Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  He stood up slowly and I quietly mourned the loss of that visual.

  “Not long,” he said. “Maybe fifteen.”

  “Sorry, I got held up at my dad’s,” I said. I could feel the money like heat burning up through the top of the bags. I had to find a place for it. Where did one hide a hundred grand?

  Bash gestured toward the bag. “Looks like you have his body in there.”

  “Almost,” I joked, feeling the sweat break out along my spine. “All his dirty clothes he’s been hoarding.”

  I wasn’t good at this. I never had to be. Anything juicy going on in my life, I told Bash. Not telling him was like going against nature, but telling him about this money meant telling him about Lange. And Lange was now his partner of a sort. A partner he needed.

  “Need help?” Bash asked.

  “Nah, I got it,” I said, walking past him to unlock my door.

  Was it my imagination that I could feel him behind me?

  “Angel didn’t say anything about being late,” I said, that subject now joining the party in my head and making my blood go a little warmer. If she was with that boy… I clenched my teeth together. “Did she text you?”

  “No,” Bash said, following me in. “Maybe she’s at a friend’s house or something.”

  “Or something,” I said under my breath. “Let me go put this in the laundry room, I’ll be right back.”

  I was shaking by the time I got the bag open. I didn’t know from what. Anger, anxiety, nervousness over Bash—all of the above. My life felt like a giant melting pot of really pissed-off worms, all going in different directions. I pulled out the grocery bag of money and stood there holding it.

  Take it away from me.

  Okay. Done. Now what the fuck was I supposed to do with it? I yanked my phone from my pocket and typed out a text to Angel.

  Bash is here. Why aren’t you? Get home.

  “Hey Allie?”

  Bash’s voice was coming down the hall, and the panic hit me like a freight train.

  “Shit,” I muttered, hitting send. Probably the same kind of panic criminals felt when they robbed banks or held up stagecoaches or broke into jewelry stores and museums. Because yeah—I was on that same level, holding a grocery bag of rubber-banded cash that my father may or may not have stolen.

  Nevertheless, I did what any like-minded criminal’s helper would do. I tossed the bag in the dryer with the towels I’d already fluffed twice and shut the dryer door.

  “Yes?” I said, bursting through the door and nearly slamming into him. Finding my face just under his. “Sorry,” I breathed, backing up.

  His step forward seemed unintentional, like his body just reacting to mine. In a dimly lit hallway with nothing behind me but wall. His expression mirrored that, like he was fighting himself.

  “I—was going to ask you if you wanted to just start working on the essay,” Bash said. Too close. His gaze falling to my mouth.

  All the magnets in the universe traveled through space in that four-second span, to land in the inches between us and pull me toward him.

  “Um—essay,” I managed. I could feel the warmth from his body radiating off him, and everything in me itched to feel more. To slide my hands under his shirt and feel just how hot his skin really was.

  “Want to?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  I wasn’t talking about any essay anymore, and I didn’t know if he was, but the moment I caved to the pull he backed off, leaving a cold vacuum where his body had been.

  My head spun like I had a hangover, and as I watched him stroll back up the hallway with both hands raking his hair back, I suspected he’d gotten just as drunk.

  Shit.

  Weren’t we a pair.

  I, at least, had nightly dreams churning me up as an excuse. What was his?

  “Okay,” I said, grabbing a spiral notebook from the kitchen counter and fanning myself with it before turning my grocery list over to a new page. I glanced at him for a reaction check, and he was studying that spiral as if it was the most fascinating thing ever. “So. What are we doing?” His eyes flew up to mine. “The essay,” I clarified super quickly. “What are we supposed to write about?”

  He pulled out a chair at my table for me and I sat down while he went around to the opposite side. Good plan. He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and then sat down with trouble in his eyes.

  “I think we’re supposed to talk about what we’d do for Charmed,” he said. “How we’d join together to do great things.”

  My mouth went dry at the thought of joining together to do great things. They would indeed be great things, if my dreams were any indication, but we couldn’t write about that. We couldn’t even look at each other about that. The memory of his eyes going so dark as he looked at me in that dress shot my heart rate sky-high.

  Essay.

  “Hang on,” I said, my voice going gravelly. I cleared my throat as I pushed my chair back. “I need to text Carmen. Want some water or something?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Look, if you’re too busy to do this, I don’t need to just sit here.”

  He got up, and I turned to fix him with a look.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” he said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “Tell Angel we can do this another night, when she can see fit to be here and not waste my time.”

  “Hey!”

  “What?”

  His jaw muscles were working furiously, and it was clear he wanted to be anywhere but there. What happened to the previous ten seconds?

  “Why are you being a dick?” I asked.

  He laughed. It was an angry laugh, but at least his eyes lit up a little. I missed that spunky side.

  “I’m being a dick?” he asked. “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  He held his arms out and tossed his keys on the table as if to say finally!

  “Yes, you,” he said. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Where—what?” I asked shaking my head in confusion. “I’m right here.”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said. “Where’s my best friend? Where’s the woman I can talk to about anything? That I never have to be someone else around or watch what I say? What the hell is going on lately?”

  My eyes went hot with embarrassed tears. Was I wrong? Had I misinterpreted that he’d been fighting the same attraction? I held up my chin in defiance, unwilling to be weepy.

  “You know what? I could ask you the same questions,” I said. “You’ve been like Jekyll and Hyde, hot and cold, laughing with me and then the silent treatment.” I took a breath and gripped the back of the chair in front of me for grounding. “I have so much shit going on right now, and I can’t talk to you—”

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  “Because it’s different now,” I blurted.

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s different now?”

  “Everything, apparently,” I said, flailing my hands. Don’t lose your shit. Keep this on the rails. “Ever since—that.”

  “Since what?” he asked, but the look that passed over his face told me he knew exactly what “that” was.

  I shook my head. “Don’t be a girl. You know damn good and well what I’m talking about.”

  He put a don’t be ridiculous expression on. “Because you kissed me? Come on. That was nothing.”

  I blinked through the smile I felt was tacked on. Nothing. Nice. Okay. I turned and walked to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a glass, needing something to do.

  “Well that nothing has made you weird,” I said. “And probably made me weird, too, in response. Because we kissed each other, and
maybe both of us know that’s—not—what we do.”

  That made sense, right?

  Turning around and finding him a foot from me made sense too, as my heart tried to slam its way out of my chest.

  “You kissed me,” he said.

  I tilted my head. “Yes,” I conceded. “But I wasn’t there by myself, mugging with a dishtowel. You kissed me back.”

  Amusement danced with something else in his eyes. Something resistant. Something all too familiar lately that made his jaw twitch.

  “If I kissed you, you’d know it.”

  “Oh my God,” I muttered with an eye roll. “Save the macho for someone else.”

  He blew out a breath in frustration as he turned to walk away and then just made a circle back to me. “I’m not being macho,” he said. “I haven’t kissed you. Not like—”

  “Whatever,” I said, shaking my head and really just wanting him to leave. I didn’t want to hear any more about how it was all me. “You know what? Never mind. I should have never brought it up. This is why everything is so different now. If you can’t even own up to it—”

  “Shut up.”

  “What—”

  Hands held my head, hips pinned me against the sink, and his mouth landed on mine.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I felt every nerve ending in my body erupt in a million different directions as his lips hit mine with a hunger I never saw coming. Or I did. Every night.

  It was soft, hard, tasting, searching. Oh God, it was Bash and I couldn’t get enough. Fingers wound in my hair as his body pressed harder. I felt my fingers claw at his shirt, my mouth move on his lips—it was a full-on sensation party as every touch was heightened. And when he tilted his head to take more and go deeper, everything in my being melted against him.

  It was so good and—so bad. So many reasons not to be doing this, and yet it was like the floodgates to my dreams had been opened and I’d been kissing this man for months. Except—okay, the little voices yelling in the back of my head saying Wait! Wait! were annoying, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. He tasted too good to care. My hands moved up his chest to his neck, to his head, to pull him in impossibly deeper, to kiss him harder, and the growl of desire that rumbled through him—

  The sound of the front door opening was like a firecracker going off.

  “Mom, I’m home.”

  A bomb exploding between us couldn’t have had more force. We both sucked in air as he pushed away, hands in the air like he was being arrested, turning in circles.

  “Fuck,” he said under his breath, grabbing a dishtowel and hurling it across the room. “What the hell am I—”

  “Hello?” Angel said as the towel landed at her feet. She looked down at it and then back up at both of us with a befuddled look. “Is there a problem?”

  Bash was as far from me as he could possibly get in that room. Just about climbing out the back door window. I hadn’t moved. I was still just as pinned to that countertop as if his body was holding me there, with my hands covering half my face.

  What—what had we just done? What had I just done? How could we ever find normal again after—I mean, we’d done it once before and survived it, but we were really young and really drunk. Allowances were made.

  “Where’ve you been?” Bash asked.

  Angel. Focus on Angel.

  “And with who?” I added, dropping my hands to cross my arms over my chest. Partially to look intimidating and partially to hold my racing heart inside.

  I prayed that my lips didn’t look as used as they felt. I could still feel him there.

  “Jesus,” she said. “Interrogation much?”

  “Buying condoms much?” I retorted.

  “What?” Bash quipped, pushing off his corner of the room like he was rocket propelled.

  “Mom!” Angel yelled, looking at Bash, mortified.

  I might have felt bad for her. If I weren’t so angry and keyed up and wanting someone’s blood today, I just might have. But I didn’t. I felt a little bad that Bash heard it that way, but that’s what I’d been trying to tell him before we fell into each other’s mouths and got lost. Our communication line was off kilter. We were friends and then we were avoiding each other and then not talking at all and then… my skin went flushed as I relived that last and then on speed mode.

  “If Uncle Bash knowing embarrasses you,” I began. “Then think about that every time you decide to do something stupid.”

  “I didn’t buy any—”

  “Waiting outside the door while your boyfriend buys them counts, Angel,” I said.

  Her face went from self-righteous to oh shit to some other words I didn’t need her to verbalize to know they were there.

  “I’m going to my room,” she said, her lips going white as she pressed them together. “I don’t need to stand here and listen to this.”

  “The hell you don’t,” Bash said. “You’re fifteen—”

  “And you aren’t my dad!” she yelled up into his face.

  All the air left the room. All the sound. All the reason. Angel knew those words were eleven kinds of wrong the second she uttered them, I saw it on her face.

  It was Bash’s face that I would never forget. The hurt, the betrayal, the jerk backwards like she’d slapped him across the face. I saw a million walls go up in his eyes, and it broke me into as many pieces. No, she wasn’t his, but he’d always treated her as if she was. She was the closest thing he had.

  And Angel had just shattered that.

  Over condoms.

  He gave her a long look and then walked past her, plucked his keys off the table, and was out the door. I opened my mouth to call after him but nothing came out. Forcing my feet forward, I moved numbly.

  Angel whirled around with tears in her eyes, as if she was unsure whether to be contrite or pissed off. I was pretty clear on the choice.

  “Get—out—of my sight,” I seethed. “Leave your phone on the table.”

  Big tears tracked down her face, but I didn’t care.

  “Mom.”

  “Now.”

  I made it out of my door as Bash slammed his shut.

  “Bash!”

  The engine roared to life, and I jogged to the open window. The one he wasn’t using to look back at me.

  “Bash, wait,” I pleaded. “She didn’t mean that.”

  “Did you?” he asked, meeting my eyes for the first time.

  “What?”

  “I know I’m not her dad,” he said, pulling the seat belt over his body. “And she’s supposed to say shit like that. She’s a teenager. But you not telling me she’s buying condoms with that little prick?” he said, his lip curling. “That message was much louder.”

  Shit.

  “There’s no message, Bash,” I said. “It’s exactly what I told you.”

  “That you can’t tell me things anymore because we kissed?” he asked, putting his truck in gear. “That’s bullshit, and that’s your choice. That I’ve been a dick?” He held up both hands before he rested them on the steering wheel. “Then this is me being a dick.”

  The truck surged forward and I backed away, crossing my arms over my body and trying not to still taste him.

  * * *

  I was a zombie the next morning. One incredibly decadent, erotic-filled Bash dream, full of deep kisses that didn’t end with my mouth and the aroma of him all up in my senses, making it all so much more real, finished me off and left me wide awake and panting. There was no sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, my brain was filled with bags of money, endless aisles of condoms, and images of Bash wrapped around me, his eyes boring into me. The taste of him, the feel of him, the what-the-fuck-happens-now of him.

  As I stationed myself at the coffeepot—because it was the duty requiring the least amount of thought process—I stared unseeing at Car
men’s wallet on the counter.

  “So, you want me to ask Sully to set up a meeting with Mr. Bailey?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Can you?” I asked, keeping my voice low even though the counter wasn’t full. For once, I was thrilled that it was a slow morning.

  “He’s gonna want to know why,” Carmen whispered back.

  I bit my lower lip. “I can’t say right now,” I said under my breath. “I just need to talk to him. About my dad. Tell him that.”

  Jesus, it was like trying to arrange a meeting with a mob boss.

  Carmen gave a tiny shrug. “Okay.”

  “And then you’ll have to take me there,” I said.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Hold up.”

  “I don’t remember how to find it.”

  “I’ve been there once,” she said. “In the dark. By boat. After having sex with Sully at the dock. I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.”

  “Well, the last time I was there, I was like eleven,” I said. “Pretty sure you have a better shot.”

  “Allie—” Carmen began.

  “It’s important,” I said.

  There was a look in her eyes. Something saying that her reason was important, too. That she’d find fifty different reasons not to go back there if she had to. But I had a hundred grand sitting in a bag in my dryer that needed to trump that.

  “Fine,” she said under her breath, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ll text Sully.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my eye catching on blondness walking through the door. Said blondness caught on to me as well.

  “Hi!” said Vonda Sharp, drawing out the word from the door to the counter. “I’ve been wanting to meet you!”

  Oh? “Am I famous?” I asked.

  “You may as well be,” Vonda said, flashing sparkly teeth while the Sharp spawn hung back. “You and this diner are just indispensable,” she said. She held out a hand with no rings or bracelets or adornments of any kind. “Vonda Sharp.”

  “Allie Greene,” I said.

  “Yes I know,” she said. “You’re one of my Queen candidates. Tickled to death to meet you.”