The Space Between Us Read online

  “For what, exactly?” I wasn’t trying to be crappy. Just trying to understand.

  “I don’t know. What she said, I guess. It’s not how I feel. You know that.”

  “Does it matter, if that’s how she feels?”

  I wanted him to say yes, it mattered, but Charlie only sighed. “She…booked the trip. She got us a hotel and ski package and everything.”

  I swallowed a lump the size of my fist. “Good. You go. You should have fun.”

  “I want you to come.”

  “I can’t, Charlie.”

  He made a low noise. “I can cancel it.”

  “You could,” I said, tired and heartsore. “But you won’t.”

  “It’s not quite a week,” he said. “We’re leaving tomorrow. Coming back New Year’s Eve. We can be together for that, Tesla. We’ll just take this little break, get our heads straight. This will all work out. Okay?”

  He sounded pleading.

  “Okay,” I said, but I knew, as he must’ve, even if he wouldn’t admit it, that nothing was going to work out.

  Chapter 42

  The day after Christmas still felt festive in the Mocha, where we’d keep up all the lights until after the New Year, but I was feeling anything but merry. I wore the new coat Vic had bought me to replace the one I’d torn on the glass, and though I loved it, not even the fresh feeling of new clothes could lift my spirits. I wore Charlie’s bracelet, too, which wasn’t helping.

  “Darek,” I said, surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Came in to see Brandy.” He gave me an unabashedly googly grin. “She gets off in twenty minutes. I’m taking her out for dinner.”

  My brows rose. Darek didn’t bother looking defensive, just shrugged. I shook my head and waved him into a seat. When Brandy came out of the back, she squealed and ignored the line of customers waiting for service so she could run over to him. I thought Joy might make something of that, but she only rolled her eyes and stepped up to help me.

  “Why don’t you leave early,” she said across the counter to both of them. It was my turn to raise my brows. Joy shrugged. “It’s better than watching them make out.”

  I couldn’t disagree. I watched them, their faces alight with that fresh buzz of new…well, I wasn’t sure it was love. On the other hand, what did I know about it? Apparently nothing.

  There wasn’t much of a rush when Darek and Brandy left, and I fully expected Joy to head for her office to whatever it was she did back there. When she stepped in front of me, looking me in the eye, I stopped. Wary, I took a step back.

  “You weren’t supposed to come in today,” she said.

  “I know.”

  She studied me. “Are you okay?”

  It was such a strange question to come out of her mouth that at first I couldn’t answer her. Joy looked pale, her generally unsmiling mouth tight in a frown. She’d cut her hair to shoulder length, and it looked good on her.

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  “Me, neither,” she said bluntly. “I’ve been seeing doctors for months for my endometriosis, and it sucks. It hurts like hell, I have to have embarrassing and expensive procedures, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never have kids. Merry fucking Christmas, right?”

  “Oh, Joy. I’m sorry.” Instinctively, I touched her shoulder, then pulled my hand back right away, but she didn’t snap at me.

  She sighed. “I am a raging bitch around here. I know it. And I watch you get along with everyone, I see people like Sadie come in here…I see everyone around me having everything I want, and I don’t know how to get it. Or worse, know that even if I knew how to get it, I couldn’t, anyway.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “I don’t want you to quit,” Joy said. “We need you here, Tesla.”

  I coughed. “I don’t…I wasn’t going to quit. I mean, I’m not planning on it.”

  “Good.” She nodded firmly, her familiar frown easing just a little into something that tried to be a smile. “I’m glad.”

  “See? You have it in you,” I told her. “Let that out a little more often. It gets easier and easier.”

  Her lip curled and she rolled her eyes, but something about it seemed halfhearted. “Just like meth, right?”

  I put my hand on her shoulder again, this time letting it linger long enough to squeeze. “Not really.”

  She gave me a genuine smile then, the sort she usually reserved for Johnny D. “Let’s take down these freaking Christmas lights. They’re making my eyes bleed.”

  I grinned. “Can I change the music station, too?”

  “Oh, hell no,” Joy said. “I’m not going to be that nice.”

  Chapter 43

  “She’s gone.”

  The words came out of the dark, curling like smoke, and I almost jumped out of my brand-new Christmas boots from Vic and Elaine. I hadn’t seen Charlie sitting on the living room couch in the dark. I’d assumed he and Meredith would still be in Vermont. I’d brought some packing boxes and garbage bags, intent on getting my shit out of there before they got back. Even if we did manage to salvage something, I knew it wasn’t going to be me living there.

  The simple truth was, I didn’t want to be a part of them anymore. A part of Charlie, yes. That I couldn’t deny. But not a part of the two of them.

  I put down my armful of boxes and crossed to him to turn on the light. “Where’d she go? Vermont?”

  “No. I don’t know.” Charlie looked at me, his eyes rimmed red. A nearly empty bottle of whiskey and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts were both on the coffee table in front of him. He held an empty glass. “I told her I didn’t want to go to Vermont without you, that we’d talked about making the trip for three and it didn’t feel right with just two.”

  “Oh. Ouch.” I sat next to him, not touching. “Charlie, baby…that was…”

  “It was true,” he said fiercely. His hair was rumpled, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. “Dammit, Tesla. It was true.”

  My heart lifted even as my stomach sank, in a coordinated bit of anatomical talent I’d never have guessed my body capable of. “She just…left? Without telling you where she was going?”

  He nodded, then put a hand over his eyes and drew in a long, ragged breath. When he blew it out again to look at me, I smelled the booze and cigarettes on his breath. I was looking at a man undone, and I hadn’t been the one to do it. I wasn’t really sure I could be the one to put him back together.

  But fuck me, I was willing to try.

  I took his hand and pulled him closer, our mouths meeting. Tongues stroking. Our teeth bumped, but instead of pulling away, Charlie put his hand on the back of my neck to hold me closer. His low groan pushed my heart into beating faster. His hand between my legs even more so.

  Charlie had been shy and sweet and kind and generous with me. He’d been funny and considerate. And now he was desperate.

  He pushed me back on the cushions, his kisses bruising and relentless. Delicious. Frantic. He dragged up my skirt and worked at my tights, then opened my thighs to dive between them.

  I cried out when he licked me, his lips soft and moving just right against my clit. When he pushed his fingers inside me, he groaned against my pussy. The unaccustomed roughness of his stubble scraped my sensitive flesh in the best of all ways. This was hard and fast, nothing tender about it, and my body responded without hesitation even if my mind and heart were a few steps behind.

  His hands fumbled with his belt. His cock pressed against me for a second or two before fucking into me. I cried out again when he filled me, not quite ready for him but embracing the push of him inside me.

  Charlie buried his face against my neck. His teeth pressed my skin, then bit. His hands moved under my ass, tilting me against him. The couch protested as we rocked it. Normally I’d have laughed at the sound it made, at how frantically our fucking had begun. All I could do now was rake my fingers down Charlie’s back, the material of his shirt keeping my nails f