Page 23 of Man Glitter
I pulled myself up tall and answered him truthfully. He deserved that, at least. “I need to get back to running my business, not becoming the highlight of the gossip paper.”
He looked down for a second and then back up at me, his blue eyes missing that normal sparkle. “You saw the paper.” It was a statement, not a question. “So, last night…”
“Was just a one-time thing,” I rushed to finish. “Charlie, I have a business to run and I can’t be distracted.”
He winced and my stomach clenched. “Why would being with me be a distraction?”
I blew out an angry breath. I didn’t want to get into all this. “It just is, Charlie. Trust me.” He was too close and I couldn’t breathe. I pushed his chest, but he wouldn’t back up and give me the space I needed.
His face flushed red. “You want me to trust you? I let you stitch me up when I barely knew you. You’ve been living in my house. How about the fact I told you everything about my nightmares last night? All that wasn’t placing enough trust in you? What aboutyou, Finnie? Do you even trust me a little bit? Have you told me anything about you? What makes you spun so tight you can barely let loose? Why is smiling so hard for you? I trust you, Finnie. It’syouwho doesn’t trustme.”
It was too much. Everything he was saying was true and cut too close to home. Charlie appeared like he didn’t have a care in the world and yet I was finding him to be the deepest soul I’d ever met who saw more than he let on. And I didn’t care for that one bit.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Charlie’s face cleared in an instant and he was back to looking calm. I envied his ability to do that without counting to ten on an endless loop like me. “That’s true. But do me the favor of telling me just one thing before I leave you alone.”
I nodded quickly, hoping I could answer, and he’d go away.
“Why are you scared to open your heart to me?” he whispered, his thumb coming up to sweep across my cheek.
Hot tears hit the back of my eyes and I blinked hard. I inhaled deeply, but it didn’t give me courage. It simply made me yearn for an alternate version of this universe where I could trust Charlie. Where I could pour my heart out to him and he’d embrace me. One where people said what they meant and never turned on you. One where I could rest easy that I had a partner in life. Through thick and thin.
My chest squeezed, and the dam broke, a tear sliding down my face and wrapping around his thumb.
“Because,” I started, my voice wobbling. “Because I’ve trusted the wrong people before and it’s literally meant life or death and it ruined my career. I can’t do that again. Iwon’tdo that again.”
Charlie’s eyes softened even more. “Who let you down?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and begged the universe for help. When none came, I knew I was on my own. Looking back at Charlie, I decided to unload, just this once. “I’ll tell you, but then I never want to talk about it again, okay?”
He nodded.
“I was dating a doctor at the hospital where I worked. We were both ER docs and everything about that line of work is high stress. It was nice to date someone who understood the rigors of the job and the weird hours. I felt like we really had something. But that all changed one night when we were both working on the same patient who came in with a gunshot wound. He coded, we pushed the usual meds, but we didn’t know he had taken some medication earlier that didn’t mix with what we gave him. He died, Charlie. And turns out he was the son of an important Congressman. So, the administration started looking into it and the doctor I was dating got worried. We followed protocol, though. Had there been time to do a blood test, that would have been ideal, but there wasn’t. The guy was gone. We had to try resuscitating that second. Well, my boyfriend decided to turn on me, telling the administration that he’d wanted to wait for the blood results, but I’d overridden him and pushed the IV meds.”
Charlie’s hand tightened on my face, his jaw clenched tight. “Bastard.”
I nodded, that old flare of anger feeling more like defeat. “Yeah. Eventually, the investigation showed we did everything right, but there were rumors that my relationship with the other doctor affected my decision making. I’ve learned that sometimes rumors can be more damaging than the truth, Charlie.”
I let my statement hang there. He would read between the lines and understand why I couldn’t be mixed up with him. Too much was at stake. His thumb swept across my cheek, over and over, while his blue-eyed gaze never left mine.
“You know his death wasn’t your fault, right?”
“You know your brother’s death wasn’tyourfault, right?” I asked him back.
And there it was.
The truth at the heart of this matter.
We both knew those deaths weren’t our fault and yet we couldn’t seem to move past them. Couldn’t navigate a world in which their deaths hadn’t changed each of us. Irrevocably. Permanently.
* * *
I couldn’t seem to snap out of my funk. The normal coffee shop sounds of chatter and plates clinking on tables hit my ears, but only as background noise to reliving that conversation with Charlie over and over again. I couldn’t believe I’d told him about my past. It wasn’t something I ever discussed due to the shame I felt. The fact that I’d told him the horrible story meant he was worming his way into my life far more than I was comfortable with.
I could only hope that he understood me now.
Understood why anything happening between us had to stop. Immediately.
