Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
CHARLIE
Nobody should look that cute covered in baby powder and cobwebs— nobody.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to stay away from Alice. But it only takes a few hours and one after-work text from Lydia for me to give in.
Lydia: Tyler has to work late. Should we teach Alice how to walk the walk?
Charlie: It’s a third Tuesday tradition—I think we have to.
Town hall is packed when we show up, the same way it is every first and third Tuesday of the month. A crowd mills around outside, but Lydia and I both know it’s going to be so much worse once we get through those doors. That’s half the fun.
“Cake walk bingo?”
Alice reads the sign out front before giving me a curious glance. There’s a tiny baby powder thumbprint above her left temple, and I resist the urge to brush it away. Then I give in.
Desperate guys don’t let perfect girls wear baby powder.
Staying away from her is impossible. Not when I can still remember what it felt like to wrap my arms around Alice in that haunted attic. Brushing my fingertips lightly across her temple, I try not to linger.
“Baby powder,” I explain, and she thanks me, her voice soft and sweet under the downtown streetlights.
As soon as I pull my hand away, my fingers itch to touch her again, but I force myself to behave. Already, Lydia is watching us too closely. She’s holding back a smile with everything she’s got, and I clear my throat as I glance at the bingo sign.
“Cake walk bingo is a time-honored Ponderosa Falls tradition—at least for the past five years. We used to play regular bingo, but it didn’t work out.”
I can see the next question waiting in her eyes— how does regular bingo not work out? —but the bouncer at the table by the door doesn’t give her a chance to ask.
Nora Jean Andrews taps her clipboard. “I don’t know if I can let you in, Roscoe. The sign says Pondie Bingo Night”—she gives Lydia and Alice a pointed glance—“but your arm candy doesn’t look like it’s from around here.”
My arm candy?
Lydia almost goes feral. She’s one of the nicest people I know unless you cross her, and fire sparks in her eyes. She’s carrying a coconut cream pie she made a few nights ago, and I can see the exact moment she considers pelting Nora Jean with it.
Carefully, like I’m diffusing a bomb, I lift the pie out of Lydia’s hands. A homemade dessert should never be wasted. Not even to destroy your enemies.
Nora Jean was my middle school P.E. teacher. She loves a good power trip, and keeping people out of bingo is her ultimate thrill. But tonight’s donations benefit our local youth sports league, and she loves that cause even more. Which means I need to speak her language, and I need to speak it fast.
Balancing that pie in one hand, I pull out the money I brought for tonight. It’s more than triple the suggested entry fee for the three of us—enough to buy at least fifteen extra bingo cards—and I wave it over the donation jar. Nora Jean’s eyes sparkle.
“I don’t know, Coach Andrews. They might not be from around here, but their foreign money spends just like ours. Imagine that.”
She chuckles and waves us in. It’s bingo time.
Our town hall isn’t giant, but the wall-to-wall crowd inside is still impressive. Almost everyone is from Ponderosa Falls, and a lot of them are grandmothers or retirees—but not everyone. Cake walk bingo became a cult classic with the younger crowd last year. After it made the news for a food fight that broke out over a tie in the last round. Because even after we switched from regular bingo, even when we made sure all the proceeds went to charity and there were no prizes whatsoever, some people around here still can’t control themselves.
And it wasn’t me.
The instigator of that food fight is sitting at my usual table with the rest of the Old Birds, and I duck my head when I greet her. Shielding my face with my hands like she might pelt me with a brownie at any moment. “Hey there, Henrietta. Are you ready to play nice tonight? Or do we need to call the cops in advance?”
You’re one to talk, Roscoe.
That’s what she’s probably thinking. Thanks to that cop comment, I’ve given her all the ammunition she needs to annihilate me in front of Alice. Henrietta glances at me over the top of her gold-rimmed glasses, eyebrows raised, but she doesn’t deal any low blows. She’s pretty great that way. All the Old Birds are.
Besides, that woman only fights dirty when bingo’s involved.
Instead of making any jabs about me and the cops, Henrietta growls, crouching protectively over her row of bingo cards. But I’m ninety-seven percent sure she’s joking.
“Don’t worry,” another Old Bird, Dottie, assures me. “I patted her down for sharp objects when I picked her up. Then we sedated her with tacos. We should be good to go—unless it’s a full moon.”
Henrietta rolls her eyes. “I threw one brownie at that food fight. One. Don’t hate the bingo player, hate the bingo game.”
She conveniently leaves out the best part: the food fight wasn’t her first offense. Henrietta is the reason we had to switch to cake walk bingo in the first place, and I fill Alice in as Lydia drops her pie off up front. Explaining how competitive Henrietta got when real cash prizes were involved. How many fistfights she tried to start with sweet old ladies in the name of bingo.
“Don’t you people ever let anything go?” Henrietta grumbles, and the other Old Birds squawk with delight. Especially Edna Finch.
Leaning back in her chair, my favorite Old Bird folds her arms over her chest and tells Henrietta the same thing she always tells me. The simple truth that has dogged me since I got sober at fifteen.
“Small towns have long memories.”
Edna’s not wrong. The last time I got in trouble in Ponderosa Falls was at her house eight years ago. Yet glancing around, you’d think it was yesterday. The fact that I’m vying for a job at our only elementary school makes it worse. How am I going to get hired if even the sweet old ladies in town don’t like me?
Everywhere I look, they’re eyeing me suspiciously. More than usual, actually. I can’t figure out why until a dozen book-club ladies sit down at our table, their gazes fixed on Alice.
Has Charlie been treating you okay? they ask—right in front of me. Has he tried anything?
Are they serious? I barely talk to Alice. I won’t even let myself call her Carrots, not even when I really want to. Not when that nickname is on the tip of my tongue, and I’m pretty sure she wants me to.
I’m making real sacrifices over here. A little credit would be nice.
Lydia defends my honor. “We’re having a great time, aren’t we, Alice? Charlie’s such a good host.”
Alice nods. “It’s been great!”
Her voice is a few decibels too loud now that all eyes are on her. Too energetic and cheerful. As if Super Happy Alice is her go-to move when she’s nervous, and I really wish I didn’t find that so adorable.
Pressing my lips into a hard line, I try not to smile, but the Old Birds notice my reaction. They notice everything. Thankfully, the next round of bingo starts, and everyone’s focus shifts to the numbers being announced. Except Alice.
She’s sitting between Lydia and me, and she gives my knee a playful bump under the table. Like she knows those women were being hard on me, and she’s trying to make me feel better.
I don’t look over.
I can’t.
If I learned anything in that attic today, it’s that little moves lead to big moves when it comes to Alice. One second, you’re standing politely by her side, calmly rescuing her from the creepiest baby doll this world has ever known. Then you’re holding her tight against your body, and you can’t catch your breath. Because she almost died in that attic, and part of you feels like it almost died too.
So I don’t look over. Alice bumps my knee to make me feel better, and I pretend it didn’t happen. That I don’t love and appreciate that perfect tiny gesture.
Ignoring her almost kills me. Then my phone buzzes with a text. Because I gave that woman my number—like a fool.
Alice: Thanks again for letting me stay with you. You’ve been so good to me—a perfect gentleman.
That might be the sweetest text that’s ever been written. I know it’s the nicest one I’ve ever received.
No problem, Carrots. My fingers beg me to type those words, but I can’t. I won’t. Forcing myself to leave off the nickname at the end, I text my response.
Then I bump her knee with mine. I can’t help myself.
Someone across the room yells bingo a few minutes later, and Henrietta growls in defeat. There are a million things the women at my table could talk about while we wait for the next round, but we end up where we started. The land of whispered warnings and suspicious glances.
Edna doesn’t stick up for me; I don’t want her to. We both know we aren’t going to change anyone’s mind—it’s been eight years. People either like me, or they don’t.
Dottie can’t help herself, though. She’s the heart and soul of the Old Birds. Being sweet while accidentally ruining lives is kind of her specialty.
“Well, I think Charlie’s a catch. If Alice is lucky, maybe all this forced proximity will lead to something good. You know what they say…”
Yes, I do know what they say. We all know what they say. But if she thinks I’m going to let her recite our town’s favorite love slogan, think again .
Before I can stop her, Alice does the dirty work for me. Jumping in, she tries to save the day—while also jamming a knife between my ribs. “It’s not like that,” she stammers. “We’re not—it’s not—I just got out of a relationship, and Charlie’s great but?—”
That poor girl isn’t cut out for this. I bump her knee playfully under the table to help settle her nerves, and she jumps. Eyes frantic, her words leap back on track. Like a record that’s finished skipping and can finally play the rest of the song.
“He’s not really my type.”
There it is.
I knew that already. I’ve seen Alice’s ex, and I’ve read her books. I know what her type is, and it’s not me.
But hearing her say it out loud still stings. Her confession is soft and kind, yet there’s no nice way to hear a thing like that from a girl you can't stop thinking about. Sweet rejections are still rejections.
Alice glances up at me, her face apologetic, and I do the only thing I can. The only thing a guy like me can ever do when his dream girl announces she doesn’t like him.
I lean back in my chair with an apologetic shrug of my own. Unleashing an easy grin that’s never done me wrong. “It’s fine. You aren’t really my type, either.”
That’s a lie, but I have no intention of telling the truth just to make Alice feel bad about not liking me. Her week has been hard enough. My job is to make sure she has the best writing retreat she can, that she never regrets staying at my house.
Then it’s my job to send her home and forget how cute her freckles are. And her smile.
“Isn’t that perfect?” Alice says brightly, still stammering a little as she addresses the group. “I’m not his type, he’s not my type…”
More tiny knives slide between my ribs, but I do a pretty good job of hiding it. At least I think I do. Until I notice the look on Edna’s face and realize she knows everything .
I need damage control, and I need it fast. But then the town hall doors swing open, and a nightmare descends over bingo.
We have visitors.