Page 37 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

We drive in silence on the way to the airport. “Are you okay?” I ask. “You’ve gotten very quiet.”

“Just tired,” he replies. “So, when are you coming back down?”

My eyes flutter closed. I let the decision float away last night during the party, but it’s probably time to reel it back in. Now that he’s leaving, especially, it’s hitting me how little I have in the world other than him.

“I don’t know. My mom thinks I should do some go-sees and get my career started again. I guess it makes sense. I can’t hide out in South Carolina forever. ”

I want him to tell me that he needs me, that a return to my career can wait.

He could say that, and it would be true.

I don’t technically have to work. It’s more about establishing a life for myself, a way to while away my hours until I…

what? Marry? Give birth? Come up with a purpose of some kind?

I should probably know the answer, but I guess I’ve got time to figure it out.

Because Charlie doesn’t tell me he needs me, or that my career can wait. He doesn’t say a goddamn word.

We arrive at the landing strip and pull up beside the plane. I climb out and he does the same. He comes around to my side of the car and hands me the keys.

I wish we weren’t leaving it like this after such a lovely night. The best night I’ve had in forever.

“Thanks for—” I gasp as he pushes my back to the car.

..and kisses me. His hand is on my jaw, his body pressed tight as a magnet to mine, and he is kissing me hard, as if he’s been saving it up for a long time, and oh my God, maybe I was too, because this is something I never want to stop doing.

There’s this low rumble in his chest, a gravelly hum of want that has me melting, pressing tighter, needing?—

He breaks the kiss suddenly, his breath coming fast, his eyes dark and focused. He has not released my jaw. He holds it in place, forcing me to meet his eye.

“Forget about Manhattan. Tell Andrew you’re not interested,” he hisses. “Then fucking come back to me.”

He’s gone before I’ve uttered a single word in response.

I return to the house in a fog. Only a small part of it is sleep deprivation.

My fingers roam over my lips, seeking a trace of him there and finding it—my mouth is swollen from that brief kiss. I’ve thought of nothing else this entire drive .

My mother is just waking, and Kit is freshly showered and hunkered down at the table.

“Where were you?” my mom asks.

I’m not sure why there’s always an accusation in her voice. She’s the only one of us with questionable ethics.

Although...I did kiss my stepbrother a few minutes ago. So maybe my ethics aren’t great either.

I press the pad of my index finger to my lower lip, longing for the pressure of his mouth, for his body—tight with need, all muscle and strength and heat—pressed to mine. “I just took Charlie to the airport.”

“He left? Without even saying goodbye?! Well, isn’t that just vintage Charlie? He doesn’t think about anyone but himself.”

“That’s absolute bullshit,” I snap, coming out of my trance at last. “He’s constantly thinking about other people.”

“Well, you would say that. You’re the only other person he thinks about.”

“That’s not true.”

She clicks her tongue. “Of course it is. Why do you think we elected you to go check on him when he stopped answering our calls?”

That’s…crazy.

Or is it? Would he have shown that letter to anyone else? Would he have allowed anyone else to stay with him?

“You’re the only reason he came to the party too, I’m certain,” she continues. “Kit, tell her. Did Charlie come up here because he cared about the party, or did Charlie come up here because he thought the situation might be hard on Maren?”

Kit flushes. She truly no longer needs to feel guilty about this. I feel nothing toward Miller anymore.

“Don’t drag her into this,” I hiss. “There was nothing hard about this situation.”

“Of course there was,” Mom says. “You said so yourself. You said everyone was going to be treating you like an Oscar actress who’d lost or something along those lines.”

I huff. “I said everyone was going to be watching my reaction.”

“And it was uncomfortable,” she says with a smug smile, “so Charlie came.”

And yeah...that is why Charlie came. But I don’t need the whole family believing it. And I’m scared to allow myself to see this as part of a pattern, a consistent record of Charlie doing his best to take care of me when it wasn’t his job. “Tell her she’s nuts, Kit.”

Kit grabs her coffee, plus the one she’s just made for Miller.

“It’s too early for this conversation. Mom, Charlie isn’t selfish.

” She turns to me with an apologetic smile.

“Maren, he does care more about you than all the rest of us, and yeah, you’re definitely, a hundred percent the reason he was here. It’s kind of sweet.”

“It’s not sweet,” my mom replies. “It’s disturbing. Make sure he’s not getting the wrong idea if you go back, which you should not. Let yourself be one of his many conquests and you’ll ruin everything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I whisper, turning away as tears sting my eyes.

I have no idea what’s going on right now. I don’t know why I’m upset. I don’t know why I have all these useless feelings for Charlie that can never turn into anything, and why he has these useless feelings for me.

I abandoned ship with Harvey, and that was a huge step backward. But to start something with Charlie? That’d be like taking a knife to the life raft too and jumping into the stormy sea.

Unfortunately, jumping into the stormy sea is the only thing that holds any appeal.

I blame Margaret, even if she’s not here.