I clench my jaw shut, refusing to let the pleas on my tongue slip out.
“There is one difference, though,” she continues. “One of those people is never going to change. And the other? It seems like he already has.”
Chapter 24
Charlie
It doesn’t look like Dillon is breathing. His expression is uncomprehending, his eyes bouncing between mine like he’s not sure what I’m saying.
Unable to stop myself, I reach up and brush my fingers over the short beard covering his jaw.
“This doesn’t look horrible,” I murmur absent-mindedly. As if my words have jerked him out of a stupor, his hand snaps up to cage my wrist. But Dillon doesn’t try to stop me. If anything, he’s holding me in place, keeping my fingers pressed against him.
“I’ll keep it,” he offers, his coffee-scented breath brushing over my face. “If you like it.”
My attention is on my fingers, but I look up, stare locking with his intense hazel one. “What would you do, if you were me?” I ask quietly. “Would you walk away?”
“You can’t ask me that, Angel,” he says roughly, his fingers pulsing around my wrist. “I can’t give you an impartial answer.”
“Tell me anyway.” I lift a hand to his shoulder, resting it there lightly. The touch is casual, as if not much thought went into it, but my hand trembles, and I wonder if he feels it.
Dillon holds my stare, his tone almost apologetic as he says, “No, I wouldn’t walk away. I don’t want to letyouwalk away.” There’s a beat, a pause filled with significant meaning. “I want to tie you to my bed and never letyou go again.”
A sound of amusement escapes. “Well, that escalated, didn’t it?” I tease.
Dillon’s fierce expression doesn’t lighten at all. “Angel, I need to know what’s happening here.” He grinds his molars together, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I’m terrified of having to watch you walk out that door again.”
“You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” I ask, and his eyebrows draw together. “You’d let me walk out,” I clarify. “You’d watch me walk away from you, and you wouldn’t try to stop me, even if it killed you.”
His swallow is audible. “I’d do anything to make you happy, Charlie.”
“I’m starting to realize that,” I say, and I mean it. There were problems in our relationship before everything happened at the cocktail bar that night—little cracks that were tiny enough they were easily overlooked.
We were overloaded with baggage and, without even realizing it, had brought all those issues into our relationship, letting them affect how we saw the world around us.
Dillon was willing to omit information to keep the peace, to hold his silence instead of speaking up in my defense.
Me? Iallowedit. I gave him permission to treat me like that, just as I’d given permission to my parents.
When I didn’t stand up for myself and kept turning up, I’d given them all this impression that their treatment of me was okay. Until I walked away from Dillon and realized there was another answer.
I don’t think my parents will ever change their ways, even under the threat of losing me, but I am not going to overlook that Dillon is trying to do better.
“The last six months have given me perspective,” I say quietly. “And that includes what happened between meand Alec.” He lets out a dramatic groan at the name, and I bite back a smile. “I needed to find my self-worth outside of you, and away from everything I heard that night. I needed to learn about who I could be without my mother constantly stomping me into the ground.” I inch closer, both hands on his shoulders now. “I needed to learn that I could risk trusting you again, even if it meant pushing past every single one of my fears to give you the power to hurt me again.”
Dillon bows his head, resting his forehead on my shoulder. Under my hands, I can feel his body shaking. “C-Charlie…” he croaks. “I wouldn’t…”
“You wouldn’t mean to,” I say softly, “but that’s part of the risk, isn’t it?” He lifts his head, his hazel eyes watery as they meet mine.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice infused with a quiet strength. “For all of it. For not trusting you at the beginning or at the end, for not being the man who stands up for you, and then for blindly attacking instead of admitting I was the problem. You told me I can never unring that bell, and you’re not wrong. I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering the expression on your face when I threw those words at you like knives.” He doesn’t need to repeat them because they’re still there, loud and clear in both our minds.
Dillon lowers his lashes, his expression pained. “You’re everything, Charlie. It feels like, when you walked out that door, you took every color with you. And since…” He presses his forehead to mine, his hands gripping the curve of my hips. “It’s all gray, and it’s all wrong. I know that I can live without you, butfuck, Charlie…I don’t want to.”
My heart flutters in a frenzied beat as I look up at his ravaged expression, unable to deny the sincerity in his voice.
“I don’t either,” I confess. There’s a stillness, a frozen moment, and then his lips are on mine. He pauses, but then,like a flip has switched, he groans, backing me into the fridge.
Dillon’s hand is on my thigh, yanking my leg up and hooking it around his hip. His other hand is wrapped around the back of my head, holding me in place and protecting me from the hard surface all at once.
