold shower.
It haunted me, and I knew I deserved no less. If it was this bad for me, reliving the night every single time I laid down, and trying desperately to change the outcome, then I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was for her. I didn’t like to think about it because if I did, then I only realized I was probably still hurting her, after all this time, despite that being the last thing I wanted in the world.
“Oh, Justin.” Charlie’s voice drew my attention, and I peeled my eyelids back. They were wet, as were my cheeks.
What the fuck?
I jerked my hands off the sculpted clay, swiping at my face with my forearms. Charlie stood over me and clicked off my machine, crouching to my eye level.
“Where did you go?” She whispered.
I shook my head, choking on the words.
She sighed and nodded, cutting her eyes to my machine. “That’s incredible.”
I followed her gaze, scrunching my eyebrows together. The lump of gray clay had transformed into a tall, funnel-shaped piece with jagged edges.
Not bad for my first time.
“It looks like a tornado,” she said.
And with that one word, a piece of glass shattered in my head, and I know longer saw something abstract I’d created with my own two hands with my eyes closed. No. I saw a mother fucking tornado.
What were the odds?
I bolted out of my seat and instantly smashed the thing, my fists packing into the clay without the satisfaction of feeling like flesh. I saw Charlie jump out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t stop. I beat the thing until it resembled nothing but the slop of a mound it had been in the beginning.
My chest heaved as I withdrew my fists, bits of clay sticking to my knuckles. I ignored the other patients in the room, their eyes on my outburst. Charlie’s were the only ones I cared about, but I was too scared to look. Too afraid to see terror or embarrassment or judgment in them.
She moved quickly in my peripheral vision, and I couldn’t not look when I saw her scoop up her piece—which looked like a big ass sphere—and smash it against the floor. It didn’t shatter because it wasn’t dry but the sound it made—a squelching plop—and the pathetic, fizzled out disc it sunk into, made me laugh so hard my sides hurt.
Charlie joined in, and it didn’t matter that we looked like two insane people in a room full of recovering addicts—it only mattered that we were the same.
“That felt good,” she said, reeling in her fit of laughter.
I sucked in a sharp breath, wiping at the corner of my eyes with my forearms for an entirely new reason, thanks to Charlie.
She grinned at me and motioned her head toward the unisex bathroom in the back of the art room. “Come on.” She offered her clay covered hand, and I took it instantly.
I used to think surprises “weren’t my thing” until I met her. Charlie had continuously surprised me every day since she became my sponsor.
“Clean yourself up,” she ordered, opening the door for me. “I’ll bury the bodies and be right back.” She winked at me before shutting me inside the small bathroom.
I leaned over the sink, my eyes staying glued to the white marble from habit. As I turned the faucet to find warm water, I drew my courage and slowly looked up.
There was a smile on my face I didn’t recognize. A light in my eyes, underneath the evidence of tears, I’d never seen. I hadn’t deliberately looked in a mirror in so long—I was shocked to catch a glimpse of myself for longer than a moment.
I needed a fucking hair cut.
I chuckled to myself, the sensation of release so strong it made me dizzy, reminding of that first drink after a long absence.
She knocked on the door, and I let her inside.
“You practicing your jokes in here?” Charlie asked, shutting the door behind her.
“No,” I said, and my voice cracked. The room was so small, her frame filling it despite being tiny. There were hardly any places in the clinic—besides the grounds—that were as private as this.
“Scooch,” she said, bumping her hip against mine as she nestled next to me at the sink. She ran her hands under the water, and the clay from her fingers turned the sink gray. “You haven’t even started! Here.” She grabbed my hands, working her fingers through mine, her skin warm and smooth underneath the flow of water and clay and it resonated deep in my core.
God, it’d been too long since I’d felt like this. Been so consumed like this.
I was helpless against her, silent as she lathered our hands with soap, and sliding the bubbles up higher where the clay had gotten on my arms.
“I know you think this may not be your thing,” she said, massaging her thumbs into the heel of my palms. “but you’re damn good at it.”
I licked my lips, watching her, feeling her touch, reveling in both. My silence must have given her pause because she stopped, her eyes slowly meeting mine.
“Is this okay?” she asked, slightly breathless. “I know some people don’t like being touched, but I tend to forget to ask.”
She pulled away from me.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Retaking my hands, she continued to lather and rinse until there was no gray left, only clear, warm water. She looked up at me as she grabbed a wad of paper towels next to her and handed them to me. I dried off, my skin already craving her touch.
A fleck of gray sat just beneath her eye and I reached up to smooth over it with my thumb before thinking. She didn’t flinch away from my touch. She did the opposite. She sighed and stepped closer to me. Her green eyes were open, honest, and in them I saw a flicker of the want I felt rushing through my blood.
There was nothing I wanted more in that instant than to claim her mouth and see what she tasted like.
And knowing that, feeling the slam of need surging through me, I backed away as quickly and as far as the small space would allow.
“Justin,” she whispered my name, not giving me the space but instead closing the distance until her chest pressed lightly against mine. “Don’t pull away from me. Not here.”
I looked down at her but kept my arms locked at my side when all they
wanted was to wrap around her hips and heft her up to my level. I wanted her, wanted what it looked like she begged of me but I would not breach the professional line between us.
“Talk to me,” she said, remaining still.
“I can’t.”
“You can. You know you can.”
“No, Charlie, I can’t. You don’t get it. I’m not good. There is nothing about my past, the reasons why I’m here, that is clean.”
“And you think what I’ve shared with you is a fucking bubble bath?” She arched a brow at me, her eyes lit and on fire.
“No, of course not---“
“Then snap out of it!” She placed her hand on my chest. “I can feel this, Justin. I can see the torture in your eyes every single day, and it’s killing me because I know if you’d just open up a crack I could help you.”
My heart pounded underneath her hand, so hard I’m sure she could feel it. I nearly spilled my entire guts on the floor right there, ready for her to give me my final judgment but I held back.
“You sound like Thomas,” I said. “You both are so sure I’m fixable.”
“You are.”
“No. I’m beyond broken.”
“Well, so am I. So are more than half the people in this building. But that is the beauty of broken things. They can be reworked, adjusted to build something even more beautiful than the original.”
I rolled my eyes. “I never was and never will be beautiful.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She raised her hand, stroking the stubble on my jaw. “You are beautiful. I see you. I see every dark, aching piece of you, and I know it sounds insane, but I get it.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“Please,” she huffed. “I know you, Justin. I know you’re drinking to kill the pain of some wrong you’ve done because you’ve done nothing but berate and blame yourself since I met you. I know you push people away because you’re afraid you’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of your past. I know that you push drugs but not enough for the buyer to inflict any real harm to themselves—other than delay their rehabilitation—and I know that I should’ve turned you in the second I knew for sure.”
