Remembering Phoenix (24 page)

He kisses my neck, trailing kisses down my collar bone. A single tear escapes me. He’s kissing my skin, but he’s searing my soul.

And I hope like hell I don’t ever have to break his heart. A part of me thinks I already am.

“Hey, Paul. Can you come in for a second?”

“Be there in there in a few, Beck,” he says before hanging up the line.

I sift through some paperwork on my desk, making sure the contract is ready to be sent. We’ve been working for weeks on closing this new deal for the project starting this summer. I thought for a while I was outbid, but thankfully the numbers Paul and I crunched made our bid the lowest by a mere few thousand dollars.

After two light knocks on the door, Paul walks in. I look up from my papers. “The purpose of knocking is to wait for an invitation,” I joke.

He laughs and sits down in a chair, kicking his feet up on my desk. “Just making myself at home, boss. Plus I believe you asked me to come see you.” He grins. “So, what do ya need?”

I hold up the papers for him to see. “I need you to take this over to Freidman’s lawyer so they can go over this contract and sign it. Tell them we need it back within a week so we can make sure everything is set in stone and ready for when we break ground. This is huge for our company. Building this hotel, it could put us in a spot for more business in the same realm. We’ve got a great business, but I have to prove myself in this world. It’s not Pops and Glenn running the show anymore. It’s me.”

“Gotcha.”

I run my hands through my hair, trying to take a breather. I’ve been stressing over this, worried about the build. Not so much that we
can’t
do it, because I know damn well we can. But this is our first hotel build. It’s not just any hotel build, either, it’s Freidman’s, one of the largest hotel chains in the country. There can’t be a single thing wrong. This will either make or break us. “When we start building, there can’t be any mistakes. You’ve got to be an ass to our guys and subcontractors out on that site. I know I own this company, but you’re my right-hand man, Paul. You know the ins and outs of the job site more than anyone.”

He nods his head. “I’ve never failed you, and I damn sure don’t plan on doing that now, Beck. We’ll nail this shit, and then Ryker and Beck Builders will be king.”

“Never failed me?” I quip. “I recall going slightly over budget and a week behind on the project we wrapped up last month.”

“Yeah, well… I still saved your ass from going completely in the hole.”

I hand him the paperwork. “Touché.”

He grabs a peppermint out of the jar and pops it in his mouth. “See ya.”

I feel like I have so much to prove. I ran my own construction company back in California, and even though the scale of jobs weren’t this grand, I had a great base. Ryker and Beck, though, it’s so much more than just me. Glenn Ryker was my dad’s best friend and business partner. They built this company from the ground up. After Pops died, Glenn ran it himself. About a year ago Glenn decided he was ready to give it up. He has no kids, no one to pass his half on to, so he offered me everything if I wanted to buy him out. He said he was ready to retire and move off to Wyoming. I did it without a second thought. This is all I have left of my Pops, and I want to continue what he loved so much. Stetson didn’t want it. He wanted nothing to do with the company. I think he just didn’t want the daily reminder that our parents aren’t here anymore. He still has his twenty-five percent, but that’s all. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the running of it. So that’s all on me. I take pride in this job—in the name Ryker and Beck Builders—and I want to be able to leave this company to my children one day.

Children.
I want that one day. I thought I had it once, but I was duped. I gaze over at Claire’s photo on my desk. I wonder what she’s doing now. I wonder if she’s having fun. The pain has eased so much in recent months. Although seeing her at the Galleria hurt like hell, I think it was healing. I saw how happy she was. Her happiness seemed to help bandage the wounds. I’m not sure what I would have done had Charlie, not been there, though.

My mind travels to Charlie. She has her bad days, and even worse days, but she does it. She fucking amazes me. She still gets so caught up in her head, in the grief and guilt, sometimes that I have to pull her out. But I’ll pull her out of the flames every day if that’s what it takes. I wasn’t bullshitting when I told her I had her.

I pull out my phone, texting Charlie.

Get dressed. I’ve got somewhere I want to take you.

Thirty minutes later I pull up in my driveway. A smile washes over my face when I see her black little Fiat in my driveway. It feels right. Too right.

My chest twinges as I walk closer to the door. I’m anxious to see her, to hear about her day, to kiss her. Life has been good.

It’s the most beautiful thing in the world watching her walls break off piece by piece. It’s even more amazing knowing she’s allowing me to see who she really is. She’s broken, yes, but my God, is she a beautiful pile of pieces.

I make my way inside and drop my phone and keys on the bar. The house is quiet, nothing but the hum of the air conditioner cutting the silence. “Charlie,” I call out, expecting her to respond.

When she doesn’t, tension wells in my chest. I’m not going to lie, I’m scared one day something will happen, triggering her, causing her to go back into that state of basic comatose. The day of the wedding, I saw a woman defeated. The day I showed up at her apartment, I saw a portion of the woman I knew she was underneath the heartbreak.

After the night of Lizzie and Stetson’s going away party, I could see the light drain from her. The second she kicked me out of her apartment, I swear I could hear her silent screams. Maybe they were my own. I went weeks going crazy from her constant refusal to answer my calls or texts. Every day I thought of her. Every day I imagined wrapping her in my arms, her back against my chest, as I held her all night.

That day at Vinny P’s when I saw her as the elevator doors were closing, I was sure I was imagining things. But the second she snapped her gaze away from mine, it was all too real. She was all too real.

Then… she was gone before the doors ever completely closed.

If I hadn’t listened to that voice in my head that morning telling me I needed to go see my parents at the cemetery, I very well could still be doing the same mundane things I was doing before.

Work. Home. Work. Home.

Home.
Charlie is in my house. Fate threw her back into my life like a boomerang, so why do I feel like she’s still not fully mine? I shake my head, clearing myself of the insane thoughts.

I mosey my way into my bedroom, and the first thing I see is Charlie laying in my bed, curled up under my gray and white down comforter. I just stand there, watching her as she sleeps. Her short, blonde hair has fallen in her face, her hand flailed over her head. Seeing the steady rise and fall of her chest eases my tension. Damn, she’s beautiful.

I walk into my closet, kicking my shoes off. After I change into another outfit, I crawl into the bed next to Charlie. She nuzzles her head further into the pillow as I inch closer and pull her into me. “Hey, you,” I whisper, sweeping the hair out of her eyes.

Her eyelids flutter open slowly before they close again. A small smile brushes across her face. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She giggles.

“It’s six in the evening. You should probably get up. I have plans for us.”

Her eyes pop open. “Did you say six? I laid down at eleven this morning. Oh my God.”

Something on my nightstand catches my eye. I look over and see an orange medicine bottle open. My heart stutters for a second. “Migraine?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah. I haven’t had one in a while, but I woke up this morning and ran some errands. I came back here because I wanted to surprise you with supper, but—“

“It’s okay,” I interrupt her. I bring my lips to hers, kissing her chastely. “I just hope you don’t have a migraine now.”

She shakes her head, her eyes traveling over me. “I’m all better now.”

I smirk. “Sure you are.”

“How was your day?” she asks, toying with the edge of the sheet.

“Good. Better now that I’m home.” She blushes, and it makes me twitch. I grab her hand, needing to get her out of this house before we never make it out of this bed. “Get dressed. We’re going somewhere. I texted you before I left work, but someone was being Sleeping Beauty.”

“Where are we going?” Her eyes dance around my face in wonder.

I shake my finger at her playfully. “It’s a surprise.”

She rolls her eyes and hops out of bed. Her baggy t-shirt is the only thing hiding what’s underneath. I definitely don’t mind that she hates sleeping in pants. “If you insist,” she calls out before shutting the bathroom door.

I stumbled upon Lucy’s, a little hole in the wall diner, a few months ago after getting lost going to a meeting with a possible client. You’d think growing up in Dallas, I’d know my way around this place like the back of my hand. After years away, however, I seemed to have lost my sense of direction.

Lucky for me, being lost meant I found this gem.

“What is this place?” Charlie asks. She’s up on the edge of the passenger’s seat of my truck.

“Lucy’s,” I answer. “They have the best chili cheese fries in this entire world. And the shakes. Charlie, the shakes will change your life.”

She laughs. “Well let’s go eat some chili cheese fries, then.”

We walk into the diner, and Charlie’s eyes light up at all the old photos lining the walls. Nearly every inch is covered in black and white photos. She slowly walks along the front wall, brushing her fingers along every frame, completely lost in their beauty. “Wow,” she breathes out. “These photos are incredible. They’re so… real.” She eyes a photo of a woman who is staring directly ahead. You can see the reflection of a flash in her eyes, the pain written—so raw and unadulterated—all over her face. Below the photo is a small plaque that reads
Our Trials Don’t Define Us.
After staring at the plaque for a few seconds, feeling the etching beneath her fingertips, Charlie spins around. “This is beautiful. I can’t believe I never knew this place existed.”

I shrug. “I figured you’d love it. I’ve been wanting to bring you here for a while. I just—“

I’m cut off when she suddenly falls into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she mumbles into my chest. “No one has ever understood the real me. But you, you do. You understand all of my ways. I don’t deserve you.”

I pull her back from me. “No, you don’t.” When her face falls, I smile and continue. “You deserve so much more, Charlie.” Her mouth parts as shock swims across her perfect face. I have so much to say to her, so much just sitting right there on the tip of my tongue, begging to be projected out into her world. But she’s not ready to hear it, so I’ll keep it locked inside until that day comes. “Let’s go sit. Those chili cheese fries are calling my name.”

Her shocked expression turns up into a smile as we make our way to the corner booth.

The waitress comes and we order our food and shakes. While waiting, we talk about everything, and we talk about nothing. Because that’s what happens when being together is easy, when she doesn’t let things get in the way, and she just relaxes. It’s these rare moments I treasure the most.