RUSH (City Lights, #3)(34)

I hadn’t had an eruption in a month, but one was coming. Soon. And I made a vow that it could destroy me, but I had to protect Charlotte at all costs, even if it meant she hated me. That was for the best. For her.

I didn’t let myself consider what was best for me.

*

I awoke one morning with my stomach growling. I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before; I’d been in a particularly foul mood and hadn’t touched the food Charlotte had brought for me. Chinese takeout, which meant it was Thursday.

I wouldn’t admit it, but I was growing sick of all damn takeout. Charlotte had cooked something for herself downstairs that smelled a million times better. But I couldn’t ask to join her, and eating in front of someone else was out of the question anyway.

My takeout grew cold, and when I could no longer stand the smell of congealing sauces, I flushed it all down the toilet. Consequently, a ravenous hunger woke me the next morning.

I found the button on my watch and pushed. Not quite six a.m. I still had time. With any luck, I could slip down, grab some cereal, and head back up before Charlotte woke up.

I threw off the covers and made my way to the door. Twelve steps and there was the handle. I pulled, and felt for the door’s edge to ensure I didn’t clobber myself. Fifteen steps down the hallway, my fingertips grazing the wall to keep oriented. Then the banister, down the stairs, then I was in the living room.

I felt my way to the low, square-shaped chair that marked the halfway point, then continued, one hand in front of me, feeling for the kitchen’s breakfast counter. I touched cold granite, made my way around, and the hardwood beneath my bare feet became tile.

I found the cabinet that held the cereal and pulled down the first box I touched. I checked to make sure it was cereal, and that Charlotte hadn’t changed things around as vengeance against her blind bastard of an employer. I opened the box and sniffed. Raisin bran. I could live with that.

I moved left, felt the stove hood, and then the cabinet. I found a bowl, set it down next to the cereal. So far so good, but the fridge was a different story. It had been a near-empty wasteland when I lived alone. Now it was full of Charlotte’s food. On my first pass, I found a box of soup broth, but a couple of bumbling attempts later, my hand landed on the milk carton.

Irritation gripped me—aided and abetted by my ravenous hunger—and I slammed the carton on the counter. I found the utensil drawer, grabbed a spoon, and then poured the cereal, feeling the edge of the bowl to make sure I didn’t overload it. I opened the milk carton, poured, and set it back down on the counter.

Or that was the plan.

I was careless and set it on the edge of the sink. Too late, I felt the damn thing teeter and then fall. I made a grab, missed, and heard it smack the floor. My ankle was splattered. I bent and quickly found the carton but the damage was done. Who knew how far and wide the spill went, but the carton had been nearly full and now it felt less than half.

My hands itched to hurl the cereal bowl into the sink, when a waft of sweet-smelling soap and vanilla caught my attention.

Charlotte.

“Hey,” she said softly. Hesitantly. “Need some help?”

I gritted my teeth against the tired old anger. “No, I do not. I told you—”

“That I’m not to help you under any circumstances,” she said, her voice stiffening. “I don’t exist until you need me, but since I don’t want to walk around on a sticky floor, consider my cleaning up the mess helping me out. If that makes you feel better.”

It doesn’t, I wanted to say. Nothing ever made me feel better, least of all imagining Charlotte on her hands and knees, cleaning up my spilled milk.

“I can do it. Where are the paper towels…?”

I started to move but she stopped me. “Wait! You’ll slip…Just take one big step to your right.”

I did what she said and my foot found dry tile. Huzzah. But now what? I was going to look like a goddamn idiot trying to clean up a mess I couldn’t see. Doing my very best to corral the anger, irritation, and gnawing hunger, I turned in Charlotte’s direction and said slowly, “You can go now, thanks. I got this.”

“Are you sure about that?”

At that moment, an image of Charlotte tried to form in my mind, like a wavering desert mirage. In my mind, she was a chestnut-haired, blue-eyed shifting amalgam of other women I’ve known in my past life—and I’d known a lot of women in my past life.

I couldn’t keep a solid idea of Charlotte’s face pinned down, but I could imagine she was standing with her arms crossed, lips pursed, eyebrows raised in that universal pose that women take when the guy they’re talking to is being too stupid to live. My irritation dimmed slightly.

She came into the kitchen, and pressed my shoulder—a gentle shove out of the kitchen. Her small hand was warm and soft, but firm, too. I moved around to the other side of the counter and anchored myself to a barstool as she began to lecture me with her pretty voice.

“I’ve seen worse messes. If you spent less time in your room, and more time down here doing…well, anything really, you’d probably learn to manage just fine.”

I heard her rummage around, heard cabinets open and close, listened to her clean what mustn’t have been a huge spill after all since she was done quickly.

“In fact, I know you’d be able to handle it yourself, given time and patience. You have a lot of the former, but none of the latter…”