Page 113 of Degrees of Control

“I promise you don’t need to lie. I know you and my brother have got a pretty cute internet life happening but that ain’t real and I need to know that you love him and you’ll love him despite the fact he’s not perfect.”

Charlie smiled, understanding what Kelsey meant. “I knowexactlyhow lucky I am. Seriously not a day goes by where I’m not like ‘how did I wind up with some flawless blond cowboy god from Texas?’ If my sixteen-year-old self could see him she would like…die.”

“So that’s all you care about? His looks?”

Fucking hell.“No! It’s just surprising that someone interested in me is also so hot!”

Kelsey raised a brow and Charlie realised she was doing a terrible job of selling herself. She held up her hands. “Okay, so I love your brother, sincerely and not just because he’s arm candy. He’s warm and generous and he loves animals. He makes me laugh every day. He’s perfect.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“He’s the perfect guy for me,” Charlie amended. “Although I could have done without him running away on me last night.”

“I think we all could have.” Kelsey looked toward the porch where her brother was hopefully readingThe Book of James. “Don’t worry about James coming back to me every time somethin’ goes wrong. I have a feeling last night was my brother’s last, great freak out.”

“I hope so.”

They smiled at one another and then Kelsey picked up a cupcake and bit into it. “Not bad at all.”

Charlie laughed. “Sugar is vegan.”

They sat together and discussed the weather and Kelsey’s kids and the upcoming senate election. Charlie ate two cupcakes and drank all of her almond milk. She wasn’t that hungry, but her nerves kept her chewing. Did James like the book? Was it doing what it was supposed to do or had she been horribly mistaken and he was annoyed, or worse, offended by her presumption? She turned to Kelsey. “I wanted to give him some space but should I go out there?”

“I reckon so,” Kelsey said. “Jim was always a slow fuckin’ reader, but even he should have gotten the message by now.”

Charlie stood, her legs oddly weak. “Wish me luck?”

“You don’t need it.”

“Do it anyway?”

Kelsey leaned over and gave her a quick one-armed hug. “Everything will be fine. Go see him.”

Charlie found James on the porch, sitting in the same seat he’d been in when she first arrived.The Book of Jameswas open in his lap, on a page she’d decorated with a photo of the two of them at her friend Murphy’s wedding and hand-drawn gardenias. “I told you the arts and crafts was pretty sketchy.”

James said nothing.

“I promise I wasn’t trying to be patronizing,” she said, her unease rising like hot water in her chest. “I just thought it might be nice to have some physical evidence to debate you with next time you try and tell me you’re not a good person.”

Still he said nothing. Charlie’s heart began to pound hard against her ribcage, threatening to break if she didn’t figure out what was wrong. She knelt in front of him and put a hand on each of his denim-covered thighs. “Please look at me?”

He did, and she saw his eyes were full of shiny tears.

“Oh mygod.”

“Yeah,” James said wiping his hands over his face. “I know.”

She felt stupid for reacting so strongly, but the thing was Jamesnevercried, not during movies or arguments or when he found out his grandfather had died. She had seen him sad, devastated even, but nary a tear had come and she had kind of assumed he wasn’t built that way. The vulnerability of him in that moment was like a physical blow. It wrenched her chest wide open, exposed her in ways she never thought possible because he was hurt and he was everything.

She rubbed her hands up his legs. “Are you okay, babe?”

“Yeah.” He touched an open page of the book. “I kept seeing this around our place. I thought it was your journal.”

“I kind of wanted you to think that so I could work on it in plain sight. I’m glad you didn’t snoop or you would have been pretty weirded out.”

James swiped a hand across his eyes. “Kind of come to expect the weird from you, Blue-Eyes. Can’t believe you wrote me a book. Must have taken ages.”

“It did. I had to use my fancy writing, too.”

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