37. Noah
Noah
Trouble: I’m really sorry about my brother. Please text me back.
Trouble: Noah, can you at least tell me you got home okay?
Trouble: Please tell me you're okay.
Missed Call Trouble (7) 4:21am
Trouble: I’m really sorry. He usually isn’t that ridiculous.
Trouble: Do you hate me?
Trouble: Please, please please write me back.
Trouble: Tell me what I did wrong.
Missed Call Trouble (5) 10:01am
Trouble: I couldn’t even sleep last night. Did you make it home?
Trouble: I really really like you. I dunno if I can handle losing you too. Please.
Trouble: What will it take for me to get you to write me back. Another sharpie?
Missed Call Trouble (6) 12:15pm
My stomach collapsed to the floor, shattering the second the doorbell jingled and she walked in. Trouble and her little sidekick, Payton. Maybe I should've answered her, but I’ve never seen notifications like that on my phone before. We stand five feet apart with her friend eyeballing us.
I don’t need this. Not today. Not after her ex attempted to assault me with his little posse and then her brother pinned me against a wall. Man, that has to be a personal record, right? I should get a loyalty card. Get jumped five times, and your sixth concussion is free.
I have customers strolling in and out of the store, and I’m already embarrassed enough that I have black trash bags in all corners of the store and display cases tipped over.
On top of that I’ve been lying to Gramps all morning about the mess down here, and he’s poking the end of his walking cane on the black bags peeking to look at what I’m throwing away.
“I didn’t think you’d swing by. Is your brother going to come in here too?” I ask Charlie and I know for a fact I’m being a dick.
“Look...” She huffs, biting her bottom lip. “You can’t be mad at me for him being an overprotective asshole.”
Payton's eyeballs are bouncing left to right like a ping pong ball.
“I really don’t want to talk in front of your friend,” I say with gritted teeth. Charlie gives me a pained look. She blinks a few times, and the whites in her eyes redden as if she’s holding back tears.
Payton presses her lips together and flashes an uneasy smile as she walks backward, pointing a thumb to another section of the store.
“I’ll just...” she says, and she merely stumbles into another rack of CD’s.
“Check out another section.” She nervously laughs and scurries off with a hand covering her face.
“I only came to that party for you. You can’t lead me on just to get back at your ex.”
“That’s not what I did!” she bites back.
“That’s bullshit,” I say harsher than I mean for it to come out. “I played your stupid game, and when it came down to it, you don’t want more with me. I should've known better. I’m not the type of guy who’s good enough for you.”
“That’s not true... I do.”
I catch her friend eyeballing, and when I glance in her direction she turns on her heel, and starts skimming through the CD cases.
“I feel like you don’t want more with me. You're using me to get back at him. I can’t do this. You get on me about drugs, but you’re smoking weed. You stole booze last night. What the hell, Charlie? You’ve been hounding my phone all day and you show up here knowing I have to run the store.”
“I do like you.” She’s trembling now, her shoulders shaking. “I like you more than anything,” she whispers.
“Then actually let go of that guy and be with me. I’m not pretending. I like you... a lot.”
“I know...” Her eyes glisten and she bats her lashes a million times. “I’m sorry for everything. You wouldn’t return any of my calls,” Charlie throws her palms down, biting her front teeth on her lip. Her eyes scanned my face for something.
“I get it, but you gotta look at it from my side.” I lift up my palms and let out a huff with the word.
She dips her head to the side, her feet tapping a mile a minute on the carpet. “I didn’t know Ryder was going to barge in like that.” She twiddles her fingers, glancing down at them.
“That’s barely the problem,” I say and reach for her upper arm and grasp it, stroking it with a thumb.
“What do you mean? You ran off.” She shakes her head, keeping her gaze at her feet. “You always run off. Why? What is so wrong with me?”
I let it off my chest, exhaling a deep breath. “Look, your ex-boyfriend came storming in here yesterday, threatening me and wrecking several items in the store. Him and his little football posse.”
Charlie’s eyebrows crunch together, her thick lashes blink as if she doesn’t understand what I said. “He did what?”
“When I watched how this game unfolded, you were so angry at him. I feel like you used me to get back at him and I’m just here letting you drag me around on this fucking crazy-ass ride.
” I stroke her arm with a hand, and when I release my grip, she reaches for my hand, taking her fingers in mine.
“Once your brother stormed into the room, and I left, I looked for Omen... and ended up seeing you fighting with Brody downstairs. I...” I bite my bottom lip holding in the pain lodged in my chest. “I feel like you’re messing with my head.
I’m not some football star. I just don’t know where this is going.
I don’t want to hurt you... but I can’t see this working in the direction it’s going. ”
“I don’t want a football player. I want you.” She shakes her head, her pretty grey eyes sparkling like daisies glimmer. “He was giving me shit for being with you. I just want to move on from him.”
She wants me?
“Fuck, Charlie. This shit has to stop. No more parties, no pot, no stealing. I can’t deal with that and then you telling me...”
“Telling you what?”
“I swear you told me that you...”
I pause. She said she loved me. But I could have been hallucinating.
The entire room was a hotbox of weed, and the secondhand smoke got my heart rate pumping.
But she said something to me, and I don’t use those words.
I have no idea what the definition is. I refuse to spell it out or put it on paper, but the second I see Charlie, my heart of stone is being chiseled away, and it’s turning into pure throbbing flesh. I can’t, I fucking can’t feel this way.
She rubs her upper arms. “I’m sorry... I guess I should go.” She pulls away from my grip and crosses her arms.
“Here...” I pat down my pockets, pulling out two tickets I snagged for a concert we were booked at. “The band has a chance of getting scouted. You should come.” I hand them to her, but before I can say anything else, Payton struts back over waving a CD in her hand.
“I found something,” Payton chuckles with a big toothy grin.
I chat with them for a few more minutes about Gramps and the band, stirring the conversation away from last night’s dumpster fire.
I ring up Payton and her items, and when I hand back her change, my heart is twenty times more brittle than it was before.
As they both make their way to the exit, Charlie glances back at me, a pretty little face that’s hard for me to erase from my memory.
Her cute button nose, her rosy cheeks, and those swollen lips, all of it has me messed up.