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“My brother and my father.” My mouth suddenly goes dry.
“They’re fine. Brady knows—” he starts to say and stops when I shriek.
“Brady knows?” My eyes glare at him. “Wow.”
“I needed to get you out of town.” He tries to plead his case.
“So instead of, I don’t know, telling me the truth. You lied to me.” I laugh and pfft out. “Great.”
“It’s not like that.” He reaches for my hand.
“It’s exactly like that.” I let him slide his fingers through mine and bring them to his lap. “It’s one thousand percent like that. You lied to me.”
“I wanted you safe,” he refutes, his voice tight, “and I’d do it again.”
“What are we doing? I mean, we love each other, but what does that mean, exactly? Like, what are we doing with each other?” I ask. He just looks over, his eyebrows pinched as he pulls over to the side of the road and puts the truck in park before he turns to stare at me. “Because if we are together and doing whatever with each other, we can’t be lying to each other.”
In one move, he reaches over, unbuckles my seat belt, and reaches down with his other hand, putting the seat back before plucking me out of my seat and pulling me onto his lap. “That’s the first time you said you love me.” His voice is a whisper, making my heart soar.
“Did you not know?” I ask, my fingers playing with the collar of his shirt. “I thought you—”
“Autumn, I’m in love with you and only you. And I lied, but it wasn’t technically a lie.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “The point is, I’m telling you now.”
“The point is, you should have told me this when it happened.” I maneuver on his lap to straddle him. “I can’t take lying.”
“I know, baby, I’m sorry.”
“This is the last time,” I warn. “There won’t be another time. I can’t do the lying thing.”
“Noted,” he says, and I’m irritated.
“Don’t ‘noted’ me, Charlie Barnes.” I move to get off him, and he grips my hips, pulling me back down on him. “What are you doing?”
“We just had our first fight,” he mumbles, his hands moving up to take my shirt with him, and I smack his hands away.
“You do not think I’m going to have sex with you on the side of the road,” I gasp, “in broad daylight.” I get off his lap. “Maybe if it was nighttime, but definitely not now.”
“So first course of action,” he plans, putting his seat belt back on and getting his seat back into his place, “make-up sex.”
I shake my head as I fasten my own seat belt, and he pulls onto the road. “So what did we learn from this?” I look over and ask.
“That in one hour, I’ll be having make-up sex.” He smirks my way, and my heart literally jumps in my chest at his smile. “And I’m never to keep anything from you.”
“I mean not in that order, but…” I smile, looking outside and realizing if this would have happened three months ago, it would have probably broken me. It would have cut me off at the knees, but not today. I take it with a grain of salt. They’ve broken me once; I refuse for them to break me again. “Yes.”
We pull up to his house in forty-five minutes, and the minute we do, he groans. “What are my parents doing here?” he whines. “It’s time for make-up sex.” His hand goes for the door handle as I slide my feet in my flip-flops.
“Charlie, don’t you dare say anything to them,” I warn between clenched teeth when I see the front door open and Willow come out, followed by Quinn.
“What are you guys doing here?” Charlie asks as soon as he gets out of the truck, and I meet him in the front of it. The last time I saw his parents was two weeks ago after they visited Charlie for a couple of days. Each day, they would eat at the bar at night, and he would spend the night with me, no matter how many times I told him to go home.
“We brought over some food,” Willow explains, looking at her son and then looking at me. Charlie comes to stand next to me and slides his hand into mine. Her eyes go big. “Oh my.” She looks up at Quinn, who tries not to make eye contact. “You knew?”
“No,” he lies. “I might have suspected this, but this is a shock to me also.” He gasps. “You two are together?” He rolls his eyes. “Maybe if we laid off the special blend, we would have seen what was in front ofyourface.” I turn my head to laugh against Charlie’s shoulder as she glares at him.
“We’re leaving.” She shakes her head. “And you”—she points at Charlie—“we are going to have words later.” She then looks at me, and her smile comes back. “It’s good to see you, Autumn, I’m happy you’re here.” She then slides her eyes back to Charlie. “You, not so much.” She walks to the truck, getting into the driver’s side, and we all hear the sound of her locking the doors.
“Willow,” Quinn says, walking to the pickup and trying not to laugh. He pulls to open the door and the handle drops back while she starts the truck. He knocks on the window. “This isn’t funny,” he says, and Willow just puts the music louder in the truck as she adjusts her seat.
