Page 13 of What We May Be

Chapter Four

Trevor leaned partway out the door to check on Annie and Jaylen. They’d scooted closer together on the bench swing at the far end of the screened-in porch, and Jaylen’s arm was stretched out behind her. Trevor bit the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling too wide. “You two good?” he asked when he was sure he could talk without cartwheels in his voice.

Annie made no such attempt, her voice as bright and lively as it had been throughout dinner. “Just let us know when the pie is ready.”

“Ten minutes or so,” he said, judging by the aromas of baking crust and simmering peaches wafting from the kitchen. “We’ll shout.”

He ducked back inside and up the two steps to the raised galley kitchen where Charlie was washing dishes, her hips swaying to the blues album he’d put on the turntable after dinner. He wrenched his gaze away from temptation, even as his mind rewound to the night four weeks ago he still couldn’t believe was real. When Charlie’s entire body had writhed against his, when his fingers had slipped between her folds to tease her, when his dick had slid through her tight fist, against her hip, then into—

Finally the mental brakes kicked in, stopping the burgeoning memory of the last person he should still be thinking about, no matter how many times he’d gotten off to the replay of that night over the past month. He focused instead on the here and now, the lines of Charlie’s back and shoulders, thankfully a bit more relaxed than when she’d first arrived at the house. The burgers from Pier Point, Annie’s good mood, and the pie he’d made from scratch that afternoon had worked their magic. Sort of. Whatever had gone down at the station after he and Annie had been shooed out—because he damn well knew that’s what had happened—had riled Charlie up. And not in the heckle-the-umpire good way.

“You might have Annie fooled—”

Charlie raised a brow. “Fooled or distracted?”

He leaned a hip against the counter next to her. “Either way, she’s not caught on to the Charlie-sized ball of nerves who couldn’t sit still on the barstool beside her all through dinner.”

“But you noticed.”

“Impossible not to.” Trevor snagged the dishtowel off her shoulder. “Tell me what happened at the station after we left. Is it the case?”

“No, the case is fine,” she answered sharply, then cringed. Trevor snickered at her self-awareness, and she let out a breath on a chuckle of her own, more of her tension leaving with it. “We’ve got it handled.”

“Something else, then?” he asked as he put the dishes away.

Charlie removed the stopper from the sink but didn’t respond.

He ventured another guess. “City hall giving you a hard time?”

She scooted the coffeemaker out from under the cabinet and filled the pot with water. “Our illustrious mayor left a voicemail. Usual political bullshit.” She poured water into the machine, then replaced the pot under the drip. “With the election coming up, Craig needs to appear in control. Otherwise, the fixed results will be obvious. He demanded a meeting on Monday.”

Hanover’s mayor, Craig Rowan, was Trevor’s least favorite human in all of Hanover. Had been since high school. They’d had a brief reprieve from him in college, Craig partying hard at Wake Forest like the frat boy he was destined to be, but then he’d returned home and followed his family’s footsteps into local politics. He was like the shit that stuck to the bottom of your shoe that you could never get off; always causing a fucking mess.

Trevor retrieved four mugs from the cabinet, set two aside for Annie and Jaylen, and doctored the other two, one sugar in Charlie’s, two plus cream in his. “But you’ve got your FBI interview Monday.”

Charlie bobbled the scoop of coffee grounds.

He shot out a hand, steadying hers, and they poured the grounds into the filter together. “So that’s what this is about?”

“Trevor.”

He tugged the scoop from her hand, set it aside, and pressed Brew on the machine. He clasped Charlie’s shoulders and angled her toward him. “You’ll get the job.”

She stole the towel back and folded it, avoiding his stare. “Are you sure you want me there? In DC with you? I don’t want to hold you back.”

He trailed a hand down her arm and snagged one of hers. “I wouldn’t have made the offer if I didn’t want you there with me. I could be in a new town all alone or there with my best friend.” He squeezed her hand. “I’d choose the latter every day.”

He’d choose more if it had worked between them after the first time Sean had left, but it hadn’t. They loved each other, no doubt, but without Sean, it had felt like too much was missing. Like they couldn’t be all they were meant to be without him. But after their recent night together, after he’d fallen back into Charlie’s arms and into the something more they could be that was always right there beneath the surface, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it would work this time, just the two of them. Without Sean. The attraction was constant as was the yearning for something more, but he was loathe to risk the most important friendship in his life, especially when he knew the likely outcome was failure. It was more important to have Charlie in his life as a friend, as a roommate in DC, than to not have her in his life at all. Sean had moved on, and they would too. Always together, but in a way that worked for them.

“What about Tracy?” Charlie said. “Is she gonna cause an issue?”

He laughed out loud. “That assumes she comes up for air from the Julian-haze long enough to notice I’m gone.”

The ink was barely dry on their divorce and his ex-wife had already married the man she’d had a two-year affair with. An affair that hadn’t needed to have been an affair at all, but there lay the crux of the irreconcilable differences that had doomed his marriage, at least as far as he was concerned. As far as Tracy was concerned, well, that was a different matter, most of which had to do with the woman Trevor stood beside now.

“She’ll get her share of the house proceeds when I move out.” The profit from the sale of the home he’d bought for Tracy as a wedding gift were being held in escrow, pending the end of his short-term leaseback. “She’ll be glad to get rid of me.”

And of Charlie.

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