Remembering Phoenix (27 page)

After dropping Lizzie and Stet off at the airport, I decide to stop by Lucy’s and grab some fries and shakes to go. Charlie couldn’t make it to say goodbye due to a photo shoot, and she got a little down about it.

She’s been acting a little different ever since Lizzie shared the news that they are pregnant. It’s not that she’s blatantly acting weird or sad, she’s just…different. I can tell when she starts to pull away inch by inch, thinking no one notices. I notice. I feel it the second she drifts away the slightest bit. She’s not the Charlie she’s come to be. The one who’s happier more than she is sad.

“I come bearing Lucy’s!” I announce, walking into her apartment. I kick the door shut with my feet and make my way into the kitchen as she walks out of her office. “Well, you look stunning.” I lean down and kiss her cheek when she reaches me.

She rubs her eyes with the backs of her hand. “I feel like I am in full zombie mode. Staring at that screen for hours kills me.” She grabs her milkshake off the bar and starts drinking it. “Still life changing,” she says, smiling.

“Told you.” I wave. “I’m always right about life changing stuff.”

She hops her little self up on the barstool and rummages through the bag, pulling out the chili cheese fries. She flops the Styrofoam container open and stuffs a fry into her mouth, moaning before licking her fingers clean.

“Charlie,” I warn. “You got to stop with that moaning.”

Her cheeks flush with embarrassment, and damn, I love when she does that. That little thing where she angles her head down, but cuts her eyes up towards me. It drives me insane.

“Sorry.” She shrugs, taking another bite of food.

I just watch her. She has no idea I’m staring. It could very well be classified as stalking, Peeping Tom-ish, but I can’t help it. Her hair is up in a tiny little bun on the back of her head. She doesn’t have a lick of makeup on, but my God, she’s stunning. It’s in her quirks. Her smile. It’s in the tiny little things she sees as flaws.

How in the hell did I become the one who this girl let in? What does she see in me that made her feel like she could be
herself
with me?

Whatever it is, I’m absolutely good with it.

After we ate, Charlie wanted to soak in the bathtub, and I found myself snooping through the drawers underneath her TV stand. I remembered her placing her photos in there after I picked them up from all over the floor all those months ago. I’ve always wanted to look through them, but never found the time.

After looking through some of the pictures, I feel like I know a whole new side of Charlie. She has this fun, carefree side she exudes in every single picture with Phoenix. I love it.
Love.
Shit. I love every side of her, even the sides of herself she doesn’t like very much.

“Hey you,” I slide onto the couch next to her a little while later, draping the blanket over both of us. Her intoxicating body wash permeates the air. “What are you thinking about over here?”

She looks up at me through those long, thick lashes. “Just some stuff.”

“Yeah? What kind of stuff, may I ask?” She just shakes her head, but I want her to talk to me, let me inside that pretty little head of hers. “Talk to me.”

She sighs heavily, sinking further into my arms. “Have you ever been so happy, yet so sad at the same time? Like one half of your heart is fighting against the other half? Or one side of your mind is at war with the other?”

I stop and think about her question for a second before answering. “No. I haven’t. But keep going.” I push her to open up, because bottling all her feelings up inside will only make what she’s feeling worse.

“I don’t know. I mean, I am so happy for Lizzie and Stetson. So extremely happy for them. They will both make the best parents to our niece or nephew.” She takes a deep breath, shaking her head. “But, Slayter… I’m jealous. I’m so jealous of my sister and that unborn baby. How the hell can I be so excited for her but bitter at the same time? It doesn’t make sense.” She cries silently in my chest, and honestly, I have no idea what to say. I’m not her. I haven’t been through the shit she has had to go through. I’ve had my fair share of heartache in losing Claire, but I only lost her. The world didn’t.

Losing Claire hurt more than I could ever explain, but I was able to move on, come to terms with the truth. And the truth is she wasn’t mine. I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted it. Charlie, though, she can’t move on from something she’s trying so desperately to remember. I don’t know what it’s like to not have a single thing in this life to hold on to, not a single memory left to keep me pushing forward. “I’m so ashamed.”

I run my fingers through her hair, trying to calm her racing heart. “Listen to me, okay?” She looks up at me with those green eyes I adore so much. “You can’t help how you feel. And considering what you have had to go through in life, there is no one, and I mean no one, who would be angry with you for feeling the way you do. There is no book on how to feel when your mind and heart are being pulled in different directions. There’s no manual that explains the steps to take to make the two align. And, Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“Lizzie will be an amazing mother because she has had her mother and
you
as an example.” A tear trickles down her cheek as she listens to every single truth I spill. I dry the moisture from her cheek with my finger before continuing. “There is not one single doubt in my mind that you were the absolute greatest mother on earth to your little boy. I can see it in the heartache you carry every single day. I can feel it every time I’m around you. You might not remember him, Charlie, but you carry him with you wherever you go. The heart always remembers. Don’t you ever forget how amazing of a mother you were, you are. You never stop being a mother. Just like I never stopped being a son just because my parents died. Phoenix isn’t here,” I put my hand over her beating heart, “but he’ll always,
always
,
be in here.”

She drops her head into me as a sob breaks free from deep within her. I sit there, holding her in my arms as she cries out every bit of heartache and grief she has been bottling up since the other day.

“Hey,” I whisper after she cries her last tear. “Want me to take you to bed? I’m not leaving you tonight. Not when you’re this upset.”

She nods her head and I get up, slipping my arms underneath her body. I carry her to her room, and throw back her black comforter, gently laying her down in the bed.

She looks up at me through sad, desperate eyes. Desperate for what, I don’t know. But she looks like an angel with her arm splayed across her soft stomach, and a sad smile whispering across her face. I know what she needs. She needs to forget. She needs something to take her mind off of everything swirling inside of her mind right now.

I tug down my jeans and pull my shirt over my head before climbing in the bed next to her. Cupping my hand around her face, I brush my thumb across the slightly raised scar. She tries to flinch, but I don’t let her pull away. “No,” I demand, kissing along every perfect inch of that scar. “Let me show you that not everything in life has to be bad. You remember when you asked if I could help you forget you’re dying to remember?” She nods her heads slightly. “Let me do it again. Let me free you from your worries tonight.”

She inhales a big breath of air as I bring my lips down to her neck, kissing away the tension she has built up. My hands make their way to the bottom of her baggy t-shirt and pull it up, my fingers grazing along her exposed skin as I lift it over her head. Bra-less and staring at me with anxious eyes, nothing but a thin pair of lace panties stand between every inch of her bare to me.

Her body.

Her mind.

Her heart.

Her soul.

I want it all.

“Charlie,” I rasp out as I stare down at her. “There isn’t a side of you that I don’t adore. There isn’t a part of your body I don’t cherish. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t yearn for every single piece of you.” I tug her bottoms down, discarding them on the floor, along with my boxers.

She gasps. Her body shivers as my fingers travel down the smooth plains of her stomach.

“I don’t want you to think. I just want you to release everything. Give all your worries over to me, Charlie. I’ll carry your burdens for you.”

“Slay—”

“Shh,” I cut her off, rubbing my thumb over her clit. “I want you to feel alive. Tonight, it’s you and me. Nobody and nothing else matters right now. Okay?”

“Mm hmm,” she moans.

I stare at her, her face flushed. She’s so damn beautiful. She’s like a stained glass window—full of broken pieces that create a beautiful masterpiece. And I can’t fucking believe that I’m here, with her. I want to say it. I’m
dying
to say it. That word, it’s there on the tip of my tongue and it’s taking up an entire home in my heart. She takes up home in my heart. I swallow it down, because as right a time it is for me, it’s not for her. I know it isn’t, and I’ll wait forever if I have to. Until she’s ready to give me all of her pieces, I’ll take what she’s willing to give me. Because any piece of her is better than nothing at all.

I make quick work of laying on my back, flipping her over so she’s straddling me. She’s stares down at me, her short her falling around her face, shadowing it. Charlie’s chest moves up and down with every heavy breath she breathes. Her perky breasts jiggle as I position her over my cock, lowering her down inch by satisfying inch. She gasps as I fill her.

“Charlie. Take control,” I demand. “Take control of me.” I want her to own me, do with me what she will. “Tonight, you’ve got me.”

She doesn’t think she controls a single thing in this life, but she does. She’s got more strength than she even knows.

She just needs to
believe
it.

Charlie puts her palms flat on my stomach, popping her ass up and down in a steady motion. She causes me to nearly lose it as she stares at me, repeatedly sinking down onto my cock.

Her nails start digging into my chest as her slow, steady movements become unbridled.

I let her have me, and have me she fucking does.

Last night I took control. Slayter gave me the reigns and I ran with it. I let myself forget about my colliding feelings towards… well… everything. I don’t know how he does it. He allows me to open up, get all my pent up emotion out of my head, and off of my chest. He allows me to breathe in a world where I’m constantly suffocating.

After the most mind blowing moment I’ve ever had, Slayter held me all night. Skin to skin, chest to chest. Our heartbeats, they became one, and I realized just how
much
he has become an integral part of my being. When I’m with him, he makes me feel as if I’m floating. But, when I’m alone, there’s no one there to save me from the tidal wave pulling me under.

Nothing ever lasts, though.

Happiness doesn’t last.

Love doesn’t last.

Life doesn’t last.

And as the sound of a horn starts blaring right outside my apartment, my entire universe stops as a memory starts.

The Disney station blares through my speakers as I make my way to the intersection. The light finally turns green, and I let my foot off the brake pedal. The rain pellets furiously on my windshield as I press on the accelerator and head towards home. I’m crossing through the intersection when suddenly, and without warning, I see a pair of angry bright lights from an eighteen wheeler barrel towards my car.