Flower(53)

I sit on one of the stools and pull out my cell phone. I consider calling Carlos, just to kill some time before my lab partner gets here, when I hear the door swing open. I turn off my phone and slide it into my pocket.

“Hey, Rebecca,” I say, swiveling toward the door.

But it’s not Rebecca.

Standing inside the doorway is Tate. He looks like he hasn’t slept—his eyes heavy and dark. But he’s every bit as tempting as I remember, his stance confident, his face too perfect for words, even if his gaze holds an edge of pain. Torment buried in his eyes. My pulse leaps, and I have to suppress the urge to run to him.

“Before you say anything,” he starts. “Let me explain.”

I push up from the stool and cross my arms, reminding myself that I want nothing to do with him. “You don’t need to,” I say. “This can’t work. You and me...us...we’re too different.”

“I don’t think we are,” he says, moving closer, the nearness of him unsettling my entire body. “I messed up—I know I did. And I’m sorry. I never should have let you leave Colorado like that. I never should have pushed you away.”

I’m grinding my jaw and I force myself to stop. “But you did let me leave. You kicked me out of your parents’ house on Christmas morning. Do you have any idea how that made me feel—how much that hurt me? Are you even capable of understanding? Is your heart so hollow, so numb from whatever ruined you, that you can’t even see when you’re destroying the people around you?”

“Charlotte.” His eyes sweep over me and I glance away, refusing to let his gaze unravel me. “You’re all I think about. I feel like I’m going insane not being with you.”

I clench my hands into fists, my fingernails biting into my palms, and our eyes lock.

But the door to the lab swings open behind him and Rebecca steps inside. “Oh, hey—” she says, stopping abruptly before she walks right into Tate. “Sorry I’m late,” she adds, but only out of reflex, since her gaze is caught on Tate. I catch the moment of recognition in her eyes. She knows he’s Tate Collins and it’s stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Can we get out of here?” Tate asks, still looking at me. “Just for a minute.”

“I can’t. I have to work.”

“Nah,” Rebecca jumps in, skirting around Tate like she’s afraid she might accidentally touch him, then drops her backpack on the floor before grabbing a lab coat from the hook. “We’re just staring at spore samples all night, nothing groundbreaking. I’ll cover for you, Charlotte.” She’s doing a good job of not looking directly at him. Like everyone else, she knows about my brief romance with the infamous Tate Collins, but she’s always been gracious enough not to bring it up. Now, she must sense the tension that writhes in the air between us.

Tate’s eyes bore into mine and I shrug out of my white coat, draping it over a chair. I just want to get this over with. “I’ll only be gone a minute,” I say to Rebecca, but I don’t blink away from Tate’s gaze.

“No hurry,” she says behind me.

I follow Tate into the hall, then out to the shadowy parking lot. He grabs my hand as soon as we’re outside, pivoting me around so that my back is pressed up against the cinder block wall. “I can’t be without you,” he whispers.

I steel myself to look up into his eyes. “You can’t be with me either. Not unless you’re honest with me,” I say, my tone hard and unforgiving. And then I think back to the lonely weeks without him, the ache so sharp it was a physical pain. “Tell me who you are so I can trust you. Tell me what happened to you to make you like this.”

I step away from the wall so I’m no longer caged in by his arms. The parking lot is dark, except for the moons of light cast down by the overhead street lamps.

“I’ve made mistakes in my past, I’ve hurt people. I can’t take that back. But I don’t want to make the same mistakes with you. I know you’re mad, I get it.” He follows me with his gaze but gives me my space. “I just thought if I planned every detail, if I controlled every move, I could make this work...”

I burn with shame and anger. “I can’t believe I ever agreed to any of this in the first place. It wasn’t even a real relationship, it was just another game to you. I was a puppet you wanted to control. And when I stepped out of line—when I came to see you that night in your room in Colorado, you panicked. You couldn’t even let me have the one thing I wanted: you.”

“I’m screwed up, I know.” He steps closer to me—the slowest motion—and I don’t flinch away when he reaches toward me, threading his fingers through my hair. “But I need you, Charlotte. I feel like myself when I’m with you. I’ve even started writing music again—I almost have enough for a new album. I’d forgotten why I used to love it. But being with you... It’s changed me. I need you in my life. To remind me that Casablanca doesn’t end right. To eat lime sherbet with you and know you’re the only other person who loves it as much as I do. To listen to you talk about your future, to see the world through your eyes. I can be different, just give me a chance to prove it to you.”

My skin tingles beneath his touch and my eyes flutter closed, then open again. “A relationship shouldn’t feel like this, Tate. You can’t keep forcing me away whenever I get too close.”