chapter 13
Charlie
The sheets in this Miami mansion are obscenely soft. They have the kind of thread count that probably requires its own insurance policy—but I still can’t get comfortable. I’ve been lying here for an hour, rearranging pillows, kicking off blankets, pulling them back on. My body is exhausted but my brain refuses to power down.
It keeps replaying the same five minutes on an endless loop.
His hands fisting in my hair. His mouth hot and desperate against mine. The low sound he made when I arched into him—something between a groan and a growl that vibrated through my entire body.
And then: the way he practically pushed me away. The cold air rushing in to fill the space where his warmth had been. The look on his face like he’d just committed a crime he couldn’t take back.
My phone buzzes against the pillow, rattling me out of the memory. Claire’s face fills the screen—a contact photo from two Christmases ago, both of us squeezed into matching ugly sweaters, her pregnant belly just starting to round under areindeer with a light-up nose. Her smile in the photo is pure chaos, like she’s mid-laugh about something only we would find funny. It was only a few weeks later that she lost the baby. I haven’t seen her smile like that since.
I answer before the second ring.
“I watched it.” Claire’s voice explodes through the speaker with the force of a small bomb. “Charlie, I’ve watched it like a gagillion times already. I have it saved. I have it bookmarked. I texted it to literally everyone I’ve ever met, including my dental hygienist, who now follows you on Instagram.”
“You text your dental hygienist?”
“Yeah. Is that weird?”
“Super weird.” I sink deeper into the mountain of pillows, letting her enthusiasm wash over me like a warm bath. “Which part was your favorite?”
“All of it. Every single part. But when you got on the piano.Ugh, my heart.The speech about Dad teaching you how to play. The way you just—” She makes an explosion sound, complete with what I imagine are accompanying hand gestures. “Your voice, Charlie. When you held that last note like you never wanted to let it go. You should’ve seen how the crowd was looking at you. You looked so at peace.”
Something loosens in my chest. “It felt different this time. Being up there. Like I remembered why I started doing this in the first place.”
“It was always in your DNA. Do you remember when we were twelve and you used to make me sit through full concerts in our living room?”
I laugh, the memory surfacing easily. “You said you loved those.”
“I was a captive audience. Under duress. You’d set up all your stuffed animals on the couch, bring out the guinea pigs’ cages.You just wanted as many bodies in a room as you could fit. I got up to pee once and you threatened my life.”
I clear my throat. “I might’ve been a little intense.”
She snickers. “My favorite memories. Just you, singing Mariah Carey covers, the guinea pigs squealing as your backup vocals. You were so happy. That’s what you looked like tonight. Really, really happy. And you didn’t even have to hog-tie anyone in the audience to get them to stay.”
“I never once hog-tied you. You were free to leave.”
“You would’ve cried.” I hear her shifting, settling deeper into what’s probably her own bed, thousands of miles away. “Besides, I was jealous.”
The admission catches me off guard. “Jealous? Of what?”
“Of the way you had this thing. This gift. It just radiated out of you. Even when we were kids, anyone could see it. You’d open your mouth and suddenly every adult in the room was paying attention to you instead of me.” There’s no bitterness in her voice—just honesty, aged and softened by time. “I was stuck with my participation trophies and my solid B in drama class. I didn’t have a creative bone in my body, and you were over there beingspecialall the time.”
“Please.” I roll onto my side, phone pressed to my ear. “You were the pretty one. You had boys following you around like lost puppies from the time you were twelve. I couldn’t even get Jason Mercer to look at me, and I had a crush on him for two years. And the first time he ever passed me a note in science class, know what it said? ‘Is your sister, Claire, still dating Aiden’?”
“I don’t remember getting that note.”
“I also don’t remember crumpling it up and putting it in the trash,” I answer.
“Well, Jason Mercer was an idiot who peaked in middle school and now sells insurance in Kansas City. You dodged a bullet.”
“Damn, how do you know that?”
“Bed rest isso boring. I’ve watched all of Netflix and Hulu. I’ve now moved on to internet stalking our old high school class.”
“Riveting,” I deadpan.
