Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(94)

“A crush.” His eyes grew more furious. She kept talking.

“I’m a one-stop shop. You get a replacement mom, a woman Lyon trusts to raise him, and someone who supports you when you’re painting in ‘the zone.’ Convenient,” she repeated, tears spilling from her eyes.

He searched her face as if she’d transformed into a stranger rather than the woman he’d known for seventeen years.

She felt it, the sharp way it cut into her to know things between them would never be the same. And she took it. Because she deserved it.

After an eternity of silence, he finally spoke. “You’re lucky.”

“Lucky?” she asked, not understanding his meaning.

“Lucky you’re a woman,” was all he said. Then he stalked off her porch and stormed across the beach toward his house.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT




Charlie had never been so glad to have so much to do. She spent the evening alternating between crying and fixing Guy and Mallory’s wedding photos.

Stupid weddings.

Sniffling, she reached for a tissue to blot her eyes as she saved the picture she’d altered. She was being unfair. Spitting venom at the wrong party.

What she needed was a mirror.

The clock over the stove read nine, and she stood and stretched, her stomach aching from a combination of hunger and fear. She peeked out the kitchen window and over to Evan’s house. Earlier when she looked, she’d spied him and Lyon out on the porch, the grill smoking.

She’d gone back to her computer, afraid he’d come invite her to dinner and relieved when he hadn’t.

Being faced with Russell, who threw Rae in her face, had challenged her. A challenge she’d failed.

She saw that now.

Filling a glass with water, it hit her front and center. Where she’d screwed up; what she’d done wrong. She should have stood next to Evan. She should have trusted him.

What had she done instead? Pushed him away. After pushing him away repeatedly when he kept coming for her, how could she expect him to continue trying?

At some point, something had to give.

The windows of the Downey house were dark. The studio lights off. She wondered if they were sacked out in the living room, watching Man of Steel, or if Lyon was showing Evan proof he’d finally won the queen on his iPad game.

Rae the queen.

Charlie gave her head a sad shake, seeing herself with frightening clarity all of a sudden.

Not only had she not infringed on her friend’s role, she’d kept Rae’s memory alive for Lyon, for all of them. She thought of the stacks of paintings in Evan’s studio. Instead of getting up to paint another dark mural, he’d drawn her tattoo designs. “Because of you, Ace,” he’d told her while he punctured her skin lovingly.

She’d reached in and pulled Evan out of the darkness he’d been in for years. Charlie, Evan, and Lyon had created a new family. Rae couldn’t be here for them. And that wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Charlie had fallen deeply in love with both Evan and Lyon. And then, when tested, had pulled her heart from their hands. Taken herself away. She tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling, muttering, “Sorry, Rae” for a whole new reason.

Because Charlie had failed them.

She’d failed them both.

Returning to her computer, she clicked the “Rae” file and sifted through photos of her best friend. Beautiful in color or black and white, her smile shined from each image.

Charlie was in a few of these, too, her arms around Rae. This one was the last Christmas Rae was alive. That one, a girls’ night out at a sushi bar.

Her heart ached. She’d lost Rae, and now, she’d lost Evan and Lyon.

She’d lost them all.

Finally, she found the one she wanted Lyon to have, selected a size, and clicked print. The printer at her back whirred to life, pulling in a sheet of paper, when there was a knock at her patio door.

Charlie tried to keep her heart from overreacting, but it pounded hard, and harder when the knock came again, because it sounded like a little boy’s knock.

And there was only one little boy who knocked on her patio door.

Creeping around the edge of her desk and kitchen counter, she found Lyon peeking through the glass, hands cupped around his face. When she flipped on the outside light, she saw Evan behind him, leaning an elbow against the post at the bottom of the stairs.

Seeing Lyon made her heart hurt.

Seeing Evan obliterated it.

Steeling herself for the confrontation she should have known was coming, she swiped her fingers under her eyes and pulled her hands through her hair, glad she was semi-decent; dressed in her tee and shorts from earlier.

Then she slid the door aside and used every ounce of strength left in her to give Lyon a smile. “Hey, honey.”

“Hi, Aunt Charlie. Dad said you were sad so I brought you this.”

In his hands was a large yellow envelope. She accepted it. “Thank you.” Flat. Likely a sheet of paper.

Or a photo.

“Want me to open it now?”

“Yeah,” he said.

She hazarded a glance at Evan, who stood stone still against the pillar, his face a placid mask.

Bending the metal prongs, she carefully lifted the lip of the envelope and reached inside. What she pulled out took her breath away. It was a photo of her and Lyon on Evan’s back porch. She remembered he’d taken it with his phone while she and Lyon grinned and said, “Cheeeeese.”