Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
SIX YEARS AGO
Charlie and I are both raging flirts, which makes being friends extra interesting.
I should’ve clocked it as soon as he gave me the rose.
He should’ve clocked it when I nicknamed him on the spot.
I’ve known him for two and a half months but I still can’t decide if this is a universal trait for him, or if he reserves it special for me.
For me, it’s the latter. There’s something about him that makes him so fun to toy with.
It’s his eyes that are my undoing.
Muted blue, a teasing gray like the cloudy skies he loves—the color and texture of the well-scored skating rink near campus, the one where he wanted to hold my hands.
They find me, those eyes. When he enters a room, when he’s trying to measure my reaction to something someone said, over his shoulder when we’re trying to sneak a laugh that’s only ours.
It’s a game we play—who can sneak in the dirtiest innuendo; who can make the other blush first. It’s very normal and completely platonic and not at all smudging any of the pencil drawn lines between us.
The men I’ve known have proven they can’t be trusted. Not my unfaithful father, who felt more like a ghost in our house than a parent. Not my older brother and all his rage. Not the boys back home I went to school with who saw me as nothing more than a little bit of fun.
The way I feel so safe with Charlie can’t last forever.
Can it?
At night, sometimes I think about him. But the apparition of his mouth at my throat, the way it feels in my imagination, is as close as I’ll let myself get. Being friends is less risky.
Friends.
It’s the word I asked for, and the one he agreed to, months ago. But the ink around its letters has this way of blurring when we’re alone together. So we keep playing somewhere in the gray.
We talk on the phone every day I’m back in Kansas for Thanksgiving break.
I tell Charlie it’s lame and boring, being back in this tired town.
I tell my family I’m working with a partner on a group project so they don’t ask questions.
But really, his voice is a balm. A reminder that this life, sinking into my sagging mattress while Dad and my older brother Patrick fight in the other room, isn’t where I have to stay. I have something else to return to.
I don’t get around to calling him until late Thanksgiving day.
I tell him we had a modest, uneventful holiday, then listen to him detail the litany of sides his mom cooked and the depths of football rivalry that splits the entire Rosenhoth family in two—Cowboys fans versus Eagles, a hold-over from his dad’s north eastern roots.
I don’t tell him how whatever stupid bullshit Dad and Patrick have been fighting about all week finally boiled over and my brother backhanded a pie plate off the table, shattering it before he stormed out.
I don’t tell him how we carried on, pretending nothing happened, until Officer Cahill called to report they’d picked up Pat for driving drunk.
Again. I don’t tell him how Mom found a way to make it all about her, curling up on the couch with the TV blaring at three in the afternoon and didn’t get up.
I don’t tell him how I microwaved bowls of cold macaroni and cheese for River and I to eat on the back porch while Dad went down to the station and the turkey sat raw on the counter.
I don’t tell him the only thing that made this trip worth it was finding the perfect finishing touch for his birthday gift.
The Saturday before classes start back up, Charlie and his roommate, Garrett, have friends over at their house.
Something small, he says. But nine minutes into the ten-minute walk from my door to his, I hear the party before I see it.
Bringing his present was a stupid idea. Who walks into a college party with a gift bag?
I bite my cheek and tuck my embarrassment behind my back.
A pretty, petite blonde with huge boobs lets me inside, and when I don’t spot Charlie immediately, I hang a right, moving down the unlit hallway and find his bedroom at the end, avoiding the need to make polite fake smiles to any other unfamiliar faces.
Slipping inside, I half-close the door behind me.
In here, the noise dulls. It smells so much like him.
Fresh and earthy and sharp—an apple I want to sink my teeth into.
Like dozens of suspended fireflies, a string of Christmas lights snakes through the wooden spindles of his headboard, casting just enough light for me to navigate.
I set the gift bag down on his rumpled green checkered comforter.
“If you’re trying to rifle through my underwear drawer, jokes on you, they’re all dirty.
” Soft and sweet like sun-warmed honey, his voice trickles down my spine as I whirl.
Charlie’s leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, cinnamon hair messier than usual, like he’s been manhandling it all night.
“You’ll have to get me out of the ones I’m wearing. ”
I transmute my snort into a look of intrigue, one brow raised. “Bold of you to assume I want a clean pair.”
We stare at each other for the length of several quick heartbeats.
He breaks first.
His laugh cocoons around me as he drifts closer. Charlie’s not a big drinker, but his eyes are a little glassy, his smile looser and more generous than usual. His gaze rakes down my body and my stomach takes flight as I smooth my fitted oxblood corduroy skirt.
“You look . . .” He bites down on his bottom lip, head lolling to the side as he smiles.
“Like I could crush you alive?” I grind my Doc Marten into his carpet for good measure.
“Like you could absolutely crush my heart.” His grin goes full tilt. “Fuck, I think I’d even thank you for it.”
“Stupid.” I laugh, flattening my hand on his chest to push him back. His heartbeat careens under my touch. My body’s a million degrees and we’re alone in his bedroom, basking in the perfect makeout ambience lighting, and for the life of me, I cannot divorce the thought from my mind.
“So’d you come in here to hide, or—what’s that?” His attention flicks to the bed and the corner of a smirk lifts as I take the break in the moment to swipe my hand back. “Did you . . . buy me a gift?”
The warmth in my body surges up and concentrates in my cheeks. “No. That was some other weirdo digging through your dirty laundry.”
He clicks his tongue and grabs the bag. “Neighborhood’s really going to shit.”
“It’s, uhm, nothing really—small thing. Belated birthday gift.” I wring my hands like rags at my bellybutton as he reaches past tufts of white tissue paper.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he says quietly, glancing up at me beneath his lashes. I shrug in response. As he slides the frame from the bag, I hunch my shoulders to my ears and curse my past self for doing this at all. It’s stupid.
“An altocumulus standing lenticular cloud,” he mutters, amusement and a touch of bewilderment pitching his words.
His smile stretches so wide it makes my heart ache.
He tucks it between his teeth and for a split second I’m jealous of it.
Tenderness reflects back at me in his gaze, and my limbs tingle.
“I can’t believe you even remember I said these were my favorite. Thank you. Seriously. I love it.”
“Good. I’m glad. Yeah, good,” I eke out, eyes wide and glued to him as I fidget with my hem. “They really do look like alien spaceships, like you said. I just thought—you know, your decor situation in here’s pretty sad. So . . .”
“It’s okay to admit you were thinking about me, Win,” he teases, lids drawing heavy over his eyes.
Considering humans are something like 70 percent water, I’m about to start evaporating from whatever heat is growing between us.
It’s irrational, but the thought of him knowing how much he means to me makes me want to hide under his bed.
“Gross. You’re projecting. Everyone knows you’re the one obsessed with me. ”
“Oh, deeply.”
My breath catches. Humor has always been my favorite hiding place for things I’m scared to admit. Is it his too?
He clears his throat, shattering the strange tension I’m sure I’m imagining, and sets the frame on his dresser. I force my stupid, horny body through the door before I can make any mistakes.
His body heat trails me down the narrow hallway, following the din of chatter and music back to the throng of mostly strangers. The kitchen already reeks of stale beer, the counters littered with red cups as Charlie hands me a sweating Lone Star from the fridge.
I went to a handful of house parties in high school, meaning everyone knew everyone at least by name and reputation and we rationed a warm 24-pack in someone’s basement while their parents were out.
But between dance, work, and school, I haven’t bothered with parties in college. This is all new to me.
As someone drags Charlie away, howling with laughter, I plant my roots near the sink.
I won’t burden him, following him like a shadow all night.
I clear away the used cups, rinse and recycle abandoned bottles, and help a drunk girl fix her busted zipper with one of the stray bobby pins that are always lingering in my pockets.
All things preferable to trying to act like a chameleon around a bunch of strangers.
I thought tonight was going to be a few drinks and a bad horror movie with friends. Good news is I already gave Charlie his gift and it should be easy to sneak out early; there are so many people here, he won’t even notice I’m gone.
As I pour out the dregs of the beer I’ve been nursing all night, Charlie reappears, leaning against the counter. He blows out a breath. “I feel bad.”
I side-eye him. “For what?”
“I had no idea Garrett was planning . . . all this.” He gestures vaguely toward the chaos. “I can tell you’re not having fun.”
It’s embarrassing how much his observation impacts me. There weren’t many people in my life who paid that close of attention before him.