Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
ALICE
I open the door slowly. Inside, the shed is well lit, but it takes my eyes a second to adjust. For my brain to understand what I’m looking at.
Charlie is seated at a small workbench with a hooded exhaust fan overhead. He’s wearing what looks like sunglasses to protect his eyes, and the room is abnormally hot, his t-shirt sleeves pushed up over the muscular curve of his shoulders. The hard angles of his arms gleam under the shed lights, highlighting his tattoos.
In front of him, a boxy contraption emits a steady blue flame, like a short, table-mounted blowtorch. He’s using the flame to shape something out of glass. There’s a figure fixed to the end of a thin clear rod, and he twists it around in the fire to keep it warm while he works, sculpting it slowly, methodically. The figure is small, no bigger than a baby’s fist, and it isn’t until he holds it up to inspect it that I realize it’s a small glass raccoon.
He uses an array of metal tools on the table to shape it. Long thin tweezers, shears, and something else that looks like a tiny paddle or spatula. There are other tools around him too that I don’t recognize, and I get lost watching Charlie work. Watching him create something out of nothing.
When I was a kid, I saw a glassblowing demonstration, but this is different. Glassblowing is big and expressive, physical. It’s like a dance. What Charlie’s doing is quieter and more focused. It feels like watching someone build a ship in a bottle, every movement small and precise.
I don’t know how long it takes him to notice me. When he does, he smiles from his workbench, and it feels like sunshine.
I hover in the open doorway as he keeps working. Shaping the raccoon’s ears, he uses tweezers to pull off extra glass in long thin ribbons that stretch like taffy. When he’s finished, he inspects the piece again, making a few more adjustments before transferring his raccoon to a nearby kiln and switching off his flame. As if he’s done for the night.
I hate that I interrupted him, that maybe I’m the reason he stopped. Though when I apologize, he promises he was finished.
“What were you making?”
He shrugs as he takes off his sunglasses, his expression almost bashful. “I was working on a surprise for my mom—a Christmas ornament. She’s got a thing for raccoons. Her new husband runs a wildlife rehab center, and they fell in love while bottle feeding some orphaned kits last year.”
That might be the sweetest raccoon story I’ve ever heard. Completely swoon-worthy.
“What about you?” he asks. “Why are you up so late?”
I don’t want to tell him. My sister’s news is weighing heavy on my heart, but the last thing I need right now is pity. As he glances at me, Charlie’s eyes gleam, his mood playful, and something selfish inside me doesn’t want that to change.
“I couldn’t sleep.” I hold up my phone. “So I called my mom.”
“No writing tonight?”
Writing?
My face falls. Out of all the things I don’t want to talk about, my long-suffering novel is pretty high on my list. Charlie can tell something’s wrong. I shake my head, and he gets ready to ask a follow-up question, so I change the subject before he can.
“When did you learn to make things out of glass?”
“I went to rehab when I was younger,” he admits. “When I got out, I needed a new hobby. Something that wouldn’t get me in trouble.”
Rehab?
That word sounds heavier at night when you’re alone with someone. It’s a confession that sinks in slowly. After he says that, silence stretches between us like molten glass. I don’t think he’s going to let that silence break, but he does.
“My AA sponsor runs the glassblowing collective in town, and one of the members is a flameworker. I got hooked pretty fast.” He taps the metal contraption on the table. The one that reminds me of a modified blowtorch. “There’s no life like torch life.”
If he has more to say, he lets it fade. I should go, so he can clean up his workbench in peace, but I’m not ready to leave that room. Not ready to leave him. There’s something peaceful about that moment alone with Charlie. The mood between us is quieter than usual, as soft as moonlight.
So I don’t leave. I make a mistake instead.
I glance around that tiny shed full of supplies, at his kiln and his torch and his wall of thin glass rods that are organized by color, and I say the wrong thing. “You’re full of surprises, Blythe.”
Charlie almost smiles—almost. Then he glances away.
“You have no idea, Kilpatrick.”
My heart sinks. I’m not sure why I did that to him—or me. I knew he didn’t want to call me Carrots anymore. He’s been avoiding that nickname all day.
Jason used to say I always took things too far. That I never understood when something wasn’t fun or funny anymore. And I guess he was right.
I pause for a moment of silence, bidding farewell to the best nickname I’ve ever had. As I let it go, I promise myself I’m never going to call that poor man Blythe again. Not even if I really want to.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asks, and his hazel eyes search my face.
I nod before glancing away. There’s a little shelf of finished projects by the door, and I examine them while I wait. Everything Charlie makes is so small and intricate, so whimsical. Most of his tiny sculptures are woodland animals—foxes or squirrels or chipmunks, a snail on a mushroom—but they all have something in common. Besides being cute.
Each one has the same ring of glass perched on top somewhere. Perfect for a metal hook or a loop of ribbon.
“You like making Christmas ornaments?”
He shrugs.
That isn’t really an answer, but it’s fine. I get it. There are plenty of things I don’t want to talk about tonight, either.
I start to turn away, but then one of those ornaments catches my eye. I gesture to it as I glance at Charlie. “Is that Cookie?”
Lydia’s beloved dachshund looks adorable made out of glass. Charlie put him in a green holiday sweater, and he’s wearing reindeer antlers with little colorful Christmas lights strung over them. It’s probably the best ornament I’ve ever seen.
Charlie’s eyes soften. “I made that for Lydia. Do you think she’ll like it?”
His voice is gentle when he says that. So soft it makes me shiver. Out of nowhere, something pulls in my chest, a wire or a string, and it squeezes all the air out of my lungs. I have no idea why.
“She’ll love it,” I tell him. And it’s true.
Charlie is always so thoughtful when it comes to Lydia, and this is no different. Who wouldn’t love an adorable ornament that looks like their dog? I’ve seen the other bedroom at his house too, the one he sleeps in now that he gave the good room to Lydia. It’s a crumbling mess, nowhere near renovated, but Charlie switched with her anyway. He made sure Lydia was taken care of.
One of those gestures alone would make anyone pause—the nice bedroom or the handmade ornament. But both of them together? Does Charlie have feelings for Lydia?
They clearly aren’t a couple yet, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings for each other. That falling in love isn’t right around the corner.
Across the shed, Charlie likes my response—me telling him she’ll love that ornament. He gives me an easy grin, his hazel eyes sparkling, and it’s a real one-two punch. My stomach flutters, but my heart aches.
I ignore both sensations. Neither makes sense.
“You should sculpt more dachshunds,” I say brightly. Too brightly. “That should be your thing.”
My smile is even brighter than my voice, but inside, my stomach is churning—although it really shouldn’t be. I like Lydia, and I like that Charlie likes Lydia; I’m happy for them. He’s a great guy, and he’s not my type. Why wouldn’t I be happy for them?
Yet no matter how many times I say that to myself, the feeling inside me won’t go away. Charlie finishes cleaning up, joining me in the doorway as he turns off the lights, and when he glances at me, my heart aches again.
“You ready, Kilpatrick?”
I nod, my smile holding steady as that new nickname breaks my heart a little more. Even if it shouldn’t.
Even if we don’t know each other well enough for nicknames, and I hope Lydia and Charlie live happily ever after.