Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  She had a way. A way of making you feel good without really knowing why you felt that way. It put me on edge. Indispensable and all.

  “I’m trying to get to all my candidates and talk in person,” she said. “You do know there’s an initial meet-up tonight, right?”

  I had a schedule under a magnet on my fridge, but I hadn’t paid attention. I certainly didn’t know it was starting already.

  “Of course!” I lied.

  “And the first practice is day after tomorrow.”

  “Awesome.” I plastered on a smile.

  “I just know this will be a smashing success,” she said. “Oh—” She turned sideways. “Have you met my son?”

  He went from tragically bored to beaming in less than a second. Those Sharp genes were something else. I had to hand it to my daughter—she had good taste. This boy was beautiful.

  “I’m Aaron Sharp,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “I know,” I said, taking his with as much strength as I could muster. “I’m Angel’s mom. You know, the girl you might be having sex with? You do know she’s only fifteen, right?”

  Aaron’s smile faltered as he pulled his hand away, and the subsequent glow between them lessened.

  “I’m sorry?” Vonda said. Her smile stayed on, but her eyes went somewhere else.

  “Oh my God,” Carmen snickered, turning to check out the room, probably for saviors.

  “Oh, my daughter and your son have been hanging out talking and stuff,” I said. “Have you met Angel?” Vonda didn’t shake her head, or move, or even blink. “No? Well, she’s fifteen, and they bought condoms together day before yesterday.”

  I didn’t know this woman. I didn’t know her habits, proclivities, or triggers, but she was a mother of a teenager. The facial body language of what the fuck did my kid do was universal even in its subtlest forms, and I wasn’t seeing it on her at all.

  Vonda turned to look at her son politely, questioning without words.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  She nodded and faced me again. “They are thinking about safety. I find that responsible.”

  “You find that—what?” I asked, my voice cracking at the end. “No. It’s not.”

  Vonda laid a cool hand on my arm, which was probably hot enough to burn her.

  “I try to let Aaron make his own way, his own decisions about his life,” she said. “I feel he is more mature for it.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” I said. “A little too mature for Angel. She’s fifteen, in case you missed that. Inexperienced.” I frowned at him. “And in school. How old are you?”

  “Oh, I’m in a work program,” Aaron said. “I go to school in the morning and work in the afternoons.”

  “He works as my intern,” Vonda said proudly.

  Proudly. I’d just informed her that her son was planning sex with a minor much more minor than he, and she was proud he was practicing safe sex in his off hours and following her around all day calling it a work program.

  “Oh! Excuse me!” Vonda said, tapping my arm again as she did a double take on someone across the room. “I have to go say hello to Katrina Bowman real quick. See you tonight!”

  “Nice to meet you, Allie,” Aaron said, winking with a head toss as he followed his mother.

  Breathe.

  “Did he just call me Allie?” I said.

  “And winked,” Carmen said. “Did she just praise them for being responsible?”

  I looked down at my hands. “I’m shaking. I don’t shake.”

  “You did not tell me that Angel bought condoms,” she said.

  “Aaron bought condoms,” I corrected. “Angel waited for him outside because she thought no one would pick up on that.”

  “She told you?”

  “Oh hell no,” I said. “Mr. Mercer called me with that fun little news.”

  “Oh God,” Carmen breathed. “What did you do?”

  I inhaled deeply and let it back out. What did I do? I made out with Bash.

  “I called her on it,” I said. “She got nasty and mouthy, Bash told her off, she told him he wasn’t her father, and he left and I haven’t heard from him.”

  Carmen stared openmouthed. “Holy hell.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “I can’t believe she said that,” she said.

  “I can’t believe she did any of that,” I countered. “And now she has to come here after school and glare at me because I can’t trust her to go home.” I rubbed my eyes. “Want a teenager? She’s highly discounted right now.”

  A familiar truck caught my attention outside the window, and I did a double take on the image of Bash leaning against it, talking to Lange. Talking to Lange. What was Lange going to do to screw him over? I could go get that money out of my dryer right now and hand it to him with interest and tell him to get the hell out of Charmed. To leave me and everyone I know alone.

  I could, but I needed to be sure where it came from. If it was legit.

  I held my breath as Lange pushed the door open, waiting for Bash to follow him, but he didn’t. He got in his truck and drove away, leaving my stomach in a state of flailing disappointment.

  “So, what was Bash there for?” Carmen asked, as if she’d read my thoughts.

  Whoosh. Heat rushed to my face as the topic landed on top of my heart. Or my libido.

  “He—they—he’s teaching her to drive,” I said, picking up a menu and fanning myself with it. “And we had an essay thing to work on for the stupid contest.”

  “Uh-huh,” Carmen said, leaning on her forearms. “Neither of those things will turn you as red as you just went.”

  “I—don’t—” I dropped the menu and grabbed a clean wash cloth to wipe down the counter.

  “Allie Greene.”

  I widened my eyes. “Carmen Frost.”

  She gave me a knowing grin, and I was hit once again with what having girlfriends in school must have been like. Hell, having girlfriends now was still a little foreign.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Which really means?”

  I closed my eyes, realizing I did need to say it out loud before my head exploded.

  “We kind of kissed. Again.”

  She lunged forward and my eyes popped open.

  “Kind of?” she whispered loudly, looking giddy.

  “God, this is why I don’t talk,” I said, pulling a stool from under the bar and sinking onto it. Normally a no-no but I needed it.

  “How do you kind of kiss?” she asked, chuckling. “Are we talking sweet, unexpected, or hard core? And who initiated it?”

  My fingers went to my lips automatically at the memory of it. “Definitely unexpected. Him. And if Angel hadn’t come home, I—don’t know.”

  “The not-my-dad thing happened after that?” Carmen asked.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Shit,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “So what are we going to see Bailey about?” she asked, making me blink to find the my-dad-the-money-hoarder subject.

  “I can’t tell you yet,” I said.

  She laughed. “Hell, it was worth a shot my friend. You were on a roll.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Okay, everyone!” Vonda sang into the room later that evening, smiling at us all like we were her blessed offspring. Kia, the ex-carnie and Bash’s ex-squeeze, was sitting up on a stool to her left, looking annoyed with her. “I hope you’re enjoying the complimentary chips and salsa—and margaritas,” she added with a wink and a giggle. “But it’s time to get down to the nuts and bolts.”

  “She says complimentary like she did something special,” Miss Mavis whispered, leaning over. “It’s a Mexican restaurant. They always gi
ve you chips and salsa.”

  Miss Mavis being one of the contestants was hilarious. She didn’t actually have a business, per se. She rode a giant tricycle all through Charmed and sold snack food from it. Sometimes. Mostly, she was just nosy.

  What was even funnier, was her pairing with Mr. Townsend from the barbershop, since he tended to run the other way every time she came around.

  “True,” I said. “And I doubt she’s comping the drinks,” I said.

  We were in the party room at Rojo’s, the only Mexican food choice in Charmed. All the candidates for the contest were there. Except for Bash.

  “Are we missing a king, Allie?” Vonda asked, winking at me. Again.

  Okay, between her and her horny little boy, they had some serious eye twitching issues, and I had about had it. I came to the ridiculous meeting out of obligation, after leaving Angel at home under threat of never driving any car ever again if she let anything breathing into the house, while I still had a bag of money sitting inside my dryer. Not that I feared its discovery. Angel would die naked before stepping a foot in there to do laundry.

  I had things to do. Things other than worrying about contests or who would do more for the town, or what we had to wear, or where my damn king was and why he wasn’t there suffering through this crap with me.

  “I don’t know where Bash is,” I said. “He must have gotten tied up.”

  Don’t. Go. There.

  “Uh oh,” Alan said on the other side of the room. “Trouble in paradise?”

  I sneered at him. “There’s no trouble. There’s no paradise. We aren’t a couple.”

  “We aren’t a couple either,” Mrs. Boudreaux said, thumbing toward Mr. Masoneaux next to her. “But we do hook up now and then.”

  My jaw dropped an inch. My fingers inched toward my phone, instinct wanting to text Bash that those two were “hooking up” with a scared face emoji. But I couldn’t.

  “We don’t—hook up, either,” I said. “I’m just saying he must have gotten busy at the apiary.”

  “He texted that he would be a few minutes late,” Kia said. “But he’ll be here.”

  He texted Kia.

  I might need one of those margaritas.

  “Well, we’ll catch your king up later,” Vonda said.

  I averted my eyes before she could wink again.

  “He’s—not my king,” I said.

  “I’d let him be mine,” Katrina Bowman said, laughing. She nudged her husband. “You could join us.”

  I’ll bet.

  “So,” Vonda said, clapping her hands together to get the class back in order. “First I want to introduce Kia Jadonovitz.”

  Jadonovitz? That was the first time I’d ever heard a last name. I’d started to think she was like Cher or Madonna.

  “If you haven’t met her yet, Kia was with the Lucky Hart carnival, and stayed behind to work on the Lucky Charm,” Vonda said. “She’s going to be heading up the contest activities and other promotional duties.” She pointed at Kia. “Including getting with the local florist for décor and flower arrangements?”

  Kia nodded and looked as thrilled as if Vonda had put her on cow-milking duty. I didn’t blame her. From what I’d heard, I was pretty sure she and I had similar social skills. As in none.

  “Graham’s Florist, yes,” she said. “Already met with them.”

  “Hey, Kia,” Alan Bowman said flirtatiously. While sitting next to his wife.

  Kia never even blinked. “So, first on the agenda is your essays,” she said.

  “Crap,” I muttered.

  “Everyone bring theirs?” she asked, panning the room.

  “Bring?” I said under my breath. I glanced at Miss Mavis, who pulled a folded piece of paper from her bra.

  “Haven’t typed it up yet, but I scribbled it out in the line at Brewsters,” she whispered.

  I sighed. “Awesome.”

  “As you know,” Vonda said, standing back up. “The townspeople will be voting. It will lie on whoever is attendance that night to cast a vote, so start working it in town. You have the rest of this week. Talk it up, get people out there. Get them wanting to come out and hear you read your essay—”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you have a question?” Vonda asked, raising her hand while Kia stepped back and just watched her take over again.

  “No,” I said, loading up a chip with salsa. “I have a reaction. No one said we had to read anything to the crowd.”

  “It’s in the bylaws I e-mailed to you,” Vonda said, tilting her head. The people sitting closest to her beamed up at her. “And your partner can do the reading if you aren’t comfortable.”

  “Well, I missed that e-mail,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure Bash did too—”

  “What did I miss?” said a voice behind me as he pulled out a chair.

  The chip all but fell out of my mouth as he sat down just inches away, those blue eyes landing on me for half a second. The smell, the warmth, the Bashness of him washed over me, whisking me back to being pinned against my kitchen counter and wrapped up in everything Bash while he kissed me like the world was coming to an end, and I reached for my keys in a desperate attempt at grounding. Good god, I was pathetic.

  “Yay, Allie’s king is here!” Vonda said, giggling. “So glad you could be here, Bash.”

  “He’s not my king,” I repeated softly, crossing my arms over my chest.

  Kia smiled at him from across the room. To be fair, it wasn’t a lover-ish smile. More like a buddy, like they had secrets and inside jokes. Like he and I used to have. Fuck balls, Kia was the new me.

  “I was telling how the voting will work,” Vonda said. “About reading the essays and working the crowd this week.”

  “Not a problem,” Bash said.

  “We didn’t write ours,” I said behind my hand.

  His blue eyes rested on mine, stealing my breath. “I did.”

  “Oh.”

  Bash’s gaze fell to my lips, making me lick them involuntarily, which made his pupils dilate as I looked at them.

  Turn around.

  I forced myself to turn back to where Vonda was droning on about the upcoming activity this week, all the while being hyper aware of the freakishly hot man at my back and imagining what his lips would feel like trailing down the back of my neck. How hot it would be if his hands slid up around me and palmed my breasts. How much we could get away with while Vonda went on and on, and would anyone notice if one of his hands got busy under my jeans?

  “I don’t think we should read them here,” Bash said from behind me, making me jump so violently several people turned around.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth just in case I might have yelped, and to cover some of the glowing that happens when all the blood that previously left your head for your privates, comes rushing back like a tsunami.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” I said, patting my face.

  We needed to talk. To clear the air. To make things somewhat normal again. I was pretty sure we’d never have the original normal back, but we needed something in between that and dancing around each other’s lips or avoiding each other completely.

  “You were saying?” Vonda asked sweetly.

  “If we read them here,” Bash began. “It gives everyone else the chance to go change theirs.”

  “Are you saying we’re all cheaters?” Katrina Bowman cooed at him, leaning on her section of table so that another inch or so of boob was revealed.

  “I’m saying that we’re all human,” he said. “What’s to stop me from listening to yours and thinking ‘hmm, I need to use that line. I’m gonna make it even better.’ And then Mrs. Boudreaux hears mine and says ‘I didn’t think about that point, I’ll add it.’ And before you know it, we all have the same speech.”

 
“I agree,” Kia said.

  “Valid perspective,” Vonda said, nodding. “Okay, we can go with that if you’re all good with it. Essays will be a surprise element.”

  The next fifteen minutes were a boring combination of rules and Vonda’s attempts at giving the stage to Kia and then yanking it back again. Then we were sprung. I took a deep breath as I scraped my chair back, hoping to have a real conversation, but when I turned he was already rising from his chair and in motion. Away from me.

  Well, okay then.

  Katrina Bowman stopped him at the end of the table, smiling, laughing; curling her red hair on a finger. To my knowledge, she hadn’t seduced him into her nasty little web of extramarital boy toys, and it probably drove her crazy. Then again, he was smiling down at her and chuckling at whatever she was saying under her breath, as she touched his arm intimately. Maybe she had. She couldn’t get Nick or Sully in the past because they were in love with Lanie and Carmen, but Bash was unattached. He normally had rules about married women, but maybe he’d made an exception. Maybe redheaded skank had been on the menu one night after he and Kia had split.

  Kia, who had walked up and had a hand on his back that remained after he hugged her.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered, getting up and grabbing my keys.

  “What was that?” Vonda asked, approaching me, a big perfect smile on her face.

  That was ridiculous, stupid, infantile, beneath-me jealousy, that’s what that was.

  “Nothing,” I said, pulling my mouth into a semblance of a smile. “Have a chat with Aaron, yet?”

  She tilted her head questioningly. “About?”

  Count to three.

  “About what we talked about this morning,” I said. “What he and my daughter purchased.”

  She gave me a placating look. “I get the feeling that you have an issue with that,” she said. “Do you have problems with sex?”

  “Prob—” I began. “What?”

  “Hang-ups,” she said. “Some people have these preconceived archaic notions about how sex should be approached, especially with young people. Like it’s not to be enjoyed, but some big bad thing to be avoided until adulthood.”