12. Charlie
He couldn’t stop thinking about her jaw beneath his fingertips.
The weight room was remarkably quiet at six a.m. In the corner Wyatt racked dumbbells, lifting alone the way he had since the bar. The kid straightened when Charlie and Grant walked in.
“Hey.” Wyatt scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I keep meaning to say it right. The bar. I should’ve lost my scholarship, my spot, all of it. I didn’t.” He held Charlie’s gaze, then lost it. “That’s you. And whatever it’s costing you, I’m not stupid. I know that part’s mine too.”
Charlie had a true answer and a usable one, and his father had trained him young to know the difference. He gave Wyatt the usable one. “He started it. You were protecting me.”
“Doesn’t change what you did.”
“It’s handled.” Charlie gripped the kid’s shoulder once and let go before Wyatt could make it into more than that. “Go warm up. You’re guarding that left shoulder.”
Wyatt almost pushed it. Then he collected his towel and left.
Grant slapped Wyatt’s back on the way by and dropped his bag by the bench. Charlie added another plate to the barbell and positioned himself beneath it. Just him and Grant now, and the clang of iron. Exactly the way he liked it.
Except his mind wasn’t on the workout. His mind was in a dark office, Skylar’s hand in his, her breath catching as he touched her face.
The curve of her jaw warm beneath his fingers.
Softer than he’d expected. He’d meant to tilt her chin up, nothing more, but then her lips had parted and his brain had gone completely offline.
“You’re distracted.” Grant stood behind the bench, hands ready to spot. “You’ve been staring at that bar like it could break your heart.”
“I’m focusing.”
“You’re somewhere else.” Grant raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps with a woman with dark hair and a black dress?”
Charlie gripped the bar and lifted. The weight settled into his palms, familiar and grounding. He lowered it to his chest, pushed up. Lowered. Pushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” Grant huffed. “So you and Skylar didn’t disappear for twenty minutes last night. And you didn’t come back looking like a truck had hit you.”
Charlie racked the bar. Sat up. “We were talking.”
“Talking.” Grant handed him a towel. “And?”
And I almost kissed her. And she looked at me like she could see straight through every wall I’ve ever built. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
“And nothing.” Charlie wiped his face.
Grant didn’t push. He just waited, letting the silence do the work.
“The game yesterday was solid,” Charlie said, changing the subject. “Defense really stepped up in the second half.”
“Don’t deflect.”
“I’m not deflecting. I’m discussing our victory.” Charlie stood and moved to the squat rack. “If we keep playing like that, we’ve got a real shot at the championship.”
“We do.” Grant loaded plates onto the bar. “And yet here you are. Two weeks post-Poppy, no rebound in sight.” He flipped the lock. “That’s not like you.”
Charlie positioned himself under the weight. “Maybe I’ll try being single for a while.”
Grant crossed his arms and let the quiet ring.
Charlie pushed up. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I want you to admit Skylar is different.”
Charlie racked the bar. His chest was tight, and not from the workout. “Skylar and I are partners for a class project. That’s it.”
“Sure.” Grant grabbed his water bottle. “And the promotional deal where you play fake couple for the Dean? That’s just homework too?”
Before Charlie could respond, his phone buzzed on the bench. He grabbed it, expecting Brennan’s name. Instead: Mom.
The photo showed her on a sunlit terrace, holding up a watercolor, the blues bleeding into each other, hinting at waves. Her hair was loose and wavy and she was smiling. Gone was the careful smile she used to wear at the clubhouse or dinner parties. This one reached her eyes.
Mom:
Tempting you with a view of the Mediterranean. Say you’ll come to Italy for Christmas.
Charlie stared at the screen. His father expected him in Las Vegas over the holidays. A week of car shows, handshakes, and performing for dealers while Brennan critiqued his posture between photo ops.
His mother offered him the ocean.
He typed before he could talk himself out of it.
Charlie:
Might be able to make that work.
He hit send and watched the message deliver. The knot behind his sternum loosened. Warmth flooded in to fill the space, and his next breath came without effort.
Was it a lie if he wanted it to be true?
Between the extra practice on Wednesday night and sessions reviewing game tapes, Charlie didn’t see Skylar until he walked into the breakout session on Thursday.
At the sight of her dark hair falling over her ancient laptop, Charlie’s shoulders dropped.
He took his usual seat beside her, sliding a bottle of water her way. “Thought you could use this.”
She glanced up. In the early afternoon light, her eyes contained a hint of green in the mostly dark irises. She was tired but content. The muscles in his shoulder blades loosened. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Did you get paid yet?”
“Checked my bank account this morning. Five hundred dollars, just like the Dean promised.”
“Good.” Her laptop fan whirred loud enough that he could hear it from his seat. “Maybe put some of it toward a new laptop?”
The teaching assistant rapped on the desk, drawing the class’s attention. “Before we get started I want to mention an opportunity.” He clicked to a new slide. “The Lighthouse Fellowship for Young Writers is accepting submissions through mid-November.”
Charlie’s fingers froze above his keyboard.
“Winners receive a cash prize, publication in their annual anthology, and a mentorship with an established author over the summer.” The TA pushed his glasses up his nose. “I think several of you should consider submitting.”
Skylar turned and raised her eyebrows at Charlie.
For one unguarded second, he let himself imagine it. His name in print. A stranger on a train cracking open an anthology and reading his words, understanding exactly what he meant.
Then his father’s reprimand cut through. A football player winning a writing prize? Don’t be ridiculous. Writers are dreamers, not strong like athletes. Focus on what matters.
Charlie dropped his gaze to his laptop and tapped his thumb against the rim of the keyboard.
“Now.” The TA clapped his hands. “Let’s hear from the students that didn’t read last week about their moment of change.” He nodded at Skylar. “Want to start us off?”
Skylar read about the first time she picked up her mother’s camera.
She described the weight of it in her hands, the way the viewfinder turned the world into a series of frames, each one a choice about what to keep and what to leave out.
She’d spent an entire afternoon photographing her grandmother’s garden, filling a memory card on roses and bees and the light coming through the fence slats.
Her tone was confident and light.
But the gaps in her story were wide enough to walk through.
She didn’t mention why that moment mattered, or whose camera it had been before it was hers.
The piece was polished and specific and completely safe.
A door opened just wide enough for the reader to peer through, then firmly closed before they could step inside.
Charlie recognized the technique. He’d used it himself in last weeks, rewriting his “Moment of Change” three times until every splinter of the day he left for Thorndale was sanded smooth to hopeful moments or running to something instead of away from someone.
Both of their submissions said here is a piece of me, but not the complete picture. A carefully selected fragment that looked like honesty but cost nothing.
Others read. Charlie tried to focus, but his attention kept drifting to Skylar’s hand, her unpolished nails and the memory of her long fingers warm in his.
“Assignment two.” The TA called his attention. “A character sketch of a real person in your life. Focus on specificity, on the details that make them singular. Avoid clichés. Dig beneath the surface.”
Charlie’s fingers brushed over his keyboard, but he wasn’t taking notes. He was watching Skylar’s shoulders, the way she leaned forward when she was interested, the strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail.
“Remember, work with your critique partners to polish the piece.” The TA shoved his laptop into his leather bag.
More time with Skylar, reading her words. Of letting her read his.
The thought terrified him.
The thought thrilled him.
As she finished packing her bag, he stood. “Coffee?”
She looked up. The gold flecks in her eyes caught the light. “Are you asking or telling?”
“Asking. We could talk about the assignment.” He shouldered his bag. “Come on. My treat.”
“Charlie—”
“It’s a coffee and a muffin, Skylar. You can pay next time.”
“Fine,” she said finally. “You buy the coffee. I’ll buy the muffins.”
“Deal.”
The campus café was small and crowded, filled with students hunched over laptops and textbooks. They found a table near the window, autumn light slanting across the worn wooden surface.
Charlie set down two coffees. Skylar returned from the counter with two blueberry muffins.
“So.” She pulled apart her muffin, not meeting his eyes. “Someone you know. Any ideas?”
“A few.” He wrapped his hands around his cup, absorbing the warmth. “You?”
“Maybe.” She popped a piece of muffin into her mouth. “Perhaps Frank. Or Rosa.”
“That would be good. You see them clearly.”
“I see everyone clearly.” She looked up, and her gaze sharpened, turning assessing.
Her gaze stayed on him, patient and probing, and part of him wanted to lean into it, to let her look as long as she wanted, to be known for the first time in his life.
But another part—the part that had watched his father tear his mother apart with words, the part that recognized the same cold anger coiled in his own chest—that part screamed danger.
What might she see if he let her look? The anger he kept buried? The fear that one day he’d open his mouth and hear Brennan? The way he wanted to reach across this table and touch her face again?
He couldn’t let her get close. She’d eventually see the parts of him that were his father’s son.
So he did what he always did when things got serious. “The fellowship.” He changed the subject. “You should submit something.”
Skylar’s eyebrows rose. “Me?”
“Your work is good. Better than good.”
“I take photos, Charlie. I don’t write.”
“You’re in a creative writing class.”
“To fulfill a requirement. Not because I have any delusions about being a writer.” She picked at her muffin. “But what about you?”
A real laugh, surprised out of him. “Yeah, right. My father would love that.”
“Forget about your father.” She waved a hand. “Do it for yourself.”
Forget about his father. The words rang hollow.
She had no idea what forgetting about Brennan Carnell would require.
The man had a gravitational pull that warped everything around him, bending light and truth until only his version remained.
Charlie had spent over a decade learning to survive that pull.
“Let’s be realistic. The people who win those things are serious writers. English majors. MFA candidates. Not quarterbacks with secret phone novels.”
“The best writing comes from real things.” She held his gaze. “Your words. From our first conversation in class.”
She remembered. Warmth curled low in his stomach, equal parts pleasure and warning, and he had to look away. A few weeks of knowing her wasn’t enough time to feel this undone by a simple observation.
Yet here he was, unraveling.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. He wouldn’t.
“You should.” She drained the last of her coffee.
Heat spread behind his ribs, slow and persistent. Women flirted with him. Women wanted him. But none of them had ever looked at him like he was capable of more than throwing a football and smiling for cameras.
Skylar looked at him like his words mattered. That terrified him more than any attraction ever could.
Her phone chimed and she glanced at the screen. “I need to get to class.”
“Photojournalism?”
“We’re brainstorming ideas for the documentary project.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “The theme is academic life, and I have no idea what to pitch. The library isn’t exactly thrilling subject matter.”
“What about football?” Charlie stood and gathered the empty cups. “I could get you behind-the-scenes access. You can take photos of practice, locker room prep, the stuff the public doesn’t see.”
She hesitated.
“You’re already attending events. I can talk to Coach. Get you cleared.”
“You’d do that?”
“Consider it payback for letting me crash your diner shift.” He smiled, and her gaze dropped to his mouth.
“That was one time.”
“One very long time.” He held the door to the café open for her. “I’ll text you when it’s sorted.”
They walked out into the autumn afternoon, leaves crunching under their feet. Halfway across the quad, their paths diverged.
“Charlie.” Skylar stopped, turning to face him. “About the fellowship. I meant what I said. You’re good. You should let other people see that.”
Let other people see. As if it were that simple. As if he hadn’t spent his entire life learning to hide.