[I]Are you still here?[/I]

She looked down at her phone and narrowed her eyes as she tried to focus on the text, her vision slightly blurred from more than a few beers. Where the fuck else would she be? “He doesn’t really leave you alone, huh?” 

A laugh bubbled out of Charlie as she sat at a table with Eliza, Micah, Sloane, and Noah. Noah’s arm had, at some point, drifted around her shoulders and pulled her closer. She’d allowed it, because she was shitfaced. She forgot how quickly alcohol could hinder her without any food on her stomach. A plate of barbecue sat on the table, barely picked at and now cold. Her head was swimming and she was well past tipsy, a warmth throughout her body that she hadn’t felt since she was in Nashville.

“He’s just worried about me,” she said, looking up at Noah. He was an attractive man, tall and broad-shouldered with sandy hair and coffee brown eyes. Unfortunately he knew it, so much so that she could sense it in her drunken state.

The group was a mix of friends that were her age, give or take a few years. She’d seen some of them around, particularly when she and Sam had went into town. They’d even gone to lunch with Micah and Sloane a handful of times, so when Charlie had seen them, she immediately gravitated towards them. Luke had seemed dead set on sending her out on her own, which had pissed her off enough to drink beer like it was water. 

“You know, you could get other people to worry about you,” Sloane said, pulling her dark red hair from her face. “I didn’t know how to reach out after everything.” 

Charlie wasn’t close enough with any of them to reach out and vice versa. She didn’t fault them for it, but she could see the sincerity in not only Sloane’s eyes, but all of them. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s hard, when you’re treated like a leper.” The words didn’t come with sadness, only with a matter-of-fact tone that she could thank alcohol for.

“Well, I think that’s over now,” Noah said with a grin, squeezing her shoulders. “You’re here now.” They all clinked their bottles together and easy conversation continued, full of laughter and no tears. While her conversation was easier with Luke, for the first time in three months, returning to some semblance of normal brought her happiness. It wasn’t that the month with Luke had been terrible, but sometimes it had just felt like he was replacing Sam.

She’d caught herself watching him more, found herself late at night with her hand between her thighs thinking of how she’d wanted him then overcome with crushing guilt that she’d chosen the older brother to get off to and not the younger.

[I]Just let me know.[/I]

It had been an equally long time since she’d had enough alcohol to consider drunk texting someone. That someone had been Sam for a while, but that had been six or seven years ago. Now… “Goddamn,” she heard Noah mutter from beside her. “I guess the rumors are true that he’s into you.”

Fucking rumors. “Noah,” she heard Micah chide, almost a warning.

“What? It’s not like it wasn’t his fucking brother.”

[I]Doesn’t change the fact that I’m not going to cross that line.[/I] “There’s nothing there,” Charlie said with a shrug. “We’re just close. He’d always come here and stay with us. We got close.”

“Just because you’re trying to get with her doesn’t mean everyone else is,” Eliza said bluntly. Is that what this was? Over the past half hour, his arm had moved to her waist and a few fingers in the belt loop of her shorts. She was almost too drunk to care “If we’re airing dirty laundry, we might as well address how a third of the town was interested in Sam, a third Luke, and the other third that wasn’t wanted —”

Charlie waved the rest of the thought away, not wanting to hear it. She knew that Sam and Luke had been desirable for as long as they’d lived here. The boys had grown up on one of the biggest pieces of land within 50 miles; Sam had been a fortunate looking man, with a build trimmer than Noah’s and the personality best described as a social butterfly, and Luke… The conversation, however, was the last straw of her resolve to not text.

Charlie [21:37]: [I]I’m fine. Here still.[/I]

“People were loyal to Sam, and they respected him. Anyone that was interested before you came, and even after, would have never done that to either one of you.”

“Yeah, if you don’t count Sutton,” Noah said darkly. Charlies brow’s furrowed, having heard only whispers of that name before. 

Charlie [21.39]: [I]I’m drunk.[/I]

Charlie [21.40]: [I]Are you ready?[/I]

“Where are you going?” She had realized she’d stood from the table until she wobbled slightly and felt Noah’s hand steady her. 

“I want to go home, I think. It was great to see y’all. Maybe we can — “ A hiccup interrupted her and she laughed. “We can get together.”

“I’ll text you,” Sloane promised.

So, with Noah at her side and his hand again fasted into her shorts, she sat off to find Luke.