“Charlie, let me help.”

She turned her head to glare at me, and repeated, “Get out.”

Soon Grey was in the bathroom with us, and with a gentle push of her hands, I stumbled out to the hall to wait.

And wait.

After a few minutes, Grey left with a suggestion that sounded more like a warning not to go in the bathroom, and about ten minutes later, Charlie came out carrying Keith.

“I need to take him home,” she said as she walked past me. “He’s burning up, I don’t want anyone else to get sick.”

“Okay, then let me help you. I can drive y—”

“I’ve got it,” she said in a monotone voice.

And it was driving me fucking crazy.

“At least let me carry him for you, Charlie, Christ. Why won’t you let me help you?”

Instead of responding to me, she reached out to grab her purse and keys from Grey, and thanked her. “I’ll text you if it gets bad. But we’ll be fine, really,” she said to Grey, finishing what must have been a conversation from the bathroom.

I opened the front door and followed them outside, but when I tried to help Charlie by opening the back door to her SUV, she turned on me and snapped.

“I said I’ve got it!”

“God damn it, Charlie! What?” I yelled, and flung out my arms. “What did I do to piss you off this time?”

“Just go back inside,” she begged.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

Her lips formed a tight line when her chin started shaking, but she didn’t say anything until she had Keith in his booster seat and the door shut again. “I am not mad at you, can you please just stop and go back inside?”

I huffed and looked around before focusing back on her. “Stop what? Trying to help you?” She started walking around the car to the driver’s side, so I grabbed her wrist to stop her.

She whirled around, and yelled, “Stop pretending! You’re not pissing me off, you are breaking my heart!”

I dropped her wrist, and my face fell when I saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. “What?”

She took another step away, but turned back around to face me when she said, “You’re doing exactly what you said you would if I gave you my heart. Breaking it. You hate kids? Still, Deacon, really?”

I shook my head in confusion until I remembered talking to Graham’s mom. “Charlie, it’s a—I don’t mean that with him. You know that.”

“What if Keith heard you? He loves you! And I keep thinking that this new Deacon is who you really are and I have stupidly let myself fall in love with that side of you!” she cried.

“What?” I asked on a breath. That word . . . that fucking word. “No . . .”

“But it’s just an act; you were just pretending. Because as soon as we’re not around, bachelor Deacon is back, isn’t he? The one who hates kids and has family as the last thing on his list.”

“That’s not true, that’s—”

She laughed sadly and gestured toward me. “But I can’t be mad at you because this is my fault, right? Because I hoped for something that you told me you could never give me. I hoped for something that you obviously never wanted. But I’m not the only one who loves you, and one of these days Keith will catch on to what you’re saying. And since he’s the first thing on my list, I need to make sure that day doesn’t come.”

My chest felt uncomfortably tight, my arms felt heavy as they hung at my sides, but I couldn’t make them move as the weight of Charlie’s words bore down on me. It felt like I was going through the worst kind of breakup imaginable, but with a girl and her son who weren’t mine, though they had easily rooted themselves in my life.

I wasn’t ready for this.

I wasn’t ready to lose them.

“What are you saying, Charlie?”

She shook her head and took a step back, but paused and gave me a sad smile. “It’s not like I expected you to want a family with us. But with the way you are with him? With the way you act like he makes your world better the same way you make his?” she choked out, and had to clear her throat. “You can’t blame me for wanting it. You can’t blame me for giving you my heart and praying that you wanted to keep it.”

“Charlie—”

“I’m walking, Deacon,” she said tightly, her voice rough with emotion, her cheeks stained with tears. “Let me walk.”

With that, she turned and walked around the back of her car, and I watched her drive away as her words kept me nailed me to the ground.

Charlie

July 4, 2016

I FINISHED DRYING off my body once I stepped out of the shower a couple hours later, and reached up to undo the messy knot on top of my head just before I heard something that made me pause.

I glanced at the doorway leading to my bedroom, and listened for a few seconds until I heard the loud boom of fireworks over the lake.

The breath I had been holding in was quickly forced from my lungs, and I reached up for my hair again when another noise filtered in from the front of my house that I was certain wasn’t fireworks.

I let my towel fall to the bathroom floor and tried to remain as quiet as possible as I walked into my bedroom and pulled on a clean shirt and pair of sleeping shorts, then grabbed my phone off the nightstand and pulled up Deacon’s number as I crept out of the bedroom and down the hall.

It didn’t matter what had happened between Deacon and me at the LaRues’ house. It would take the sheriffs much longer to get here than it would Deacon, and I knew he cared about us enough that he would at least hurry.

Besides, he was the most intimidating-looking man I knew.

I paused near the end of the hall to listen to the noises in my kitchen, long enough to be sure that Keith hadn’t woken up and wasn’t the one making the noise, then tapped on Deacon’s name, and tried to figure out a way to get to Keith without being seen.

Seconds later, a phone began ringing in my kitchen before it abruptly cut off when Deacon answered my call.

“Charlie Girl.”

My shoulders sagged, and I forgot about trying to remain silent as I stepped out into the living room, bringing me face-to-face with my intruder.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

His eyes never left me as he ended the call and set his phone on the counter, then took two large steps toward me. “How’s Keith?”