Page 2

Charlie

Fucking hell, I hate funerals.

Dad’s a mess. Andi’s a mess. I’m a mess, but I can’t fucking show it.

The aching silence that Mom left when she passed only makes it that much more evident that she’s not here anymore.

And it’s all my fault.

These days, the only thing that gets me through are a bottle of eighty-proof and a dull throb in the back of my head, reminding me that, unfortunately, I’m still alive.

Andi wants to lean on me, expecting me to take away her pain. If I could, I would. This should be my burden, and my burden alone, to bear. I caused this.

Instead, I’m sat in a stuffy room, full of mourning people on a humid and rainy July day in New Orleans.

I listen to Mom’s pastor preach about life after losing someone and I can’t catch a word he’s saying. I feel like everyone in the room is staring at me, blaming me for ignoring her calls — for not being the perfect son she always told them I was.

A party took Mom’s life.

A fucking party.

I’d been balls deep in Priscilla when she had called me four different times. Dad couldn’t answer — he was at work. Andi couldn’t answer from her vacation in California to visit Bailey.

Me. I was the one that was supposed to be there.

And I had failed her.

Mom was sick. Cancer’s a terrible thing to live through. Brain cancer? Almost impossible. Caring for her had been a full-time job and I guess I thought I was slick, sneaking out to go party with a bunch of the guys after she’d fallen asleep. She always sleeps through the night. I don’t even like the people I was out with. I. Just. Needed. Out.

Just for a night.

After almost three months with no outside contact, save for Dad and Andi, I felt like I was losing my mind. Seeing shit that wasn’t there, my patience with Mom wearing thin. Fuck . . . My throat closes in as the pastor finishes the final prayer and as soon as he’s done, I escape to the terrace. I grip the railing in front of me, overlooking the busy street beyond. No one notices me struggling to catch my breath as the day turns to evening.

I regain my composure, breathing in and out deeply. The searing pain in my chest dies down to a dull ache. Wiping the sweat from my palm onto my suit pants, I light a cigarette. I quit smoking around Mom, but I had since regained the habit.

I shake my head, the nicotine burning bitterly down the back of my throat, but I still inhale, letting it bandage over my nerves. My hands shake, knowing I skipped out on my usual half a bottle before five.

I really need to get myself under control.

The door behind me opens and I turn to snap at Andi to leave me alone for once, but I stop, a sudden heat spreading through my body.

Bailey fucking Carpenter.

I haven’t seen her since she and Andi graduated college, but I still think of those eyes from time to time. Soft, baby blue with a touch of green at the center, staring back at me with a warmth I’m not accustomed to. Now, they’re full of sadness.

Mom always said the eyes are the windows to the soul. Bailey broadcasted her entire heart through hers. Every emotion laid right out for anyone to see.

“Hi,” she mumbles, taking a step toward me and letting the door close behind her. “I know you probably want to be alone, but there’s some really good food in there, if you’re hungry.”

Fuck, could she be any sweeter? The few times I’ve spoken to the girl, I’ve been an ass, yet here she is, trying to get me to eat.

She’s dressed in black, like everyone else, but it doesn’t suit her. Any time I had ever seen her, she’d been in something bright and warm.

“How was the flight?” I ask, unable to think of a better response.

She shrugs. “I hate flying. Luckily, it only takes a couple hours to get down here.”

I toss the end of my cigarette and shove my hands back in my pockets, leaning against the railing and taking her in. I’d never understood why Andi said she was envious of Bailey, until I saw her. Long blonde hair, innocent blue eyes and the prettiest fucking smile I’ve ever seen. She takes my breath away.

And I fucking hate it.

“Andi holding up?” I ask, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck, hoping to shake the tension from my body. Sharp tingles travel down my spine, like someone stuck me with an electric cattle prod.

Bailey steps to the railing beside me, placing her soft hand on the banister.

“As good as can be expected. She . . .” Bailey stops, shaking her head. “I don’t think it’s really hit her yet.”

Of course not. Andi flies by the seat of her pants. It’s not often something gets ahead of her that she doesn’t know how to handle. Losing Mom, I’m sure, has been enough to make her falter and she’s not sure how to handle that.

“She’s resilient. She’ll bounce back.”

Bailey peers up at me, pausing. I know she’s looking at the bags under my eyes and the cut along my jaw from a shitty bar fight I’d been in two days ago.

“How are you holding up?” she asks, stepping closer to me until her arm brushes mine. My body hums when met with the warmth of hers. She bites her bottom lip and I resist the urge to pluck it from her teeth with my finger.

God, she’s so fucking pretty and sweet. It would be so easy to lose myself in her for a couple days, rather than deal with everything I’m feeling.

“I’ve been better,” I murmur, looking away.

“I know it’s hard,” Bailey starts, placing her hand on mine. “I lost my dad at twelve and it was the worst thing I’ve ever lived through.” With her other hand she pulls a locket from between her breasts and opens it for me to see a picture of a man with dark hair and the same blue eyes that currently stare straight into my soul. “I think about him every day, but eventually, the guilt and the grief subside and you’re left to really process that they aren’t here anymore. It takes time, and it will always hurt, but what gets me through is knowing he didn’t take my love for him when he went. I can still feel it, even if he’s not here.”

I didn’t realize her dad was dead. Both of us stare at each other in silence, not sure what to say. I’m not even sure I can say anything. Despite everything, my cock twitches in my pants, filling me with guilt. With just Bailey and I on the terrace, a sudden buzz hangs in the air, drowning out all the noise from the streets below.

Bailey licks her bottom lip, looking from my eyes to my mouth. If I were doing literally anything else besides burying my mother, I would kiss her, just to see if she tastes as sweet as she is.

The door to the venue cracks open and Bailey quickly takes a step back, seemingly broken out of a trance. The same prick I saw with Bailey last time peaks his head out, his eyes narrowing on me for only a second before he stalks up beside Bailey and wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her into his side a little too hard.

“Babe, your mom’s on the phone. She wants to know when we’re coming home.”

I’ve barely spoken with Drew, but something about the way he looks at me pisses me off. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I clench my fists that are still shoved in my pockets. I try to wrap my head around the sudden possessiveness that fights its way through me. I have no claim to Bailey, yet I want to smash this guy’s head to a fucking pulp for ever laying a finger on her.

“I’ll be there in a minute. Will you find Savannah and make sure she isn’t drinking?” she replies, ducking out from under his arm. She closes her locket and tucks it back between her breasts. My eyes can’t help but follow the movement and Drew notices, his eyes narrowing on mine.

My blood heats beneath my skin. Stuck-up frat boy, probably flew down here on Daddy’s money? I can fucking take him. It would feel so good to release the tension that’s been wreaking havoc on my muscles since Mom died.

“Drew?” Bailey snaps, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Anything you want, baby,” he murmurs coldly, before turning and trudging back inside.

Bailey turns back to me, giving me an apologetic smile. “Do you want me to bring you some food out here? I won’t tell anyone where you snuck off to.”

She tucks a strand of hair that had caught in the wind back behind her ear and I catch the glint of the new ring on her finger. My blood turns cold, snuffing out the warmth that she had brought.

Of course, Bailey’s fucking engaged. Why wouldn’t she be? With the body of a porn star and the patience and kindness of a nun, I should have known that prick she’s with would want to marry her before he lost her.

Maybe it’s for the best . . . the small voice in the back of my head chimes. I’m an asshole. The same asshole that basically murdered his mother. I’d left her there, alone in that house, knowing she was sick.

I would darken the light in Bailey’s eyes. My bad would bleed into her good like the cancer that took over Mom’s body.

I need to walk away from Bailey before I even come close.

“If I want something, I’ll get it,” I snap, a little harsher than I mean to. It works, though, because Bailey takes a step back, like I’d slapped her. I nod to the door. “Go inside to your fiancé. I want to be alone.”

I turn away from her, unable to look at the hurt in her eyes. I know she isn’t hurting for what I’d said . . . she’s hurting for me — like I’m a kid, lashing out because something bad happened to him.

Guilt washes through me as I listen to the sound of her heels click back to the door.

“I’m really sorry, Charlie. If you need anything, just call. I’m always here to talk.”

The final click of the door closing causes me to let out a string of curses under my breath.

If I was a less selfish man, I would have walked away from Bailey the moment I saw her. And I tried, for a couple years. All it did, though, was make me realize what a greedy fucking bastard I am.