Chapter Two
“Why did you tell my mom you were my girlfriend?”
I stared at Greg. This was not what I was expecting. He’d texted me halfway through my shift at Java, asking me to meet him out back during my lunch break. At first I was looking forward to it, hoping he’d give me an explanation as to what had happened this morning and help get rid of the sickly feeling I’d carried with me, playing his mother’s words over and over again in my head. But instead I was standing in the parking lot, staring at a man who look pissed off.
At me.
“Because I assumed I am or was but obviously I got something wrong because you’re looking at me like I’ve got two heads and I broke your Xbox.”
“I’m just confused about what I’ve done to give you the impression we’re more than we are. I mean, we have fun, I’m not saying we don’t. But come on, Charlie, did you really think we were something else? I’ve never even taken you out on a date.”
I quickly ran through our time together and realized he was right. But we’d had dinner at his house tons of times, which I quickly pointed out.
“By dinner you mean the takeaway pizza? Or do you mean the casserole you brought over one night and reheated in my oven? Those were barely dinners.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to contradict him.
“All right, then what was all this? What have we been doing for the last month then?”
“Really? You’re going to make me say it?” He swiped his hands through his hair, before looking down at his shoes and shaking his head. Under his breath he murmured, “Knew it was too good to be true.”
Finally looking up, annoyance hardening his jaw, he spoke. “We were having a good time together and by good time I mean sex. I call you, you come over, we chat, we fuck, and then you leave. The one time you end up sleeping over and my mom shows up and suddenly you’re my girlfriend. I never played you, never led you on to think I wanted more. You’d have to be stupid not to look at how this was playing out and not see it for what it was.”
“I’m your booty call? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Whatever, if you want to call it something, then fine. Yeah, we were mutually enjoying each other.” I could feel the tears gathering and I squeezed the bridge of my nose, willing myself to get a grip on this. What he was saying wasn’t even mean, just embarrassing. What his mother had said about me, judging me within only a few seconds of meeting me, had been mean. His dismissal of me as a girl he’d met the night before, not even acknowledging my existence in his life, that was mean. I should have included it in my assessment of the current situation, but I didn’t, I don’t know why. All I could focus on was how badly I’d managed to misconstrue our relationship. Or lack thereof.
“Hey, Charlie, come on, there’s no need to get upset.” A heavy hand came to rest on my upper back and he gave me a few pats. “Babe, it can’t really come as a surprise to you, can it? I mean, it’s not like you made me work for it or anything.”
“Yeah, because I’m not into all that, I like sex and I liked you, so why would I play games? Guys hate games. So I’m easygoing, I don’t make you jump through hoops just so we can do something we both want to do.”
“Look, all I’m saying is I think you got the wrong impression about what I was looking for in this thing between us.” It was my turn to stare at my feet, nodding my head in agreement. Wrong impression was the understatement of the year. “There’s easygoing and then there’s just easy.” I gave myself a second to process what he’d just said before I looked up, stepping back slightly so his hand slid off my shoulder.
“Did you just call me easy?”
He raised his hands up in defense and shrugged, “Jesus, I just call it like I see it, Charlie.”
I had nothing to say to that, mainly because, despite the fact that my tears had dried up, the molten mix of anger and humiliation currently filling my abdomen was taking up all my energy. He must have sensed the shift because he dropped his hands down, his face shifting from concerned back to pissed.
“You know, you spread your legs for me the first fucking time you came to my house. I never once took you out, I never once asked you to hang out with my friends or meet your friends, I never once referred to you as my girlfriend, and I sure as hell never texted you unless I wanted it to end with my dick in you, so you have got to be the dumbest girl I’ve ever met if you think that doesn’t come off as easy. It’s the fucking definition of easy, Charlie. I know it. Brent Elson knows it, which is why he gave me your number when I asked for it and told me to have a good time. You’re a sure thing. Ask anyone. So don’t play the victim card now.”
With that he turned and walked back to the parking lot, where I heard his truck start up, his wheels spinning on the gravel as he made his getaway.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned against the wall and rested my hands on my knees. It didn’t make sense. Everything Greg had ever asked of me, I’d given him. I’d followed my rules. All of them.
And yet, here I was trying not to cry in the parking lot as the dust settled around me from his spinning wheels after effectively being called a slut, a stupid slut to make it all the worse.
Fucking Brent Elson. We’d gone out to see a movie together at the retro drive-in movie theater a few months ago. The movie had been some cheesy black and white thing with Bogart and a bucket load of sexual tension between him and the leading lady. Brent was cute and fun. He was a few years older than me and although we didn’t have a lot of friends in common, we’d coincidentally gone to the same high school and had enough connections, tenuous as they were, to have some banter going when he came into the coffee shop and I was pretty thrilled when he asked me out.
Giving him a blowjob halfway through the movie had also been pretty thrilling. I wasn’t one for exhibitionism but in that moment, it had worked for me. The setting was pretty romantic, and Brent had a playful attitude that put me at ease. When he whispered in my ear how beautiful I looked and how sexy it would be if I bent down and put my hot, wet mouth on him, I didn’t even think. He’d been touching me all night, a kiss on the neck, a hand on my lower back as he helped me into his truck, a squeeze of my thigh as we drove to the cinema. He wanted me, and when I reached over stroked my hand over the bulge in his jeans, the way he leaned into my neck and groaned was enough for me to do what he asked.
After all, he wanted me. And I wanted him, so why did it matter if it seemed like a pretty bold move to ask me on our first date? We had one more date after that, where all we did was drive down to the river and drink beer, ending with another blowjob in the back of his truck and then that was it. He never called, never texted and I took the hint.
That was enough though, to pass on my number to Greg who’d stopped by the coffee shop a few weeks later and flirted with me. I guess Brent didn’t hesitate to kiss-and-tell. I don’t know why I was surprised at Greg’s remarks. He was right. I deluded myself into thinking what we had was real.
But being a booty call was all I was to him. Maybe friends-with-benefits or fuck buddies wouldn’t sting as much, if we had been just mutually using each other to get off. That wasn’t the case. I’d invested myself in him.
I didn’t have a lot to offer. I knew this. I wasn’t funny, outgoing, or smart. There was nothing particularly striking about me. I graduated high school with sufficient grades and took the first job I could get working as a waitress. Then I got a job at Java, which I enjoyed, but it wasn’t my passion.
The only thing I loved doing was baking. I started in my dad’s trailer and it was one of the few things Tina, my stepmother, was willing to spend time doing with me. The rest of the time I was just waste of space, time, and money.
When I got hired two years ago to work at Java, a new coffee shop in the town I’d escaped to, I was thrilled to find out I had free reign of the small industrial kitchen.
But baking really good muffins and lemon drizzle cake wasn’t really a feasible career. Not for someone like me. There was no way I�
��d be able to start my own business. I had no savings, no degree, nothing that would say “Yes, you seem like a totally eligible person for a business loan.”
What I did have was me. And while I knew I didn’t have a lot to offer the world, and I’d known this since a pretty young age, I’d devoted a lot of energy to finding out what people wanted and by people, I meant men, and how I could offer it to them. I never really saw it as a confidence problem, but a reality problem.
Sure, had I been told as a child I was beautiful, smart, appealing, and charismatic, I might have aimed higher, but I didn’t see the point in focusing on the what ifs. All I knew was I didn’t have much to give, but me. My body, my soul, and my love. There were things someone might appreciate. Someone out there, I just had to find him. And finding him wasn’t all that easy, I was learning.
What I was willing to give were things a lot of women wouldn’t give. Not really. With most women, it was always a bargain, a constant balancing act and it doesn’t take much for things to get knocked off kilter. How many marriages relied on elements besides love to function? Valentine’s Day, anniversary presents, the list was endless. God, we even had push presents. It wasn’t just romance, it was what these acts of “love” really represented. A guy messed up, he was expected to show up with flowers and chocolates to make amends and ultimately to get back into his woman’s bed. It was so formulaic and men complained about it on a regular basis, at least that’s how it sounded online. There are hundreds, if not thousands of forums dedicated to men complaining about all the hoops men were expected to jump through to even begin to have a relationship with a woman.
So I made a decision to get rid of all that. People always say guys are simple with simple needs that can be easily met: sex, food, no nagging, having fun. But then no one actually is willing to provide those simple things, without any other caveats or expectations?
Why can’t it just be that simple? Those are all things women want too, right? But somehow we’re not allowed to simply be with each other. It’s always shrouded in a game, in a perpetual fight to be on top, to be in control. I thought I was able to get past all that, but this kept happening—these moments where I realized I’d been used again, or I’d gotten too attached again.
It was happening more than I liked to count and this time I couldn’t get a grip on the wave of panic ripping through my body. My rules, my three rules, were my steadfast guides to which I tethered all my actions. And they were letting me down. I kept getting hurt, kept picking the wrong guy.
Of course, I knew who was the right guy. Ford Gross, the owner of Java and the only guy I knew who hadn’t tried to get into my pants. Ford was everything any woman with any sense would want. Smart, kind, handsome, quietly confident with his hipster-geek style. He was also considerate, gave me a chance to work for him when I had nothing but roadside diner waitressing experience. And he never gave me hell for my sassy attitude or all the dating drama that seemed to swirl around me no matter how hard I tried.
Right now I had to put my game face back on. The last thing I needed today was Ford seeing me upset over a loser like Greg. But then again, it didn’t really matter. Ford might have been the right guy for me, but in no way was I the right woman for Ford. He would never look at a woman like me and I needed to focus on figuring out what the hell I kept doing wrong when it came to dating.
Chapter Three
Six months later
Ford
Something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it but after the last six months of bliss, something was now really wrong. Charlie was upset.
Charlotte Alford, the girl of my dreams and my worst employee bar her amazing baking skills, had clearly been crying and I didn’t have a clue why. Considering I’d literally die for this girl, seeing her upset was tearing me up inside.
I hadn’t seen her like this since last summer. Something had happened with a guy she was seeing, some asshat named Greg, and she’d moped around for a couple of days and then whatever rain cloud had been hanging over her passed and a change had come over her. There were less mood swings, less texting while working, less daydreaming, and less guys. That was the important one. It took me a few weeks to notice no men were showing up during her lunch hour or picking her up from work. Instead she offered to stay late and help out, took up any free shifts that needed covering and stopped being so forgetful with customers.
I mentioned it a few weeks into the new Charlie and she shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m trying out this new thing, that’s all.”
“Come on, Charlie. You’ve got to give me more than that.” I nudged her with my shoulder as we stood side by side taking a stock check. I inhaled, loving the way her scent overwhelmed me in the small back room I used as an office when I wasn’t working from my home in the woods. But it was really a storeroom and there was nothing I loved more than being cooped up in the stuffy space with Charlie, counting coffee filters and straws. I liked to think she enjoyed our quiet time together because she always offered to help. It had to count for something. Either way, it meant I got to spend time with her and a look at her without seeming like a total horn dog.
Charlie was gorgeous. Okay, not in a like a classic beauty kind of way like her friend Katy, but in a sassy pixie sort of way. She was short, around five foot two, at a push. The electric energy she exuded meant she was always moving or doing something and it was reflected in her body: a tight ass I knew looked that way from yoga, a daily routine Katy had gotten her hooked on last year, flat stomach and perfectly formed breasts. They might be small by some men’s standards, but I thought they were ideal, especially since she didn’t have to wear a bra with them all the time. Her long, dark hair framed her elfin face. She had a bad habit of slathering on makeup, but still her beauty shone through.
And when I say elfin, I meant it. Her big dark eyes were expressive as hell, and even when she tried to hide it, I always knew how she was feeling based on those eyes. They twinkled when she was happy and sparkled when she was excited. I wanted to make them darken with lust.
“Okay, well, for starters, I’ve stopped dating.” She folded her arms under her breasts and looked up at me as if she had just announced the cure for cancer. In an attempt to not reveal the fact that I was completely and totally hooked on her and the thought of her no longer dating was akin to me winning the lottery, I slowly nodded my head, hoping she’d give me some more detail.
“See, I realized that until now I’ve kind of got it wrong when it comes to men.” I raised one eyebrow and she laughed. “I know, I know, that’s probably an understatement, but I’ve turned over a new leaf. I used to have these rules … it doesn’t really matter. I need to focus on me for a bit. The real me. And that means not getting stepped on and used.” A flash of pain crossed her face and I wished I could reach out and hug her. Hold her. Do anything to make her forget any and all of the jackasses she’d wasted her time on and given her body to. I could barely handle thinking about it but right now this was about Charlie and if it meant suffering through some dating back-history, it was worth it to help her out.
“That’s great to hear, Charlie. You’re an amazing woman and you deserve the best. Focusing on you for a while sounds like a great plan.”
That was six months ago. Six of the best months of my life. Charlie happy and abstinent. And happy. I loved seeing her so happy. But today something was wrong. She hadn’t said anything but her red-rimmed puffy eyes, free from her usual heavy makeup, spoke a thousand words and despite her best efforts, she kept messing up orders and had already burned one batch of her fabulous lavender-honey crunch cookies I’d asked her to make in an attempt to cheer her up. Baking always made her happy. Not today.
I kept my concern to myself, not wanting to make her even more self-conscious, but at the end of the day when I found her crying out back as she put on her coat, I couldn’t help myself.
Stepping into her personal space, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. She fit
against me perfectly and although we were friends, we rarely had any physical contact. Part of me expected her to push me away, but when she wrapped her slender arms around my waist and sobbed into my chest, I couldn’t help but feel satisfied.
After a few minutes, I guided her inside into the office. I was inclined to pull her onto my lap but figured that was just taking advantage. Instead I leaned against my desk, still holding her against me, running my hands over her back as she calmed down.
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about now? You’ve been a wreck all day.”
“My step-sister … the bank … my credit…” She couldn’t get a clear sentence out. I held her shoulders and looked into her eyes, still so full of tears.
“Take a deep breath.” I inhaled deeply and she followed my example. A minute later she managed to get her breathing under control and started talking.
“My step-sister, Selena, she’s crazy. And poor. And a bitch. Apparently she took a credit card out in my name and ruined my credit. I only found out after I finally submitted my application for my business loan.”
“Business loan?” Charlie didn’t have a business. This was news to me.
She sighed. “I didn’t want to really talk to anyone about it in case I failed but for the past six months I’ve been doing research and getting together a plan for a pop-up bakery business. I need a loan to get started and I even paid a financial advisor to help me get the bank application together and make sure my proposal was good. After I got rejected I spoke to the bank and they said had my credit not been messed up, I totally would have gotten the loan. But I can’t now and I can’t start getting my credit better again because I can’t even afford to pay off the damn money Selena spent. Of course there’s no way she’s going to be able to pay it off and that means I can’t ever get a loan and I’ll be stuck here forever.” With a forlorn wail, she mashed her face back into my chest and started crying again.
Into the Woods (Lust in the Woods Book 2) Page 2
