Chapter 14 - Charlie

In all my life, I've never been more nervous than I am now. I stare at my own reflection, close my eyes for a moment and sigh.

"Honey." I hear Mom walk into my room. "Jay is here." The nerves grow. Jay thought it would be more convenient to come here with her dad and it helps that Keith is gone with the boys.

"Okay." Apparently she notices how nervous I am because she walks up to me and brushes my hair behind my ear.

"Relax, normally you wouldn't even worry about a date." Normally I wouldn't like someone either.

"She's different, mom."

Mom puts her arms around me and looks over my shoulder to the mirror. "I know, just be yourself and you'll be fine." But that's what I'm so afraid of. I'm afraid that when I open up again, that I will be disappointed again, that I will be left broken again. "Let go of the past." When mom kisses my head I look at her.

"What if I screw it up?" Mum shakes her head at me with a grin, but it doesn't calm me down. "What if I say the wrong thing and she hates me for it, what if she doesn't like me at all." Mom tries to calm me down, but she barely succeeds. "I really like her."

She seems surprised, I'm surprised too. I just admitted that. "Charlie, listen to me. You go down and see what happens, okay?" She brushes my hair out of my face again. "You like her, show her that."

I sigh. "I..."

"Charlie."

"Okay." I take a deep breath and step past her.

"It's going to be okay, Char, don't worry." I ignore those words, they just make me more nervous. Just act normal. I blow out and run down the stairs. I almost fall off the last few steps when I see her. Wow. Our eyes meet and I swallow with difficulty. How beautiful she is. She wears slightly looser pants, just like me, and a shirt, a simple shirt, but it still looks perfect. The only thing she's not wearing is a cap.

"Ready?" She nods. God she smells great. When I step close to kiss her, I hear footsteps on the stairs and toss my head back. Why does Mom always have to interrupt and bother us.

"Hi Jay." Mom looks at me with a grin.

"Hi Camilla." I feel how Jay slides her fingers in mine and I have to suppress my smile. I know she used to want to hide us for my mom, but she doesn't seem to care that much anymore.

"We are going." I interrupt the small conversation they are having.

"Have fun, I'll be home late." I nod, cheer inside. Finally alone later.

"Are you coming?" I gently pull at her hand. Jay follows me, she's curious I know.

"What are we going to do?" I grin and push open the front door. She hasn't asked anything else for the past 2 days.

Before she can see it, I turn her back to it and put my hands over her eyes.

"Charlie..."

I push my body against her back, feel her gasp and her heartbeat pick up. "Keep your eyes closed," I whisper in her ear. I slowly escort her to my truck. Cover her eyes with one hand and open the door with my other.

"Char, can I look already?" She's really going to hate me for this.

"Keep your eyes closed, baby." I slowly take my hand away, look at her face for a moment to see if she really listened. "Don't scream, it's just me." I tie a towel over her eyes, making her groan.

"Is this really necessary?"

"It's part of the surprise." She sighs and gets into my truck with my help. When she is seated I close her door and run around the car, send my mom message telling her to start and get in quickly.

"I'm going to hit you if this ride is longer than fifteen minutes."

I grin. "Then hit me in advance." I smile when she misses and take her hand. "Relax." I kiss her hand and start the car.

"I'm going to punch you so hard when we get there." Mmm, I don't think so. I laugh when I make a sharp turn and she screams. This is going to be fun.

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"Are we there yet?" Jay is getting impatient and I've had to knock her hand away from the towel a few times already.

"Yeah, almost, a few minutes." With that I stop and put the car on the handbrake. "You're even more impatient than I am."

"No, that's not possible!" We laugh.

"Sit down, I'm here to help you, don't peak," I warn her.

She sighs. "Okay, I'm not looking."

As fast as I can I jump out of the car and run to her side to help her out. "Be careful," I mutter. I breathe a sigh of relief as she stands firmly in the mud.

"Charlie, if you tell me now that I have my feet in a -" My lips interrupt her. I really couldn't help it anymore, from the first moment I saw her I wanted to kiss her.

She moans softly on my lips and leans against me. Our lips move in sync and I run my hands over her body, pulling her closer to me.

We break apart out of breath, I rest my forehead against hers. "I'm going to remove the cloth." I pull my head back slightly so I can reach it better and slowly remove the towel from her eyes. Her eyes find mine.

"Where are we?" She whispers.

I smile and slowly walk back with her. "At one of my favorite places." I turn around so she sees the quads. I put my arms around her waist and smile. "And?"

"It's your fault if I break my back." I smile and kiss her cheek. "I've never drove a vehicle like this before."

"I'm going to help you." I hug her a little tighter and then let go. "Give me a few minutes to get them off the cart."

I get the quads of the cart as soon as I can. We have two of them and just to be on the safe side, I brought them both. I know she's probably a little bit scared and we're not really going to use the second one, but Jay is a daredevil if she wants to be, so who knows.

With a grin, I jump on the squad and start it. Jay jumps slightly from the loud noise, I notice that she is nervous when I drive up to her and turn it off again. "Ready for a ride?" I reach out to her, she takes my hand and lets herself be pulled on the quad. First I let her sit in front, explain to her how everything works and hand her a helmet.

"Charlie." She takes my arm when I want to get off. She doesn't have to say anything, I already know.

"Move back." A little doubtfully she does what I say, now I can sit in front of her. "Put your arms around my waist and hold me tight." Before the first few words leave my lips, she already puts her arms tight around me.

"Don't let me fall," she mumbles, making me grin. I would never do that. I start the quad and accelerate. This is going to be hilarious.

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Black with mud we are back in my truck, we drive to my house. Jay dared to drive herself after a few laps and at the end she just out played me, she wasn't afraid of anything anymore. You can't get that smile off her face anymore.

"We've got to lose the mud outside," I say, pulling my hand out of hers for a moment to accelerate, then reinsert my fingers back into hers.

"That is understandable." When we look at each other we laugh.

God even with mud everywhere she is beautiful. "How's your first date so far?"

Her smile widens. "I've never had such a good time." Great. I just grin, rub her hand with my thumb. "Thank you," she says, making me look at her.

"For what?" I say playing dump.

"Thank you for always being there for me." I look again at her, not knowing what to say. I didn't expected this. "You are the first one ever who hasn't let me down."

"Jay..." I bring her hand to my lips. I seriously don't know what to say. I'm scared, to be totally honest. I'm scared that I will let her down, just like the others. I'm scared that I will hurt her. I'm scared that there is a moment I will not be there to pick her up when she falls.

"It's okay,' she says. "I just wanted to say thank you." I look at her again. But I want to say something. I have to, but nothing comes to my mind.

Luckily my house is coming into view. So I have an excuse to concentrate on my driving. Just breath. She makes me so damn nervous. I park the car and dare to look at Jay again.

"Are you hungry?" I turn to her.

"I am."

I smile and get out of the truck to open her door. "Follow me."

"But we look like crab." We share a laugh. "Shouldn't we like get rid of the mud?" She walks with me to the back of the house.

"We're not going inside yet." I say when I ran up the few stairs of the porch. "Sit down on the stairs."

"Are you sure?" I nod at her and grab some boxes my mom left outside for us. "I hope you like some pesto pasta."

"I would love some." I smile and sit down next to her, handing her a plate. "I know this isn't the most romantic dinner ever but..." I hold up my finger until I find the round app on my phone and throw on the lights.

"It's perfect." Jay says blushing. She stares down at her food.

I grin taking a bite. "So..." She looks at me again. "Who is Jayden Miller?"

She rolls her eyes. "Jerk." We chuckle.

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"I'll crab some towels, the tap is over there." I point in the correct direction and move to the counter where I left some towels.

When I turn around I get a jet of water straight in my face. My mouth falls agape and I look at her with fire in my eyes. "Did you just."

"Did I do what?" She sprays me again and smirks at me. "What, Charlie?"

"Did you really just sprayed me with water?" I wipe some mud from my face and look at her again.

She tries to hide her grin. "I don't know what you're talking about." She squeals when I march to her. "Charlie!" To defend herself she point the garden hose at me, I'm drenched in seconds.

"You're so dead." I don't struggle to grab the hose from her, but I do struggle to spray on her. She keeps dodging away at the last second. Until it gets to the point were we are running after each other. Mostly I'm running after her.

What we both didn't know was that we set each other up by running away and before we know it we are pressed against each other, the garden hose tied around our legs and waist holding us in our place and drenching us like a shower.

"Well, this is great." I joke.

Jay lays her head against my shoulder and laughs. "How did we do this?" We look at the knot we made.

"I don't even know." I grin. "At least we are clean."

"Sort of." She wipes some wed strands of hair behind her ear. Her hair is getting longer and to be honest, I kinda like it. I like her pixy cut too, but this is a total different Jay.

With one arm I free us, we stare into each others eyes. To get her back I splash some water on her, making her growl. "Oh I'm sorry."

"Are you?" I grin. "Prove it."

I close the distance, lift her chin and kiss her. "I'm deeply sorry." I say kissing her again. Her lips are hypnotizing. I doesn't take long for one of us deepens the kiss. I pull her against me, let my hands travel to her hips where they belong and shiver when I feel her hand in my neck.

I help her out of her shirt and kiss her again. God she's so beautiful. My lips travel to her neck and I hear her moan. Shit. I nibble and bite at her skin. Creating little spots, she will kill me when she sees these.

"Charlie..." She moans. She pulls at my shirt, we break apart to pull my shirt over my head, our lips are almost right away connected again. In a blur we lay in the wet grass. She's on top of me and although I don't like that I don't have control, it's the best feeling ever when she's on top. Looking at her, wow.

"You're so beautiful." She stares in my eyes, I caresses her cheek. "So fucking pretty." She just stares at me like I'm the only thing on this planet. I only see her, she makes me go crazy. She presses her lips on mine.

We roll over the ground until I hang above her. I kiss my way down, moving slow. I massage her body with my hands, making sure everything feels okay to her. I look at her when I untie her pants. I see only desire in her eyes, no doubt.

I let my hand travel down, finding the edge of her thong. Her breath hitches in her throat, so I just look at her, when my hand slides further. I make sure this is okay.

"Kiss me." She says and I obey. My lips caresses hers, I kiss her slowly, passionate. I move to her cheek, her jaw, her neck, my lips move even over her collarbone. I'm so busy pleasing her that I almost don't hear her whisper the next words. "I love you." But I hear them and stop. When I look up her hand is on her mouth and she stares at me with her big green eyes.

"What did you just say?" My heart hammers in my throat. Did she just say she loves me? God she has to know what she does to me.

"I..." She looks away. "I said nothing." I'm filled with disappointment, I try to hide it, but she sees it anyway. "I'm sorry she says, maybe we should stop." She sits up, making me move backwards.

"Why?" I can't filter the hurt out of my voice. Did she really think it was a mistake telling me that she loved me? "Did I do something?"

Jay bites her lip and says. "I..." She looks down.

"It's something I did isn't it." I know it is, that's why she's so quiet. "Jay talk to me!" I don't want to sound so desperate, but I'm just devastated.

"I... You... Yes." I close my eyes and let my arms fall back beside me. "It's just, I can't trust you, Charlie and I really, really want to." She hurts me more with every word that comes out of her mouth and I slowly back away from her. "But you have to understand that I can't have my heart broken again." When she wants to grab my hand I stand up and move my hands to my hair. Fuck.

"Charlie please..." She sounds upset. "It's just, I don't know anything about you, of course I know things, but I don't know the real you and I can't do this anymore."

"W-why?" I ask. I turn my back to her.

"Because I'm scared you will hurt me."

"So what you told me in the car was a lie?" I still don't look at her.

"No, but I can't stand to see you so hurt and not open up to me. I can't help you if you don't tell me anything. I can't trust you when you are so closed off. I really like you Charlie, but I just can't. I'm so tired of my own shit, I can't keep taking down your walls if you keep building them up over and over again." I hear that she's fighting her tears.

"You don't trust me?" I turn towards her, let her see the tears in my eyes. "Don't you understand that this, all this is so fucking hard for me?" I bite on my lip. "You are the first one in my 18 fucking years on this fucked up planet I have genuinely feelings for." I look at her. "And I try, but I just can't."

"But why?" She asks. "I told you everything, Charlie. Everything about my mom, my dad, I showed you the most vulnerable side of myself and I see nothing in return. How is that fair. How am I supposed to trust you if you keep lying to yourself and everyone around you." It hurts that she's right. She's so damn right and I did nothing to change that.

I fall on my butt and wrap my arms around my legs. "You're right."

"I'm sorry." She whispers.

"No, I'm sorry." I look at her. "I will change."

"Charlie..." She shakes her head gently at me. "It's too hard."

"Please don't do -" The ringtone of my phone interrupts me. When it keeps ringing I stand up to look at it. I see my mom calling so I clear my throat and pick up.

"Charlie!"

"M-mom what's up?" I keep my head down, I feel terrible.

"It's Keith, he's in the hospital." My phone falls out of my hand and everything happens in slow motion. It feels like everything is happening to me again and I can't breath.