CHAPTER 19 Rowan
CHAPTER 19
Rowan
A fter Charlie leaves for work, I call Xavier.
“Rowan! How’s it going?” I can hear him chewing Big Red gum.
I smile. He’s one of the few people who is always happy to hear from me. This is why I keep him around. “Around” meaning wherever the hell he is. Right now, I think that’s San Francisco. “Hey, just wanted to let you know the address where I’m staying.”
“You move again?” X’s chair squeaks in the background as he likely shifts to take down the information.
“Yep.”
“Shoot it to me.”
I give him Charlie’s address.
“Who are you living with? Another crappy roommate?” I don’t blame X for being suspicious. My choices in roommates haven’t been great. Even before Floyd, I lived in whatever rooms I could afford. Sometimes the people were decent, sometimes I never saw them, but sometimes it was bad—even worse than Floyd—and I needed to get out.
Feels like I’ve come a long way when I can tell my best friend, “No, I’m living with the hot guy I have a crush on. It’s awesome. Charlie’s really grumpy, and I make him smile. He buys me food. He takes care of me. He’s just … everything.”
“You sound like you’re in love.” Xavier sounds wistful.
In love? Am I in love with Charlie? “I wish. It can’t happen, though. He doesn’t want someone like me. Not long term, at least.” I’ve never had anyone want me permanently. I’m not sure I ever will.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me so.” I’m still going over his words when he dropped me off that first day, although things have changed since then. He told me he broke up with the guy he was seeing—not that they were together enough to break up. But he hasn’t told me he wants to be my daddy. Or, you know, date me. Yes, he’s letting me stay here, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve stayed in lots of places temporarily.
X interrupts my thoughts with, “Are you fucking him?”
I snort. “Sheesh. Blunt.”
“Well?”
“Yeah. And it’s really good.”
“Must be nice,” X says dreamily.
“You’re still a virgin?”
“Yeah. Change the subject.”
Since he and I have discussed his status ad nauseam, I oblige. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m going to be going to Albrecht College next fall.”
“Really? That’s cool.” It’s a small school—and expensive. “Where’d you get the money for that?”
“Scholarship. For tuition and room and board and books and supplies. But I still need more money. I don’t want to take out student loans. At some point, I hope all this hacking work is going to pay off.”
“You’re going to kick ass in college,” I say fondly.
I can imagine his cheeks reddening. “Okay, can we change subjects again? Any new news on the DNA front? ”
“Nope. It’s just as much of a dead end as always. I’ve accepted that I’m not related to anyone in the whole world. Which is impossible, but whatever.”
“I’ve looked for you on other DNA websites, and again, there’s just nothing,” he says. “Not even on the deleted sites. And I’ve searched for Rowan Jones?—”
“That’s pointless. First because Jones is such a common name, but mostly because who knows if it’s even my name at all,” I say. “Fat lot of good my birth certificate is. Mother: unknown. Father: unknown. Goddamn unknown.”
I try to tell myself that all those unknowns mean freedom: I can be anything I want to be. But at the same time, I feel so untethered. Like there’s nothing holding me to this world. I have no connections.
And it all seems like something’s not adding up. Someone somewhere must want to claim me. Right?
“Maybe someday you’ll get answers,” X says. Unlike me, X knows who his family is. He’s just better off without them.
“Or maybe my parentage is always going to be a mystery. I wonder if I’ll get to meet Charlie’s parents. I think they’re local—he said he grew up in the Valley. Of course, he’s a lawyer, so I’m sure he’s super busy. Maybe he doesn’t see them very often. And it’s soon for meeting the family, isn’t it. Or … maybe he’s ashamed of me and wouldn’t want them to know about me.”
“Is he like that?” X’s voice has gone sharp.
“No,” I tell him. “I’m being whiny and needy and insecure, and that’s not fair to him. Charlie seems pretty open with his feelings. I know that when he’s being nice, it’s because he wants to be. It’s because he likes me. He’s not trying to manipulate me. He just … likes me.”
“That’s cool. But yes, topic change, did you get your car back?”
“Yep. I’ll need to start doing rides again soon. I’m a little traumatized from my car being stolen, though. ”
“That’s understandable. I traced the account you sent me—Pierce.”
I perk up. “You’ve found him?”
“No, it’s a dead end. Let me keep researching.”
“Thanks. I trust you.”
“So for now are you just eating bonbons and watching TV?”
I laugh. “I haven’t had time yet. I’d do some stuff around the house, except that Charlie’s house is already so clean that there isn’t much to do. It’s also completely devoid of personality, but I don’t feel right about changing things. He should decorate this place how he sees fit. Not me.”
“Oh, god. Don’t cook for him.”
I snort-laugh. A little while after I say goodbye to X, someone knocks on the front door. I look through the peephole and see it’s the guy in the Adidas jacket.
No, thank you. I don’t want any.
For the rest of the day, I pace. I start snooping in Charlie’s office, which is as neat and barren as the rest of his house. But I open a desk drawer, and there’s a sketchbook in it.
I’d be invading his privacy if I were to open it, and I’m so damn tempted. But does Charlie have a secret, or maybe not so secret, artistic side? I suspect he made the coffee mugs we use. He likes to make videos. I wouldn’t surprise me if he drew or painted, as well. I leave it alone but resolve to ask him about his artistic tendencies at some point.
Still, all day it feels like I’m being watched. What the hell? Tracksuit dude isn’t here. I’m imagining things.
When Charlie gets home, it’s like the world has opened up again. I throw my arms around him and jump up into his arms. He catches me easily. I want to gobble him up, and I kiss him hard, tugging on his necktie to free him from it.
“Before it gets too dark, let’s go see if we can find Wilbur,” he says between kisses.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot to do that,” I say, wriggling so he’ll put me down. “I’m the worst plant dad ever.”
“Nah, I’m sure you have a lot on your mind. But we shouldn’t wait too long, or we’ll never find him.”
My heart starts beating for someone else for the first time. He’s not making fun of my fixation on my plant. More than that—he’s willing to drive the better part of an hour, each way, after working all day, to help me look for something seemingly unimportant that we probably won’t be able to find. I bite my lower lip to keep it from trembling and square my shoulders. “I have no idea why I’ve become so,” I wave my hands, “when I’m around you. I’m used to putting myself behind a big wall so no one can see that things get to me. Even when things were total crap in the group homes when I was a kid, I didn’t cry.” I look up at the ceiling. “Much. Definitely not when I got older.”
“You can feel bad about missing a plant. Especially one with as much emotional significance as this one has.” He wraps me up in his enveloping arms again, and it’s like I’m one with him.
“Enough,” I say, once I’m too hugged. “I can’t feel all these feelings.”
“Come on.” He kisses the top of my head. “Let me change my clothes and grab some supplies, and then let’s go.”
He fills a backpack with snacks, water, flashlights, and jackets, and then we get in his car and retrace our route from the night we met. We go up the coast, past the Thai place he took me to.
“That’s my new favorite restaurant,” I blurt.
“Yeah?”
“That was the best-tasting food I’ve ever had.” I pause. “And more importantly, the best company.”
He gives me as long a look as he can without running us off the road, then turns his focus back to driving. “I liked the company, too,” he says quietly. “I must be a weirdo.”
“That makes two of us!”
We get to the end of the beachfront mansions in Malibu and reach the part of the highway that’s ocean on one side and mostly hills on the other.
“Aww, this is where we met!” I chirp.
He chuckles. “Fond memories of the scene of the crime?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, how far did you walk to get to here?”
I shrug. “The pickup was by the campground before Mugu Rock.”
Charlie enters it into his GPS. “You walked eleven miles .”
“Fuck, I thought it was far.” I shrug. “Marathoners would think I’m a wimp, but I’m not used to walking like that. And certainly not without a phone or jacket or anything.”
He hands me a bottle of water, as if I’m dehydrated again just from being here. I don’t know why Charlie takes such good care of me, but he does. And I’ll be schmoopy about that, I guess.
“And they went north after they took your car?”
“Yeah.” My voice is husky. “I don’t like reliving it.”
Charlie looks over at me. “I imagine not. Sorry. But I don’t know how else to figure out where they might have gone.”
We don’t talk much as we drive the eleven miles, just listening to the radio station Charlie has on. “Is this the kind of music you like?” I ask after a while.
He nods. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering.”
“I get that it’s kind of basic. I like it anyway. What do you like?”
“Metal and bubble gum pop.” He goes to change the station, but I put a hand on his. “Leave it,” I say.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, Daddy. I wanna make you happy.”
He groans and keeps driving.
When we get to the entrance to the campground, I say quietly, “Pull over.”
He does .
Ugh. This place. Bad vibes all around. Even in the dark, Charlie’s headlights illuminate where they stole my car. “I’m not surprised the box is gone,” I mutter.
“What box?”
“They tricked me into getting out of the car by having this big cardboard box. So I went to help them put it in the trunk. It was just a ruse—the box was empty. Anyway, I forgot to turn off the engine, so that was my mistake.”
He shakes his head. “No one plans on bad shit happening.”
“Still. I should’ve known better. It feels like it was my fault for being so trusting.”
“I’d rather you be trusting than not,” Charlie says. “Or, at least, that you trust the right people.”
“I do trust you.”
Charlie gives me a soft look. “Thanks.”
I’m getting too much in my feels, yet again. I clear my throat. “So, from here,” I say, pointing around the bend, “they took off north.”
“Where in the car was your plant?”
“Over the passenger seat.”
He thinks for a moment. “Okay, if the driver chucked it while he was driving, the natural thing would be to throw it out his window. Which would mean it would’ve ended up in the middle of the road and is likely long gone.”
My heart is in my throat. Over a plant. I’m a sap. “God, that would suck.”
“But you said there was a guy in the back seat, too?” He looks at me questioningly, and I nod. “He could’ve taken it and tossed it out the passenger side so he could sit up front.” He scrubs his face. “Let’s walk up the road a bit and see if we find anything.” He gets the flashlights out of his backpack and hands one to me, and we get out of his car.
I note he turns it off and takes the keys. Smarter than me. Though I suppose I won’t make that mistake twice .
We walk along the side of the road, flashing our lights here and there, trying to see down into any dips to where Wilbur might be lying in a ditch. After we walk a ways, we go back to the car and Charlie drives us up past where we were, then parks on the side of the road. And we repeat. We’re walking in the dirt, getting blinded when cars go past us, coming across trash and debris, but no Wilbur.
Charlie’s intent on helping me find my fifteen-year-old plant. He’s not laughing at me or complaining. Just walking next to me, doing whatever he can to support me.
So, yeah. Just like that, in a roadside ditch, I fall in love with Charlie Cooper. Who else would take me to do something like this because he didn’t want me to come alone or wait until the weekend when he’d be off work—and not even make fun of me?
Charlie’s the best. I’ll show him how much I care about him when we get home.