Jordan, ever the diplomat, offered a tight smile. “We know. But I’d feel a lot better handling one family crisis if I wasn’t worried about another happening back here.”
I knew what he meant. I saw it in Doyle’s face, even if he wasn’t saying it out loud. That latest fainting spell had rattled them both.
But the truth was, the idea of being alone had already started to gnaw at me—now it was practically roaring. So maybe this wasn’t the worst idea after all.
I cleared my throat. “So…it’s just a few weeks?”
Charlie’s gaze lingered on mine, steady and unreadable. “Long enough to drive each other crazy,” he said. “Short enough that you might still miss me when I’m gone.”
Chapter Twenty
CHARLIE
Iwaspacing.
Not the productive kind, either. The kind that wore a trench in the floor and left you muttering to yourself like a man possessed. Every few steps, I’d rake both hands through my hair, which only made it stick up more, some kind of wiry auburn warning signal that I was officially losing it.
I dipped a wad of toilet paper into the bucket of gluey cornstarch water I’d mixed up at least two mental breakdowns ago and slapped it onto the canvas spread across the floor.
Behind me, the beer fridge clicked shut. “The male artist, in his natural habitat,” Lee said, slipping into a barely-passableAustralian accent, “submerges bathroom tissue in ceremonial goo, slaps it with the fury of a jilted marsupial, and paces his enclosure like a lion in emotional captivity.”
Sutton choked on her cider and doubled over, her laughter bubbling out in wheezy bursts while Lee kept narrating.
I leaned against the worktable and crossed my arms. Let them laugh. Even pissed off, I liked having them around.
“You okay?” Lee finally asked, swiping a tear from his cheek. “You look like you’re about to combust.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re not fine,” Sutton added. “The porcupine hair, the pacing, all signs point to Charlie Pruitt on the verge of a breakdown.”
“I’m annoyed,” I answered honestly.
“Yeah,” Sutton said, dry as ever. “Because, once again, being Mr. Responsible comes back to bite you in the ass.”
It wasn’t just that. Of course it wasn’t. It was everything—stacked too high and shifting under its own weight. Commissioned pieces that needed finishing before the holidays, my sister’s slow-motion car crash of a wedding, and now Doyle’s pregnant sister camped out in the penthouse while he went off to play the dutiful son-in-law across the country.
I told myself I’d agreed to help because it was the right thing to do. But I also hadn’t factored in how close this would put us. How every small thing she did—padding barefoot across the floor, curling into the couch with that stubborn little frown when she thought no one was looking—would get to me. I hadn’t planned for carrying her upstairs, or for the way her weight fit against my chest like she belonged there. For the warmth of her skin on mine, or the quiet, uneven breaths that stayed with me long after I laid her down.
And it wasn’t the first time I’d imagined carrying her to bed—but it was the first time she’d been close enough to make it feel real.
Doyle would kill me. He’d take a tire iron to my knees and bury me in Bonaventure.
Still, there was no denying she was beautiful. Not in a polished, pageant kind of way. Tally had this rough-edged, real-world beauty that didn’t ask for attention so much as dared you to look closer. And the thing was, I couldn’t stop looking.
A beautiful woman is like good art. Not because it’s perfect, but because it moves you. If you’re paying attention, it’ll show you exactly how it was made.
To me, that kind of beauty lived in the imperfections—the cracks, the brushstroke someone tried to hide, the mismatched pieces that somehow held together. That’s what made it honest. Worth the study.
And she had that. All of it. This sort of impossible strength was tangled up with a vulnerability she didn’t try to disguise. She could throw a one-liner across a room and make you laugh out loud—and then turn away fast enough that you missed the flicker of doubt behind her eyes.
And despite all the very loud, very rational reasons I had for keeping my distance, I wanted to know her anyway. Not the curated version she offered everyone else, but the real one. I wanted to know her. Not to fix her. Not to claim her. Toknowher.
I wanted to see which of her flaws made her beautiful.
Chapter Twenty-One
TALLY
