23. ~ James ~
CHAPTER 23
~ James ~
T he three of us walked through the tall weeds of Char’s empty lot toward the metal-sided warehouse, and I was glad she’d asked me along. The former owner no longer had keys for the doors that faced the street, and Char was hoping we could get in from the back.
Near the warehouse’s foundation, years of packed down garbage had clogged the life out of anything that had tried to grow close to it. There was flaked-off paint, rust, holes and loose panels that clanged in the breeze like a slow morse coder. The sun lowered in the sky, and I felt like this was somewhere we shouldn’t be.
But the most troubling was Char. There were no signals that last Wednesday’s passionate kisses were something she wanted to repeat. In fact, she kept eyeing me as though she wasn’t sure about me and where we stood.
How could she not be sure? How could I have made myself any more clear? I’d introduced her to my parents and kissed her as if our lives depended on it. Did she need me to lay it all out for her?
And yet, if I did that, I was afraid I’d scare her off.
She was frustratingly impossible, and all I wanted was her.
Samantha checked her suede shoes for marks or mud stains for approximately the fiftieth time, and I wondered why she was here. Was she a requested buffer to be slid between me and Char?
I hoped not.
“Eleven weeks,” Char muttered to herself as she wiggled the key in the rusty padlock on the warehouse’ back door, unable to budge the seized inner mechanisms.
That was how much time she’d allowed herself to tear this building down and beautify the lots. Hopefully, our look around inside didn’t reveal any obstacles to her tight tear-down plan.
“We can get a lock cutter tomorrow.” Samantha was already retracing her earlier steps toward the street.
“Where’s my fairy godmother when you need her?” Char muttered, jamming the key into the lock again.
Her love of fairies tickled me. “Do girls ever outgrow that phase?”
“What phase?” Char pulled the key back out of the lock and tried blowing into it in case loose debris was the problem. I resisted the urge to reach around her and try my hand at it.
“When I’m a dad, I hope my daughter goes through a fairy phase.” I could see a little girl, so like Char. Whimsical and fun, happy and strong.
“Don’t have daughters. We’re a never-ending nightmare of headaches,” Samantha said. “Just ask my dad.”
Char gave up on the door and turned to me with a dreamy expression. Maybe she was imagining the same thing I was. Me as a dad, holding our little girl in a fairy princess dress as I flew her through the air, running around the living room, chasing Char.
She likely wasn’t imagining that. In fact, I didn’t even know where her head was at these days. And as for me, I was constantly putting the cart before the horse with her. When my ex had shared her future family fantasies, I’d become uncomfortable, but with Char I was the one with my head in the clouds.
“Can we go now?” Samantha had stopped to wait for us, and she brushed invisible muck from her shoes.
Unwilling to call it quits in case Char decided to come back here on her own, I reached around her, giving the lock a firm yank that shook the entire door. I stepped back, peering around the side of the building, and down the narrow space between the warehouse and the brick structure next door.
“We can get in down here.” Part way down the wall, I spied a bent, loose piece of siding that might serve as an entrance.
“Nope. I’m gone.” Samantha turned and left.
Maybe she wasn’t here to act as a buffer between me and Char, after all. At least now maybe I’d get some answers as to why Char was acting standoffish.
Char followed me as we squeezed our way between the two buildings. She knocked on the metal siding as we shimmied. “I found a scrap company that’ll take this away and recycle it.”
“Smart.” Free removal, and the crew got whatever the siding was worth at the reclaimers. Win-win.
At the hole in the wall, we bent at the waist, peering inside, one after the other. It was dark compared to outside, the odd shaft of light making its way in through holes in the roof.
“Let me go first. Make sure it’s safe,” I said, crouching beside Char and holding an arm in front of her in case she decided to get the jump on me and squeeze through first. There was no way I was letting her in before me, and I quickly angled my frame through the opening. The warehouse smelled of old motor oil and dirt.
Char followed, stopping short as her eyes adjusted to the faint light. “Oh, no. People are living in here. That’s got to be bad karma if I oust them.”
I eyed the weathered sleeping bags laid out on the dirt floor. I lifted a few of the beds, sending clouds of dust into the air. “I think they’ve all moved on. My mom said the Salvation Army was working hard in this neighbourhood last year to home the homeless.”
“Thank goodness,” Char said. “I’m trying to solve problems, not create new ones, and tearing down someone’s shelter would be seriously uncool.”
“Yeah.” I moved back to her side, as though wanting to take in the building from her point of view and allowed my knuckles to brush hers, watching her from the corner of my eye. I admired Char. Not just her heart, but the way she was willing to pour it into this self-led community project.
A slight pink flashed across her cheeks at my touch, as if she was feeling shy. We stood beside each other for a moment, eyes adjusting to the building’s shadowy light as we took in details. Anything of value had been stripped from the walls a long time ago, including any plumbing, fixtures, or electrical. The warehouse’s frame was wood, not steel, which should mean an easy takedown. Oddly, though, there was nothing between us and the outer metal siding. No insulation, which was weird for Canada. Then again, maybe the inner panelling and insulation had been stripped out, too.
Across the warehouse, some wooden steps led up to a small room with a door. The upper level didn’t even cover an eighth of the building’s footprint, and I wondered if it was an old office.
Char shivered beside me.
“You okay?” I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss her, but the signals she’d been giving me suggested she needed me to slow it down. It felt like that was all I’d been doing since the day I’d met her, and being patient was becoming a genuine struggle.
“I’m fine. Just thinking how much work this’ll be.” She rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait to get started.”
I took in the dimly lit open space and the giant doors on the other side of the room. “Does this place make you think of a movie set?”
“You mean where the bad guys come ripping in on motorcycles or in black SUVs to make an arms deal or to do a hostage swap?” She turned to me with a grin, knowing I was visualizing the same thing. I wanted to scoop a hand through her hair and draw her toward me and kiss those smiling lips.
“Yeah,” I said, unable to look away from her mouth.
She shivered again and turned to leave. I grabbed her arm, not yet ready to leave the old building. There was still more to explore, more moments to spend together. I angled my chin toward the steps on the other side of the room. “What do you think’s up there?”
Char’s eyes lit up, and a thrum of adventure rumbled through us like a connection.
“Empty office?” she asked, finally meeting my eyes like she used to.
“Boring storage?” I replied dryly.
She laughed. “Okay. Fine. How about important and valuable historical documents?”
“Old journals or diaries?”
“Mysteries and gold?”
“Now you’re talking!” Grabbing her hand, I dragged her across the packed dirt floor—another win, no concrete pad to bust up—and over to the steps. I kept holding her hand, not wanting to be the first to let go.
Had she simply been too shy to express her affection in front of Samantha? Or were we just taking one step back after last week’s sudden jump from friends, to friends who kiss like lovers?
And did it matter? I had her with me right now, her smooth hand in mine.
“I think we’ve watched too many movies,” I admitted as we started up the wooden steps to the second level, which really was just a sliver of space tacked up near the roof and had most likely been cleared out a long time ago.
“No such thing as too many!” she said. “Imagine if we find something! It’ll be like living in Jumanji or Indiana Jones . Or even The Mummy or Lost City !”
“Do I know that last one?”
“Featuring Sandra Bullock.”
“Oh, yeah. That was cute. My mom rented it.”
Yes, I watched rom-coms with my mom. They made me laugh and feel good. Plus, it made my mom happy.
Char clung tighter to my hand. The poor lighting and the open wood steps with no railing were clearly making her uneasy. “What if the upper landing is rotted and we fall through?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” I needed to see what was behind that door. My inner child had been released, and was fully in charge of checking out the abandoned building. If there had been windows and rocks, I’d surely be the first to break them just for the sheer joy of it.
Yeah, I liked rom-coms, but I also really liked smashing stuff.
“Death isn’t an adventure,” Char chided. “Neither is being alive, but with severely broken legs and a crippled spine.”
I chuckled and slowed down, tightening my grip on her hand when she flinched as a few pigeons fluttered from a rafter.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded, keeping her attention on the steps, and her shoulder against the solid wall to her right.
At the top, I surveyed the warehouse from our perch.
“Aren’t you dizzy?” she asked.
“Why?”
“No railings! We’re up high. You could accidentally fall off, landing on the hard, stained dirt below like so many people before us. Look at all those stains! There are more of them near these railing-less steps.”
She was holding my hand with both of hers now.
I chuckled. “Those are shadows, Char.”
She pressed closer to the wall while I tried the door. “Locked.” I stepped back, my right hand still in Char’s, debating whether I could kick in the door. That would be fun. Really fun.
As I stepped back from the door, I could see through the thick dust that nobody had been up here in a very long time.
“You’re not worried you’ll lose your balance, and then your footing, and then your life?” Her tone was dramatic, but it failed to mask her discomfort. She was gently pulling me closer, away from the platform’s edge. “One, two, three, gone.”
I focused on her and the endearing concern she had for me. Then I dropped a light kiss on her lips. She didn’t pull back, sending fire and happiness through my veins.