Knowing she was bright red, Charlotte pointed at the screen. “Not funny.”
“I wasn’t being funny. Didn’t you once tell me to go home with a rock star and have wild monkey sex?” Molly’s grin was wide. “Clearly, that turned out well for me. So follow your own advice, Charlie. Have wild monkey sex with your very hot boss.”
Charlotte couldn’t think about being naked with Gabriel without hyperventilating, so she said, “You doing okay?” Molly and Fox had recently dealt with a horrible invasion of privacy situation, and while Molly seemed to have come through it strong and unbeaten, Charlotte liked to check up on her friend.
“I’m good.” Molly touched the screen in an affectionate period to her words. “But don’t think I’ll let you change the subject.” She put on a mock-stern face. “You’re happy—I can see it. Be happy, Charlie.” A deep smile. “You don’t have to force yourself to be different. From everything you’ve told me today and over the past few months, Gabriel Bishop seems to like you fine just as you are.”
Charlotte continued to think about her friend’s words long after they ended the call.
Be happy.
It had been a long time since she’d been truly happy. But today, prior to the flashback that had filled her mouth with the metallic taste of fear, she’d felt like the Charlotte she’d been before Richard. That Charlotte had been shy too, but she hadn’t been scared; she’d been full of hope.
In many ways, the worst thing of all was that Richard had been nice at the start. That was why it was so hard for her to trust any man, no matter how wonderful he appeared on the surface.
That first meeting with Richard, it had been so sunny, so sweet.
“HEY, YOU MIND IF I grab this seat?”
Charlotte looked up from her book, her sandwich halfway to her mouth, to see the Boy. That was the name she and Molly had given him after spotting him on campus at the start of the semester.
He was blond, the kind of streaky, summer blond that came with hours in the sun, his skin always deeply golden. From a T-shirt he occasionally wore, one bearing the label of a local surf shop, Charlotte had deduced he was a surfer. He had the lean, muscled body for it too.
Today, he slid in on the other side of the table without waiting for her reply. “I’m Richard.”
His smile, it was like something out of the movies. His teeth were flawless, his lips perfect. Add in the chiseled jawline and the bright blue eyes, and he was the most physically perfect human being she’d ever seen in real life.
“Charlotte,” she managed to say, not quite daring to believe he was talking to her. Boys who looked like Richard did not talk to nerds like Charlotte unless they wanted to borrow lecture notes—and as far as Charlotte knew, she and Richard weren’t taking any of the same classes.
Then he said, “I’ve seen you in Introductory Accounting.”
That was a huge first-year course with hundreds in each lecture theatre.
Charlotte still couldn’t imagine how she’d missed him. “Oh.” She wanted to slap herself for the monosyllabic response—you’d think she’d have gotten over her shyness by now. “Did you want to borrow the notes from today’s lecture?” A whole sentence, she’d managed a whole sentence.
Shaking his head, he bit into an apple. “No, I was there. God, the prof drones on, doesn’t she? I call her lectures War & Peace & Accounts.”
Charlotte felt her lips tug up at the corners. “Yes.”
“So you want to get into accounting?”
“I thought I might, but it’s not me.”
When he smiled again, it was as if the sun had come out. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m taking first-year law too, but I don’t think I’m cut out for the life of a lawyer.”
CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD HAD ended up talking for so long that she’d missed her next class. It was the first time she’d ever played hooky. The fact she’d done it with the cutest boy she’d ever met had sent her skipping across campus after they finally went their separate ways.
Now, alone in her bedroom, Charlotte wiped away a tear. Not for Richard but for herself. She’d been so young, so naïve. She might have been a few months past eighteen, but she’d known nothing about men, not really. If things hadn’t gone so terribly wrong for Molly at fifteen, Charlotte would’ve learned by watching her best friend—Molly had always been the braver of the two of them. But Molly had changed after that awful year, boys far, far down on her list of priorities.
That was how Charlotte came to be the first of the two of them to actually have a serious boyfriend. While Molly focused on her studies, Charlotte fell dizzyingly for the beautiful boy who’d noticed the mouse in amongst all the butterflies. Unsure about her path in life and searching desperately for something to fill the hole left inside her by the deaths of both her parents two months earlier, she’d felt hope for the future. Maybe, she’d thought, maybe even shy girls with glasses got happy endings.
Molly had been so excited for her. They’d giggled in Charlotte’s bedroom as they picked out outfits for her dates with Richard, trying out different makeup looks they’d found in magazines or online. Things most girls did in high school. It had been fun and innocent and hopeful.
No one could’ve predicted the horror to come.
Taking a shuddering breath when her heart began to thump, Charlotte got up and went to wash her face. She could refuse to allow the memories to drag her under, but one fact she couldn’t avoid: she was still clueless about men. Richard had been a cruel boy under his golden looks, and she could rely on none of her experiences with him when it came to dealing with an adult male like Gabriel.