Chapter 18
The following day was Andrea’s only day off of the week, which meant it was just Charlie and Felicity at the centre.
It’ll be fine, Felicity told herself as she dumped her stuff in the staff room. She could handle this. She was a grown-up, right? So long as no actual handling went on, everything would be fine. Now, where was that boy?
‘Charlie?’ she said tentatively into the corridor.
‘In here,’ came a voice from Andrea’s office.
‘What are you doing in there? No stealing shit.’
‘Would I?’
‘Or setting fire to shit.’
‘Come on. What do you take me for?’
‘What are you doing then?’ said Felicity. She rounded the corner and then let out a little scream. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Standing before her was Charlie, leaning on the edge of Andrea’s desk, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. His tanned chest was smooth and firm and muscled and Felicity tried not to stare.
‘Charlie,’ she said as firmly as she could manage in the circumstances. ‘Put your clothes on at once.’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t want a piece of this?’ Charlie waved a hand down his body, a wide grin plastered on his face.
Felicity tried to remain indignant. ‘I most definitely do not.’
Charlie stood up, and moved closer to her, swaying seductively, not remotely put off by the fact she now had her hands over her eyes.
‘Put some clothes on, what are you playing at?’ She tried to sound light-hearted. Nonchalant. Carefree, even. And failed.
Nearly-naked Charlie continued towards her, not even perturbed when she started humming to herself and rocking back and forth to block out the sight of his approaching bare chest and dangerously-defined six-pack.
‘Put it away. I mean it,’ said Felicity, her voice getting more and more high-pitched.
Charlie smiled lazily. ‘Come on, Felicity, you’ve been giving me the come-on for weeks.’
‘I most certainly have not.’
‘You have. You kept my rabbit and everything.’
Felicity had to resist the urge to laugh. Bless him. It was kind of sweet. ‘You left me that… thing?’
‘Of course I did. Made it myself,’ he said proudly. His eyes were on her lips now. They were inches apart.
‘Will you stop that?’ she snapped.
‘What?’ he said innocently, moving his head towards hers. Felicity took a step back, breathing heavily. His cheeky lopsided grin was dangerously attractive but mostly she just felt absolutely baffled to find herself in this situation.
There was only one thing for it. Felicity put her hands over her eyes again. ‘Charlie. Put your clothes back on right now,’ she said in the loudest and firmest voice she could muster. ‘Or I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
He stopped moving towards her. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Deadly.’
‘Oh, man.’ She felt rather than saw Charlie turn abruptly to the side. Felicity turned her head to the right and opened her fingers just in time to see his perfectly formed arse in his boxers as he bent to gather his clothes.
‘Oh my God, my eyes,’ exclaimed Felicity, no longer even pretending she wasn’t looking.
‘But I thought… I’m so sorry. I…’
‘Just go and get dressed. I can’t talk to you about this while you’re… like that.’
‘I’m going, I’m going,’ Charlie shouted frantically, retreating down the corridor, clutching his clothes against him.
‘In fact, Charlie, I don’t think I can talk to you about this at all at the moment. Why don’t you go home? I can handle things here today. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
Charlie stopped and turned towards her, looking so sad that Felicity’s heart twisted in her chest. He was a good lad deep down, she felt sure of it, and she hated being responsible for that face. ‘Aw, Felicity, at least let me stay and help you.’
Be firm. ‘No. I think you need to leave. Thank you.’ Her cheeks were burning, partly with fury and partly with mortification. At least, that’s what she told herself.
Charlie disappeared and came out of the staff room a few minutes later, fully dressed and looking sheepish.
‘You won’t…?’ he said as he came towards her, forehead still wrinkled into a frown.
‘What?’
‘Tell Andrea? Or James?’
Felicity laughed then. ‘Oh, no. Don’t you worry about that. James definitely doesn’t need to know any of this.’ She was turning the handle to the front door now, thinking, James is getting told the minute I get home.
‘Thanks,’ said Charlie, huffing a sigh of relief.
‘I mean, I probably should.’
‘Do you think he’s gonna wanna smack me about?’
‘Yes, most likely. At the very least. Wouldn’t you?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I s’pose so. Is he quite violent then, your fella?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough I imagine.’
‘Oh, please don’t tell him. I said I was sorry.’
‘You probably should have thought of that before you decided to do… whatever this was.’
‘I know but…’
‘Bye then,’ said Felicity, ushering him towards the exit.
‘Bye…’ came his plaintive little voice as she slammed the door behind him.
Her heart lurched as she turned back into the centre.
How did she always get herself into these pickles?
For some reason that she couldn’t quite name, Felicity didn’t tell James at all in the end, which, as it turned out, was a bit of a mistake.