Page 74 of Business Casual
No part of me wants to walk with Charlie through town right now. I still feel too raw, too unfocused, too wobbly on the edge of…everything. But it’s a thing that needs to be done, and I did promise.
“Sure,” I sigh.
Charlie laughs. “What glowing enthusiasm.”
I stand from my chair and grab for my coat. Charlie is pleased with himself, watching me struggle with the sleeves of my jacket with unbridled amusement. “Stop making that face,” I snap.
“We’ve been over this, Nova girl. This is just how my face looks.”
“Well, it’s a dumb face,” I grumble.
Charlie laughs, a flash of white teeth, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Sure it is.” He takes another slow sip of his coffee and winks at me. “That must be why you look at it so much.”
?I am amess.
I am grumpy and frustrated and far too aware of Charlie. The stretch of his shoulders beneath his coat and the smell of his cologne. The strong line of his jaw and the way he twists his big body to block me from the wind that keeps lifting my hair. He tries to engage me in conversation, and I grunt in response, too stuck in my own head.
This is why I don’t date. This is why I don’t do relationships. I should be focused on the harvest festival and the shop, and instead I’m worried about why Charlie didn’t kiss me in his kitchen. I hate feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ve never had any clue when it comes to relationships.
I feel stupid. Childish. A silly girl with a crush.
We abandon any attempts at conversation by our second stop on Main Street, standing in the record shop like two people who don’t even know each other. Charlie is charming and I am…not, flicking through a collection of eighties punk rock instead of trying to do what I volunteered to do. I’m just going through the motions, stuck in my own head and this weird tension that won’t seem to break.
He’s still holding strong to his infuriating level of careful. Careful to keep a polite amount of space between us. Careful to only speak when spoken to. Careful, careful, careful. He doesn’t knock into my shoulder or tease me about his theoretical tattoos after our third stop. He keeps his head down with both hands gripped tight to someinvisible boundary we never discussed. All of his touches are polite and brief, and while I’m busy trying not to think too much about any of it and why it feels like a sledgehammer in the middle of my chest, he’s acting like Inglewild’s prodigal son.
This is what you wanted, I remind myself.This is what you told him you wanted.
Everywhere we go, it seems like someone wants to talk to him. I’ve lived here my entire life, but he greets people I’ve never seen before with a smile and a handshake, asking after grandchildren and pets like everyone is a long-lost family member. The attention and well-wishes make him light up, and I’m the black storm cloud trailing after him.
“How do you know all of these people?” I grumble as Becky Gardener waves over her shoulder. I’ve been in and out of three stores while she and Charlie stood on the sidewalk and talked about bean dip recipes. He agreed to write his down for her and drop it by the daycare center. Something about Taco Tuesday. I really don’t know. I’m still too confused on the how to investigate the why. Also, I don’t care.
Charlie scratches once behind his ear and squints into the sun. He pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slips them up his nose. I am quietly devastated once again by how good-looking he is, and then annoyed that I’ve noticed. I never used to notice.
Then he fucked me in twelve different positions across my bedroom and watched a Katharine Hepburn movie with me and now I can’t stop noticing.
Charlie glances at me over his dark lenses. “I spend a lot of time in town, Nova. I know who people are.”
But there’s a difference between spending time somewhere and knowing the dates of dance recitals…allergy information and whose kids have been working on their T-ball swing. He knows details. He cares about them. He’s invested.
“Why?” I ask. Charlie is here almost every other weekend, evenbefore he committed to overseeing Lovelight Farms for Stella. “Why do you spend so much time down here?”
“Stella is here.”
“You don’t always see her when you come down.”
A half smile tugs at his mouth as he pushes his glasses back up his nose. “Are you keeping tabs on me?”
“You’re difficult to miss, Charlie. Especially when you’re wearing a tutu and doing a keg stand at trivia night.”
“It was ballet themed,” he mumbles to himself, referencing the long-held, passionately defended town rule that all trivia nights adhere to a dress code related to the theme. He kicks at a loose rock on the sidewalk. “My friends are here,” he says quieter, seemingly talking to his boots. “Alex and Caleb. Your brother. Luka.”
“You don’t have city friends?”
“I have city friends,” he replies, but he doesn’t sound too sure of that answer. He sighs. “I like it here.”
“You like it here.”
