Chasing Charli

by Quinn, Aneta

  “I…umm…”

  “Want to stay here? Good, it’s probably for the best. I think you’re a little loopy from drinking and hitting your head on my door” he says as he turns and ushers me further into his living room, still holding on tightly to his towel.

  He closes the door behind me, locks it securely and then turns his hungry gaze on me. I may be drunk but I’ve at least managed to keep myself from drooling, thank god.

  He points in the direction of the shower and says “I’m just going to finish my shower. Make yourself at home, get some ice on that head” he snickers.

  Jerk.

  As soon as the bathroom door closes I collapse on the couch. I slip my heels off and rub my feet a little. Thank god I wore wedge ankle boots; certainly way more comfortable than any other kind of high heel contraption.

  I lean back against the arm rest on the couch and throw my arm over my face. My head is pulsing at a steady rhythm and I probably should put some ice on it, but I wouldn’t be able to move now even if my life depended on it.

  I faintly hear the shower water running and my mind starts to conjure up nice images of a naked Jax, running his fingers through his wet scruffy hair and across his body.

  I fall asleep almost instantly, but after a while I start to toss and turn, a movement I realise should have dropped my ass to the floor of his living room. I open my eyes slowly and it’s just barely light out. I’m twisted and wrapped like a burrito amongst his bed sheets and I kick them away and sit up. How the hell did I get in here?

  I take in my surroundings and groan as my head continues to pulse and throb angrily. I run a hand down my face and slowly slide to the edge of the bed. Shit I wish I didn’t drink so much. I stand and wobble for a second before looking around the dark room. As I pull on one of Jax’s jumpers that I found thrown across a chair, I make my way out of his room to get a glass of water. I inhale and my mouth practically waters at how delicious his jumper smells; that yummy guy smell and aftershave that most guys seem to have.

  I tiptoe as quietly as I can into the living room and find him sprawled out on the couch, looking ridiculously uncomfortable. Did he carry me into his room? I hope to god I didn’t slur something stupid at him. If I did I can just blame tequila, or a serious knock to the head.

  I realise I’m leaning against the doorframe staring at him sleep like some weirdo. I turn and make my way into the kitchen, and grab a glass of water and some pain killers.

  The time on the microwave flashes 6:23 in the morning so I quietly rummage through his fridge and cupboard and find the essentials for a thank you breakfast; then get started on the best breakfast I’ve ever made.

  6. Care for a mint?

  Jackson

  I wake up to the smell of cooking bacon in my apartment and I can hear Charli in my kitchen, quietly singing along to something. I risk a quick peek in her direction and see her drifting around in my kitchen, barefoot, and wearing one of my hoodies over her tight dress. It sits just at the top of her thighs and she still manages to look fucking beautiful.

  Her hair is a wavy mess looking more like sex hair then a birds nest though, and she’s got it pulled back in a messy bun. I watch her as she pulls out two plates, evenly distributes the bacon, and then grabs the other pan with the scrambled eggs.

  For whatever stupid reason I quickly close my eyes and pretend I’m asleep, maybe so she doesn’t catch me staring at her.

  I hear her soft footsteps cross the living room space and the soft noise of ceramic being placed gently on the coffee table.

  It’s silent for a few moments before I hear her start to crunch and I’m so intrigued I almost open my eyes, almost.

  “Jax” she softly whispers, and she sounds closer than I expected.

  “Jax, I made you something” she whispers again and this time sounds less than an inch away from me.

  I open my eyes carefully and groan since it’s so early in the morning. Definitely feeling the aftermath of sleeping on a couch but being the gentleman that I am, I couldn’t let her sleep out here while I had a nice king size bed she could use. After I came out the shower I found her passed out on my couch so I carried her into my bedroom and put her to sleep. I lay with her for a little bit and after she started mumbling in her sleep I knew she was okay. It took everything in me to walk out and leave her in there alone, the temptation to spend the night with her was almost too hard to resist.

  I left her in there on her own and collapsed on the couch before I could be tempted to do anything stupid. Well, more stupid than I already had. When I carried her to my room she wrapped her warm hands around my neck and kissed me softly on the lips before mumbling my name.

  In that instant I swear I had the stupidest grin on my face and ended up going to sleep sprouting a massive hard on – yay for me.

  “Why are you up so early?” I finally manage to groan.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Plus you stooged me with the good groceries” she says jokingly and pops a piece of bacon in her mouth.

  Why did she have to look so good even when she did something as ordinary as eating breakfast?

  “Mmm you know the way to a man’s heart” I tease, picking up my plate and almost miss the small look of triumph on her face. She sits back on the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her and starts to eat her food quietly.

  I move my leg and nudge her shoulder with my knee since she’s wedged between the couch and the coffee table.

  “What’s up with you today?”

  “What do you mean?” she says between mouthfuls of food.

  “I mean, what’s up with the early wakeup call and the breakfast?”

  “Can’t I cook breakfast without there having to be a good reason?” she asks defensively.

  “Well…I mean...no offence but you never cook and usually if you do, the smoke alarm goes off” I say and quickly dodge a smack from her.

  “I’m not that bad!” she complains.

  “Yeah okay, you’re not that bad. This is actually pretty good” I say before shoving more food in my mouth.

  After that we’re silent, eating our breakfast with the occasional groan of satisfaction.

  Once we load the dishes into the dishwasher and I help her clean the mess she made in the kitchen, there was nothing left to do but give her the spare keys I have to her apartment.

  “I’ll come with you, save you running back up here to bring back the keys” I say casually.

  “Thanks again, for you know…letting me stay here. You really didn’t have to give up your bed either.”

  “Yeah that couch was a pain in my ass…literally” I say and smile as she laughs.

  We make our way out the apartment and head to the stairs. She’s a few steps ahead of me and suddenly she pauses at the bottom of the steps, making me run straight into her.

  “What the hell Charli?” I start to complain as she says, “What. The. fuck!?”

  I follow her gaze and see her apartment door slightly ajar. The handle is barely hanging on and the extra lock looks like it’s been ripped from its spot.

  “What the actual fuck!” she says again.

  I quickly put my hand over her mouth and shake my head at her.

  “Stay here for a second. I’ll quickly check and make sure there’s no one still in there. Okay?” I whisper to her.

  She nods vaguely and looks angry. If I wasn’t slightly panicking right now, I’d say she looked pretty cute. She always looks cute when she’s mad.

  I walk over to her door and quickly look back to make sure she stayed by the stairs. She’s got her hands by her sides, clenching into fists that could probably do more damage to herself than anyone else; she looks too fragile.

  I nudge the door open further with my foot and slowly peek in to her apartment; annoyed that I don’t have some sort of weapon. The place looks pretty trashed, but from quick glance, nothing major looks like it’s missing, and the place looks void of any unwanted intruders.

  Her DVDs are scattered
on the floor in front of the TV, with a few out of their cases. Her art books are still spread out on the coffee table, but are open wide with a few pages visible. I notice there’s a drawing of someone that on second glance I notice is me. If I weren’t pissed off at the mess that is now her apartment, or freaking out as to why it’s actually like this, then I might have been more flattered.

  I hear her footsteps behind me and a crunch of one of the DVD cases when she steps on it.

  “Shit…”

  I turn and see her scowling at the mess of her apartment. In all honesty she doesn’t even look scared, she still just looks mad.

  “Does anything look like its missing?” I ask to try and get her talking and see her reaction to all this.

  “No…fuck…I don’t know” is her only reply; yep, definitely mad. I can’t help but laugh a little and she shoots me a quick annoyed look.

  “Sorry, I know this isn’t funny, but I swear you have the mouth of a sailor” I joke. She stares at me even harder before looking down at her coffee table.

  I see the blush creep up and colour her cheeks before she quickly scrapes up the loose pages and shoves all her drawing books together, then shoves them in the closest drawer.

  I start to pull out my phone to dial the police, her mum, I don’t even know who but I need to tell someone; this obviously wasn’t a random break in.

  “No!” she practically yells at me and grabs my phone out of my hands.

  “What are you doing?” I complain.

  “You can’t tell anyone. They have eyes and ears everywhere” she says to me and slides my phone in her pocket.

  I quirk my eyebrow up at her and realise it almost looks like whoever it was, was looking for something, not someone. I know it’s somehow related to why we’re here in the first place, I just didn’t think they could find her so quickly and I still can’t understand why they are so desperate to protect these two irrelevant criminals. Somehow it feels like there’s more to the story then I know.

  “Have you contacted anyone, any of your old friends…old boyfriends?” I ask.

  “No” she answers calmly then seems to remember something, “my mum called me the other day, but I didn’t think too much about it.”

  Shit, that’s not good. Her mum wasn’t supposed to call her number at all.

  “You may not be happy about this, but we’re going to have to be roomies. They don’t know who you are, or that you’re here with me, hopefully” she says and bites her lip, “Please don’t tell my mum, or the police or anyone, okay? There’s not many people we can trust.”

  “Why? What’s going on Charli?”

  “Just…trust me okay? I can’t tell you anything more than you already know Jax” she says and sighs.

  Okay, now I’m officially a little annoyed and a little worried. What the hell could she possibly not be able to tell me, and is it because she doesn’t trust me?

  After a little stare down I finally nod and help her pack up some essentials to take back to my apartment; don’t understand why we had to have separate apartments in the first place anyway. We close the door behind us as best as we can after making the place look liveable again and quickly head back to my apartment.

  “I’m not letting you sleep on the couch again” she says, obviously trying to keep me from asking the important questions.

  “Okay” I say and grin at her; I don’t mind sharing my bed with her. She probably thinks I’ll make her sleep on the couch I smirk to myself.

  “Well that was an easy argument. I thought you’d fight me on it.”

  “We can both have the bed, it’s big enough for two” I say and smile at her. Shit I’m probably laying it on too thick, but luckily she just shoves my arm and laughs.

  “As long as you don’t start spooning me in your sleep” she says and laughs even harder. Drew was certainly right on that account, she really does look good when she laughs. Yes I overheard, and yes I saw him throw himself at her. I was pissed at first but realised I couldn’t be; she wasn’t mine.

  Charli

  I sit on the edge of the bed, flipping the tiny memory card between my fingers. I’m keeping an ear out trying to hear Jax’s side of the conversation between him and my step dad. He’s given me some time to make myself comfortable and unpack some stuff in his apartment while he makes a call.

  Apparently he’s had to call either my step dad or my mum every couple days just to give them updates on how things were going here. Maybe that’s why my mum didn’t ask me much on how things were going because she was already getting that information from Jax.

  I’ve certainly put myself in a shitty situation and I’m dragging every single person I care about down with me. This right here, this little memory card, is my saviour. I just have to stick it out the next few months and pray they don’t push the court date any further. This right here is our ticket to bringing them all down and making us safe.

  The fewer people that know the better; judging by the mess that is now my apartment though, looks like they already know.

  What not many people know is that the night I saw everything happen, I recorded a few minutes on my phone. Those few moments were enough to capture faces and names of apparently some very high ranking criminals. I’ve only told the select few detectives that interviewed me for hours on end and looks like one of them is a rat. How do I know that? Well obviously someone told the people that are after me; otherwise they wouldn’t be so keen to find me.

  No-one has caught on that criminals like this, they don’t care if two of their lowest, petty criminals go to jail for murder, as long as they are in the clear and the work has been done.

  Thanks to me though and the two idiots I saw bragging about who they work for and what they’ve done for them, I have enough evidence to put a lot of them away for a long time and tie them to heaps of other stuff.

  I hear Jax ending the conversation and thankfully he mentioned nothing about the little break-in to my apartment; if they think all is well that’s good.

  I quickly slip the memory card back into the mints tin I carry in my bag and shake it a little to mix it in with the mints. Genius I know; who would think to look in a tin full of mints for a memory card. Thankfully I managed to transfer the video to the card before the detectives took my phone for evidence – which not surprisingly is now missing.

  Jax knocks lightly before entering and then sits next to me on the bed.

  “You okay?” he asks softly.

  “Okay? Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I ask. Dammit I sound way too nervous so I take in a deep calming breath.

  He reaches out and skims his thumb over my lip, pulling it free from my bite. Dammit I didn’t realise I was doing that either and god does he make my insides burn; even just from that simple touch.

  He turns his head a little to the side and grins at me.

  “You’re a pain in the ass Charli, you know that?”

  “Quit the job then” I tease and my breath starts to quicken when he inches a little closer. I realise his hand is still touching my face as it slides around and his fingers slip through my hair.

  “This jobs too enticing babe” he responds and softly his lips finally touch mine. Did he just call me babe again? Oh god he’s finally kissing me, and I mean really kissing me.

  I groan and crush my lips harder against his. When I think he’s going to pull away because we’ve crossed some imaginary line, his hand slides through my hair, around my neck and pulls my body closer against him; I instinctively reach out and grasp his tight, muscly arms.

  “You’re the only reason I took this job in the first place” he says before he slides his other hand against my thigh and along my side.

  “You’re so full of shit” I laugh and pull away from him. Ha! How does he like it? Not so nice when you go in for a kiss and the other person backs out.

  I stand up and pull off his jumper regretfully, dropping it on the floor.

  “I’m jumping in the shower, is that okay?” I ask and smile
innocently. He’s staring at me, mouth open and looks lost for words. I shrug and saunter into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I’ve got him right where I want him it looks like. Seems he’s wanted to kiss me just as badly as I wanted to kiss him the other day. I practically jump up and down like an idiot and then feel stupid, what am I 10 years old?

  I’ve got the biggest grin on my face though and my stomach is all in knots; either from him; or most likely from the state we’ve just found my apartment in. That’s the best explanation I can give right now. Surely this isn’t love though, lust maybe? 100% yes. Oh who am I kidding, I’ve crushed on Jax from the first day he stepped into my room, bossing me around, and telling me where I can go and what I can do. Who knew I liked being bossed around and man-handled, by someone other than my mum obviously.

  I’m just going to kick this up a notch and flirt shamelessly but never giving in. Hopefully he caves and gives in first to all my irresistible charm. I hold in a laugh at how stupid I sound and turn the shower on.

  I shimmy out of my dress, dropping it on the floor and slip out of my bra and lace panties. I slide into the shower and the hot water automatically soothes me and calms me down. I haven’t quite figured out yet whether its nerves from having my apartment destroyed, knowing people are after me, or because I’ll be sharing an apartment with Jax. I shrug and let myself relax under the water, soothing my muscles as much as possible before heading back out to Jax.

  7. A for Absolutely mind blowing?

  Jackson

  We’ve managed to get through another week or so without any more break-ins or suspicious activity. Well suspicious activity from anyone other than Charli.

  Other than acting a little more on edge, she’s been driving me crazy with all her innuendos, gentle touches, and non-stop flirting. I’m not complaining but I know what she’s trying to do and it’s killing me watching her walk around the apartment in nothing but some tight shorts and t-shirt, or brushing her hand along my arm when she reaches for the remote. It’s a stupid game we’re playing now but it’s kind of hot, knowing eventually one of us is going to cave in to the other and fuck is it going to be good. I don’t know whether she’s trying to distract me as well from asking all the questions that are festering deep in my mind. What is she hiding?