Chapter 14 #3
True to his word, I barely had time to answer one text before Charlie walked out of the building again with a pink shimmery backpack slung over one shoulder and holding hands with a young girl.
It had been a while since I’d seen any of the younger Owen kids, but I would have recognized Flo anywhere—she was a mini version of Penny, right down to her long brown hair and sparkle in her eye.
Flo was talking animatedly, gesturing with her free hand, and Charlie was smiling down at her, seeming enraptured by her story.
“All right, here we go,” Charlie said as he opened the back door for Flo. She climbed in clumsily and pulled her seatbelt on.
“Who are you?” she demanded when she noticed me.
“That’s my friend, Madison,” Charlie said. “You’ve met her before. She’s Matthew’s sister.”
“Oh,” Flo said, voice laced with suspicion. Charlie chuckled and winked at me, then closed her door and circled back over to get in the driver’s seat. “Is she coming home with us?”
“No,” Charlie said. “I’m just driving her home.”
“Why?”
“Because she needs someone to drive her home from work.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t have a car.”
“Why?”
Charlie sighed and looked at me. “Sorry. She does this a lot.”
“No need to be sorry,” I said. “It’s cute.”
“Do you work with my brother?” Flo asked.
“Why, yes, I do,” I said. “Actually, I work with your sister too.”
“Which sister?”
I glanced at Charlie warily, scared of answering wrong. “Don’t you only have one?”
Flo frowned at me for a long second before she finally nodded seriously. “Okay. You pass.”
“I pass?”
She nodded again. “You can date my brother.”
Charlie coughed loudly. “Flo, you can’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not?”
“You just… can’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“We can talk about this later.” Charlie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, then looked forward again. I pretended not to notice the blush on his face as I turned to smirk out the window. If only she knew.
My phone buzzed from where it was sitting in the cupholder and I pulled it out.
Violet
Hey I’m at Jaxon’s place if you want to come over
I can get him to pick you up if you need
“Everything okay?” Charlie asked.
“Hm? Oh, yeah. Uh, actually, you don’t need to drive me home.”
Charlie frowned. “We’re already halfway there. I’m not just going to dump you on the street.”
I laughed, especially as I thought of all the times that Matthew had done that to me. Who knew his best friend was so much more chivalrous?
“You can just drive to your place. My best friend’s dating your neighbour, so I’m just going over to his house.”
“No kidding. Which friend?”
“Violet Evers. You’ve probably seen her at my place.”
“Red hair, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So she and Jaxon finally got together.” He tapped his hands against the steering wheel a couple of times. “Huh. I wondered if I would ever see the day.”
“We all did.” It was funny how many people had been invested in the idea of Jaxon finally wooing Violet. All of us who knew them both could see that they would be great together, but it took a while for Violet to get on board with that idea.
Madison
All good, don’t need a ride. I’ll be there in five!
“What’s your name?” Flo asked me as we all got out of the car in their driveway.
“I already told you, Flo,” Charlie said. “This is Madison.”
She looked at me suspiciously and put her hands on her hips. “Is that true?”
I giggled at the serious look on her face. In her world, Charlie telling her the wrong name was a very serious offense.
“Yes, it’s true,” I said. I knelt down so I was at the same height as her. “I’m Madison McKinnon.”
She narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly. “I’m Florence Owen.”
I was pretty sure I’d never heard anyone use her full name before so I was a little surprised to hear it from her.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, even though we’d met multiple times before. I couldn’t reasonably expect a kid to remember everybody she met, especially when I was just the younger sister of her brother’s best friend. “Am I allowed to call you Flo or is only your brother allowed to call you that?”
“My friends call me Flo,” she said. She didn’t follow up any more than that, so I looked up at Charlie for clarification.
He was watching us with a fond look on his face, the same one he had whenever he talked about his younger siblings.
He was no help to me, though, as he just shrugged. I looked at Flo again.
“Am I your friend?” I asked. I felt a little stupid and insecure asking it like that, but Flo didn’t seem to mind.
“I guess so. But you have to be nicer than the last girl he dated.”
Charlie made a strangled sound and tried to grab Flo’s hand to take her inside, but I held out a hand to stop him. I was curious to hear what she was going to say.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “What was she like?”
Flo looked at Charlie, then scooted closer to me. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t like her. She was mean.”
“I promise I’m nicer than her,” I whispered back. I was assuming we were talking about Courtney here because I couldn’t imagine that Charlie would date anyone else that mean. The fact that he and Courtney even managed for a week was a miracle.
“You’re prettier too,” Flo said. “He has good taste.”
Charlie made that same strangled sound again. “Flo, who taught you to say that?”
She blinked innocently. “I heard Elliot say it to Penny.”
Charlie muttered something under his breath about killing his brother, and Flo giggled. Charlie grabbed her hand, this time without me interfering.
“Come on, I think Penny made you a snack.” He looked at me. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Flo slipped her hand out of Charlie’s and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Bye Madison! It was nice to meet you.”
I hugged her back. “It was nice to meet you too, sweetie.”
She let go and happily skipped off to the house with Charlie at her side, waving at me once more before going inside. I stood up and groaned as I felt the stretch in my legs.
“I’m getting too old for this,” I muttered. All of eighteen years old and I couldn’t even kneel on the ground without my knees aching.
“You sound like a grandma,” Charlie said. I spun around quickly. I hadn’t heard him come outside.
“As long as I don’t look like one,” I shot back. Charlie grinned and closed the gap between us. His arms circled around me as he pulled me in for a deep kiss. My limbs felt like they were turning to Jell-o as I sank into his arms.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” he murmured.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Our job doesn’t exactly provide privacy.”
“Oh, yeah.” I sighed. “That.”
Any other year, it would be fine. We could sneak a kiss on our lunch break or in the hall between classes.
But with Courtney as our boss, it was impossible.
I didn’t even want to consider what she might do if she realized we were together, because I was sure she had a thousand ways she could make my life a living hell.
“Thanks for being so nice to Flo,” Charlie said. “I know she can say some… interesting stuff sometimes.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. No worse than I’d heard from the young children I’d taught. “And of course I’m going to be nice to her. Who wouldn’t be?”
Charlie sighed and looked off to the side.
I wondered exactly what Flo meant when she’d said that Courtney wasn’t nice.
Had she been rude to Flo and the other kids?
If she had been, I was sure that was the catalyst for their breakup.
I couldn’t imagine any universe where Charlie would stand by while anyone was mean to his siblings, let alone if that person was his girlfriend.
He loved his brothers and sisters more than anything in the world.
“Regardless,” Charlie said, “you’re really great with her.”
“I think sometimes you forget that I work with kids,” I said. I glanced at the house. “Besides… she means so much to you. I want her to like me.”
“Careful, Mads,” he said. His hand found mine and we interlocked fingers. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were starting to care.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said even as a smile broke on my face. “We both know I don’t get emotionally invested when dating.”
Charlie leaned down, his face only inches from mine. “Do we?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.