Her confident smile faltered, but she was quick to plaster it back on. “It’s okay. I understand you. You say things like that because you want to hurt people, not because you mean them.”
I leaned on my elbows, wishing I could fast forward this nightmare. I’d thought Sophie was one of the more normal girls I crossed paths with when we started hanging out. It all felt like months ago now, even though it hadn’t been long ago at all. Apparently, I was a horrible judge of character, because she was looking more and more psychotic by the minute.
I endured another monologue by her about feelings and why I should have them for her. I was just starting to wonder when she’d give up for the night, but the bell over the door jingled. Charli came walking in, cheeks flushed and chest heaving like she’d jogged.
Oh, shit.
She spotted us and headed straight our way.
I brainstormed a few concise ways to explain what was happening, but before I could utter a single syllable, she slapped Sophie across the face. There was a momentary pause, then she punched her hard enough that Sophie’s lip started to bleed.
I burst out laughing, but then Charli turned her anger on me.
“I’m going to get to you, too.”
I wanted to smile more, but I knew better than to egg her on. Charli may have been five foot nothing, but whatever she lacked in size, she made up for in determination. “Should I explain?”
Charli shook her head, then jabbed a finger in Sophie’s face when it looked like she was about to start talking. “You sent me that picture from his phone. You knew exactly what I’d think. So why don’t you talk to me about why you’re blackmailing my boyfriend and trying to stir up drama?”
Damn. Charli was hot as hell when she was mad, and I enjoyed seeing her fiery temper directed at someone else for a change. But how did she know Sophie was blackmailing me?
“You don’t understand what’s going on,” Sophie managed, though her words sounded clumsy from her quickly swelling lip.
“No? Enlighten me.”
“Cassian deserves better. He deserves me.”
“And Cassian agrees with this sentiment so much that you’re having to resort to blackmail and tricks to get him?”
I covered my mouth. Charli probably knew I could jump in and happily explain everything, but I was enjoying watching her dismantle Sophie too much to interrupt. The best part was the Ninja Turtle pajama bottoms she had on and the mismatched pink top. She looked like she had just laid down to go to sleep, but decided to wake up and slap Sophie around a little first.
She was my little badass, and I was loving every second of this.
Sophie was getting flustered, but when she tried to stand up—probably to stop Charli’s midget ass from towering over her in the booth—Charli pushed her back down. “Cassian and I had something special before you came along, okay? I’m just trying to help him remember that.”
Charli folded her arms. “I can’t speak for him, but I know how much he means to me. He means so much that I couldn’t stop caring about him even when he was trying desperately to make me hate him. And I care about him enough that I’m not afraid to tell him I’m starting to fall in love with him, even though I know he might not feel the same way.” She finally shifted her eyes toward me, and I thought I saw tears threatening to fall from them.
That was my Charli. She was quick to cry, but strong as a goddamn rock. Delicate and sharp at the same time, just like a rose.
“You’re only starting to fall for me? Shit. Catch up, Rhodes.”
Charli laughed and the tears fell. She seemed to forget all about Sophie when she jumped in my lap, straddling me and hugging my neck so tight I could barely breathe. “Really?” she asked.
“No shit. You think I’d put up with you if I wasn’t in love with you?”
She laughed again, then gave me a sloppy kiss that tasted like salty tears but felt so right it hurt. “There’s something I need to admit to you. I did something bad.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d help you get away with murder.”
Sophie cleared her throat. “I think you’re forgetting I still have the video.”
Charli shot me a look. So she had been bluffing when she called Sophie out for blackmailing me. She connected the dots but didn’t know what ammunition Sophie had. “She was hiding in the bleachers when we… Touched down in the endzone.”
Charli swallowed. I saw emotions crossing her face as fast as lightning. Doubt. Fear. Anguish. But it all melted away and turned to determination. “Okay,” she said. “That’s all you have? Share it, then. I don’t care.”
“Charli,” I warned quietly. “It’s not some blurry, pixelated thing. It’s clear as day. And your…”
“It’s okay. It’s just skin. Maybe all that matters is I’m yours. And who would be dumb enough to try anything once they all realize that, right?”
I brushed her hair from her forehead and touched her scar. She still flinched back when I touched it, and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to teach her to be proud of it. To own it. But at the moment, we had more pressing issues to deal with.
“I’m still not feeling great about the entire school seeing your pussy. That’s for me, and me alone.”
Sophie was watching us like a cornered animal. “You know the price if you want the video to stay buried.”
“What happens if you never make it home?” I asked darkly.
Charli slid off my lap, elbowing me in the stomach. “Cassian…”
Sophie’s throat clicked. “You expect me to believe you’d hurt me?”
I shrugged. “Why should I believe this would be the end? Say I play along. Go on your dates. Appease you for months, maybe. Maybe you even delete the video. How do I know it ends there? From where I’m sitting, all I feel like you’re doing is showing me why I might need to do something drastic.”
She tried to play it off like she didn’t believe my threat, but I could see the shadow of doubt on her face. For good reason, probably.
The scary truth was I didn’t know what I would or wouldn’t do for Charli. Maybe she was thawing my heart out from whatever cold prison had held it. But it only beat for her. Anything or anyone else who was dumb enough to get between us was going to have hell to pay.
“Let me see it,” Charli said. “The video.”
Sophie considered her, then tapped on her phone a few times and handed it to Charli. “I’ve got it backed up in the cloud and on my home computer. So if you think you can delete it yourself and solve this, it won’t be that easy.”
Charli watched long enough to see the part where her legs were spread for the camera. She swallowed, then held the phone in front of her chest, tapping her fingers quickly.
“What are you doing? I told you it doesn’t matter if you delete it.” Sophie reached across the table for the phone.
Charli turned her shoulders to finish what she was doing, then flopped the phone back on the table in front of Sophie. “I didn’t delete it. I sent it to your entire contacts list.”
“My fucking parents and grandparents are on my contacts. Are you—” Sophie’s whole face went red as she frantically tried to send messages to smooth over the damage Charli had just done.
With a shrug, Charli motioned for me to get up. “If you want to film us again, try to calm it down with the zooming in and out. It looks amateur.”
We left Sophie seething in the booth. Outside, I took Charli by the waist and pushed her up against the brick wall of the restaurant. I ran my thumb along her jaw. “That was hot as hell.”
“Glad you think so. Now that she’s not watching, can I go die in a corner at the thought of the entire school seeing between my legs?”
“You’re mine. Everybody knows it now. You’ll never hear a whisper of it. I’ll make sure of it.”
She gave me a crooked smile. “My black knight.”
“Not your knight in shit-stained armor, anymore?”
“No. I’m promoting you. And I know you said it doesn’
t matter, but I need to confess. I saw the picture from Sophie and thought the worst. It pissed me off, so I went in your room and snooped. I found the last email you sent your dad.” She lowered her eyes, cheeks reddening. “I read it, too. But once I saw the email, I knew the picture wasn’t from you. I—” she faltered, taking a deep, shuddering breath and then looking up at me. Her eyes were big, and puppy-like.
“You snooped on my computer?” I tilted her chin up, making sure I had her full attention. “Lucky for you, I like how fiery you are. I like that you wanted to burn my fucking life down after you saw that picture. You won’t let me walk all over you. You’ll keep me honest, and you don’t give a shit what everyone thinks about me. You’re real, Charli. That’s why I’m crazy about you.”
“You were crazy before me,” she teased.
I grinned. “You’re always so damn sassy, aren’t you?”
“Only because it makes you smile.”
I kissed her. I loved how she melted into my kiss, puddling into my arms so I had to scoop her up and hold her close. She was fire and ice, untamable and more beautiful because of it. Every little moment of submission was like that fleeting few minutes before the sun sets, when everything in the world glows like gold. The fact that it doesn’t last or come easy is exactly what makes it so mesmerizing.
While I held Charli and kissed her deep, I knew one thing. I might not be able to stop the storms that would come for the both of us, but I knew I’d keep her dry. I slid my thigh between her legs, swallowing up her moan when she pressed herself against me. Well, not entirely dry.
42
Charli
Once the smoke settled with Sophie and the mass text I’d sent out, I knew I needed to talk to Zoe. I’d been dreading the conversation, but I owed it to her to get it out in the open before she heard it from someone else.
I asked her to meet me at the park on Main Street. She sat down beside me on a bench, grinning. “This seems ominous. Meeting in a public place, and all. Are you worried I’m going to murder you, or something?”
“Maybe a little?”
Zoe laughed, then surprised me with a hug. “I heard about the video.”
“Already?” I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised. The text went out last night on a Friday. It probably circulated through the entire student body by now. “I wanted to talk to you about it. About me and Cassian.”
“Okay. Why?”
I scrunched my eyebrows together. “I figured, since you and Clint are together, you’d… Well…”
“What, that I’d try to forbid you from dating him or something? I mean, yeah. Cassian tried to kill Clint and was a major asshole. But it’s your life, Charli. I’m your friend, and I want you to be happy. If he makes you happy, and if he promises not to break your heart, then I’m happy.”
I felt the stress I’d let build up melt as I collapsed into her chest. She hugged my head, laughing. “You’re ridiculous. You really thought I’d be mad?”
“A normal, sane person would be mad. So, yes. I thought you were mortal.”
Zoe grinned. “Normal, sane people are overrated.”
A month passed and, much to my surprise, life went on. I’d occasionally see someone watching me with uncomfortable interest, but it could’ve been idle fascination to see the girl who had “tamed” one of the untamable Greeks. I’d been placed on a sort of pedestal along with Kennedy Stills. It meant girls watched me with mingling awe and disgust. Boys avoided me like the plague but looked at me like a kind of untouchable prize when they didn’t think I’d notice.
To be completely honest, none of that mattered to me. Before coming back to Silver Falls, I might’ve imagined it’d be the best feeling in the world. After all, I’d spent my life hopping from school to school, wishing beyond hope that I could finally fit in somewhere. Now I’d basically been thrust to the top of the popularity totem pole.
I sat with Cassian for lunch and hung out with him and the other Greeks after school. We went to the rock cliffs and swam in the aqua blue water there, so cold it took our breath away even when the sun was glaring down. We laughed in Logan’s rusted out truck as he barreled through sloppy, muddy backtrails in the woods and got us stuck at two in the morning. I went to all Cassian’s games and earned myself all sorts of winks, waves, and smirks from my very own football star.
It was like a dream, and I couldn’t help thinking how happy my mom would’ve been to see me now.
I was sitting at the kitchen table in the Stone’s house with four graduation tickets in my hands. The thought of my mom and the sight of the tickets for “friends and family” made me think of my dad. There was more baggage to unpack with him. So much more baggage.
He had screwed up in the parental department in almost every way imaginable. He blamed me for my mother’s death. He punished me for it with emotional warfare for ten years. He drank himself into a shell of his former self and made us have to live on pennies.
Worst of all, he made it so I lost both my parents that night, not just my mom. The old dad—the one who had never been perfect but had always been there for me—burned down with the house. Everything did.
I used to think part of me died there, too. Now I wonder if maybe it just clung to Cassian, because being with him made me feel whole again.
I rubbed my thumb over the tickets, considering. If I didn’t invite him to my graduation, it’d be a slap in his face. It didn’t matter if he wanted to come or cared about it. It’d be something I could never undo, and I couldn’t help wondering if that would set the tone for our relationship going forward.
Inviting him would be the harder decision. I still felt so much bitterness and anger toward him that I wanted nothing more than to make him hurt. God, I wanted to make him hurt a thousand times for every time he’d made me cry as a little girl. I wanted him to understand what he’d done. Really understand it.
And yet I knew I wasn’t going to do that.
Maybe I could thank Cassian for the strength, or maybe I only needed to look inward. But I’d learned how the horrible things that I lived through all made me stronger. They gave me the backbone to stand up to Cassian long enough to realize we needed each other. Now those experiences were going to give me the strength to extend the olive branch toward my dad.
Was it forgiveness? Hell no. I still wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say I forgave him. But I was going to try.
For no particular reason, I sat upright in my bed. It was dark out, and a quick check of my phone told me it was well past midnight. Cassian and I had not-so-sneakily started sleeping in the same bed several nights a week. If it was up to him, it would be every night, but I somehow felt like it was important to maintain at least a thread of boundaries. So even though he had snuck into my room before I went to sleep and I’d let him lick me until I was gasping for air, he dutifully left and went to his own room.
Just thinking of our encounter finalized the fact that sleep wasn’t in the cards for me tonight. I got up, threw on a long t-shirt to cover my bare breasts and panties, then headed downstairs. I wouldn’t have believed it before moving here, but I’d actually gotten used to the massive size of the house. It had the eerie but comforting feeling of occupying a hotel with no staff and only a handful of guests, like something built for giants that had moved on and left long ago.
I made my way through the darkened hallways, cutting across moonlit beams that sliced through the windows.
Without really knowing why, I headed outside, sliding the oversized glass doors out of my way and padding by the pool. The fountains ran over a manufactured rock wall that concealed a grotto, and I found the ambient trickle of water to be ridiculously comforting. I almost curled up and sat cross legged by the poolside to drink it all in, but something drew me into the soft grass and toward the lake.
I found Cassian sitting there. His broad back highlighted with silver light and his strong, veined and muscle-clad arms planted to either side of him. He half-turned his head at the sound of my foo
tsteps. “Sup, stalker?”
I gave a wry smile, sitting beside him and leaning on his shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep. You?”
“Same.”
We sat quietly for a while, neither of us feeling any need to break the silence. A thought bubbled to the surface unexpectedly, and I found myself voicing it before I could think twice.
“What if we’re not forever?”
Cassian tilted his head down at me. “What do you mean?”
“I know I should just be happy that we’re together now. But the more I feel for you, the more it terrifies me that it might not last.”
“Hey,” Cassian tilted my face up, planting a tender kiss on my lips. “We didn’t just happen to get together. There’s so much fucking gravity between us that it was inevitable. That’s what it is, Charli. Gravity. It has been since we were kids.”
“Gravity, huh?” I smiled out at the water. “I like that.”
He put his big arm around me, holding me tight. “Gravity doesn’t fade. Neither will we. Forever. That’s what this is. It’s for fucking ever, whether you like it or not.”
“I like it.”
He chuckled. “Also, if the whole gravity thing doesn’t work out. I also refuse to let you go anywhere. I’ll just pull your ass back in myself. So get used to it.”
I smiled. I knew adults would probably say I was just a dumb teenager for thinking I knew what love was. But I’d happily tell them they were just dumb adults for not realizing how obvious it was.
I loved him. I loved him so much it hurt. So much it made my heart want to sizzle with frustration.
We’d both pushed and pushed each other away as much as we could, but it only made the inevitable crash together stronger.
43
Epilogue - Charli
Epilogue – Charli
Cassian had offers to play football for almost any school he could’ve ever wanted. Unfortunately, even my obsessive practice at sprinting only earned me a partial scholarship to a single, local college. But sure enough, Cassian had followed me there.
Savage Love Page 19
