18. Charlie #3
Noah: That’s random. Are you gonna draw on my face again?
Charlie: Lol no, but I’m home alone.
Noah: Oh?
Charlie: Wanna come over?
Noah: And do what?
Charlie: Pick up where we left off. You’re a good kisser
Noah: Oh yeah? Where you at?
I’m breathing so hard on the screen it’s fogging up. I type in my address, watching the icon show me he’s typing.
Noah: Fifteen minutes
Fifteen minutes. Oh my god he’s going to come over.
I run my hands over my legs and feel them prickle.
Blood rushes to my heart, and I realize I didn’t think this through.
I’m in pink pajama shorts, a skimpy lace cami top with no bra.
My hair is in a messy bun, and I need to shave.
I sniff my armpits, and praise the Lord I put on deodorant after my shower.
I scoot my butt off my bed in a panic, barge into the bathroom, and fling open the cupboards. I start rampaging through the plastic bins of nail polish, scented lotions and soaps, desperately searching for a razor. I drag everything to the bathroom floor, and nothing.
I slam the door shut and jerk out one of the counter drawers, but with too much force.
The whole drawer slides off the tracks and falls to the floor with a loud thud.
A jolt of white-hot-agony shot up my foot.
It hit my toe. “Fuck me!” I grasp my foot, massaging it as I hop up and down to keep my balance.
My heartbeat pulsates in my toenails. “Pull yourself together, Charlotte!” I yell at myself.
I gather all the hair ties, the tweezers, and combs scattered all over the floor and cram them into the dismantled drawer and shove it back on the tracks to close it. I search the other drawers, and there isn't a single razor.
I’m trembling all over and make a break for it down the hallway to my mom’s room. The shaving cream and her electric razor sing like the holy grail. I take a deep breath. This isn’t disgusting whatsoever. It’s just my legs. I tiptoe over as if she’s sleeping in bed and grab it.
I sit on the edge of her bathtub, big enough to seat two people.
I run the water, and lather the shaving cream, and shave my legs until they're silky smooth. Checking the clock, I have seven minutes and ten seconds. I race back to my bathroom, yanking my hair out of the bun, running a comb through my long tangled hair until it’s decent.
I swish a mouthful of mouthwash, and lather half a bottle of strawberry vanilla scented lotion on every square inch of skin I have exposed.
I’m ready just in time. There’s a light knock at the front door. I should make him wait thirty seconds, but I breathe out four seconds and slam open the door with the widest smile on my face.
“Hey...” I unlock the screen door and step out onto the patio.
“Hi, you look...” I pat and stroke my hair down.
“You’re...” I chuckle. I can’t get it out of my mouth.
He’s gorgeous. A beanie is halfway fitted on his head.
His hands are relaxed in his slim black cargo joggers, and he’s pulling off the high-top Converse.
I think I’m drooling, and I have no idea why I find him gorgeous in a simple jean jacket and plain grey shirt.
“You good?” he asks.
“Yeah, come in.” I plant my back against the door, and he presses his lips together in a toothless smile and steps in.
As I close the door, he’s staring at the living room with only the outlines of furniture that used to be there, and the impressions of sofa legs.
There are holes in the wall where the television was mounted.
The only furniture in the living room is a coffee table littered with water stains and paintings leaning against the wall.
We ordered some futons, but they haven’t arrived yet.
“Are you moving?”
“Hmm... no, but my dad did.”
“Oh... umm...I see.”
“Come with me.” I grab one of his fingers and drag him down the hallway and away from family drama I don’t need to hurt his ears with.
I bring him to my room, which is mostly picked up.
I have a pile of dirty clothes hanging next to an overflowing laundry basket.
Shirts hang out of my dresser drawers, and I think there are crumbs of hot Cheetos on my mattress.
But he doesn’t seem to care about any of those.
He takes three large steps to my cheerleading trophies neatly placed on shelves.
There are pictures of me too, all starting at the age of five.
He picks one up, his thumb rubbing off the layer of dust.
“This is you?” he asks, waving the photo, and my heart pitter-patters in my throat as he’s admiring me before I had braces and in my gap-tooth glory days.
“Yeah, I’ve been cheering forever.” I plant myself on the edge of my unmade bed, and dig my nails into my light pink sheets. “My mom got me into it early. Most of my afternoons were spent doing gymnastics and dance classes.” A nervous chuckle escapes my lips.
“I wish I had a collection like this.” He places the picture back in the same spot and grabs another.
“My mother always promised to get me into Jiu-jitsu. She’d tell me she signed me up and all she’d had to do was pay for the lessons but...
” He pauses, then turns the picture to me, and it's one of the photos we took as an entire group after winning the competition. “It’s you and your friend, I don’t remember her name.
” He points a finger at us, hugging each other with the biggest grins.
“That’s Payton.”
“Right. How old were you?”
I climb off the bed and glance at it. “Ew, those were my weird middle school years when I looked funny.”
“You don’t look funny, you’re...” he stops himself and my heart erupts in my chest for a split second.
His dark brown eyes softened. I notice the little stumbles of hair growing along his chin, and there are patches along the side of his face and upper lip.
“You’re beautiful in all of these.” He places the pictures back.
“Why didn’t you get to do Jiu-Jitsu?” I ask.
He pulls his beanie off his head, and with a frail smile he says, “I just didn’t have it all that easy, I guess... but this is a pretty cool collection. Maybe I can come see you perform sometime.”
He’s entirely vague on the answer and quick to redirect the conversation to focus on me. “We have a pool. Do you want to go swimming?” I ask, fluttering my eyelashes. “We can make mac-and-cheese.”
“Oh, well, if I’d known, I would have brought my trunks.”
“You don’t need swim trunks.” I leap onto my bed, running across it to my door. “It’s pitch black out. Let’s just go skinny-dipping.”
He chews on his bottom lip as he maneuvers around my mini messes scattered on the floor. I realize he towers over me, placing his hands back into his pockets. His eyes are filled with desire, or he’s sleepy with how heavy his eyelids are.
“Let’s just take this slow.” He leans in, and my lungs are invaded with his spicy cedarwood aroma.
“I don’t want to.”
“We are taking it slow. Do you have a deck of cards? Maybe we can play a game instead.”
My heart gets caught up in my throat, and I chew on the dead skin of my bottom lip. “Yeah, I have a deck.” I open up my nightstand drawer, pawing through the dozens of old cell phone chargers. Then, I find the beaten-up deck of cards and wave them at him.
“What’s that?” Noah points to a journal that was covered with all of the chargers. It was my leather brown one with shiny golden edges and the little velvet string to help mark my place.
“Nothing, just a notebook.” I close the drawer, but he snaps his fingers.
“Is that your diary?” he presses with a light laugh.
“No!” I clench down on the deck of cards. “Let's just play a game like you said.”
“Nah, I wanna see your diary.” He reaches over for the drawer, and I try grasping his wrist, but he pries open the drawer pulling it out.
It’s definitely a beaten up one. He sits back on the bed, opening it and flipping through the pages.
I mentally want to crawl into a hole as I’ve never let anyone set eyes on one of those.
“What are you writing here?” He licks the tips of his fingers before turning a couple of pages.
“I used to write some songs. There are some poems and stuff in there.”
“Little Miss Trouble writing music?” he asks and I attempt to snatch the notebook out of his hand. “Nuh uh. I wanna see.”
I fall forward on the bed, faceplanting into a pillow. God he’s going to read my old high school writing adventures from when I was a freshman.
“Your lips never turn, your brown eyes drifting past mine, my want stays for you.” He turns the page, his head tilting a bit. “Forever searching, I want it to be him, kiss me one last time...” He pauses the pages turning. “You're pretty good, a little hopeless romantic I see.”
“Give me that!” I slap the deck of cards on the bed, reaching for my notebook, but he extends his arm out.
“Okay, okay one more and I’ll give it back... and we will play a game.”
“Fine...”
His eyes soften and I’m swallowing the large lump in my throat.
“A Dirty Chorus?” he asks, his eyes glued to the paper.
“Yeah, we’ve been off-key for ages, but I hear you in the sounds, and in every broken lyric – you’re the one I’ve written down.
” He attempts to hum it, nodding his head as if he's trying to come up with a beat to it. “This is good. You wrote this?”
“It’s just a stupid song!” I pry the notebook from his fingers, pulling open the drawer and stuffing it back in.
“It was just some dumb thing I wrote at the beginning of my freshman year, and figured I’d give it to a guy one day when I fell in love and stuff.
” The chargers and cords get all tangled up and the damn thing won’t close.
I huff, tossing the notebook on the nightstand before shutting the drawer.
“Did you give the song to anyone yet?”
I grab the deck of cards, and start pulling them out of the box. “No, I haven’t. It was just a silly thing I did.”