Swallowing hard, I roll my eyes over her face. “I’ll be honest. I don’t. I can’t sit here and say that I’ll be a good partner after something like that, but I can say that I want to be. There’ve been so many lessons that I’ve learned. So many things I did badly turned me into a person I didn’t want to be. A person who I hope like hell I never have to see in the mirror again. That person wasn’t good. I want to be a man that my woman can find comfort in. A safe place that she can find herself. I want to be the person she can trust never to break her heart. I need to be a man that my partner would be proud of. Learning I had it inside of me to do what I did, to break the one person I should have protected…it was a wake-up call for me.”
Warmth sits in her eyes as she watches me lay myself open to her. She appears pleased with my answer, and it loosens the tension that I was carrying.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” she answers.
“Does it make me a bad person? I know at that point in the relationship, I wasn’t a good one, but do you think I’m always going to be a terrible person because of the choices I made?”
Her entire face softens, and she reaches across the table to place her hand over mine. “Oh, Keaton. No, I don’t think it makes you a bad person. I think it makes you human. You were a good person who got caught up in something you really didn’t have experience with, and you made bad choices that hurt someone deeply. You’re so much lighter than the darkness you carried on your shoulders six months ago. What you did changed both of us. It wasn’t just surface-level stuff change either. It was down to our cores. Sitting here, looking at you now, I can tell that we’ve both built ourselves into these new people we needed to be. I found strength in the pain you caused, and I think you did, too. So, no. Once again, I don’t think the bad choices you made as a boy mean that you’re going to be a terrible man. You have to remember that sometimes good people do bad things, and bad people do good things. I don’t think most people are inherently one or the other. We all have both pieces inside of us.”
The heaviness of the conversation fades away as she sits back with a smile and asks me about my parents.
Time blurs as we talk about everything and nothing. By the end, our sides ache from laughing, our faces hurt from smiling, and it feels like a weight has finally lifted from both of us.
I take a sip and make a face at the cold coffee, but it’s worth it just to hear Charlie’s laughter bubble out.
“Ugh, I will never understand how the hell you drink that shit cold,” I mutter, causing her to laugh again as we climb to our feet.
I walk her out to her car with my hands shoved deep in my pockets so I don’t reach for hers.
Charlie leans back against the side of her car and peers up at me with a gentle smile. “Thank you. I, surprisingly, had a great time.”
“Me too. It was good finally getting to know you.” I shuffle my feet. “Would you, maybe, want to do it again?”
She tucks the inside of her cheek between her teeth as she thinks about it. Finally, she nods. “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
Every part of me aches to close the distance between us, to feel her warmth again, and resisting that urge is pure torture.
“Are you okay with leaving our next date up to me?”
Charlie sighs and shakes her head. “How about we do a couple more coffee dates first? After those, if they go well, then I’ll be more than happy to continue dating you and letting you plan them out.”
I never used to take the lead, and maybe that’s why she’s hesitant now. Why did I always leave the planning to her before?
“Perfect. It gives me time to come up with something, anyway.”
Charlie lifts a brow. “So sure the next few coffee dates will go that well, are you?”
“Gotta have hope, baby,” I tell her, shooting her a wink.
Her lips curl to the side as she turns to open her car door. “Yeah, I guess so. Take care, Keaton. I’ll send you a message with the next date and time.”
“I’ll be waiting, beautiful.”
Her body shivers at my words, and I worry for a quick second until I see the brightness in her eyes before she closes the door between us.
Things will never be the same between us, but our date today has got me feeling the most hope I’ve felt since I found myself on the floor of that pool house, drowning in self-loathing and misery.
Boundaries Laid Out
Charlie
Two Months Later
While I wait for Keaton to arrive, memories from the past two months swirl through my mind like autumn leaves caught in a gentle breeze.
Walking into Blooming Brews and seeing the barista flirting with Keaton left a bitter taste in my mouth, but it faded quickly. I noticed his shoulders tense with each attempt, discomfort clear in his body language. When he saw her number on his cup and turned her down, I felt a warm rush as happiness fizzed through me. I knew he meant me when he told her he was deeply in love. As he turned and noticed me watching, he looked startled and a bit awkward, but I was grateful I witnessed it. It showed me exactly how he handled attention from someone else.
