Everything Nice by Mari Carr Read Free Book Online

shower. She heard the water turn off and the murmur of two deep voices beside her although she was too exhausted to understand the words. Soft sheets and a fluffy pillow were the last things she remembered as she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Four
     
    Allie tiptoed into Alex’s kitchen, praying she would find coffee there. She was not a morning person and without her jumpstart of java, she was absolutely useless. She’d been pleased to wake and discover herself smack-dab in the middle of two lovely men. Lucky thing Alex owned a king-sized bed. She’d carefully extricated herself from between them, thrown on one of Alex’s T-shirts and left them sound asleep. Poor babies looked exhausted. She giggled as she recalled the hottest shower she’d ever taken in her life then marveled over the fact they hadn’t even had actual sex yet.
    She was humming softly to herself and quietly sipping her second cup of coffee when she felt someone’s gaze on her. She glanced up to find Charlie, dressed in nothing but his dress pants from the previous night, leaning in the doorway, watching her. She fought back the instinct to drool at his six-pack abs.
    “Why did you run off with Jim Griffin?” he asked.
    “Where the hell did that question come from?” Allie was shocked by Charlie’s conversation topic.
    “Why, Allie?”
    She looked at his face and saw such a perfect mixture of sadness and confusion, she wasn’t sure how to respond. She shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
    “He was old enough to be your father. Hell, he was your father’s friend. One minute you’re happy at home and the next minute you’re gallivanting all over the world with the guy. What the hell was he to you?”
    Allie took a deep breath, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart. How could she explain her decision without hurting his feelings, without seeming like a selfish, heartless bitch?
    “Charlie, I was never happy at home. You know that.”
    He scowled at her response and she knew he was remembering the night he’d caught her running away.
    “You seemed happy to me once your mother started to recover. Did a pretty good impersonation of it.
    “How the hell do you know if I was happy or not?” She couldn’t contain the sudden anger at his words. “You weren’t here, Charlie. You were off at college, drinking your way through fraternity parties and fucking yourself silly with sorority sisters. You weren’t here. You have no idea how I felt.”
    Charlie’s own fury escaped and he shouted at her, frustration clear in every word. “Was I supposed to be here? Is that what you wanted? We weren’t dating. We weren’t a couple. Shit, you were still in high school!”
    She shook her head, cursing herself for her harsh words. He didn’t deserve her anger.
    “No. You were exactly where you were supposed to be. I’m just saying that you can’t stand here and try to tell me that I was happy. Unless you have some mind-reading ability that I don’t know about, you really have no idea how I felt.”
    Charlie shrugged and nodded. “So you were unhappy. That doesn’t explain Griffin.”
    Allie grinned guiltily and shrugged. “I guess you could say he saved me.”
    Charlie turned away from her, crossing the room to pour himself a cup of coffee, and she could see from the stiffness in his shoulders that her answer had clearly pissed him off. “Saved you from what?” he muttered so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.
    “I don’t know,” she admitted. “From myself. From my restlessness, my recklessness. I don’t think I can put this into words that you’ll understand.”
    “Try,” he said, turning back to face her. His anger seemed to have faded as quickly as hers and she could see he was willing to hear her out, regardless of the fact he might not like what she was going to say.
    “I’m not like Ginny,” she said softly. “She’s a homebody and a creature of comfort. When my mother was diagnosed