Southern Charmer (Charleston Heat 1)

Julia stops chewing. I hear her swallow.

“Olivia,” she says, lowering her voice. “Have you been smoking weed? It’s cool if you have, but we both know how paranoid you get—”

“No drugs.” I look down at my (very) full glass of wine. “Just wine from a box.”

“Oh, God, that’s even worse. Dump that shit in the sink. Now. Before I have to call poison control. Jesus Christ, Olivia, you’re going to give me a heart attack. I’ll be there in ten with a few bottles from daddy’s cellar. You’re welcome.”

Ten minutes later, Julia and I are sitting in bed together, a bottle of expensive wine in my lap, a twelve inch sub from Jimmy John’s in Julia’s.

“Had a busy day,” she says. “Haven’t had time to eat. So I’m having two subs for dinner. Please don’t judge me.”

“No judgment here.” I watch her stuff half the sub into her mouth. “How’s your dad?”

“Okay,” she says around a mouthful of turkey bacon club. “But c’mon, Olivia, no changing the subject. I’m here to talk about you. Why don’t you think you deserve to be happy?”

My throat tightens. Taking a slug right from the bottle—much better than the boxed stuff—I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did.” The butcher paper on her lap crinkles when she drops the remains of her sub onto it. She wipes her hands on a napkin and looks at me. “You said you felt like a glutton for wanting to be yourself. Which is a huge part of being happy. Tell me why you think that’s such an enormous ask of the universe.”

“Because,” I say, my voice thickening. “I already have it all.”

Julia furrows her brow. “According to who?”

“Everyone. Society. Teddy. My life is perfect. On the outside, at least.”

“So the inside doesn’t count?”

I take a deep breath. Let it out. Julia was never one to beat around the bush. Still, I didn’t expect her honesty to hurt so much. I didn’t expect her to find my sore spots so easily.

“Look, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here,” she says, putting a hand on my leg and giving it a squeeze. “It’s important to suss out your reasons. I think it will help.”

“Okay. I’ll try.” I swallow. “I guess I thought the inside would follow the outside, if that makes sense. Like if I got all these things everyone was telling me I should want, I’d actually start to want them myself, you know? There had to be a reason why everyone wanted the same things. The big fancy job, the big fancy house.”

“Big fancy diamond,” Julia adds. “You still haven’t shown it to me, by the way.”

I nod at the dresser on the other side of the room. “It’s in there. I don’t want to look at it right now.”

“Fair enough. So now you have all this stuff—”

“And I’m proud of it. I worked hard for it. But now that I’m staring down the barrel of committing to it all for the rest of my life, I feel…”

Julia looks at me. “You feel what, Olivia?”

I grasp for the right word to capture that feeling of suffocation. Of doubt.

“Stifled,” I say at last. “I feel stifled. But then I think, hey, maybe that’s just part of the deal. Everyone feels like that sometimes. Life is hard. Yeah, maybe I felt pressured to live this way. But I’m the one who actually chose to. There’s this voice in my head that tells me to shut up whenever I feel unhappy, because it’s my fault. Maybe the problem isn’t society. It’s me. Why can’t I be happy? Hell, I have everything.”

Julia’s eyes soften. “Do you really talk to yourself that way?”

Tears flood my eyes. I blink, hard, making them tumble down my cheeks.

“I’ve always been hard on myself.”

“This is different.” She shakes her head. “Being hard on yourself can be a good thing. Like when you’re trying to write the best damn dirty romance novel you possibly can. But it can also be toxic. Like when you tell yourself over and over again that you’re fundamentally flawed when really it’s the world that’s fucked up. I’m not sure you even realize you’re doing it, Olivia, but you’ve really internalized this message that happiness and authenticity aren’t meant for you.”

I wipe my eye on my shoulder. “Why would they be? I’m far from perfect. What could my ‘authentic self’ offer the world anyway? I’m on the run from my boyfriend, writing sex all day, wandering around town drunk.”

“Happiness is meant for you because you’re human.” Julia wraps her fingers around my wrist and looks me in the eye. “No one is perfect. But everyone deserves to be happy. Including you. And if your life in New York isn’t making you happy, then you should think very, very seriously about changing it. Who cares if you have the perfect house and the perfect guy? Maybe your mom and your friends are impressed by that crap. But you’re better than that. You’re smarter than that. I think deep down you know that’s not who you are. So be who you are. If not now, when?”