Off the Mark

by Kathryn Nolan

I’d gotten better at controlling my intense attraction to Charlie over the years, but a lifetime’s worth of erotic fantasies about her lived rent-free in my head.

Though when I realized Charlie Maddox, of all people, was standing on the sidewalk, waiting to see me, I did get that weird chest thing I always got around her. It was like my body had to alert my brain that it was about to get stupider.

Most days, I’d rather get a tooth pulled than ask another person for help. Asking Rowan for help—especially for a favor that was so weird and intimate—had been a huge mistake.

“You really do enjoy making me work for it, don’t you, Maddox?” “And you’ve always liked doing the work,” I taunted.

The way holding him as he cried gave me a feeling I’d never experienced before—a fierce protectiveness that made me want to commit acts of violence against every single person who’d ever wronged him, even slightly. If he’d asked me to tear the world in half to ease his agony, I would have eagerly said yes.

But beneath her confidence, I sensed her shy hope, could feel her fingers squeezing mine, and that, more than anything—even more than an almost-kiss—had my heart hammering against my ribcage. That, more than anything, made me wish that my fake girlfriend was mine for real.

Next to me, Dean said, “That looked fucking cool.” Eyes on the track, I leaned in. “Now you get why I made too many signs.” “Now you get why I make so many breakfasts.”

And as she reared back to send a triumphant fist into the air, I realized with a start that I would absolutely get up at dawn to make this goddess a hundred breakfasts if she asked.

“Long time no see, huh?” “Maybe,” I hedged. “Did you miss me?” “I always miss you, Charlie.”

“Glitter signs and Ring Pops,” I said. “A girl could get used to this.”

She’d given me a beautiful inch, and I’d stolen a mile. She didn’t trust me not to hurt her because she thought I was still that type of guy.

“Every single time I walked into that bar, it was because of you. Every night I stayed late, it was because I wanted you. You were all that I cared about, and I thought I’d moved past it. Except then you showed up again, and it was like nothing had changed for me.”

“I never had to pretend to worship you, Charlie, I always have—”

“You’re still stopping me in my tracks, Charlie Maddox.”

We were a friendship that was always more. A relationship that was never pretend.

I held her close, my lips in her hair, thinking about anvils. And glitter signs. Thinking about my parents. Dean and Tabitha. All the times I worried I would never know what this felt like, only to realize I already did. We just hadn’t found our way back to each other yet.

I was in love with Charlie. Like, run through the streets yelling about it kind of love.

“So let me be very clear. I am in this for real. I am in this for you. And I’m not running this time.”

“The lesson here is that when you’re confronted with two choices and one is working with a stodgy corporation and the other is a team of fearless, bloodthirsty women…” “Go with the fearless, bloodthirsty women every single time,”

You drove five hours in the middle of the night to sit with me when I was in the hospital. I asked and you came. Didn’t make me weak for asking either. It did make me realize that I could rely on you.

realizing you were in love was like being struck by lightning, or swept away by a tidal wave, or devastated by a hurricane.

“Taking risks feels like too much of a gamble when you’ve already lost so much. But even after losing your parents, you never stopped living—though I know so much of it can be scary. It certainly has been for me sometimes. Your mom and your dad were two people who embraced change with wide-open arms. They were…” Her voice caught. “They were extraordinary together. Just like you.”

I know that Charlie trusts me, know it ’cause I can feel it. When it comes to dating and being serious though? I can’t blame her for worrying I’ll bail when it gets hard. I’m worried she’ll do the same thing.”

But you are lovable, Charlie. You do deserve it. Letting yourself be loved isn’t easy with the experiences we’ve had, but if anyone’s up for the task of loving the hell out of you, it’s Rowan O’Callaghan. The guy can barely remember his own name whenever you’re in a sixty-foot vicinity.”

Opening myself up to love might be harder in the beginning, but the reward was Rowan. Was there anything sweeter?

You cried with me that night, and I would have broken the world apart with my bare hands to make you hurt less.”

“Good girl,” he soothed. “So good, so perfect, all mine.”

I knew that real, authentic love wasn’t always spinning in a sea of confetti—though that’s how he made me feel every single day. All the tough and complicated parts wouldn’t disappear. But it sure did feel easier confronting them together.