Page 139 of Luci’s Lullaby

I step closer to her, we’re mere inches apart. “You understand me now, you are the only woman I slept with more than once. In a night. In a week. In a year. In my life! You, Charlee!”

She blanches. “But everyone says you’ve been with a lot of women.”

“I’ve screwed around, something I hate about myself. But I didn’t have women every night; no one could handle that. It was crazy rumors I allowed and now see it was wrong.” My voice quakes with every word.

“Why me? Why am I the only woman you didn’t use a condom with? The only one you had sex with more than once?” She twists her lips between her fingers.

My throat feels thick, and I’m overcome with emotion. “When I was with you, it was different. It was different because of you. It made it different for me.”

“What are you trying to say?” She crosses her arms, and her eyes fill with unshed tears.

I scrub my head with my hand. “I made love to you, with you.”

She shakes her head. “No. You don’t mean that, you and I both know you don’t.”

“You might hate me right now, it may never matter to you but, by God— don’t tell me I don’t know love when I feel it. When I see it the way I did with us.” I’m in her face, both of us trembling.

“You don’t know love.” Her cheeks wet with tears.

I take her face in my hands, drying under her eyes with my thumb. “I know love, I see it every day in the people I’m around. The love Chord had for Sarah when she couldn’t find her own. Walker for Reese and her for him.

“Yours for me, no matter what I was or who they said I was. You loved me. I know love, Charlee. I’ve felt it when I never thought I could. I got scared. Of losing you, losing Luci. I’ve lost so much in my life, I just knew I would lose you.” I bare the deepest parts of my soul to her.

“And once I did, I knew then I’d rather have your love for any amount of time, than never at all. I see you—always have, always will. I love you, Charlee Rae. I’ve always loved you.”

She stands there, tear-stained t-shirt and open soul. I give her everything and she’s just standing here, staring at me. She lays her hands over mine, moving them.

“I wish I could believe you.” She blinks as more tears fall.

“Believe me or in me?” The pain in my chest is more than I can bear.

“Both.” She covers her mouth as she weeps. Charlee jerks the door open and runs from the house.

From me.