Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
CHARLIE
Spotted:
A very sweet moment at the top of Four Pines Peak.
It seems our visiting author isn’t just writing a romance while she’s in town. She might be living one too…
In the morning, Alice’s phone is still buried in a bag of rice, Tyler keeps dozing off at his laptop, and Lydia is making vengeance pancakes for breakfast that look a lot like raccoons. Last night was quite the night.
Lydia especially is in a rare mood. Even showing her the video I took last night doesn’t cheer her up, and she usually loves stuff like that. Apparently, mischievous animal videos are a little less cute when it happens in your own backyard.
Cookie isn’t faring much better. That’s who I really feel sorry for. He’s whimpering in the kitchen by Lydia’s feet while she makes pancakes, and he’s curled up with the saddest dog toy I’ve ever seen. A prairie-style doll Lydia made out of an old dish towel, like she’d been possessed by the ghost of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Maybe I’m a little tired after staying out too late at my mom’s, but I’m doing all right. Way better than Lydia and Cookie—at least until the Old Birds show up.
The house is empty except for me when they arrive. Alice is writing at the general store, the Sharp twins are both at work, and I’m about to borrow Tyler’s car to drive to my shift at our local glassblowing hot shop when I realize they’re waiting on my front stoop. I’m almost happy to see them until I realize how somber they look—the Old Birds are never somber.
An odd sensation pinches in my stomach when nobody says anything. When they glance at each other and can’t decide who should speak first. This can’t be good.
“We need to talk,” Henrietta says, and Dottie nods, giving me a gentle smile without a hint of arsenic.
“Why don’t you step outside to get a little fresh air,” she coos. “A nice dose of Mother Nature can do a world of good.”
Uh-oh.
I’m not sure why Dottie’s talking like that, or giving me that look. As if she’s everyone’s favorite preschool teacher, or she’s about to lead story time at the library. But there has never been a more clear sign of the apocalypse. Sending a plague of locusts would’ve been more subtle.
Honestly, if they weren’t all standing in front of me, I’d think one of them had died. That’s how serious they look. I step outside with Tyler’s car keys gripped in my hand, and they still don’t know what to say.
All three of them hesitate before Edna does the honors. She holds up the latest scandal sheet, wincing a little. Even though that kiss I had with Alice got a glowing, five-Hallmark-star review.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with you two—what’s fake and what isn’t. But she might not be as over her ex as we thought. And we just wanted you to know.”
Henrietta steels herself and goes next. “Word on the street is she and Jason are still texting each other. Apparently, he got in a big argument with his new girlfriend about it late last night.”
How late?
That’s what I really want to know. If his new girl caught him texting Alice, was it when we got home from Four Pines Peak, an apology for everything that happened in the gondola? Or was it later than that, more intimate than that? Is this why she was looking at her phone when I spotted her outside in the yard?
“Then I saw her this morning with my own eyes,” Dottie chimes in. “While I was out for a walk with Harold before he left to play golf. She was on the front porch at the bed-and-breakfast—but I couldn’t tell if she was coming or going.”
She was at the bed-and-breakfast?
That hits me harder than it should. Alice is a free agent—she isn’t mine. She can go wherever she wants, but Dottie’s words sink in my stomach anyway, as heavy as a bag of rocks.
I force a smile. Because nothing bothers Charlie Roscoe…not that I’d ever admit, anyway. “It’s fine,” I tell them. “Thanks for letting me know, but it’s no big deal. Everything between us was fake. She was just trying to help me revamp my reputation.”
They smile and nod like they’re my three kindhearted grandmothers. Like they’re always in my corner, and they’ll be here whenever I need them.
But that doesn’t mean they believe me.
I make it through my entire shift in the hot shop like a professional. We got a new setup at the wilderness resort last year, and I do everything I can to make the tourists happy. Leading glassblowing workshops and running demonstrations like the well-adjusted adult that I am.
Then the last tourist leaves, and I collapse on the concrete floor. Not well-adjusted at all.
“What’s with you today?” Raven Lake-Myers nudges me with the toe of her shoe.
This is the first time I’ve seen her since she caught me crouched outside the main lodge in those lilac bushes. When we heard Alice’s boyfriend breaking up with her, and we knew we had to do something to help. Usually, I love working with my honorary spooky older sister, and today is no different. Even if my life is on fire.
Instead of answering her, I moan. Pitifully. Taking full advantage of my role as Everybody’s Little Brother.
One of the other members of our glassblowing collective, Mark, also nudges me with his shoe. Getting me right in the ribs. “You got the flu? Because it looks like you’ve got the flu.”
I do not.
This is worse than the flu. It’s even worse than being nudged in the ribs by my honorary uncle Mark. A man who always play-kicks a little too hard.
I moan again, even more pathetically. Because these are my people, and I don’t have to be perfect for them. They just listen patiently and wait for me to spill my guts.
“Alice has been staying at my house, and she’s amazing. But I think she might still have feelings for her ex. He’s been living at the haunted bed-and-breakfast next door and?—”
I finish explaining the situation, but Raven’s eyes glaze over halfway through. I lost her at “haunted bed-and-breakfast.” I knew I would.
She hesitates, stutters, and glances around. So I let her off the hook. Because she’s my people, and she doesn’t have to be perfect for me.
“We can take a detour. It’s fine. Spooky stuff first, my pathetic meltdown second.”
Raven breathes a sigh of relief and glances at her husband. “A haunted bed-and-breakfast? Why didn’t you tell me this town had a haunted bed-and-breakfast ?”
Dean Myers is sitting on the floor against the wall with his laptop. Getting work done while hanging out with us in the hot shop because he always likes to sneak in extra time with his wife when he can. She loves that about him—it’s one of the perks of marrying your best friend.
He doesn’t have an answer for her at first. Dean looks just as surprised as Raven to hear those magic words. Just as dazzled. Maybe he’s a mountain man without a haunted bone in his body, but he’s married to Raven. He knows how to appreciate the spookier things in life.
“We have a haunted bed-and-breakfast?” he says. “In Ponderosa Falls?”
Raven narrows her eyes at me, adjusting the bat pendant around her neck that Dean got her last Christmas. “Are you making this up? Please tell me you didn’t invent an entire haunted bed-and-breakfast.”
I don’t sit up on the floor, but I clear my throat dramatically. Doing my best impression of a Tour Guide in Repose. “The Harris House is a Victorian mansion built in 1896 using a kit purchased from Sears and Roebuck—whatever that is. For the past forty years, it’s been voted one of the most haunted destinations in America. The attic is especially cursed.”
Raven doesn’t respond. She just sighs dreamily and glances at her husband, speechless and breathless and not sure what to do next. But Dean knows.
He saves the day in five seconds flat. That’s just the kind of guy he is.
“Two words, Halloween Town,” he says, using the nickname he gave her a few years ago. Her favorite nickname. “Date. Night.”
Raven chuckles darkly and nods in agreement. “Date night.”
With that out of the way, their focus shifts back to me, and we return to the catastrophe at hand. The charred remains of my not-so-love life.
After I explain the situation, they give me whatever advice they can, even Mark pitches in. The only person who doesn’t is my AA sponsor, Gunnar. The guy who runs this hot shop and first taught me how to work with glass.
He stays out of it, but I understand. Anyone who knows glassblowing knows his story. Gunnar Eriksen hasn’t believed in love for a very long time. If my wife left me for my best friend while I was in rehab, I probably wouldn’t either.
None of the advice I get helps. My glassworks family gives it everything they’ve got, but by the time they’re finished, Alice’s ex still exists, and she still probably prefers him over me. It isn’t until the hot shop doors swing open that I finally snap out of my bad mood.
Alice is here.
With Lydia.
I’d forgotten I asked Tyler’s sister to bring Alice here after work. I scramble to my feet and try to look far less pathetic than I am. We have work to do.
Tame the dragon. That’s the last item left on our Nice List, and I had a whole different experience planned, one where I bribed my co-workers into leaving and flirted my heart out. But there’s no point in doing that now.
Unless the Old Birds were wrong.
I do a little detective work as soon as Lydia leaves to return her boss’s car. Ushering Alice across the hot shop, I grab a metal rod off the wall, the punty we’ll need to make her a souvenir paperweight. Then I give her a casual glance. “How was your day?”
“Fine.”
I can’t tell if she’s being distant or shy. If her lack of eye contact is because she’s nervous after that kiss on Four Pines Peak, or if she wishes Jason were here instead. Steadying my nerves, I try again.
“Has it been weird staying next to the bed-and-breakfast while you’re in town?”
I try to make that question sound nonchalant, but Alice clams up on the spot. Ducking her head, a faint blush dusts her cheeks. “No, it’s been fine,” she stammers. “Why?”
“I just wasn’t sure if you’d ever run into your ex. That would be awkward, right?”
“No—nope—thankfully, never! Haven’t seen him.” She giggles nervously. “That would be awful, though. Horrible!”
My heart sinks, and I try not to let it show. This is the problem with a girl who can’t lie. Always knowing the truth is a blessing and a curse.
I fight to keep myself together as I guide her to the furnace full of molten glass against the back wall, the metal monstrosity we call “the dragon” that she’ll need to tame if she wants to make her paperweight. As I explain what we’re going to do next, I force myself to be funny and friendly and everything I always relied on when I was a kid. All the masks I wore so no one would know my heart was breaking.
Practice makes perfect.
When she hesitates at the furnace and needs my help, I smile my way through that too. I stand behind her and reach around to rest my hands on hers, so we can dip the end of the punty into the furnace together. Her back nestled against my chest as I help Alice make her first gather of molten glass.
Maybe I should crack a few jokes or make small talk while we work, but I can’t. Not with Alice in my arms. All I can do is hold on to her and forget how right it feels, even when it’s wrong. Enjoy her and try to ignore the sharp pang in my chest when it’s over.
The ache I feel deep in my soul when I finally have to let go.
After I drive Alice home, I grab my board and duck back out. I feel like an angsty teenager again, my skateboard rumbling down the sidewalk as whole blocks whiz past. Ponderosa Falls is a blur, and I ride around way later than I should, trying to forget.
But by the time I return home for good, hours later, I’m in a very different mood. I’m ready to get in trouble, and only one kind of trouble will do.
The Alice kind.