Chapter Four #3
“Oh.” She flipped the sun visor down and got a good look at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, the tips of her ears, too, a sure indication of her nerves.
She closed the mirror and visor and said, “I’m okay.”
A few minutes later, she noted he hadn’t turned the radio on like he usually did when they were traveling. She wondered why and found herself asking, “No music?”
He tossed her a quick eye flick, then shrugged. “You can turn it on if you want. Pick a station.”
Shock cascaded over her like snow melting off a sun-drenched roof. “You’re kidding?”
Another shrug.
“You’d actually allow me to put on something other than country?”
He drew in a breath, kept his eyes on the road. “Turn it to whatever you want, Charity. I don’t care one way or the other.”
The tone of his voice told her that was a blatant lie.
Why was he letting her choose what to listen to? He never had before. Through countless car rides with him, she’d suffered through song after twangy song about everything from horses to lost love to drinking too much and bar fights.
Charity wasn’t a fan of the music genre. Not that there was anything wrong with it or the people who liked the songs. But she was a Swiftie through and through and a boy band aficionado. That was her musical jam.
She stared out the front windshield for a few moments, surprised.
One thing she knew about Kolby O’Brian–well, one thing other than he was a womanizer–was that he had a hard-on for country music.
She was almost tempted to call his bluff, turn the radio to a local FM station she knew played hard rock just to test if he would really allow anything other to fill his truck.
For whatever reason, she decided not to.
A minute later, he shot her a glance and asked, “You don’t want to listen to anything?”
“I’m actually enjoying the quiet,” she said honestly. “I’m thinking about fifteen different things I need to do today, so the silence is nice.”
Kolby shook his head, blew out a breath, and then concentrated back on driving. Neither of them said another word until he pulled into the parking lot of the venue they were scheduled to tour.
When they alighted from the car, Charity looked up at the building. Once a church, it had been reconfigured into an event space by a forward-thinking contractor and was three times larger than any venue in Heaven, the parking lot fit to house at least one hundred cars.
“Place is huge,” Kolby said, slinging his camera strap over his shoulder.
Since she’d been thinking the same thing, she nodded.
“Let’s go.”
She got to the entrance door first, but Kolby stretched out a hand from behind her and pulled it open. The move caused his body to swipe against hers, his arm brushing her back.
Charity stopped dead as a shudder tripped down her spine. A hot second passed before she realized it wasn’t from revulsion but...something else. The image of him propped up on one elbow as he reclined in her bed, his torso naked and hard, popped into her head.
What the—-??
“Charity?” Kolby’s voice penetrated through her brain-freeze. “We going in or what?”
She shook her head, trying to get the image out of her brain. It wasn’t easy.
Necessary. But definitely not easy.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” She pushed through the open doorway. “Let’s get this done.”
Two hours later, he held the same door open for her as they left.
A pounding stream of pain in her head surfaced within ten minutes of meeting the event’s team. Colleen had neglected to mention the venue employed two full-time coordinators, one man, one woman, and both heavily into dousing themselves in body spray and cologne.
Within one minute of shaking hands with Guy Ridley and Shannon Jayne, both of whom had competing aromas cloying around them (deep musk for him, a spicy floral for her) Charity’s vision blurred with the telltale sign a headache was developing.
Always sensitive to certain scents, the duo’s conflicting odors shot straight to her brain and triggered a pain response.
She’d done her best during the two hours to physically distance herself as much as she could from them, but Guy had an annoying habit of sidling up next to her as he showed them the venue’s layout.
Shannon, in contrast, had cleaved herself to Kolby.
No surprise there.
The woman was on the south side of thirty, built like a Vegas showgirl and not shy about thrusting her perfect ( and probably paid for) breasts forward to their full advantage. Numerous times she found a reason to touch Kolby’s arm or lay a hand on his shoulder.
The photographer was his usual affable self, smiling warmly, and being attentive to everything she was telling them about the space. Just before they’d left, Shannon slipped something into Kolby’s hand, a telling grin across her ruby-colored lips.
It didn’t take a genius to know it was her phone number.
By the time the tour was over, all Charity wanted to do was climb into a darkened room and sleep for ten hours.
“I don’t think Colleen would like this place,” Kolby said as he pulled the truck back onto the highway.
She’d been thinking the same thing, but all she could manage was a muffled, “Hmm.”
As she leaned her head back on the seat rest, she closed her eyes, cursing herself for forgetting her sunglasses.
She could feel the weight of Kolby’s stare.
“You okay?” he asked, concern lacing his thick voice.
Another hum since she didn’t have the strength to form any words.
She heard him rustling with something, then felt a poke on her forearm.
“Here.”
Gingerly, she pried one eye open to see a pair of dark black sunglasses in his outstretched hand.
“You’ve got a headache, right?” He tapped her arm again. “Put these on. They’ll help with the glare.”
Stunned, she took them and slid them on. They were too big for her face and slid down her nose.
“You can adjust the earpieces,” he told her. “Make them tighter.”
She did, and then sighed when they stayed in place.
“Better?”
“Yes...thank, thank you.”
“Migraine or headache?” he asked after a few minutes.
“Beginning of a migraine.”
“Thought so.” He nodded. “Looked a little more than a simple headache.”
Charity wondered how he knew since she hadn’t shared her affliction with anyone, not even Colleen.
She’d been able to control the triggers that caused one to erupt for so long, avoiding things like aromas, certain noises, even strobe and flashing lights, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d been felled by one.
At least a year, by her guess. But the competing colognes from the two event coordinators had sent her system into hyperawareness.
With the glasses now shielding her eyes from the bright midday sun, and the subtle hum of the motor from the engine acting like calming white noise, she let herself drift off.
When she felt the truck slow down, she forced her eyes open. Kolby was pulling into a gas station.
“Be right back,” he said, alighting from the cab after shutting the engine.
Since she had no intention of going anywhere, she closed her eyes again.
“Here,” he said a few minutes later, touching her arm with something icy cold.
She slatted open her eyes to see a bottle of Diet Pepsi.
“Caffeine helps,” he said, unscrewing the cap and then handing it to her.
She knew that, but how did he? After taking a huge gulp of the delicious, caffeinated, slightly sweet soda, she swallowed and said, “Thank you.”
Again, no verbal response, but she got the feeling he nodded as he pulled back into traffic.
For the rest of the drive, he stayed silent as she took sips from the bottle every few minutes. By the time they arrived back at the office, she could open her eyes fully behind the glasses, the pain decreased to a continual, quiet thrumming, from the bongos that had been pounding earlier.
Kolby parked next to her car, shut the engine, and turned to her.
“Better now?”
From experience, she knew nodding would make her nauseous, so she kept her voice low when she said, “Much. Thank you. Again.”
His head bobbed once.
“How...?” she bit down on her bottom lip, not sure what she wanted to ask him.
“My grandmother suffered from migraines. I know the signs. Something triggered you at the venue. I could see the headache developing all over your face almost the moment we went through the front doors.”
“Cologne and perfume,” she said, finishing the soda.
Kolby chuckled. “Yeah, they both took baths in the stuff this morning. I figured that might be it. Or even the potent odor of the cleaning solution I could smell they’d washed the carpets with.”
She pulled the glasses from her face, squinting at the glare of the sunlight through the windshield, and handed them back to him. “That’s how you knew about caffeine? From your grandmother?”
His grin grew. “I could always tell when she was having an episode because the fridge would be filled with two-liter bottles she’d drink like water for a day or so. Sometimes, she’d send me to the bodega around the corner from our apartment for a chocolate bar. That also helped.”
“Chocolate tends to help me, too,” she admitted.
“You should take the rest of the day off. Go home and rest.”
“I’m okay. I can function. The soda helped. Considerably. The glasses, too, so thank you. Again.”
***
He wondered how the words didn’t get stuck in her throat.
Charity wasn’t known for thanking him. For anything. A well-timed eye roll or her lips pressing together to form a flat, tight line were more the responses she tossed his way.
He’d been truthful when he told her he’d noticed the pain. Her face was so damn expressive and he could read her moods and facial expressions easily, something she’d probably be irritated by if she knew.