Page 20 of Man Glitter
I got a good look—give me a break, it was a mighty fine sight to see—and then put my hands on his chest. In the back of my mind I knew I shouldn’t be this close to temptation in the middle of the night, but wild horses couldn’t drag me away from someone in need.
“Charlie, honey, you gotta wake up.” I spoke louder this time. “Charlie, it’s me. Finnie. You’re having a bad dream.”
He stilled, his heart thundering below my palms. His eyes blinked open and his face cleared. He looked up and saw me, then down at my hands on his bare chest. Chester whined and jumped down to curl up in the corner, satisfied I’d helped Charlie and he was no longer needed.
“Finnie?” he whispered, still groggy.
I pushed back some of his hair from his forehead, wanting to soothe him further. “Yeah, it’s me. You were having some sort of nightmare.”
He screwed his eyes shut and my heart lurched. I’d come to care for Charlie over the last few days, despite myself, and I hated to see him upset. I kept stroking his hair and holding my breath until his blue eyes opened back up.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked hesitantly.
He just stared at me for a long moment and then finally nodded his head. I realized it was odd to see Charlie without a ready smile on his lips. I’d stay until that smile came back. He moved his arm out to the side and tilted his head. I flipped over and snuggled into his side, my new point of view showing me other parts of Charlie had woken up too. His erection was obvious. Hell, the thing was pointing right at me. I froze, not knowing what to do. Did I ignore the tent pole? Say hello to it? Make a joke? What was the appropriate protocol here?
“It can’t be helped, Finnie. Just calm down and don’t look at him. He’ll eventually go away.” Charlie’s voice above me held a hint of laughter that had me relaxing again.
I looped my arm around his waist, cutting off my view of things further south. The image of it would be stuck on the back of my eyelids for all eternity, anyway. “So, what was all that about?”
Charlie heaved a sigh, my head going along with his inhale and exhale as my cheek pressed against his chest. “I’ve never told anyone about my nightmares.”
He stopped, and I held my breath. When he didn’t continue, I prompted him, my doctor brain kicking into gear to see if I could help him.
“So, you’ve had the same nightmare more than once?”
Charlie began to stroke my hair. The pit of my stomach swooped and nosedived at his touch. I’d missed this. The closeness of two people snuggled in bed chatting. The touching. The comfort of knowing someone intimately. Of feeling safe in someone’s arms.
“It’s not a nightmare. It’s a memory.”
His voice scraped across his vocal chords, sounding like he never meant for them to escape. I frowned and snuggled closer.
“Tell me about it?”
He sighed again, and I held on tight.
“I don’t sleep well. Haven’t for fourteen years. My brain keeps replaying one night when I was twenty. I had a brother, Finnie. My best friend. We were twins. He hated it, but I was born first. Never did let him forget it.”
His voice cut off and my heart ached for him. This story would get bad, I could just feel it.
“Like young assholes do, we were out late one night, driving way too fast and not paying much attention. To this day I can’t even remember what happened. I don’t know if Chris saw a deer or just missed a curve, but the next thing I know, we’re flying off the road and down an embankment not far from Auburn Hill city limits. Screaming, his or mine, I don’t know. And then the impact. God, it felt like we hit a brick wall. Turned out to be a tree. I must have passed out or something because my next memory is trying to get out of the car. I did. Had to climb out the window, but I got out. I ran around to Chris’s side, but his door was pinned by a huge tree trunk.”
He stopped again, and I blinked hard, trying to keep my tears from falling on his skin. He’d said, “Ihada brother.” Past tense. I sniffed and tried to keep it together.
“He didn’t make it?” I asked softly.
“Nope.” Charlie’s voice wobbled. “I couldn’t get him out so I made the choice to leave him and go up the embankment for help. By the time the paramedics came, he was gone. I’ve asked myself every single day whether I did the right thing. Maybe I should have gone through the passenger side and tried to get him out that way. Maybe I should have stayed with him. My brother died alone, Finnie.”
I pressed an elbow into the mattress and sat up, hovering above Charlie’s face. “No. You listen to me. You did what you thought was right. Pulling him out probably would have made his wounds worse and he would have bled out, anyway. Doesn’t sound like anything could have saved your brother that night, Charlie, no matter what you did.”
A tear slid down my cheek and I couldn’t pull it back. This man had been through something awful and yet he was such a happy-go-lucky guy, keeping everything bottled up to the point he had nightmares. And here I’d been so hateful to him. His wood work in the middle of the night was probably the only thing to calm him down, and I’d yelled at him for it.
He reached up and thumbed away my tear.
“I really like you being here,” he whispered, eyes still clouded and tortured.
I smiled and nuzzled my cheek into his palm. “I really like being here too.”
“Stay with me tonight?”
