Hate Notes

by Vi Keeland

  My shoulders relaxed. “Thanks, Mom.”

  On Monday morning, I arrived at the office earlier than usual. I’d planned on getting a head start on my day so that I could leave on time and go over to the Centre for Arts to sign up for a sculpting class.

  But I’d gotten so distracted reading on my phone while I waited for the coffee to finish brewing that I hadn’t even realized the sensor had beeped, indicating it was done, and that someone had walked up behind me. “Baseball? I didn’t realize you were a fan.”

  Startled, I bobbled the phone, and it fell to the ground. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  Reed bent over and picked up my cell. “You’re extra jumpy this morning, even for you.” He glanced at the screen. “Are you going to the game tonight?”

  “What game?”

  He smirked. “Guess that answers that question.” He handed me my phone, pulled our mugs down from the cabinet, and began to pour coffee. “I saw the Houston Astros logo on your phone when I walked in. You were reading stats, weren’t you?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  He arched a brow. “Baseball fan?”

  “Not really.”

  “Gambling?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why else would someone be reading baseball stats if they weren’t going to a game, a fan of baseball, or gambling?”

  “I just . . . I find statistics fascinating.”

  Reed gave me a face that said bullshit.

  “What? I do.”

  He finished making our coffees and handed me my mug. Sipping his, he looked straight into my eyes. “What’s the real reason, Charlotte?”

  I sighed. I had no reason to lie to him. Yet talking about wanting to find my birth parents out loud always made me feel like I was betraying my adopted mother. I struggled, even though she’d assured me that wasn’t the case last night. Reed had already seen my Fuck-It List, so he’d understand. “I spoke to my mother about my adoption yesterday. I pretty much knew almost everything she told me already. The only real new information I found out was that when they found me at the hospital, I was wrapped in a Houston Astros blanket.”

  Something flickered across Reed’s face. “A Houston Astros blanket?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t know what the logo looked like, so I searched for it on the internet, and I wound up on the team’s site. I guess I got sucked into reading all the statistics while my mind wandered.”

  He stared at me, yet his eyes seemed to lose focus. Reed was definitely acting strange. I joked, “Are you a Yankees fan, and we can’t be friends or something? Since I was swaddled in an Astros blanket?”

  “I gotta go,” he said abruptly. “I have an appointment I’m late for.”

  CHAPTER 29

  REED

  The Texas lead was huge.

  Josh ended up spending two weeks in Houston on my dime. I needed more time to figure out how to handle telling Charlotte what was going on, and how to get her mind off finding her birth parents until I could be absolutely sure how I was going to approach this.

  So I decided to create a distraction—one that I probably needed my head examined for. I’d noticed that Charlotte had recently added Learn How to Drive an 18-Wheeler to her Fuck-It List on the server. Only Charlotte.

  I’d decided that the ultimate distraction on a Friday afternoon was to somehow make that happen, managing to rent an actual 18-wheeler from a distribution company. They parked it for me in an empty lot in Hoboken.

  We didn’t have much daylight left as we pulled in. Charlotte had no idea why we were there.

  “I thought you said we were going to see a new property. Why are we here in this empty lot?”

  Turning off the car, I said, “You’ve really worked hard for the company these past couple of months. As complicated as our personal relationship is, I’m also your boss. I feel like I don’t really tell you enough—as your boss—how appreciated you are.”

  “You had to take me to a desolate parking lot in Hoboken to do that? If we’re in Jersey, a diner would have been better.”

  “Look over there.”

  Charlotte’s eyes landed on the big rig. “It’s a truck.”

  “Not just any truck. An 18-wheeler.”

  She finally saw what I was getting at. “You’ve been spying on me.”

  “Did you not recently add driving one of those bad boys to your Fuck-It List?”

  Realization set in and her face lit up. “Are you serious? I’m here to drive one?”

  “Well, we can’t take it on the road. Especially because you don’t even have a car driver’s license. I don’t think either one of us is ready to die tonight. But you can have your fun on this lot.” Noticing who I assumed was the instructor I’d hired arriving, I nudged my head for her to follow me out of the car. “Come on.”

  Charlotte walked alongside me over to the vehicle, which had the words JB LEMMON DISTRIBUTION painted on the side. A scruffy man with a long, white beard got out of an older Ford Taurus.

  “Good afternoon, folks.” He looked Charlotte up and down. “You must be Charlotte.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m Ed. Ready to drive?”

  She looked at me and smiled, then bounced back on the heels of her feet. “I am!”

  Charlotte took the driver’s seat while the instructor, whose name was Ed, sat on the passenger’s side. I crouched down behind them in what looked like the driver’s sleeper cabin.

  “The very first thing you need to do is check your fluids.”

  “Oh, I’m okay. I drank a lot of water today.”

  He laughed. “Fluids are at the front of the truck, darlin’. I’ll show you.”

  I whispered in her ear, “‘Darlin’.’ Should I say it like that from now on?”

  Charlotte quickly followed him outside before they returned.

  “Now, you need to adjust your seat with these switches here. You’re gonna need to come way up to have the best view over the hood.”

  He was definitely taking full advantage of the situation as he leaned into her from the passenger side. This whole experience was pissing me off.

  “Now, you can start your diesel, but before you do, you’re gonna push in your clutch and make sure you’re in second gear.”

  Charlotte started the engine. The roaring diesel sound resonated throughout the space, and the fumes infiltrated the air.

  “Now, pretend you’re looking out to see if other vehicles are coming. If it’s clear, you’re gonna slowly let out your clutch.”

  Charlotte continued to carefully follow his instructions.

  “Now give it some gas. Bring the RPMs up to about 1200. Then clutch out, clutch in.”

  She was asking questions as if she was seriously planning to drive one of these someday. My eyes just kept fixating on his hands over hers as they switched gears. Pebbles of sweat were forming on my forehead as the big rig started to move. I was a lost cause.

  “Woo-hoo!” Charlotte screamed as she made her first turn around the lot.

  After a half-hour drive, she put the truck in “Park.”

  Ed took off, leaving Charlotte and me alone in the big rig.

  “That was seriously amazing, Reed.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  What had started as a stalling mechanism had turned into an experience I was happy to share with her. Charlotte’s joy was always contagious. It also made me feel good to help her knock another item off her list.

  It was quiet inside the truck. The only noise was faint traffic from the highway in the distance.

  Charlotte decided to climb in the back, where I was sitting, and lie down on the bed that was located just behind the driver’s seat in the cab. I swiftly moved up front to the passenger’s seat.

  She kicked her feet up. “So this is how truckers live, huh? I think that would be kind of a cool job, traveling the country, stopping and sleeping in different places.”

  “Aside from the risk of falling asleep and killing oneself . . . I
suppose it could be . . . fun,” I said sarcastically.

  She playfully threw a pillow at me, then said, “Of course, they do it alone. I wouldn’t want to travel alone.”

  As she curled into the bed to make herself more comfortable, it was evident that Charlotte had no intention of leaving the truck anytime soon. God, how I wanted to lie next to her. If I’d known I was taking her to a sex den on wheels, I most certainly would have rethought this truck adventure. It had never occurred to me that there would be a bed.

  I stayed glued to the passenger’s seat, determined not to get sucked into the vortex.

  “Can we hang out in here for a while?” she asked.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? It’s so peaceful.”

  “I just think it’s better if we go back to the city.”

  “Because you don’t trust yourself with me?”

  I refused to answer that, instead deciding to turn the tables. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, like a date with . . . Blake?” His name rolled off my tongue like an obscenity.

  “No . . . I’m not going out with Blake. But why do you ask . . . would you be jealous if I did?”

  Not wanting to lie to her, I just chose to remain silent. My jealousy had already been made pretty clear a couple of weeks ago, anyway.

  “Why should you be jealous when you know you could have me, Reed?”

  “I can’t have you,” I snapped.

  “Oh, but you can. You’re just scared.”

  “Stop,” I said through gritted teeth, even though all I really wanted was to hear her tell me some of the things she would let me do to her. I shook my head and sighed. “Where did you come from, Charlotte?”

  “You always ask me that. While I can’t answer where I originated from, I know exactly how I came into your life. There’s . . . something you don’t know. Something I never told you.”

  What was she getting at?

  “I’m not following . . .”

  “Can I tell you the story of how we met?”

  “I know how we met.”

  “You think you do but you don’t. You always thought that I was playing some kind of game when I went to the Millennium Tower showing. There’s way more to the story.”

  I’d always wondered how that whole thing happened, how she came to show up there in the first place. It never quite made sense. There’d been something missing.

  “Why don’t you enlighten me, then. How did you come into my life, Charlotte Darling?”

  She patted the spot on the bed next to her. “Will you come here? Sit next to me?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Please?”

  Reluctantly, I moved to the spot on the bed next to her. Our shoulders were side by side when I turned my face to meet hers. “Okay, Charlotte. Tell me how we met.”

  “It was fate,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I chuckled. “Fate . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’d taken my wedding dress to a consignment store to sell it. While there, I fell in love with a beautiful blush, feathered dress.”

  Feathered dress.

  Suddenly, this wasn’t amusing anymore. I swallowed, knowing exactly the dress she was talking about. Even though it was supposedly bad luck to see the bride’s gown before a wedding, Allison had insisted that I approve of her choice. While unconventional, the dress she’d chosen was spectacularly beautiful.

  “I know the dress,” I whispered.

  “So you’d seen it? She’d shown you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found the blue note you’d written on your personalized notepad. It was sewn inside. That was how I got your name. I actually took the dress home because they would only give me a credit for mine. So it was an even exchange. I still have it. It’s hanging in my closet. I was curious about the man who penned the note, because it was simple yet so beautiful.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Biting my lip, I stayed silent as she continued to tell the story.

  “When I looked you up on Facebook, there were some clues that maybe the wedding had never happened. Anyway, you already know everything that took place after I made the appointment. I obviously never expected everything to turn out the way it has. But that dress called to me. And now I know it was much more than just a dress. Not to mention my running into Iris in the bathroom. I’ll always believe that I was meant to find you.”

  Holy shit.

  I couldn’t help reaching for her hand in that moment. I’d joked about Charlotte Darling and her pixie dust. There was always something magical about her, the way she’d just appeared in my life and turned it upside down. I had to admit that this story freaked me out a little. But at the same time, it made so much sense.

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad at you for that?”

  “Because I violated your privacy?”

  “I can’t be mad at you. Despite how you got here . . . you came into my world and breathed life into it when I really needed it.”

  “And now you’re pushing me away.”

  “Charlotte . . . we’ve been through this.”

  She went quiet, then said, “You know, despite being hurt, I don’t regret how everything started. That note really helped me. I read it, and it gave me hope that love and romance do exist . . . at a time when I was down on life and love. Even if it was an illusion, it still helped me turn over a new leaf.”

  She was being so candid. Why couldn’t I give her a little of that back? I wanted her to know that it wasn’t all an illusion.

  “You weren’t that off base about me, Charlotte,” I spit out. “The note was sincere. It’s only in hindsight that I’m able to see the situation for what it was, that Allison’s love for me didn’t match mine for her. So the love I had for her was based on a false ideal. But the man you thought you knew from that note . . . he did exist to a certain extent.” I blew out a deep, ragged breath. “It’s funny. That note stood for something to you. I hung on to a note myself. One that Allison had written, but for an entirely different reason. When she broke off the engagement, it wasn’t exactly a heartfelt moment. She showed up at my office a week before our wedding, sat down in a guest chair across from me, and said that when she agreed to marry me she’d thought I was going to take care of her for the rest of her life, not the other way around. I think I was in shock while she spoke for a few minutes after that. It was all very cold and businesslike. But before she left, she took a piece of my stationery from my desk and wrote her new telephone number on it. She’d apparently already gotten a new phone since she was on my cell plan. I kept that piece of stationery in my top drawer for the longest time. Not because I ever thought about calling her, but to remind me of how that moment made me feel.” I shook my head and looked down. “Every day when I saw that note, it felt like pouring salt on a wound. Then two days ago, I opened the drawer, looked at it one last time, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it in the garbage. I’m not even sure what made me finally do it. I guess it was just time.”

  Charlotte stared at me as silence filled the truck. With each second that passed, I felt more and more like being in this truck alone with her, given all the emotions lingering in the air, was dangerous.

  “Every time I wear it, I think of you. I’m wearing it right now,” she said.

  It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about. It wasn’t the dress. She’s wearing it right now.

  Oh.

  “Want to see it on me?”

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Fuck, yes.

  “No.”

  She chose not to listen when she hiked up her skirt and opened her legs, displaying my favorite black thong with the red rose accent. Clearly, she was trying to kill me.

  “I think about your hands caressing the lace every time I put this on.�
�

  My voice was gruff. “Close your legs.”

  “Why? Do you think this makes me a slut because I want to show you? Because I’m really not—a slut. I haven’t had sex in ages, and even though I wish I could move on, there’s only one man I want to be intimate with.”

  My body was heating up fast. “Put your skirt down.”

  “Do you really want me to? Because you don’t look like you do. You’re sweating, and you haven’t taken your eyes off it. I don’t really think that’s what you want. I think your mind is telling you one thing, and your body is pulling you in another direction. But okay, I’ll close my legs.”

  Just when my pulse started to slow the tiniest bit, I realized while she had closed her legs, she was now slipping off her thong.

  Charlotte lifted it to my line of sight. “You want it?”

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Fuck, yes.

  “No.”

  “Here.” She opened my hand, placing the thong inside before closing my fingers over it.

  I was shocked to feel wetness in my palm. Not only had she given me her panties, she’d given me her wet panties. My dick stirred.

  Charlotte wrapped her arms around her knees and watched me start to unravel.

  Unable to resist, I buried my nose in the lacy fabric and deeply inhaled the sweet, feminine scent of her arousal. And that was it. That was what finally undid me, like a drug evaporating my inhibitions.

  I needed more.

  Turning my body toward her, I laid my head on her stomach, trying to salvage any trace of sanity. There was none. I closed my eyes as I lowered my head to her legs, spreading her knees apart. Charlotte let out a slight, nervous giggle.

  “You think this is funny?” I said as I voraciously kissed her inner thighs.

  “I do. I—” She stopped talking the moment my mouth landed hard on her pussy, which was completely bare. I couldn’t get enough of her soft skin as my tongue swirled over her swollen flesh. My scruff might have been scratching her, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her throbbing clit was evidence of that.