Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) (22 page)

“What about tonight?”

Charlie shrugged. “There is a park practically in your back yard. Not ideal, but it’ll work.”

“And Scout?”

She hated bringing her into this moment, but there was no way around it. You couldn’t talk about Charlie, and who and what he was, without bringing Scout into the conversation.

“It’s fine,” he said with a twitchy little shrug, which made Maggie think it was anything but. Her doubt must have shown on her face because he said, “It’s okay, Maggie. I got Mommy’s permission. She said I can sleep over at your house.”

She hit him when she really wanted to hug him. “I was just checking. I didn’t want Her Royal Cranky-Pantsness to throw the smack down on me. I am small, and I break easily.”

“Tiny? Yes. But I don’t believe for one second you’re fragile, Maggie Mae McCray.” His eyes held a mischievous glint. “Maggie Mae.
Maggie. Mae.
How is it I didn’t know your middle name until yesterday?”

“Charlie...”

“I mean, all the opportunities I’ve missed of being able to wake you up and tell you I have something to say to you.”

They were back at the house, and Maggie wheeled on the top step to block his passage to the door. “Charlie Hagan, I swear to whichever deity you believe in, if you
even
think
about bursting out into song, I will end you.”

He hummed the first few notes and Maggie lunged. He caught her easily, but the bags in his hands meant he had to lock his arms tight around her to keep her captive.

My body pressed to Charlie’s chest not once, but twice in less than an hour. I suppose there are things to be thankful for today.

“See,” Charlie said, his eyes locked on hers. “You’re fierce, not fragile.”

“But you caught me.”

His gaze slid to her lips. “I will always catch you.”

It was not the point she was making, but she didn’t care. Since he was holding her up off the ground, his lips were in strike range, and before she could talk herself out of it, she was brushing her own against them. “Maggie,” he whispered against her mouth, and she took it as a sign of encouragement. Her tongue hesitantly reached out to feather along his bottom lip, and he rewarded her with a growl.

“Charlie.” She whispered it against his lips like a prayer, and maybe it was.

“Maggie--”

“Shhhh...” She silenced him with a nip at the corner of his mouth. “Just let me...” Her tongue laved the spot where her teeth had just been. “Have my moment.” Then she settled her lips against his with purpose. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds before parting his lips and giving her complete access and control. Control she relished. Never before had she taken charge of a kiss like this, and she found the power dizzying. Or maybe it was just the feel of Charlie’s velvety tongue sliding against hers making the world tilt and twirl.

She became so lost in Charlie she forgot the world around her, including the bag of groceries in her hand. Cans hit the metal railing with a loud thwack-thwack-thwack. Charlie jerked back, releasing her gently, but quickly, back onto the ground. His eyes were wide and panicked, as if a shower of bullets had shattered their perfect morning instead of cranberry sauce and creamed corn.

“I’m sorry.”

All the warm fuzzies floating through Maggie’s body frosted over. “You’re sorry?”

“Maggie, don’t…”

Don’t what? Don’t think about the way I just had my greatest and worst life experience in a matter of seconds? Don’t think about all the ways you’re going to continue to break my heart now I’ve decided to love you?

Maggie turned her back to him, bending down to pick up the cans she’d dropped so he wouldn’t see how she was fighting to keep her eyes dry.

“I told you before, Maggie. I can’t give you what you want.”

A can of green beans had rolled beneath a decrepit chaise lounger, which gave her a perfect excuse to literally crawl under the nearest piece of furniture as she said, “You want it as much as I do.”

At least, he’d never said he didn’t want her, and he certainly had seemed to be getting into that kiss there at the end.

“What I want doesn’t matter.” His voice was further away than it should have been, and Maggie crawled out from her hiding spot to find him leaning against the railing at the other end of the porch, his back turned to her as he seemingly addressed the neighbor’s house. “I told you before, I can’t be what you want me to be. I can’t give you what you need. What you deserve.”

“What if what I need, what I deserve, is you?”

His head dropped to his chest. “It’s not.”

“How can you possibly know what it is I need? Do you have some secret Seer power I don’t know about? One that lets you See a person’s needs and desires? If so, I’ll listen, but otherwise, you might want to take my word on this.”

Charlie closed his eyes as if trying to shut out her voice of reason. The jingling music from a Black Friday ad poured through the window that was always open two inches, even in the middle of a snowstorm, because no one could get it down. The peppy bells and horns were so at odds with what was happening on the porch Maggie might have laughed if she wasn’t so close to screaming.

When Charlie’s eyes opened again, she knew her battle was lost. The spark of life was gone, leaving only the robot with his carefully considered responses in its place. She knew nothing she said at this point would matter. There was no bringing him back once he made the conscious decision to shut himself off.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.

“Charlie.” The porch was small, so it only took a few steps to reach him. She placed her hand on his chest, the contact sending a surge of heat from her fingertips to other, less exposed parts of her body. “Please. At least try.”

He looked at her hand as if he didn’t know what it was, and then placed his own on top of it. Her rush of hope quickly died as he pulled her hand away from him and placed it back at her side. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

There are many bad emotions in this world, and in that moment, all of them settled like a stone in Maggie’s stomach. Too many of them. She didn’t know what to do with it all. She wanted to scream and cry and rail against him while either beating the hell out of him or clinging onto him for dear life, she wasn’t sure which yet.

In her whole life, Maggie had never felt as comfortable, as happy, as
complete
as she did with Charlie. The hours they spent working together, side-by-side in silence, were among the most content in her life. And the times when they weren’t so silent? When she was trying to coax a smile on his all too perfect lips or he was making her laugh with his latest rant about a favorite comic? She hadn’t known that kind of joy really existed in this world. Charlie Hagan, the impossibly talented boy whose life had been filled with trials and tragedies should have been the poster child for sadness, but instead, he’d taught Maggie the meaning of happiness.

Of course, what she was feeling now was the exact opposite of happiness, and he’d taught her the true definition of that emotion, too.

Why? Why did he have to be such a complete ass about this? Why couldn’t he see how good they were together?

“Scout.” She hadn’t meant to answer her own question aloud.

Charlie opened his eyes, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “What about Scout?”

She shouldn’t ask, but she found she couldn’t stop herself. “Do you love her?” Charlie flinched ever so slightly. He started to open his mouth to say something, but Maggie stopped him with a shake of her head. “No, don’t answer that.”
Because I really will shatter if I hear you say it.
“It’s okay. I know. I understand. It’s… fine.”

Except it wasn’t really, but he didn’t need to know how hard she was fighting to hold herself together. She’d already done a bang-up job of making everything crazy awkward. There was no need in adding a hysterical, heart-broken, jealous, rebuffed, wannabe girlfriend on top of everything else.

Charlie had sat his bags of groceries on the chaise lounge at some point during their little drama. Maggie was reaching for them when he said her name. She knew he was going to apologize again, and she couldn’t take it. This part, the one where he was telling her he could never feel the same about her as she did him, was an experience she didn’t want to have again in a million years, but the part before that, the one where she felt as though he was hers for a brief moment, was worth it. One day she would be able to look back on today and only remember the way his lips had felt against hers, and she would be damned if she let him spoil that moment by being sorry it happened.

“Good news,” she said, preventing him from saying another word. “I got the last thing of sour cream in all of Monarch.” Maggie pulled the tub from the bag as if he wouldn’t believe her without proof. “That means I get to make my famous corn casserole. You’re going to love it.”

There was a tense moment as she looked up into his eyes, begging him to let it go and just move on with their day. It took more heartbeats than Maggie was comfortable with, but finally he relented.

“I love corn casserole,” he said with a robotic smile. He reached out and took the bags from her once more, careful not to make contact with her fingers. Maggie told herself it wasn’t a big deal, although her heart argued the point. “Do you need help? Not to brag, but I can open a can of cranberry sauce like nobody’s business.”

Maggie tried for a smile and failed. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m good on my own.” And one of these days she would be again.

Lunch was a disaster. The turkey Maggie bought wasn’t so much barbecued poultry as shredded leather covered in red, liquid sugar; the potato salad tasted like it may have been left over from Labor Day; and thanks to a heating element in the oven that didn’t quite work right, Maggie’s corn casserole was still wobbly in the middle after baking for over an hour.

The worst part was watching Maggie fight back tears as she sat the paper plates on the table. She’d flashed him the fakest smile he’d ever seen when she pointed out the blue flowers decorating the edges. “This way, if you squint real hard, you can make yourself believe they’re the real thing,” she’d quipped as if it didn’t tear apart her soul to say it. It made Charlie want to strangle her mother, who spent most of the preparation and mealtime on her phone, recounting to every person she’d ever known some fight she’d had with her boss.

As he poked at the corners of his corn casserole, which was actually really good if you could find a cooked bite, Charlie tried not to think about how different the day was going for Jase, Scout, and the rest of the Alpha Pack. Gramma Hagan’s tiny house would be filled to the point of bursting. The air would smell of his gramma’s cooking and laughter would float up and down the hallway. Jase and Scout would try to steal some type of dessert from the kitchen before the meal was served, and would be caught by Gramma Hagan, who would scold them as if they were still small children instead of two of the most powerful Shifters in the world. Joshua and Angel would be at war, both of them taking extreme delight in annoying one another. After a meal of the best food on earth, the TV would be turned to a ballgame and the tables would be cleared so an epic card tournament could commence.

It sounded perfect, and for most of them, it was. But not Charlie. Charlie would have spent the day watching the bottle of bourbon grow emptier by the hour, tensing every time he accidentally found himself in the same room as his father. He would talk to his mother, never quite looking her in the eye because he was too busy looking for signs his father had finally turned his violence toward her. He would always be aware of the seat in the corner no one sat in because they knew it belonged to Toby. He would be too blinded by Layne’s anguished outbursts to see the joy and love filling the room.

At least at Maggie’s house he didn’t have to pretend to be swept away by the spirit of the holiday. No one jabbed him in the side when he went so far into his thoughts he forgot where he was. No one looked at him as if they were expecting him to fall apart anytime the smile on his face faltered.

After dinner, he’d climbed onto the roof with Maggie’s grandfather, despite her protests. It was getting colder outside, and he wasn’t particularly fond of heights, but freezing his butt off in a position where he could easily fall to his death was preferable to staying inside where he would have to face the temptation of her. Pushing her away had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, and it was taking all of his self-control to not gather her up in his arms and beg for her forgiveness.

You want it as much as I do.

She was wrong, of course. He wanted it more. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted it until she was in his arms, fitting perfectly against his body. At the first brush of her lips he’d been gone, swept away in sensations he hadn’t felt since before his life had taken a turn for the impossible.

No, that wasn’t quite right. The way Maggie made him feel was beyond anything he’d experienced before. It was like every press of her lips pushed a little more light into the darkness where he existed. It was exquisite and beautiful, and he had to stop it before she realized how broken and empty he was on the inside. It took more will power than he cared to admit to sit her back down and once more gather the shadows around him.

She didn’t understand that he did it to protect her. Maggie was full of life and light. She created things so amazing and beautiful it made him ache. She was fierce and brilliant, but fragile all the same. Her emotions weren’t just attached to her sleeve. Instead, they cloaked her whole being with nothing standing between them and the hard world. Nothing to stand between them and the damage he could - the damage he
would
- do to her.

So, he walked away. He knew he’d hurt her, could see it in those black eyes that reflected everything, but it was better to hurt her a little now than completely destroy her in the long run. Because that’s what Charlie did. He destroyed everything he touched.

It was late afternoon when he finally decided to call the roof done. With Mr. McCray’s help, he’d reattached most of the gutters and patched a few places the shingles had abandoned for greener pastures. He’d actually been done more than thirty minutes ago, but he’d lingered until the last possible moment, making sure there was no time for him to go seek out Maggie before he had to succumb to the pull of the moon.

“Are you insane?” the object of his every thought chided as he descended the ladder. “It’s almost dark.”

He looked to the spot where the sun was making its final stand on the horizon. “I have enough time to get to the park still,” he said, grabbing the ladder and moving past her to return it to the storage shed.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, trudging behind him. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s not like there are acres of woods or anything. You won’t have room to run.”

The small cluttered building caused her to stand too close. With nightfall rapidly approaching, his senses were becoming more acute by the minute. Each breath was filled with the scent of her. He could hear the steady melody of her heart and feel the heat of her flesh.

“It’ll be fine,” he told her, the words coming out more clipped than he’d intended.

“You don’t understand. If people see a coyote running around Monarch, they’re going to freak.”

“Trust me, no one is going to see a coyote tonight.”

“And if they do?” Her heart rate changed as her scent altered ever so slightly. Charlie turned, expecting to catch a glimpse of her slow-to-burn fury but finding eyes filled with fear instead. “Charlie, someone could shoot you. People around here own guns and like to use them.”

Charlie stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep them from reaching out to her. “No one is going to shoot me. I’ve done this before.”

“You’ve Changed in the middle of city park before? Really?”

Well, no. Not exactly.

“I’ve Changed lots of places.”

“But not here. Not in
this
neighborhood with
these
people.”

His shoulder twitched. It wasn’t much more than a fluttering, but like a tremor before a major earthquake, it was a warning of what was to come. Soon. Too soon. It was getting darker much quicker than he anticipated.

“Maggie,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and moving her aside, “if you don’t let me go, I’m going to Change in the middle of your backyard. Don’t you think the park might be a bit more convenient?”

A second tremor rippled across his left cheek, and Maggie saw it, her eyes widening with understanding.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry, Charlie.” She jumped in front of him again, but only to pull open the door of the storage shed. “Go,” she said, ushering him outside. “There is a shortcut to the park if you can get over the fence. What am I talking about? Of course you can get over the fence. I could do it when I was a ten year-old kid, and you’re a full grown Shifter.” She was rambling, and if he wasn’t terrified of dropping to the ground in front of her at any moment, he might have stood there longer just to hear what else she might say.

As it was, he took off in the direction she pointed as quickly as possible. He vaulted the waist-high fence without breaking his stride. Three minutes later, he fell to his knees, giving in to the pain.