by Noir, Roxie
“She sliced herself open with it!” he says. “An inch lower and she’d have gotten herself across the wrist, for fuck’s sake, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d stolen it or not!”
The sliding glass door opens again, and now it’s Seth, who looks from Daniel to me and back again, one eyebrow raised.
“Sorry to interrupt, but can I steal you for a minute?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Daniel says, giving me a hard look. “It’s fine, we’re done here.”
He shoots me a look, then stomps off to join his brother.
I wait until his back is turned, then flip him off with both hands.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Charlie
I stay for dinner. I don’t even know why. If I were smart I’d invent some excuse about needing to water my cactus and just leave, but I don’t really want Daniel’s whole family to know we got into a fight, so I stay.
As if the ensuing weird awkwardness doesn’t make it crystal fucking clear that we got into a fight. His brothers are all way, way nicer to me than usual. After dinner I’m clearing some glasses off the back porch, and Seth sticks his head out, then follows me and takes the stack of glasses from my hand.
“He’ll calm down,” he says. “You know how he is.”
“I’m not going to calm down,” I huff. “I’m never calming down.”
Seth gives me his slightly off-kilter grin. When he was a kid he got hit in the face by a large stick — all three of his older brothers deny being the culprit, but everyone knows it was one of them — so there’s a tiny scar on his upper left lip that’s just enough to make his smile the smallest bit crooked.
It’s very, very charming. Everything about Seth is very charming.
“See if you feel that way tomorrow,” he says, then shifts his stance, looks at me, a stack of glasses in both hands. “He’s just being overprotective,” Seth goes on. “You know how people are, they get up to all sorts of shit, then they have a kid and realize that the kid might get up to the same shit they did.”
“That doesn’t make it my fault,” I grumble.
“He’s never been good at staying pissed,” Seth says. “I predict he’ll start seeing reason by about eleven tomorrow morning, so by the time Rusty has her ballet lesson he’ll conveniently be full-on sorry.”
“Goddammit,” I mutter. Does everyone in this town know what Daniel does during Rusty’s ballet lessons?
“Sorry,” Seth says, laughing, and turns to take the glasses back into the house.
“You’re not,” I call after him.
He opens the back door and gives me that stupid charming grin again.
“Nope,” he says and disappears.
* * *
At five forty-five the next day, there’s a knock on my door, the way there’s been a knock on my door every Monday for the past couple weeks.
Briefly, I consider not answering it, because I’m still slightly annoyed that Daniel apparently thinks I’m irresponsible and untrustworthy.
But then he knocks again so I shut the fridge and go answer it. Because of course, Seth was right, and I didn’t stay full-on mad forever.
“Hey,” Daniel says when I open the door.
The man really is irritatingly hot, even now, when I’m still slightly mad at him. I take a moment and give him a once over, because I think I deserve a little eye candy right now.
“We can’t have make-up sex until we make up,” I say, leaning against the doorjamb.
His eyes light up in a teasing smile.
“I thought the sex was the making up,” he says.
“Well, that’s why you were single until you made me pretend to marry you,” I say, but I’m laughing.
“Damn, Char, right for the jugular,” he says.
“Sorry.”
“Cleo’s has two-for-one happy hour beers,” he says, nodding his head toward my staircase. “Want to get a drink?”
* * *
“This better not be that Loveless shit,” I tease as Daniel puts a beer in front of me. “I get that for free.”
“It’s that horrible peach IPA from River Run you love,” he says, sitting across from me. “The one that tastes like licking a jolly rancher’s butthole.”
“At least call it tossing a Jolly Rancher’s salad,” I say, taking a sip.
“It tastes like heading to Downtown Jolly Ranch on the brown line,” he says, and I nearly spit my beer out.
“You made it grosser,” I say. “How the fuck did you make that grosser?”
He just shrugs and takes a sip of his own beer, looking pleased with himself. There’s a long moment of silence.
“I’m sorry for being a dick,” he finally says. “But I do wish you’d keep dangerous stuff away from her a little better, at least until she has some impulse control.”
I bite my lip as my annoyance flares, take a deep breath, and tell myself not to restart the argument.
Particularly because he’s being totally reasonable, and I know it.
“I’m sorry for not keeping better tabs on her,” I say. “But it’s also not my fault she stole something.”
“I know,” Daniel says. “We talked about that last night after you left. Also, she’s grounded for a week. Missing Jody Richter’s birthday sleepover this weekend.”
I gasp, involuntarily, and Daniel pauses, his beer halfway to his mouth.
“Is that the unicorn themed party?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“She’s been looking forward to that for weeks!”
“Then maybe she’ll remember not to steal things,” Daniel says, calmly.
And now I feel bad that Rusty doesn’t get to go to this cool sleepover. Kids are a total mindfuck.
“I’m also sorry I brought up how you were a total shithead when you were a kid,” I say, looking down into my beer.
“You’re not wrong,” he says, shrugging. “I was pissed when you said it, but…”
“You really were an asshole,” I say, finishing his sentence for him.
“The first time that Pat Sherman took me down to the station and gave me hell for taking a Snickers and a forty it scared the shit out of me,” Daniel admits. “But then he just let me go because he felt bad about Dad, and I realized that nothing was ever gonna happen.”
“Monster,” I say.
“It’s the worst part of being a parent,” he says, sighing. “Being afraid they’re going to turn out exactly like you.”
“Don’t worry, she’s already smarter than you were,” I say, grinning, and Daniel laughs.
“God, I hope so,” he says, then takes another sip of his beer, watching me over the glass. “Do I have anything else to apologize for?”
I take a long look at him, trying to corral my thoughts into some sort of order, because I still feel bad on some deep-down level, still feel like I’m lacking somehow, like I’m forever the girl who forgets lit candles, forever the girl who leaves saws sitting on chairs and would forget her own head if it wasn’t attached.
I wish I wasn’t that girl. I wish I wasn’t irresponsible, impulsive, flighty. I wish I had a daily planner that predicted my life exactly and I wish I had to-do lists with every item neatly checked off, but instead sometimes I lose my keys and find them in the fridge.
But none of that’s an apology. None of it’s in the scope of this conversation, a whole list of ways I want to be different but can’t be, so I take a long drink of beer and say something else.
“You keep getting beard hairs on my sink,” I say.
Daniel just narrows his eyes at me.
“And you rearranged my spice drawer,” I go on.
“I put them in order,” he protests.
“They were in order,” I say. “It took me ten minutes to find garlic powder the other day. I had a system, Daniel.”
He makes a face that clearly indicates what he thought of my system, but then he catches himself.
“I’m sorry about the beard hairs,” he says. “And I’m sorry for
organizing your kitchen.”
“You mean de-organizing.”
He makes a perfectly neutral face.
“De-organizing,” he says, and then looks down and quickly checks his phone.
“You just looked to see if we’ve got time,” I say, and he looks up at me, half amused and half guilty.
“I have to go get Rusty in twenty minutes,” he says. “I have perfectly legit reasons for knowing the time.”
“Nah, you checked to see if we have time for make-up sex,” I tease.
Daniel just raises one eyebrow, then takes the last sip of his beer, puts the glass down, leans in.
“Cleo’s has a bathroom,” he says, his deep blue eyes practically sparkling.
I lean in too.
“No,” I say, fighting a smile.
“Come on.”
“They will never let us come back here,” I say, and he just shrugs.
I’m tempted. He’s definitely kidding, but I also think that if I said yes, he’d take me up on it.
“I’d live,” he teases. “Come on, there’s a bible study group in the back. Let’s scandalize them.”
We don’t. Instead, ten minutes later he leaves to go get Rusty, and I head back home.
Chapter Thirty
Daniel
I knock again, then wait.
And wait. I lean back against the railing of her balcony. Her porch light is on, even though it’s still bright outside. She probably forgot to turn it off this morning.
I raise my fist and knock again, a third time, as loud as I can, just for the hell of it. There’s nothing inside. No footsteps, no sounds of her frantically throwing books into piles, shouting sorry I was in the shower, I’m coming, just dead silence.
Something in my chest squeezes unpleasantly, and I’ve got the distinct feeling that I don’t get to see Charlie today. I know where her spare key is, but before I go get it, I call her.
It rings three, four times.
Maybe she’s in the shower and lost track of time.
Maybe she’s running late, coming home from work, maybe she ran an errand and got stuck somewhere….
Maybe even though I thought we made up, she’s still pissed, and this is how she’s telling me, by just letting me knock and knock and not answering the door.
Not Charlie’s style. At least, I don’t think so, but we’ve never gotten into a fight like that before. Not as a couple.
“Hey, what’s up?” she asks.
“I’m at your place,” I say.
I don’t say, It’s Thursday, I haven’t seen you alone in nearly a week and I’m crawling up the goddamn walls.
“My place?” Charlie echoes.
I’m still staring at her door, the bad feeling in my chest expanding.
“Rusty’s got piano right now?” I say. “Like she does every Thursday?”
“Today’s Wednesday,” Charlie says.
There’s a pause. I say nothing, because it’s not Wednesday, it’s Thursday.
“Shit,” she says, and then voice gets distant, probably because she’s checking her phone to see if I’m right. “I could have sworn…”
I quietly resign myself to jerking off in the shower tonight. Again.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Shit. Fuck. I’m at the workshop, I’m finishing that table I told you about that had all the superheroes glued on and I totally just…”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even as the disappointment coalesces in my chest, forms a ball of something viscous and unpleasant.
“I really thought today was Wednesday,” she says.
Of course she did. My irritation, my impatience both flare at Charlie. Of course she has no idea what day today is, because today’s the day I was too busy at work to text her about tonight. Of course she forgets something if I’m not constantly reminding her about it.
That’s not the worst part.
The worst part is the small, nagging voice in the back of my head saying she wasn’t excited enough to remember? You didn’t think about anything else all day.
“I’m so sorry,” she says again, and now she sounds awful and I feel bad. “We were super busy at work all day, and I just… I don’t know, sometimes I get the day wrong. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say, and already I’m wishing I hadn’t made Rusty cancel her sleepover this weekend. When I grounded her, I didn’t give a single thought to how it would affect my plans.
Parenting blows sometimes.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Which is Friday. I’ll take you out.”
“Rusty doesn’t—”
“You just chill, I’ll take care of everything,” she says.
I pause, still staring at her front door, hoping that her idea of taking care of everything isn’t leaving Rusty home alone, watching cartoons.
Of course it’s not. Charlie’s not stupid, she’s just a space cadet, and even though right now I’m annoyed and tired and holy hell am I frustrated, I know that.
“Tomorrow meaning Friday,” I say, just to double-check.
“Right,” she says. “Friday. The day after today, which is Thursday. I’ll pick you up at… I dunno, six?”
“If you’re not there I’m calling the cops,” I tease, and Charlie snorts.
“Accidentally leaving you horny isn’t a crime,” she says, laughing.
“It should be.”
“Thank God it’s not,” she says. “Can you imagine the fuckboys at the police station, mad about some girl they got coffee with?”
“All right, I see your point,” I concede, finally heading down her back stairs. “Six.”
“Six,” she says.
* * *
A few hours later, Charlie texts me.
Charlie: Is Rusty in bed?
Me: Yeah, why?
I’m in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter onto sandwich bread, packing Rusty’s lunch for tomorrow
I’ve just dolloped strawberry jam on when the next text comes through.
I drop the knife, because it’s a picture.
Of Charlie. Nearly naked, wearing nothing but panties in her bathroom mirror, one hand in her hair and one on her phone. Her nipples are stiff pink peaks. She’s smiling, laughing, and I can practically feel the curve of her waist in my hands, hear the sound she makes as I pull her in, squeezing, wrapping her legs around me.
I go from thinking I should put peanut butter on the grocery list to hard as fuck in less than a second. In my kitchen. With my daughter’s Critters of the Outback lunchbox in front of me.
Charlie: I really am sorry about today.
I shoot a glance toward the living room, where my mom is reading her book, then quietly put my phone in my pocket and go upstairs, to my own bedroom. The second I lock the door I’ve already got my dick out, my hand wrapped around the base.
I snap a picture and send it to Charlie.
Me: I forgive you.
Charlie: Good ;)
I pull up her picture again, conjure up a scene from last week: us standing in her bathroom, right where the picture was taken, her braced against the counter. I watched her face in the mirror as she came so hard her eyes rolled, and that’s what I’m thinking about ninety seconds later when I come without ever taking off my pants.
Then I clean up, start some laundry, and google how to hide naked pictures on your phone, because I don’t want anyone finding this, but like hell am I deleting it.
* * *
“We’re going where?” I ask, pulling my milkshake straw out of my mouth.
“The skinny-dipping hole,” Charlie says, like I know what she’s talking about.
It’s Friday night. When I got home from work, my mom informed me that she was taking care of Rusty, and my job was to go make myself presentable because Charlie would be there at six.
Miraculously, she was on time. Well, five minutes late, but for Charlie, that counts.
“There’s a skinny-dipping hole?” I ask.
“Yeah, it’s down past where Washtub
Road crosses Pony Creek, right before you get to the mountain,” she says. “There’s a dirt road right after that, and if it’s rained recently there’s a couple of streams you have to ford but it’s a great spot. The field hockey team used to go there all the time.”
She’s saying all this like I know what she’s talking about, and I don’t. I absolutely don’t, and I thought I knew every secret nook and holler in Sprucevale.
“Field hockey? You mean in high school?” I ask, still trying to catch up.
“Was I on another field hockey team?”
“Did you go skinny-dipping?”
“Of course, it’s the skinny-dipping hole. That’s what we did after we won games, we’d get Becca’s older sister to buy us some box wine and we’d come down here,” she says, like it’s common knowledge.
It is not. If I’d known that the whole field hockey team was routinely getting naked and drunk together, I’d probably have masturbated to different fantasies in high school.
“You’re telling me that while we were in high school a bunch of girls were getting drunk and naked together,” I say, just to make sure I’m crystal clear on what I was missing.
“I only ever went with the field hockey team,” she says. “But I thought everyone knew about it.”
“Definitely not,” I say, still staring at her. “Are you kidding? If I’d known that it would have changed everything about my entire high school experience. I’d have skipped school to live at the skinny-dipping hole if I’d known that a team of girls was getting naked together there on the regular.”
“Honey didn’t put out?” she laughs, naming my on-again-off-again-on-again high school girlfriend. We’d get together for a few weeks, break up over something stupid, she’d hang all over some guy to make me jealous, I’d steal her a rose from the grocery store, we’d get back together. Repeat ad nauseam.
“If you want to know about my sex life in high school, you can just ask,” I tease.