Max whipped his head around, seeing what she did.
“Just stay here,” he muttered.
It took her a few seconds before she could force herself to follow him. She felt like someone had jammed a stake through the gears in her brain, keeping her from moving. She cut through the crowd in time to see Max pulling Nick back from a three-tiered display of cupcakes.
“Leave. Now,” Max said.
Nick twisted around to look at him, the cronies he had dragged along merely glancing at Max like he was an annoying insect. Charlotte recognized them; they used to hang around with Sean. They’d been to her house, drinking and playing video games.
“You gonna drag me out yourself?” Nick challenged.
Leo scuttled along the edge of the table to stand behind Max.
Nick raised his eyebrows. “Ooh, I’m terrified.”
“Get out,” Max said again, closer to Nick’s face.
Nick was looking at him like he couldn’t quite figure out where he knew Max from and how invested Max was in throwing him out. When his eyes settled on Charlotte, she saw the recognition flicker on his face.
“Ah.” Nick tilted his head. “I get it. You’re protecting that bitch.”
A few other guests had caught onto the weirdly tense standoff the guest of honour was having at the buffet table with a crew that looked like they’d walked out of West Side Story. Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte spied Sophie at the edge of the crowd, Delilah in tow. Charlotte could feel her heartbeat in every inch of her.
“Leave or I’ll call the cops,” Max said, his voice never faltering.
“We both know she’s not gonna let you do that.” Nick picked up a strawberry from the pile beside a shiny fondue fountain that looked like it cost more than the Romer family car. He dragged the strawberry through the chocolate stream and raised it in Charlotte’s direction like a toast before popping it in his mouth. “So feel free to make me leave yourself,” he said with his mouth full.
Nick punctuated his muffled sentence with a shove aimed at Max’s shoulders. Max bumped the table, and the elaborate pyramids of glassware tinkled in warning.
Boys were stupid about stuff like this. Charlotte knew what was coming.
Max returned the shove and Nick stumbled sideways, not expecting it. His arm flew out toward his friends for assistance but he missed and his elbow took out the chocolate fountain. Both Nick and the fountain crashed to the ground.
Charlotte clapped a hand over her mouth. So much for subtle. Delilah was taking a video with her phone.
Deirdre broke through the crowd, looking horrified. Last Charlotte had seen her, she had been double-fisting white wine spritzers in a circle of Simon’s bank colleagues. Simon appeared behind Deirdre, also looking horrified, but it seemed his horror had more to do with the chocolate fountain than his son’s wellbeing.
“Max!” Simon roared. Max hadn’t really moved since Nick fell, and neither of them seemed to know what to do with themselves.
Simon wrenched Nick to his feet by his arm. “Both of you. Out.”
Nick drenched in chocolate would have been funny, Charlotte thought, if he hadn’t tried to kill her once, maybe twice. Nick shot the Hales a venomous look and turned to leave, but not before pulling out a wine glass from the bottom of the pyramid. The entire structure collapsed and shattered on the wooden floor.
“Call the police,” Nick said evenly, like a dare.
Simon looked like he hadn’t heard him, and Charlotte watched Nick and his cronies track back over the hill and out of sight.
“You,” Simon said to Max. “Office.”
Charlotte didn’t like the sound of that.
Charlotte twisted the faucet off. Jesus. Worst party ever. Even worse than Sophie’s birthday. She straightened her rumpled dress, still spectacularly stained and unfixable. She dabbed at it halfheartedly with a fistful of damp Kleenex before she opened the door to the empty living room. Leo had tried to ask her what happened with Max and Nick and the chocolate, but she dodged his questions. The bathroom was quiet. She took her time. The rest of the house was empty, so she could hear the voices clearly. Simon’s office was just across the hall. The voices were even in tone, but one was louder than the other. Both voices got louder, and she saw the doorknob turn. Charlotte quickly stepped back and swung the bathroom door shut quietly.
“…embarrassing!”
“I didn’t start anything!” Max said gruffly.
“You knew all my clients were here,” Simon retorted. “You were looking for any excuse to cause a scene. You’ve been drinking since noon.”
“Yeah, Dad, that’s my goal. My life’s ambition. Embarrassing you in front of River John’s banking community,” Max said sarcastically. “All three of them.”
“You’re to apologize to every one of my clients when you go back out there.”
“Please stop saying the word ‘clients.’ And I’m sorry, but it’s not like I asked those guys to show up.”
“Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Simon said. “It wouldn’t be the only trash you invited to this party.”
Silence. Charlotte almost laughed at her side of the door. Shit. Who did Simon hate that much?
“Excuse me?” Max asked.
“You know those kids,” Simon said. “No money since their father passed. They’re trouble. Do what you want but don’t be surprised if you get a bill in the mail.”
Oh. That’s who.
More silence. Charlotte found herself thinking about homemade jam and fish catch her dad used to send the Hales whenever he came back with extra.
“That’s funny coming from someone with a twenty-five-year-old second wife.”
“We’re done here.”
“Don’t say anything about her, ever,” Max said firmly. “And your clients”—he dragged the word out—“can piss off.”
Her bathroom door opened and she had to step back to avoid Max hitting her in the face. Simon, thankfully, was gone from the hall.
“Hi,” she said meekly.
Max looked at her like he had been the one to say all those awful things. “How much did you hear?”
Charlotte puffed her cheeks up and blew the air out slowly. “Enough.”
“All of it?”
“Yep.” She met his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Max said. He looked it.
“You don’t have to apologize for him.”
Max stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. “You should have left when you had the chance.”
Charlotte half-smiled at his pink shirt. “And miss all this drama? It’s like I was never gone.”
“It’s starting to feel that way.” Max leaned back against the door. He crossed the narrow room and pulled back the shower curtain. “I was worried—well, still am—that Sophie was going to go party-game-dictator and make us play seven minutes in Max’s bathroom. So I prepared.”
Max pulled a forty-ounce bottle of Captain Morgan out of the tub with a few inches missing from the top. He unscrewed it and took a swig.
“Last time I had this party, Sophie was my girlfriend,” Max said.
“I know,” Charlotte answered. She had been there. Things were a lot more fun, a lot lighter and easier than they were now. And she’d been a lot drunker. Sophie, the dutiful girlfriend, made sure Max introduced her to any family that showed up, and she played the part perfectly. But Sophie made time for Charlotte too; their friendship never suffered because of Max, and Sophie would never choose whatever guy she was dating over Charlotte.
“I didn’t think anyone was going to come tonight,” Max admitted quietly. “Thought it would be weird…and I think they only came anyway because of Sophie.”
“They didn’t,” Charlotte said gently. “They came for the free liquor.”
His face twisted into a lopsided grin
and she laughed a tiny bit.
“I didn’t come for Sophie,” Charlotte clarified, clearing her throat.
“Thank you.” Max dragged back another long mouthful from the bottle. “Worst party ever,” he said, holding it out to her.
She took it around the neck. “Cheers.”
eighteen
Never. Again.
Charlotte threw her hand out blindly for the cup of water on her bedside table. She crammed two Advil into her mouth. Christ. She dragged her palm over her face and opened her eyes.
The sun from the window hurt her eyes as she sat up. Max had decided she couldn’t make the ten-minute journey alone and walked her home—both stumbling messes; it was a miracle they’d even made it—at around four in the morning. And then, she assumed, he had stumbled back to his place. Charlotte pushed her hair out of her face. She’d have to go back for the car.
She checked her phone for—well, nothing. It’s not like Sophie texted her anymore. And she didn’t have any message notifying her that Max had fallen in a ditch after his latest fit of gallantry. She checked her and Sophie’s conversation…she last texted Sophie a week after she had crashed her birthday, after Sophie told her about the baby. Here if you want to talk. Sophie never answered.
Max texted her sometimes, but usually about things that were happening on Antiques Roadshow that Charlotte didn’t understand or care about. She didn’t even really text Sean, except for when he sent her the occasional message asking what was for dinner. And he hardly ever used emojis.
She scrolled back. She didn’t have to scroll far—a lot shorter than it seemed in real life—and stared at the wall of messages she’d sent him last year on September 9.
Call me. Call me. Call me.
He’d called, eventually. Sean had been in Cape Breton with the guys the weekend of the accident. Charlotte had the car so he had hitched a ride back to River John with one of his friends the next day. Or it might have been the day after. They sort of all blurred together the second she heard about Sophie.
Enough. Charlotte flicked her phone screen off. The rumination was making her hangover worse. She pulled herself out of bed and into clean clothes, and filled a water bottle to bring with her on the walk to Max’s to get the car.
Charlotte detoured across the Quik Mart parking lot and ducked into the store. A) because it was hotter outside than she’d anticipated, which was not helping her stomach, and B) because she remembered Leo mentioning last night that he was working this morning.
Leo was hunched over with his elbows resting on the counter, plugging his ears with his fingers and drinking steadily from an electric blue slushie.
“Rough night?” Charlotte asked as the bell chimed behind her.
Leo unplugged his ears. “This cures hangovers.”
Charlotte frowned. “I think that’s for hiccups.”
Leo straightened up and looked at her blankly. “I’ve drunk three of these this morning.”
Charlotte laughed as he pushed the slushie toward her and rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes.
“How was last night?” he asked her. “You know, aside from the guys fighting over you.”
“They were not fighting over me,” she said. She took a sip; it tasted slightly radioactive. “And it was…fine. How was your night?”
“Honestly, excellent. Unparalleled drama. Delilah’s Twitter? New heights, Charlie. River John missed you. Did you see Sophie tell off those townies?”
A townie was Sophie’s affectionate nickname for someone from Halifax, or anywhere, really, that wasn’t River John. She often went on long rants about city folk appropriating their country lifestyle over summer vacations, living like parasites who fed off beach glass and the unsuspecting farm boys. Sophie’s words.
Had the townie tell-off been before or after Sophie let Amy and Emma ruin Charlotte’s dress?
“Must’ve missed it,” Charlotte said.
“I sometimes forget how terrifying Sophie was. Is,” Leo corrected. “I kind of miss having her around. She doesn’t really make many appearances any more. Not since—”
“Right.” Charlotte nodded.
“How are you two doing?”
“Not great.”
“Not since…?”
“Not since.”
Leo fiddled with the register, which beeped and squawked and spat out a blank receipt at him. “I remember I worked the night of the car rally.”
Charlotte poked at a lollipop tree standing beside the rows of chocolate bars.
“James Comeau and Delilah Cooke came and told me what happened and we went to the hospital together. I closed early. It didn’t matter, it was pretty slow all night, except for people in and out buying stuff to get points. Will Douglas took out a pyramid of Red Bull. It was a mess.”
“Jesus. Sean made me babysit for his friend that night. I barely missed being in that car, too.”
Leo pulled his slushie back and took a sip. “Sean helped me clean up.”
“What?”
“The Red Bull. He was in the store.”
“Oh.”
“Are you here to buy anything?” Leo asked. “Not that you need to be.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m just on my way to Max’s. Left my car there.”
“I didn’t see him again after the dance floor fiasco. Was he okay?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte said, “he was talking to his dad. Then he and I had a bunch to drink and sat in the bathtub.”
“Is that code for something?”
Charlotte snorted.
“I didn’t really think you two were friends,” Leo commented lightly.
“Yeah, we’re…working on it, I guess.”
“No, I mean, I didn’t think you were. Like before. Max talks about you a lot. I think he thinks you’re friends now.” He caught Charlotte’s eye. “Don’t tell him I told you that.”
Charlotte bit down on the straw of the slushie to hide her smile.
“And,” Leo continued, “I’ve never seen Max—or anyone, really—push someone into a chocolate fountain before. So he must like you a bit.”
Yeah, she did kind of owe him one for the (second) Nick thing. Of course Nick had showed up. It was a good thing Sean decided not to come after all. He’d have lost it. For about twenty seconds this morning she had considered telling Sean what had happened at the party, until she envisioned Sean going to jail for murder.
“Wait, Sean?” she asked aloud.
“No, Max,” Leo articulated. “I think, probably, your brother likes you, too, though.”
“No, Sean helped you clean up?”
Leo stared at her blankly. “What?”
“The Red Bull,” she clarified.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“The night of the accident?”
Leo frowned. “Yes.”
“My brother was out of town the weekend of the accident. With his friends.” Charlotte was positive. She’d called him in Cape Breton. She didn’t see him for three days.
“Oh. Uh.” Leo unfolded and refolded the newspaper on the counter. “I could be…I’m probably remembering wrong, or something. There are lots of other guys in River John that I’m afraid of. Could have been one of them. Sorry.”
“No, no, don’t apologize.” She waved him off and turned for the exit. “I should go get my car, though. I’ll see you.”
Did she love Sean? Sure. Did she trust him? The little bell at the Quik Mart door tinkled loudly above her head before she finished the thought.
• • •
Nick had her by the arm. “Sean knows,” he growled.
Charlotte tried to wrestle away from him, but he grabbed her tighter, twisting her arm at an impossible angle until she screamed. Sophie swam in and out of focus; Charlotte was trying to run but all she could do was drag Nick along be
hind her.
“You’re dead,” Nick said. He shoved her, hard, and she fell back—off a cliff, into the dark, and she was dead, really.
Charlotte rolled over, pulling herself awake. The nightmare felt like a hand around her throat, down her back and under her skin. She shivered, pressing her eyes shut and willing the waves of panic shuddering through her to stop.
God, she hadn’t had a nightmare like that since boarding school. She’d thought they were gone.
It was almost instinctual—she grabbed her phone from under her pillow and put it to the side of her face. Charlotte glanced at the clock as the line trilled. After 3 a.m. She shouldn’t be calling. She needed something to fill her brain, something to cloud over the thoughts of Nick and the anxiety and everything else.
He answered after two rings.
“Mhello?” he mumbled from his end.
A different panic struck her—embarrassment, shame, white and hot—and she regretted her decision to call for help. What was she thinking? “Hi,” she said, “sorry. I shouldn’t have…go back to sleep.”
“Charlie? No, what’s up?”
She paused. “Sorry. I had a nightmare. And I…have no friends.”
Four seconds of silence.
“I have nightmares too,” he finally admitted.
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Charlotte said. She couldn’t shake the images of Nick, of Sean, of everything that was burned in her brain. She thought of Max and his easy smile at the party and everything else dimmed a bit. Hearing his voice more clearly, she felt her heart slow a bit. Knowing he was on the other end of the line—feeling them tied together by some invisible string—stopped the spiralling. She was okay. “I just needed someone to talk to.”
“No, no.” Max groaned with what sounded like effort. “I’ll come.”
“What?”
The call ended.
She curled up, half sure she had dreamt the conversation. Ten minutes later, she saw headlights through her bedroom window. The engine stopped. Driver door slammed shut. She counted fifteen seconds, and she heard him at the back door. It was locked; she’d made sure of it before she went to sleep.
The Last Time I Saw Her Page 15