Chapter 11
MYLES
The drive back to Dad’s to grab the splitter, then back again to Charlie’s, feels like flying. So damn surreal that it’s making me dizzy.
If my brain and my body hadn’t made me stop off when I saw Charlie out in his yard, struggling with that axe, I’d have driven right past.
Would I have wanted to just leave him struggling? Hell no. But again, I hadn’t felt like I had the right to be the one to help him.
Except, there isn’t anyone else to help him.
So I have to be the one.
No. There’s no have to about it. I get to be the one.
Trying to predict how he’d react when I pulled up in his driveway had me so on edge that I’d nearly just thrown the Chevy in reverse and backed right out onto the highway again.
I’d been about to do it when he’d looked up at me, all messy and sweaty looking, in that outfit that was the last thing anyone in their right mind would ever wear for chopping firewood, along with those ridiculous gloves that made him look like an adorable, almost-blonde man version of Mickey Mouse.
Seeing him like that, looking so frustrated and dejected, did something to me. This confusing lurch in my chest, like the yank of a chain pulling me toward him, so hard, I just couldn’t ignore it.
Hold up a minute. Adorable?
The hard shake I give my head helps to shut down some of the weirdness that just has to go and fill it whenever my thoughts land on Charlie. Which is far more often than I’d ever admit to anyone.
What just bounced through my mind is hardly the first example.
I just…miss him, that’s all. So much it’s making me weird like that.
How hard it’s hitting me is honestly no shock. I’ve spent the last ten and a half years missing him like a lost piece of myself, for god’s sake. But now that he’s here in Riverside, sometimes it feels like missing him is all I can think about.
And now, we’ve just gone and had this surreal exchange where, for a few whole minutes, it felt almost like old times. Or at least, closer to that than I’d ever dared to hope anything with us ever could feel again.
No wonder my brain’s throwing out shit that makes no sense.
Getting too worked up about what’s happening here can’t happen though, because I’m not an idiot.
I know that me going over and saving the day with the fact that I just so happen to have the right tool to deal with the mess Byron Dutch dumped on him doesn’t fix anything.
But for once, Charlie didn’t look like he wanted to turn and bolt.
He didn’t look like he was forcing himself to look at me or to have to talk to me.
Hell, he looked like he was glad I was there.
And if that’s only because I can help him? Then I will do it and gladly. I will do anything to make him happy, even if I get back nothing but the knowledge that I was the one who did it.
Charlie doesn’t have to be my friend for me to be his.
He’s still my person.
Except for the pile of shitty wood, Charlie’s yard’s empty when I pull back into his driveway, and that hurts way more than it has any right to hurt. Hadn’t I just gotten done telling myself that I’d do anything for him, even if I never get anything back?
I’m just about to heave the splitter down from the bed of the Chevy when I hear the sound of a door opening. Closing. My stomach gives a weird little jolt, and I almost drop the damn thing on my toes.
Wow, I need to calm the fuck down.
“Ohmigod, that thing looks so heavy!”
Why I should suddenly be fighting back a grin at the impressed note in Charlie’s voice, I have no idea.
The whole toxic masculinity, look how strong I am macho shit is all my dad, definitely not me.
And whatever that thrill that just rolled through me was, it didn’t feel anything like a competitive sort of my manliness beats your manliness feeling.
Lowering the splitter to the ground with a thud, I straighten up to roll my shoulders and stretch out my back because, yeah, it is heavy.
Charlie’s standing on the step outside his door, staring right at me. He’s a good twenty feet away, but even from here, it’s impossible not to notice how his eyes trail down my body before snapping back up again to my face.
A touch of pink creeps across his cheeks.
Huh.
Obviously, my huh isn’t at the fact that I’d still fall into the general category of person that Charlie might, theoretically, check out, as much as the fact that it’s me specifically that I’m pretty sure he just checked out.
Not that it means he doesn’t hate me…
Only right now, the way he’s smiling at me? Yeah, it’s nervous as all hell, but it’s real. I know Charlie’s smiles well enough to be sure.
He wouldn’t be smiling at me like that if he hated me.
Would he?
“You didn’t have to do this.”
Still smiling that smile that lights up his whole face, he bounces down off the step, and for some weird reason, now it’s my eyes that won’t stay put where they’re supposed to.
He’s still wearing those tight black pants—leggings?
—he was wearing before, but now he’s swapped out the ratty old fleece that swallowed him up for a pale purple sweatshirt that fits him much…
better. It’s oversized too, but in a way that just works.
Maybe because it moves with him more somehow? This one’s much shorter too, and—
My eyes snag on the quickest hint of a strip of skin along his stomach that vanishes almost as soon as it was revealed. Which, for some reason, my mind registers as a shame.
God, my brain really is going off the rails here.
He just looks so…different. Different from how he looked in the sloppy version of this outfit he was wearing a few minutes ago. Different from how he looked when we were kids. Different from the buttoned up, over-dressed teacher I see but can’t talk to every damn school day.
It’s not that any one of those Charlies isn’t pretty, but like this? It’s like this is the real him.
And then my thoughts skid to a halt.
Pretty?
Shoving aside that bizarre brain glitch to join the earlier adorable one, and, if I’m honest with myself, a whole slew of others from over the last few weeks I’m apparently racking up, I force my eyes up to where they belong. On his face.
Fuck, I’m nervous. That’s the only explanation for what’s going on with me. I’ve missed him—his friendship—so damn much that I’m losing my grip on normalcy and focusing in on weird details about him that are beyond irrelevant.
He’d said something though. What had he said?
“I don’t want you giving up your Saturday—”
Right. He’d said I don’t have to do this.
“I want to,” I cut across him. “I want to help you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His smile only makes me feel the things it does because I’m so damn glad to be the one that’s put it there.
“Well then,” his hand lands on his hip, and once again, when he checks it out to the side, there’s that little sliver of skin just below the hem of his sweatshirt.
He’s the picture of confidence, and after how he’s been ever since that first day he literally bolted at the mere sight of me, it’s a mindfuck.
Until, “Let me make you dinner to say thank you? I mean, if you…want?”
All that confidence drained out of him as he’d ground to a halt over those last words.
It’s not that Charlie’s ever fake, but he is good at putting on a show. Which, now that he’s cracked and I’ve seen through it, it’s obvious that is exactly what this is. A show.
Inside, he’s sweating and second guessing just as bad as I am.
That realization’s all it takes to flip off the switch of my nerves.
Because it’s always been like that with the two of us.
We’ve always traded off who’s the strong one for the other.
Right now, even if this is a one off and we go straight back to keeping to our separate worlds after today, Charlie needs me.