Show Me How (15 page)

 

Chapter Seventeen

Deacon

July 4, 2016

“
Y
OU KNOW, HONEY,
I've been thinking about—­”

“Mom, I don't want your lists! I don't care which girls you think I should marry,” Graham groaned, and jumped up from where his mom had sat down between us on the couch, and took off for the kitchen.

I smirked when she sighed, and nodded in the direction of the kitchen, but didn't take my eyes off the TV. “The food smells amazing, Mrs. LaRue.”

“It will be ready soon,” she said in a dejected tone, but out of the corner of my eye I saw her sit up and turn her attention to me. “Deacon, honey.”

“Mm-­hm?”

“What about you?”

I slowly looked over at her and eyed the paper in her hand like it was poison. “Uh, I thought you knew that I'm . . .” I trailed off, not knowing what to say about Charlie. Because I didn't know what we were.

We weren't anything, but at the same time, it felt like we were something significant.

So significant I'd been trying to figure out a way to tell Words for four days now that I was about to walk away. But every night when she responded to me, the words wouldn't come.

I knew I couldn't have both, the guilt that crept through me at the thought of Charlie finding out told me that, and more. I knew which one I couldn't stand to lose, so why was saying good-­bye to Words proving to be so difficult?

I didn't understand it, and I didn't know what to do about it.

Mrs. LaRue patted my arm with the hand that was holding the list of names and numbers.

I also didn't know how to tell my best friend's mom that I didn't want her help in finding a wife. I wasn't sure I ever wanted a wife anyway. “I'm not exactly looking—­”

“I'm just waiting for the day when you or Graham realize it's time to settle down so you can have families of your own. Don't you see how happy everyone is here with their families? Don't you want that too?”

A laugh escaped me before I was able to stop it. Sucking air in through my teeth, I cocked my head to the side, and said, “Ah, yeah, ‘settling down' and ‘family' are about the last thing on my list. They aren't even in my vocabulary. You know I hate kids.”

She pursed her lips, studying me curiously. “I thought that . . . well, never mind,” she said with disappointment as she stood, then turned toward the kitchen. “However, I will get through to one of you, one of these days!”

“She never stops,” Graham grumbled when he snuck back into the living room. “It's constant. She already has Aly, and pretends Keith is her grandkid too. She's not waiting on me for anything, but it's as if she thinks I'm a woman all of a sudden and I'm not going to be able to have kids or some shit if I don't get married yesterday.”

I laughed when he did, but it sounded distracted. My attention had left Graham the second he'd said Keith's name. Charlie and Keith were supposed to have gotten there twenty minutes ago. I didn't hear or see either of them, so I pulled out my phone and sent Charlie a message.

Where are you? Do you need me to pick you two up?

“I noticed Candy's been gone,” Graham mumbled.

I stilled, and slowly let my eyes drift over toward him. It wasn't, but I was thanking God he hadn't seen it.

There was that guilt again, creeping through my body. I knew it would continue to slowly consume every part of me until it overwhelmed me.

Tonight
, I vowed.
I'm walking away from Words tonight.

Graham glanced at me, the bruising from where I'd broken his nose already gone. “You really like Charlie? You really changing for her?”

I gave him a look, and huffed. “Has it really taken you a month to come to grips with that?”

I glanced down at my phone when it chimed in my hand, and pulled up the messages.

Charlie Girl:
Already here. In the kitchen.

Graham was talking again, but I stood up and walked toward the kitchen without looking back at him. We were fine, even though things had been a little strained between us around the house for a while, but I saw him all the time. For now, I needed to see my Charlie Girl.

As soon as I rounded the corner into the LaRues' kitchen my eyes found her, and I couldn't stop myself from taking her in as I closed the distance between us.

“You're here,” I said when I took the final step up to her and tried to pull her into my arms, but Charlie took a step to the side.

She held her body stiffly, and never once looked up at me. “You knew I would be.”

My forehead pinched at her cold tone and body language, and it was then I noticed what she was doing.

Her head was bowed and her arm was wrapped around her waist.

She was trying to be invisible. She was fucking hiding. From me.

“Why didn't you come say hi or let me know you were here?”

A soft exhale blew past her lips, and she finally glanced up at me. Those blue eyes raged with anger . . . I just didn't know who she was angry with or why. “I didn't know I had to check in with you when I went places, especially if you were going to be there too.” Her glare darted to something behind me before touching on me again. “Besides, you were busy.”

When she started turning around again, I grabbed her arm and pulled her back a few steps with me so we were away from everyone else in the kitchen.

“Let go,” she demanded, her voice just above a whisper, but still firm.

“What the hell? You just got here and you're already mad at me? There's no way I could've done something to piss you off when this is the first time I'm seeing or talking to you all day.”

She shook her head and tried to force a smile, but it immediately fell. “I'm not mad at you, Deacon.”

“Charlie.”

“I'm not,” she said again.

I didn't believe her, but I knew with all of our friends and her brother in this house, she wasn't going to tell me the truth right now. With a sigh, I looked around and asked, “Where's Keith?”

“In the downstairs guest room,” she replied protectively. “He's still sleeping from the drive over.”

I wanted to question her tone again, but before I got the chance to, a familiar voice called out, and I turned to look at a chalk-­white Keith.

“Mommy? I don't feel—­” He abruptly stopped talking, and his eyes widened.

Charlie hissed a curse as she took off toward Keith and scooped him up in her arms. She kept running with me right behind her. They made it to the bathroom, but only to the tub before Keith started throwing up, and I froze.

I didn't know what to do.

Keith was sick, and I needed to help him and I needed to help Charlie, and I didn't know what to do.

“It's okay, baby,” Charlie whispered over and over again as she helped Keith lean over the tub.

“What do I do?”

“Get out,” she said harshly before whispering to Keith again.

“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?”

“I asked you a question, Deacon. What are you doing, and why are you in my house?”

“Tell me how Keith is.”

I lifted my arm out in front of me, gesturing toward the other side of the house that held Keith's room, then let it slap down on my thigh. “He's asleep. He got sick a ­couple more times. Now what are you doing in my house?”

He glanced back at my kitchen island, as if the answer should be obvious.