by CE Kilgore
I let out a slow breath. “Ian, why did you ask me to Alphonse in the first place if you don’t like going to restaurants?”
“Because you deserve it,” he states, still staring at the water. His cheeks darken red then his fingers curl into his palms. “You deserve someone who can take you to a normal restaurant for a normal date.”
“I’ll be honest,” I start and he flinches. “That restaurant was nice and the food smelt amazing. I also typically have ramen noodles on the nights I’m out of tuna. Mac n’ cheese is a splurge for me, and I like the idea of eating with you in your quiet apartment instead of under the stares of underpaid wait staff.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. He just stares at the heating water, waiting for something to happen, but I’m not going to push. I wait, and eventually his lips move and a barely audible question leaves them. “You really don’t mind?”
“I really don’t mind. There’s a catch, however,” I lean in a bit closer and he finally takes his gaze off the water to look up at me. “You owe me at least a kiss for makin’ me wait for forty-five minutes while you tried on ties.”
I watch with satisfaction as his mouth hangs open. The expression on his face is one I’ll never forget. He’s relieved I’m not angry. There is a hint of timid disbelief. Astonishment. It’s so sweet and genuine. I close my eyes and wait for him to take the acceptance I’m offering.
The kitchen goes quiet. The only sound comes from the warming heat element beneath the pot, clicking and cracking in its efforts to boil water. A minute passes by, maybe more, but I force myself to wait. This man tries every single bit of my patience, but I want to give him all I have. Just as I’m about to peek, his lips brush mine. A second later, he’s kissing me deeply with a shared moan between us.
My hands clench the sides of my skirt, resisting the urge to run up his arms and grip his shoulders. I want so desperately to hold this man in my arms, to feel his body against mine. Judging by the way he’s devouring me with this kiss, breathing with me in every breath I take, I believe he wants to hold me, too.
But he can’t. His hang-ups are holding him back, but I’m not going to give up on him. I’m gonna fight my impatience, I’m gonna continue the death-grip on my skirt and I’m just gonna let him kiss me whatever way he can.
Because, damn, this is some kiss. Tornado Charlie is being given a run for her money by Hurricane Ian. He’s taking all the wind from my lungs then giving it back to me with a passion I had no idea this straight-edged, crisp and proper man was capable of.
I think this is the kiss I’ve been waiting over a month for. I just didn’t realize it until he gave it to me.
Ian
I’m going to have lipstick all over my mouth, but at this moment in time I really don’t give a fuck. That revelation alone, that I just don’t care, is another indication that this is getting serious. She gives me peace. She shows me patience. She accepts the fact that I unplug all my crap every single night, and now she’s kissing me in a way that’s doing its best to make me forget that anything exists but her.
Part of my brain is still on, though. So, after twenty-four, mind-blowing seconds, I lean away from her lips. My eyes dart to the pot of water to see if it’s boiling, then my brain lets me refocus back on Charlie. My eyes meet hers just in time to catch her opening them.
It’s a slow, beautiful awakening. Her stormy seas revealed. My whole body quivers as I’m carried away by them.
Those twin seas darken as her pupils expand, a flush coloring her cheeks. The plump nature of her just-kissed lips are begging for further attention, but I’m afraid to kiss her again. I never get things right on the first try, but that kiss was perfection.
My mind stutters. My jaw twitches. I’m saved by the pot finally coming to boil.
The pot grabs my attention as I begin counting, my hand reaching into the cupboard for the box of macaroni. I pull it down and open it, all with only taking my eyes off the water for a split second. Eight. Nine. Ten…
“I’ll get the milk and…” her voice yanks the count from my head and I curse. Looking up at her confused expression as she surveys my kitchen, I curse again. Turning to me, her mouth slightly agape, I want to crawl under my couch and hide for the rest of the night, no matter how dusty it is under there. “Uhm, Ian… Where’s your fridge?”
“Three floors down,” I quip with a nervous bite to my words, then I mutter another curse under my breath. The water continues to boil uncounted. “I’m sor… dammit!”
“Hey, it’s alright,” her lips smile and I watch her force the confusion from her eyes. She’s trying desperately to figure me out. I wonder if she’ll clue me in if she does, because I have no fucking idea how I function. “What do you need?” she asks.
Well, that’s a loaded question.
I need her in my arms without my body revolting. I need to go back to Friday so we can try again. I need to go back to the very beginning and figure out why I ended up this way. I need a lot of things that I’m never going to get.
I hold up the box. It’s the Velveeta kind that you don’t have to add anything to. The awesomely gooey cheese is already prepared in a shiny silver packet. “I need quiet. Please.”
She nods and takes a step back, leaning against the counter. The boiling water calls to me like a siren and I refocus on it. Silence fills in the spaces between the gurgling bubbles, but I know Charlie is standing in my kitchen, watching me count, waiting for me.
Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
As soon as I get to sixteen, I tug the silver cheese packet out of the box then dump the pasta into the water. I breathe an anxiety-releasing sigh as I set the timer on the microwave to six minutes. Glancing back over, I find Charlie still waiting patiently for me.
Why the hell isn’t she running? I have my real stove unplugged so I can plug this camper stove into a surge protector. I have a surge protector so I can unplug everything before I go to bed. I count boiling water before I poor in macaroni. I have no damn fridge! I’d be running as far away, as fast as possible from me, if only I could.
“Thanks,” I mutter, then I close my eyes before giving her the proper appreciation she deserves. “Thank you for waiting, Charlie.”
“Got nowhere else to be,” she winks at me as I open my eyes, and I’m ready to fall on my knees in front of her in the middle of my fucked up kitchen. “I am curious about the fridge, though.”
Right. The fridge. “You can’t plug and unplug a fridge repeatedly. Found that out after the repairman at my old building nearly threw a wrench at me on his fifth visit. So, I never plugged in the one Brandon put in this unit. When 3-B’s fridge broke, I told Brandon just to take mine.”
I watch her eyes and can actually see her trying to work out the logic behind the reality that I live my life without a fridge or freezer. “So, nonperishables only, I guess? Your grocery shopping is either really easy or really difficult.”
She… she’s joking about it? Like it’s no big deal? I know my jaw is hanging open because I can feel the air pass by my teeth with each intake of breath. I think she just broke my already damaged brain.
“Oh, damn,” her bottom lip disappears between her teeth then pops back out. That little gesture shreds through my body, straight to my groin, but the groan in my throat can’t get past my bafflement. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Ian… I… dammit.”
Her eyes downcast and that kicks my brain back into gear. Shit. Rider, pull yourself together.
“Nothing you do or say offends me,” I speak before I can fully figure out where I’m going with this. Her eyes raise back to mine. “Charlie… I… I have no fucking fridge!”
Why am I yelling? Wait, I’m also laughing? Cackling, possibly.
Okay. Yeah. Brain’s completely broken.
“I have no fridge, and you’re… you’re making a joke about my grocery list after watching me count boiling water and…” I make a wild gesture towards the surge protector. “All this!”
Hello
? Ian? Buddy, are you still in there? If she wasn’t running before, she’s going to be if you don’t get back on your damn rocker.
Her hands raise to her mouth and I’m preparing myself for the fall. The tiniest snort muffles out from behind her hands. Her face flushes red, her nose scrunches up and she loses the fight. She’s laughing. I’m laughing. We’re standing in my messed up world, laughing at the ridiculous reality of it all.
The microwave beeps. My laughter continues while I grab my colander and drain the pasta. Transferring it back into the pot, still trying to catch my breath between latent chuckles, I squeeze in the cheese sauce. Letting out a final snort and a deep exhale, I stir the bright orange cheese into the pasta, separate it into two bowls, then motion for her to follow me.
I set the two bowls on my little bistro-sized dinette and pull out her chair. She lets me scoot her in, as if we’re at some fancy restaurant like Alphonse and this three-dollar mac n’ cheese is the house specialty. “I don’t have any wine. Alcohol and I don’t really mix. But, I can make coffee?”
“I’d like that,” she continues to smile with me as I head back into the kitchen.
I have one of those single-serve k-cup style machines with boxes and boxes of different flavors. I’m not supposed to have caffeine either, but I’m a worse tyrant than Kyle without it. I grin because I even have café mocha. Yeah, I bought it after I found out she likes it, not that I ever actually believed I’d be making it for her in my apartment.
Two more trips delivers her mug and fork then my mug, fork and six non-dairy creamers. When she sniffs the cup and realizes it’s café mocha, her eyes widen to pools of sparkling blue excitement. I stand there, staring at her so my brain can capture every single piece of that moment to save it forever.
“Sit and eat before it gets cold,” Charlie’s gentle command puts my feet back in motion.
I’m thankful for it, her willingness to both be patient and to take control when it becomes apparent I’m stuck. So, I sit down and begin the ritual of adding my six creamers to my coffee. Once I’m done, stirs counted, I look back up. “Thank you. For this being okay, I mean.”
She swallows her bite. “If I’d known you were gonna pull out the fancy, name-brand stuff with the good cheese sauce, I’d have dressed up.”
I lean in and examine her more closely. Simple, elegant blue silk blouse, black pencil skirt and a pair of black leather, calf-high winter boots that make my tongue anxious. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you.”
Her blush makes my whole body anxious. A soft silence falls between us as she eats. Realizing I’m counting her chews by the movement of her jaw, I refocus on the task of eating my own. Fork four noodles, eat. Fork six noodles, eat. Twelve chews each time.
Swallowing, I look up to find her fork hovering above her bowl and her eyes locked on the living room behind me. The shifting expression on her face startles me stupid for a moment, then it hits me about the same time her eyes go wide. Oh. Shit.
Right. Defiantly didn’t think she’d ever be in my apartment.
She sets her fork down and gets up slowly, her eyes widening further, as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. I force my latest bite down my throat, my brain protesting that it’s only had five chews. Stopping on a prime number never bodes well.
“Ian…” her voice is full of questions I don’t know how to answer.
“I can explain,” but I’m not sure I can. So, I follow her mutely into my living room, to a book case and a reading chair above which exists the wall I have come to call the Gallery of Never. In my messed up world, those six drawings of dark charcoal silhouettes bound with rope and the two water-colored souls on a single canvas represented an impossible, unreachable desire.
“These…” she pauses, her head shaking as her hands cup her mouth. She lets out a soft breath and I wait for her to tell me what a freak I am. A creepy fucker who’s been stalking her since day one. “These are from Richard’s gallery in Portland?”
“They are.” No sense lying about it now. They are clearly originals and of course she’s going to recognize her own drawings. “I asked him not to tell you they had sold, at least not yet and not all at once. I… Damn, that sounds messed up.”
“How?” She takes a step closer to them.
I stare at my favorite charcoal, its place on the wall in the lower right of the two lines of three that flank her centered watercolor I stole on Saturday. I know that results in a prime seven, but for some reason I haven’t worked out yet, my brain accepts that as okay as long as it’s us, together. Or maybe that is the reason. Maybe Charlie makes primes work out okay in my head because she balances the equation.
One plus one will always be two. Primes plus one will always be even.
My jaw twitches as I lower my gaze away from the charcoal that depicts the back of a masculine silhouette with head bowed and hands, waist and shoulders bound by thick rope. “Emma mentioned you had pieces in a Portland gallery, so I looked it up online. I was just curious, but when I saw them…” My eyes turn to her as I finish what I never should have started, “…I fell in love with them.”
“They were part of my final graduate study on form and light,” she whispers, leaning in to them and oblivious to my stare. “I liked the way the rough texture of the rope played against the smooth nature of the skin, and the model’s figure really stood out when bound.”
Leaning back, she blinks, and I think reality is getting through her shock. She turns to me, but I can’t meet her gaze. “When did you get these?”
Maybe I should lie and say I ordered them last week, but I’m not sure that’s any better than the truth. The truth is, I am a creepy fucker who’s been obsessed with her since the day I met her. That understanding, about just how truly fucked up I am, sets all my nerves on edge.
“A while ago,” I bark out, my arm flailing in a cascading tremor I can’t control.
Fuck! And this is how it ends – not with a bang but with a stupid twitch. Lovely.
I retreat to the hallway. “I’ll get your coat.”
“I haven’t finished my coffee yet,” her voice calls from the living room.
Why isn’t she following me? Why isn’t she making this easier by running out my door and then slamming that door in my face? Why is she so stubborn?!
I take my hand off the coat-closet door handle with a snort. She’s stubborn because she’s Tornado Charlie, and she’s blowing through my world, leaving nothing recognizable behind. With a deep inhale, I peek around the corner, back into my living room.
“Well? Can I finish my dinner or not?” she asks. Her arms are crossed and one of her red eyebrows is raised, but she’s smirking. Can nothing faze this woman?
“You’re not mad?”
“No, Ian, I’m not mad,” she waves it off and sits back down at the dinette.
I cautiously follow, waiting to step on the landmine that’s going to blow my leg off. “How are you possibly alright with all this?”
She motions for me to sit while she sips her coffee. I do as directed, my hands folded in my lap as I wait. Setting down her mug, she mirrors my pose. “I have a confession to make.”
Uh-oh. “Alright?”
“I’ve caught you staring at me more than once,” she starts. I’m sure my eyes go wide as I stutter to come up with some sort of response, but she quiets me with a raised hand. “I was flattered, am flattered, and curious. I guess I stared a few times at you, too.”
I set my coffee down before I choke. “Oh?”
She blushes. “You’re a handsome man, Ian. You’re also kind, considerate, intelligent… I went to The Stables on Friday because I was curious, both about what goes on there and about you. When I told Emma and Brandon my reasons, it led to him telling me about your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I kina knew already, but I didn’t know how severe it is.”
Her eyes lift up to gage my reaction, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t deny that it’s severe, or that I’ve been hos
pitalized for it. I know that I’m currently functioning on a mixture of uppers and downers that leave me wondering who I am underneath it all. Often, I don’t think there’s anything of Ian left.
“They wanted to prepare me,” she continues, “for how bad it can get sometimes. Brandon made sure I knew about the skin contact issues and why you might stare at me or freak out randomly. He also wanted me to give you a chance. He really respects you, you know?”
“I do,” I nod. “I’m glad he told you. I didn’t mean to stare, though. Well, that’s not entirely true.” I sigh. Might as well just say it. “You’re beautiful, Charlotte.”
Her sharp intake of breath is so loud it snaps my spine to attention, and I’m immediately flailing again. “Charlie, I mean. I… awe, hell.”
“Did Emma tell you?” There’s a strange inflection in her rasped question, as if my slip had cut something inside her wide open.
“Not exactly,” I let the explanation die. No way was I going to admit to tracking down her University of Dallas alumni photo from six years ago, the last place she was ever mentioned as being called Charlotte. Even the charcoals on my wall from Portland are signed as Charlie McLeod. “Emma did tell me that you no longer like the name. It’s none of my business, and I’m sorry, but I think it’s a beautiful name that suits you just as well as Charlie does.”
“Thank you,” she relaxes and takes a sip from her mug. “It’s not that I don’t like the name, it’s just…” She sets down the mug again, placing her hands back in her lap. “…complicated.”
“I understand complicated,” I attempt to salvage my billionth screw-up of the night, “and I’ll try to remember to always call you Charlie, if that’s what you would prefer.”
She nods slowly, but I can already tell her mood has completely shifted. I wonder what about that name has caused this change in her, and I know I’m going to be obsessing about it until I figure it out. My heart is telling me to let it go, but my brain is holding onto it with a death grip.
She blinks out of her thoughts. “Thank you for the coffee. I should be getting home, though. I have to go into class early tomorrow and prep the dyes.”
