Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III by A.J. Downey

dick, you know that?” she asked and I neither confirmed nor denied that either.
    She cursed and drifted past me and my bike sitting forlorn in pieces in the middle of my kitchen floor. She snatched up her bag and made for the hallway and I broke.
    “Charity…”
    “Save it, Nothing; just save it,” she said, voice wavering with tears. A moment later I heard a door shut and the bath start to run in the guest bath. A moment or two later and the shower kicked on, right about the same time I started kicking myself.
    She was right, that was a real dick thing to fuck around about. I bowed my head and pulled on the back of my neck to ease the tension knotting me up between the shoulder blades. Finally with a sigh, I took a seat on the overturned five gallon bucket, picking up a socket wrench and got back to work. It was hard to concentrate. The feeling of her soft skin on mine a sense memory, a ghost of feeling I hoped hung around a while.
    God I was a fucking mess.

 
    Chapter 11
    Charity
     
    I shut the bathroom door and started the bath to let it get warm before switching it to the shower. I sat for a minute on the closed lid of the toilet and shook. Sex with him had clearly been a really, really bad idea but it’d felt so amazing at the same time. I buried my face in my hands and scrubbed at it furiously to wipe the tears away.
    Why would he do that? What could he possibly have to gain by saying those things to me?
    I stood up and tossed my wet clothes in the sink. My bag was still really damp on the outside, but inside everything was dry. I pulled out the towels and set them on the toilet next to the bathtub and got into the shower. The hot water soothed any residual chills out of me, except for the one that ran through my blood at what he’d said to me…
    “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not…”
    Who fucking does that?
    I showered and pulled myself together. For better or worse, I was stuck here until at least the storm was over and who knew how long hurricanes lasted, I hadn’t thought to ask. I stepped out of the shower onto the thick bathmat and wrapped my hair in one towel and my body in the other. I took the time to brush and braid my hair and dressed quickly. Bra, panties, denim short shorts and a pink tank top. I dressed for the Florida heat, and not the way I really wanted to after his comments which was as covered as possible.
    When we’d been having sex, I was all for it. It’d felt amazing, wonderful, and had been totally erotic and hot in a desperate down and dirty kind of way. After what he’d implied after, though? Now I was just left feeling dirty and on uncertain ground. I hated mind fucks like the one he’d given me. How was I ever supposed to trust or believe anything he ever said again? I don’t think guys realized what kind of damage they did with those kinds of head games, you know?
    I tried to put on a front that looked braver than I felt before going back out to that kitchen to face the music. I was half hoping he would be standing there feeling guilty about what he’d said; hoping he would start immediately apologizing… no such luck. He was seated on a dirty, white, overturned bucket, turning a socket wrench with that familiar ratcheting sound. When I’d been a little girl, before my dad had been kicked out by my mom for what he’d done to Hope, I used to sit on the grass next to the driveway while he worked on his truck.
    I closed my eyes now and tried to pretend it was the sun on my face, a book in my hands. I tried to let the sound take me back to that time and place when I’d still had both parents. When I’d felt safe and loved and everything was still bright and shiny with a future full of endless possibilities.
    “What are you doing?”
    His gruff voice pulled me right out of my fleeting daydream and I sighed. He may not be able to tell the truth, but I would never be that person.
    “Pretending I was back home in California, my dad working on his truck in the driveway.”
    He