Page 17 of Begin Again
Her kiss becomes more confident when I don’t reject or push her away. She nips at my bottom lip and traces her tongue along the seam of my lips. When I comply, opening my mouth to her, she dominates. Her tongue tangles with mine and this feels like a first. I can’t remember a woman being so dominating before, but that’s not saying much, since I can’t remember anything.
“Charlie!” Joseph’s voice rings out through the air, breaking the trance.
Her lips are swollen from the kiss when we part, and I push a few strands of hair that blow in the wind behind her ear. Charlie starts to lean in again, but I turn my face so her lips land on my cheek. A look of hurt crosses her features.
Joseph calls again, and I’m surprised he can’t see us. When I lean forward, I realize we’re out of view behind the small peninsula of trees that branch out on the right side of the barn.
Charlie sits up and her hips move against mine in a fluid motion. It elicits a strangled moan from me. Without warning, she grinds her hips against mine again, and fuck…the friction is magical, but I can’t let this continue. We need to go before Joseph comes looking and finds us like this. My hands land on her hips, stopping her movements. “We need to go before he comes looking for you.” She tries to move her hips again, but I hold her steady. “Charlie, you’ve got to stop.”
“C’mon, Zay,” she whines, her breath hot against the shell of my ear when she leans back down. “I can return what I got you if you want to unwrapmeinstead.”
That might be the corniest thing I’ve ever heard, or maybe it’s because Charlie said it. I bite back the laugh threatening to spill from my lips, and she straightens her back.
“Are you laughing?” she hisses.
“I’m sorry, that was just…That was so corny.”
Charlie huffs, bracing her palms on my chest to push herself off the ground. She doesn’t offer her hand this time, instead marching down the hill toward the house without a second glance.
Despite being soaked to the bone, I lay there a moment longer, staring up at the expansive sky. A multitude of stars twinkle above me, but one in particular shines brighter than the others. There’s a tug on my heart with each wink from high above, a feeling deep within that there is more out there. It makes me wonder if someone is looking up at the same sky, hoping we’ll be together again someday. I wonder if I’m their Christmas wish, the same way they were mine.
CHAPTER EIGHT
February 2029
THE PAST TWO AND a half months have gone about as well as you’d expect after the incident on Christmas, and it was like hitting the factory reset button with Charlie. When I walked into the house after our kiss, I went straight upstairs to change out of my wet clothes before joining the Blackwoods in the living room. Charlie wasted no time practically throwing her gift at me. The thin rectangle was wrapped in green stripes with a large red bow. Untying the ribbon, I slid my finger underneath the single piece of tape that held the paper together and unwrapped it to reveal a black box. Inside the box was a black leather wallet.
“Thank you, Char,” I said, but she refused to look at me, gaze locked on the tree in the corner. I looked at Joseph, who shrugged. He wasn’t going to ask questions. He was used to her mood swings and figured it was best to let it go. And because I didn’t feel like explaining to the man who had taken a risk by welcoming me into his homewhyhis daughter was upset, I let it go, too.
Charlie has kept her distance since that night, until today.
She skips down the stairs, making a spectacle of her entrance to breakfast and reminding her father loudly that she has a date tonight. From my place at the coffee maker, I shake my head and take a long sip after filling my mug. This is the most she hasspoken around me and it’s pretty obvious what she is trying to do. Apparently, I’m not the only one to think so.
“That was weird, right?” Joseph asks when Charlie traipses upstairs to continue her prep for her special evening—eight hours early.
“That was weird,” I agree, sitting at the table to finish my breakfast.
“You have any plans tonight?” He turns the page of his newspaper without looking up, and I laugh. That was a silly question. Of course, I didn’t have plans. “Nice guy like you should have plans.”
“It’s Valentine’s Day. You take a girl out tonight and she’s gonna think you’re ready for marriage.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Joseph mumbles, finally looking up from the paper. He folds it in half and leaves it on the table. “Well, should I plan a special dinner for the two of us then?”
I shrug. “Sounds good to me.” Finishing the last of my eggs and coffee, I wash my dishes and leave them to dry on the rack. “I’m heading into town. You need anything?”
“Nope, you have a great day,sweetie! And make sure to tell Danny I said hey.” Joseph waves as I walk out of the kitchen. I wave my cheeks, playing along with his antics, only to turn and practically run into Charlie. Her gaze and lips pull into a thin line, glaring between us.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did we disturb your mental preparation for yourspecialnight?” I ask, placing a hand over my heart in fake sentiment. The question earns a chuckle from Joseph behind me, but a searing glance from Charlie, who pushes by me to enter the kitchen. She walks straight to the coffee maker, pours a cup, and leaves. I vaguely hear something like “assholes” under her breath when she passes by, but don’t call her out.
It’s well past eleven o’clock when I walk back inside, sweat dripping down my temples from a workout in the barn. The indoor riding arena has become my personal indoor track, giving me a place to run and work through my thoughts when it’s too cold (or dark) to do it outside. Before I find the first step, the phone rings in the kitchen.
What the hell?
The scene is perfect for a scary movie—a quiet, dimly lit farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, everyone in bed except the lone main character who has just returned from the barn, and the phone rings in the dark kitchen. When I answer, will there be a killer on the other end?
“Hello?” I answer, half expecting a strange voice on the other end. Instead, it’s the sound of a crowded bar.
“Is this the Blackwood residence?”
