Saving Charlie (Stories of Serendipity Book 9)

by Anne Conley

  “Talk to me, Les.” She needed to hear his voice; visual stimulus wasn’t enough.

  His face eased at the thought he could make her better, and Charlie nearly scoffed at the idea that he thought he could fix her.

  “Okay, um…Mama used to take me to church every Sunday. Dad wasn’t too hip on it, so it was just me and Mama. The preacher always talked for what seemed like hours. One time, we were sitting there on the second pew, right where Mama liked to sit, and the lady on the other side of me, Mrs. Willis, farted really loud. Just let one rip, you know? Well, Mama just looked at me, and loud enough for the whole congregation to hear, in one of those loud-whispers, you know? She just looked at me and said, ‘No more beans for breakfast for you, young man,’ and then went right on like nothing had happened. I think she knew Mrs. Willis had done it, and was trying to help her save face, but that was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.”

  His touch had gotten bolder, going from a stroking caress to a soft rub, his palm on her shoulder. She felt herself leaning into it, allowing him to ease her tension with his words and touch.

  Leading him to a bed, she lay down and pulled him down with her. She was banishing old memories with new ones. She rested her head on his shoulder and he put his arm around her. “What’s wrong, Charlie?”

  “I need you to keep talking, Les. It’s helping me.”

  “Okay.” His finger idly traced circles on her upper arm, and she could hear his heartbeat, strong and sure. “Another time, my buddy, Max, and me broke into the girls’ locker room at PE when it was the swim unit and stole all their panties and bras. That weekend we hung them from the Serendipity water tower. That was fun, but only because we didn’t get caught.”

  Charlie’s fingers lazily ran over his stomach, dipping into the valleys between the planes of his muscles through the thin fabric, while she concentrated on her breathing. “More.” His abs tensed under her touch, but he didn’t say anything about it.

  “We did get caught the time we tried to go cow-tipping. Mr. Jenkins didn’t appreciate that much. No sense of humor.”

  Her palm flat on his stomach, she stopped him. “Thank you.”

  “You better now?” His voice was a soft murmur, filled with concern.

  “Yeah. I just went somewhere awful for a little bit, and you were pulling me back to the present.”

  “Do you want to go to a real hotel? We can find a nicer place? Or back to the truck?”

  He was so earnest, and she knew that all she had to do was say the word and he’d be back in the truck, ready to spend the night in the cab again. She shook her head and pasted a smile on her face.

  “No, I’m fine now. Thanks. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Yeah. Peeyew.” His forced joke wasn’t funny, but welcome nonetheless.

  As she got off the bed and grabbed her bag to take to the bathroom, she slapped his chest and hurt her hand in the process.

  Les’s voice followed her in. “Do you mind if I play a little while you’re in there? Will it bother you?”

  “Not at all!” she called through the door. In fact, it might actually help. The bathroom was more confining than the other room, and there were awful memories of being stuck in bathrooms too.

  Les strummed and sang while she showered off the day’s grime from travelling. Charlie found it immensely comforting, the soothing sounds of his guitar. Some songs she knew, some she didn’t. Others she thought he might just be making up as he went along.

  As she washed her hair, she listened to him hum and sing while he strummed.

  Hmm-mmm…in awe…hmm-hm deity

  If she could see…hmm-mmm imprinting my heart…

  She came out of the bathroom, interrupting him accidentally. “That was nice,” she told him since he seemed shocked by her appearance. His face had lost all color, and he was staring at her, eyes wide, as his knuckles turned white, gripping the guitar. “What?”

  His eyes were glued to her legs, which were bare up to her sleep shorts. Finally, he seemed to find his voice and swallowed audibly.

  “You have my name tattooed on your leg.”

  “Well, it’s a misspelled word, actually, but I kept it to remind myself of stupid mistakes I’ve made in the past.” The tattoo in question was a hideously scripted line up her thigh that read, “Les is more.” “Honestly, it was the last drunk decision I’ve ever made.”

  “Why didn’t you have someone fix it? Or take it off? How hard would it be to add an ‘s’?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed too important of an example of horrible mistakes people can make to get rid of it. I needed the reminder. Now, I’m used to it, although it shocks other people from time to time, if I don’t remember to cover it.” Charlie hadn’t gotten to the point with Les that she would tell the story behind that tattoo. She couldn’t see herself ever getting there, honestly. So much of her life was on a need-to-know basis, and she had yet to meet anybody that needed to know everything.

  Les sat there, staring at her leg, opening and closing his mouth. “You look like a fish out of water. Stop staring at me,” she finally snapped. “It’s not that bad.”

  He snapped his jaw shut and got out of bed, mumbling something about a shower. Charlie pulled the covers off her bed, tossed them into the corner, and lay down with her own pillow and blanket, inhaling the scents of her own home.

  In the shower, Les was remembering his friend Casey’s words to him when he’d been in one of his funks about Renae. “One of these days, you’ll meet a woman with your name written all over her.” She’d been using hyperbole or something, a figure of speech. But Les had found a woman that literally had his name tattooed into her leg. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

  And good god, what a set of legs…

  Charlie wasn’t a super tall woman—she was average height—but she was all legs and breasts. That was one thing Les had noticed when she’d come out of the bathroom wearing a tank top with no bra and a pair of ratty boxer shorts. Then he’d seen the leg art and nearly had a come apart.

  He believed her story about a reminder of past mistakes, but she apparently didn’t see the irony in her mistake ending up being his name, tattooed permanently on her body.

  He knew Casey had just been trying to make him feel better when she’d told him that. She wasn’t clairvoyant or anything, but seeing his name literally written on Charlie’s body had been what tipped him over the edge. He wanted her. He needed her. He loved her.

  He knew he was doing it again—falling in love with a woman simply because she was available and attractive. But Charlie was different. He’d fallen for her before he’d ever even seen her. That had to say something, didn’t it? And she’d always kept these walls up, always had that edge to her, that don’t fuck with me vibe. But tonight, in the hotel, he’d seen a chink in her armor. More than a chink, actually. He’d thought she was about to completely fall apart, the wild look in her eyes tearing at his heart in a way he couldn’t describe.

  When the door to the hotel room had swung shut, it had flipped a switch inside Charlie, and he’d seen a little girl standing in front of him. A vulnerable, absolutely fucking terrified little girl.

  Something about his presence made her seem better, like he was a lifeline, and he did what she asked. Staring at him, her face devoid of color, her breaths coming in ragged gasps, she had demanded he talk to her. So he did.

  He calmed her with the sound of his voice.

  He’d left her alone out there while he came in to shower. Should he be singing now? Softly, he started crooning a little Sinatra, starting with I’ve Got You, and moving on to Witchcraft. He knew all of the standards, and after he’d washed his hair, he moved downward and on to some Etta James and I Just Want to Make Love to You. By the end of that, he figured she’d be calm and maybe have some idea of how he felt about her. He couldn’t just come out and tell her he was in love with her. He’d done that enough to know it scared off normal women, and something
told him Charlie wasn’t a normal woman, so he’d have to be careful.

  When he came out of the bathroom—dressed in clean boxers, ready for bed—he stopped short at the sight in front of him.

  Charlie’s shorts were threadbare and see-through, revealing interesting shadows he couldn’t dwell on and remain a gentleman. And the tank top was equally threadbare, showing off a pair of breasts that would rival a Playboy model. The rosy circles around her erect nipples made his mouth dry. Swallowing thickly, he forced his eyes up to her face, where she looked at him, completely unaware of the effect she was having on his body. She couldn’t be totally unaware—he had a boner that could hammer nails right now—but her eyes were glued to the tattoo on his chest.

  The fear he’d seen earlier was nearly gone, replaced by a guarded expression. Her aqua eyes were wide, deep pools that reminded him of The Blue Lagoon, his favorite movie as a kid. Her wide luscious mouth was slightly open, and he watched as her little pink tongue snaked out and licked her lips. Christ.

  Walking over to his bed to get his erection under the covers, he asked, “All better?” He was suddenly unsure of insisting on the motel room. He wasn’t sure he could remain a gentleman and sleep in the same room with the blonde siren three feet away from him.

  “Um…yeah. I’m sorry. I just hate motel rooms.” She licked her lips again before settling down on her bed, wrapping herself in the blanket she’d brought, and hiding that amazing body from Les’s view. He exhaled a relieved breath.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” The desire in her eyes died out, replaced once again by her typical guarded shadows. Les hoped she would tell him sometime. The fear he’d seen had nearly knocked him to his knees, and he wanted to erase it so badly it scared him.

  She reached over and turned off the lamp by her bed, effectively ending the conversation. Les closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but images of her body plagued him. Her legs were amazing: long and toned. She wasn’t a muscular woman, but she was strong. Her thighs were lush and the skin on them smooth; he couldn’t stop imagining them in various poses, around his waist, his face buried between them. The curve of the back of her thighs brought to mind images of the muscles under the porcelain skin trembling with release.

  Shit.

  He’d almost gotten the images banished when he heard a weak whimper from the other bed. One eye squinting open, he listened carefully. Another one. Then a moan. He raised his head to see her turn over, fitfully in her bed. Another moan.

  “No…” It was a soft whisper, but it filled the room with a sorrow that broke Les’s heart. Charlie was having a bad dream, and he didn’t know what to do. They were friends, and friends comforted each other, didn’t they? But her boundaries were so unclear. She’d only touched him in times of dire stress, like when she’d nearly had a breakdown in the motel room. And he’d hugged her after his accident. But the urge to snuggle behind her and envelope her in his comforting embrace was so strong, he twitched with the need. The only problem, would he be able to stop at just comfort? He sat up in bed and watched her, waiting for divine inspiration.

  Should he go to her? Or was this normal? If he went to her for comfort, would she push him away even more? He felt like he’d made some progress with her tonight and didn’t want to mess it up.

  He watched her writhe on her sheets, tossing and turning through the throws of some nightmare, occasionally groaning out a hushed “no.” Nausea roiled in his gut at the idea that Charlie had gone through something so devastating in a motel room, that just being in one brought back memories that gave her nightmares.

  He decided as long as she wasn’t screaming or crying, he would let her be. If tears started tracking down her cheeks, he wouldn’t be able to stay out of her bed.

  So he watched, some awful part of his heart waiting for her to cry legitimate tears so he could gather her in his arms.

  But they never came.

  Chapter 8

  From Carla May’s journal —1995—Aged fifteen

  He came into my room, shirtless already, ripping his belt through the loops on his jeans.

  “Get on your knees,” he yelled at me, and I did it without arguing. I knew it was coming. I’d only brought home $300 tonight, and I was supposed to have $350. I was fifty dollars shy.

  As his belt screamed though the air to meet the skin on my back with a loud slapping sound, I withdrew inside my head. I didn’t mind the beatings. It had gotten to where I expected them, almost welcomed the pain. It was a refreshing change from the constant numbness. Numbness I forced myself into. The Man didn’t tell me he loved me as much anymore. Only that I’d disappointed him. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I submitted to his beatings.

  “I’ve got a special job for you tonight.” We were finishing our food from McDonald’s, and The Man was rolling a jay for us to smoke. After we got high, he rubbed my back. It had been so long since he’d shown me affection like this, and I was really liking it. It made me feel like I had when I first started living with The Man. “I don’t trust my other girls to go into someone else’s home and do a gang-bang. You’re the only one who will do a good job.” His praise gave me a warm feeling inside, even if his words didn’t. I didn’t mind the gang-bangs. The Man usually gave me some good stuff before to prepare me, and a good reward afterward. Last time, he’d given me some smack, and it had made the entire experience feel really good. All those different guys going at me, and the whole time I was floating on some sort of cloud, like nothing really mattered except the feelings of their hands on me. As we cleaned up from our afternoon, he told me to get ready, I was about to have the night of my life.

  “Make me proud, Baby.”

  “Let me buy you something. You don’t need to go spending money on my event.” They’d arrived at Santa Barbara, and since Les’s friend had put him up in a swanky hotel for the wedding party, they were standing in the room, separated by one of the full-sized beds Charlie had spread her clothes out on.

  “No, Les. I can just dress up something I brought. It’s no big deal.” She was planning on going to a thrift shop she’d seen a couple of blocks away and finding something. It was a pride thing.

  “You’re going to dress up jeans for a wedding? Really, I don’t mind.” He gestured in a placating manner, and she knew he didn’t mind, but it was the principle. He’d been so nice to her all day today, it was unnerving her. She got up at her normal time this morning, four thirty, and was on her laptop, catching up on emails and looking over her spreadsheets when he’d woken. Immediately, his face showed concern, asking how she’d slept, not seeming to believe that she’d slept fine.

  Which made her wonder if she’d talked in her sleep.

  She had issues, issues that were heavily medicated. One of them was a sleep issue, caused by depression, which was a symptom of her more alarming diagnosis—a borderline personality disorder. And she took medication for all of it. The sleeping pills put her to sleep, but she could only sleep so much, so she was a habitual early riser.

  In the truck, he’d chatted amicably, staying on safe topics. He hadn’t asked again about her reaction to the motel, nor did he say anything at her relief to be staying in the nice hotel tonight.

  “No one’s going to be looking at me, Les. They’re going to be watching you play. I can dress up a pair of jeans, or buy something myself. Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you.” She worked hard for her money, was frugal and pinched pennies where she could. It enabled her to make contributions to the Refuge monthly and occasionally splurge on nice things.

  “I’m not worried about you embarrassing me,” Les whispered. “And I know as soon as I walk in the door with you, nobody’s going to be looking at me.” There he was with that self-deprecating talk again.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?” His innocence was refreshing. His guileless expression showed no hint of game-playing or ulterior motives. He honestly wasn’t fishing for compliments. />
  “Put yourself down like that. You’re an attractive man, Les.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s a universal opinion.”

  He’d been hurt in the past. The realization hit her like a truck, and Charlie was surprised to find herself feeling protective of him.

  “Who?”

  “Who, what?”

  “Who stomped all over you, Les?”

  He walked over to the chair in the corner where his guitar was leaning and sat down, bending over to pick up the instrument. He strummed it absently, lost in thought for a moment.

  “I’ve always been the one to hold the torch and then get friend-zoned. It’s a pattern. There wasn’t just one specific girl.” He was plucking at the strings of the guitar softly, a background score to his words. “The last one was Renae, and I had put so much time into her, waiting patiently, only to watch her fall in love with a guy I’d inadvertently introduced her to.”

  “Did you love her?” Please don’t say yes. Shocked at herself, she froze, biting her lip. Where did that thought come from? Charlie didn’t care if someone loved someone else. She didn’t care about love. Still she waited, not breathing, for his answer.

  His deep brown eyes pierced her with an unreadable expression, sending a chill down her spine. “I thought I did at the time. I always do.” She almost didn’t hear him speak over the guitar, but it wasn’t because he was playing loud. His voice was that soft. “I even proposed to her, even though she’d been turning me down for dates for years. Talk about glutton for punishment.” He bent back down to his guitar, hiding his face from her.

  “Have you ever had a girlfriend?” The way he talked, he’d never been happy with a woman, never had a relationship.

  “Sure. I’ve had girlfriends, but they never really lasted. They always either found someone else, or just didn’t have the chemistry.” His eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her stomach flop. Did he mean the chemistry between them? There had certainly been a few times where she’d wanted to shove her inhibitions about him out the window and rip his clothes off to explore his body.