Chapter Twenty
Finally, quitting time rolled around, and Charlotte trudged out of the station’s back door. Her whole body curled closer to the ground in exhaustion. She’d be lucky to make it the ten miles home.
It had been a good night though. A busy night. Bekah turned two stories around for the evening news; one on the fire press conference and the other on a kidnapping that was prevented by two quick thinking boys are bikes. After the show, things didn’t slow down. Instead, the entire night steam rolled on with police calls every hour, a shooting, a tractor trailer overturning the liberty tunnels, and an idiot who had apparently been raising a bear cub in his apartment and got bit when the thing got too big. The morning producers had no shortage of stories to choose from.
The sun was just starting to peek out from behind the tree lined parking lot, and Charlotte raised her head, smiling that spring was definitely on its way if it wasn’t complete darkness by the time her shift was over.
That smile froze on her face, slowly melting into a gaping expression of pure shock. Because across the parking lot, bathed in the early morning light, was Trey propped against her car. Arms crossed across, his chin rested against his chest, and he appeared to be dozing. How long had he been there?
Approaching carefully, Charlotte laid her hand on his forearm. God, she’d missed touching him so much. “Trey?”
He jolted awake, but bags remained below his normally jovial eyes. None of the good humor she had come to associate with him in the weeks they’d know each other lingered there. Instead, sadness and pain were all that filled the brown irises. “Sugar.”
The endearment left his mouth on a sigh, and before she could react, he gathered her up into his arms, her toes leaving the pavement. On instinct, her body responded, arms flinging around his neck, body melding to his. But only for a moment. Then Charlotte came to her senses. She might not have a lot of experience with relationships or men—okay, any experience—but she did know that a man couldn’t throw a woman away and ignore her for weeks only to be forgiven at the first sign of remorse.
Releasing his neck, Charlotte pushed at his chest, and Trey obeyed her silent command, releasing her back onto her own feet.
“I missed your scent so much.” Torture, that was what filled his eyes. Regret too. God help her, it pulled at her heart. Charlotte might be shy, but she refused to be spineless.
“If you missed my scent so much, you should have called. Come over. Anything but disappear.” Turning from him, Charlotte opened the trunk and slung her work bag onto the floor.
The crunch of gravel behind her signaled Trey’s proximity. “I know, Jesus, I know.” His large hands gripped her hips, but he didn’t pull her any closer. Instead, he leaned his forehead onto her shoulder. Trey’s warm breath heated the thin blouse against her shoulder, seeming to turn the temperature up on her whole body.
“I know, sugar. I can’t… shit.” The hold on her hips increased, a slight tug bringing their bodies closer, but still not touching. “There is so much I want to tell you. But I can’t. Not without putting you in danger. If anything happened to you, and it was my fault, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Charlotte turned, but he refused to let go, so his hands drifted across her back and stomach, resuming their hold on her hips once she faced him. “Why would I be in danger?”
A groan of pure agony tore from his chest. “I can’t tell you specifics. Just that there have been threats, and I thought it would be best if I left you alone. To keep you safe.”
“You know that sounds insane right? Leaving me alone to keep me safe? It sounds like the excuse of a man who had no good reason for walking away without a word. I may not know a lot about relationships and men in general, but I know what you did is not okay.” A strange sense of pride glowed in Charlotte’s chest; she could stand up for herself. Even against this larger than life man who made her body want to melt. For someone who had spent her life cowering from new experiences and people, who shied away conflict, being able to speak her mind and be heard meant a lot.
“I know. You’re right. I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to think of a better way to do this. To keep you safe and keep you mine. It kills me that I haven’t known what you were doing, how your day was for the past fourteen days. That you slept alone every day.” Trey cupped her face in his hands, and Charlotte was strong enough to admit that he still managed to make her feel treasured, even after ghosting her.
“I’ve dreamt of our first time every night. I hate that you gave that to me, that we shared that together, and I had to walk away. I’ve barely slept. I can’t stop picturing your face when I left your apartment. How confused you looked. I even got burnt during a routine kitchen fire last week, because I couldn’t stop dwelling on what I’d done. The shame of not telling you something.”
Despite still being angry at him, Charlotte gasped in horror that he had been hurt during a fire. She took a step away from him until her back pressed against the side of her car and scanned him from head to toe. “Where were you hurt?”
Pulling down the collar of his shirt, Trey showed her the angry patch of flesh that had been burned in the fire. “I didn’t tuck the hood into my jacket. Rookie move. The guys haven’t stopped ribbing me about getting injured during a stove fire.”
“I’m sorry you got hurt.” Charlotte thought over everything he had told her. Took into account the injury, and the haunted look behind his eyes. The way he couldn’t stop touching her. His words and actions seemed to point to him being truly sorry for what he had done.
Charlotte wanted to forgive him. Wanted to return the affections and take him into her arms. Not holding back the questions bombarding her mind, Charlotte straightened her shoulders and looked into the face of the only man who had made feel both vulnerable and brave. “How do I know you won't do this again? That the next time things get hard you won’t shut me out again? You haven’t even told me what’s really going on. Who is threatening you?”
Trey sighed, rubbing one hand over his close-cut hair, threading the fingers of his other hand with Charlotte’s. “I want to tell you, I do. But there are things I need to do for my own peace of mind first. Then I swear, you’ll know everything. But, you’re right. I went about this all wrong. I shouldn’t have distanced myself to keep you safe. I should have stayed right next to you. The best place I can be to protect you is right next to you.”
He placed a delicate kiss on Charlotte’s forehead. The lips that she’d been thinking about each day before going to bed lingering against her skin.
“I know you keep saying you don't know much about men and relationships, but neither do I. This is the first time I’ve been in danger of falling in love. I’m halfway there as it is. And I have no idea how to handle that.”
Mind reeling, Charlotte closed her eyes, pressing her face into the uninjured side of his neck. “I don’t know what to say, what to do. I want to believe you.”
“Let me prove it to you. My parents are having a cookout tonight. I’ve never brought a woman home before. Come with me.” Trey laughed, tucking a strand of her hair that had come free from her bun back behind her ear. “My mom is going to go nuts. She’ll be all over you, trying to shove food down your throat and talking about all the grandbabies she wants. You’ll probably be the one running away at the end of the night. But I still want you there. By my side. As mine.”
The way he talked about his family made her jealous. They sounded so involved in each other’s lives. So present. The concept was totally foreign to Charlotte. She wanted to experience it, to see him in that element. But her whole body threatened to freeze at just the thought of being the center of his family’s attention. Fears she had just been starting to put in their place crept back.
“I promise, they’ll love you.”
With her mind made up, Charlotte nodded once. “Okay. But I need to go get some sleep. And change. And shower. And oh god, I have to cook something. That is what people do with cookouts right? They bring like a covered dish or something. So, forget sleep, we need to go to the store, then cook, then shower, then dress.” She turned to her car ripping open the driver’s side door and ready to speed from the parking lot as fast as her shitty little Camry would take her. First, she whipped back around a waved a finger at Trey, who had an amused grin on his face. “But this doesn’t mean you’re forgiven. It means I’m giving you another shot, and you have to earn it.”
