Page 125 of Break the Rule
“Since when has someone not wanting to talk to you ever stopped you from fucking talking?” Andrew asks.
“Never,” Charlie answers, pretty sure Eden said this exact thing to him as well recently.
“I say this with love,” Andrew starts in that tone of his where Charlie knows he’s going to hate what comes next. “You’ve never had to fight for anything in your life, Charlie. Everything has always come easy to you.”
“I work hard,” Charlie frowns.
“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Andrew replies, something in his expression that Charlie doesn’t understand. “But working hard and hard work aren’t the same. You’re talented and funny and people like you. That’s not a bad thing. You work hard and you play hard but….but you’ve never had to fight for anything, Charlie.”
Resisting the urge to snark back, Charlie mulls those words over. He knows he’s lucky, knows that he has always found interpersonal relationships easier than Andrew. Both in friendships and romance. Even his art career has come with far less struggle than most other artists, and while he’s worked hard, he can grudgingly admit that Andrew might be onto something.
“Do you ever get tired of being right?” Charlie sighs.
“Nope,” Andrew replies with a self-satisfied grin. He withdraws a piece of paper from his pocket, sliding it across the kitchen island.
“What is this?” Charlie asks, unfolding the paper.
“Eden’s address,” Andrew answers. “Addy gave it to me. Which for the record she assures me she wouldn’t have done if she didn’t think Eden would be okay with her doing it.”
“When did you talk to Addy?” Charlie asks. “Is Eden okay?”
“Eden gave me her number. We text sometimes. As to how Eden is, well you can ask him yourself.”
“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” Charlie asks.
“Then we’ll be here for you, Charlie. All of us. But if you don’t try, then you’ve already lost him. It’s time to decide what you want, Charlie.”
Charlie looks between Alec and Andrew, something settling in his chest when he answers with the easy truth.
“I want Eden.”
21EDEN
“Areyou sure you don’t want to come to the park with us?” Addy asks. “You haven’t been out of the apartment all week.”
“Not true,” Eden challenges. “Yesterday I walked downstairs to get the mail.”
Addy arches an eyebrow, hands on her hips. “How long were you outside?”
“Long enough to know I don’t want to be out there again with the stupid fucking sunshine and birds and happy people.”
“Eden said a bad word,” Ella yells, running back into the living room clutching her stuffed pig she’d gone to retrieve from her room.
“Eden says a lot of bad words,” Addy says with a straight face.
Since Ella is looking at her mom and not him, he flips Addy off.
“How come Eden can say them and I can’t?” Ella asks.
“Because you’re too little,” Addy answers.
“That’s no fair,” Ella pouts, turning her big brown eyes on Eden.
“I know, life is not fair kiddo.” Eden opens his arms, pleased when she throws herself on top of him on the couch where he wraps her up in a bear hug. The beads in her hair clink togetherin a familiar chime as she presses her small face into Eden’s neck and hugs him with all the ferocity of a child who has yet to realize Eden isn’t the hero she seems to think he is. Swallowing against the lump in his throat, he can only pray she will still love him when she’s old enough to understand how flawed he really is.
“How old do I gotta be to say them without getting in trouble?” Ella asks, pulling back to stare very intently at Eden.
“Why do you wanna say them?” Eden counters, hoping to detract from having to answer in case.
