Charlotte tucked her shovel into a snowdrift and headed inside to give them privacy. If it wasn’t her first night, she mused, Rowan would be inviting Matt to stay over. Though she’d been looking forward to a night in with her new roommate, some wine, and Netflix, she felt bad for unintentionally cockblocking her friend. Snowstorms always put Rowan in a romantic mood, and she usually spent them snowed in with Matt.
Making a mental note to make it up to her somehow, Charlotte peeled off her boots, coat, and thick gloves, leaving them to dry on a hook over a vent in the front hall. She climbed the stairs and headed into her bedroom, where dry clothing was calling to her with its siren song. She could add “snow” to her list of things that she hated about living in New England. Then again, she’d lived in Connecticut her entire life. Maybe she only hated it because she didn’t know any better. Maybe she wouldn’t be better off anywhere else.
She shucked her damp clothing and traded it for her softest pair of sweats and a thermal long-sleeved shirt that hugged her curves. Just as she slid her feet into slippers, Rowan rapped at her bedroom door.
“Yes?” Charlotte practically sang the word as she opened the door. She grinned at Rowan, excited for their first night together as roommates. She’d never lived away from her parents before. When Rowan asked her to move into the spare bedroom, she hadn’t even hesitated.
Rowan held up two matching pairs of fuzzy socks. “We can’t have a night in without these!” She handed a pair to Charlotte, then tugged her own onto her feet.
Charlotte eyed the bottoms of the socks. “‘Can’t even,’” she read. She lifted an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“We’re going to binge dramas tonight,” Rowan said with a shrug. “We need socks to speak for us.”
Giggling, Charlotte put her pair on. “Of course we do.” She padded downstairs after Rowan, following her into the kitchen.
“Thank goodness I just went shopping.” Rowan opened the freezer. “Does pizza and a bunch of appetizers sound good?”
“Sure, and maybe a salad to make it look like we tried.”
“This whole roommate thing is going to work out beautifully,” Rowan said.
While Rowan arranged the frozen food in the oven, Charlotte got to work putting together the salad and dressing. There was something soothing about chopping, stirring, and tasting. She didn’t get to do it often, considering most of her job at The 545 entailed frying onion rings and boneless wings. Not that she didn’t like her job. She was doing what she loved, and she got to meet all kinds of interesting people. Drunk people, but still. It was fun and it put her four years in the culinary program at Kaynor Technical High School to good use. Still, she didn’t love it.
As she poured the dressing over the salad, Rowan joined her at the counter.
“So,” her best friend said.
“So.” Charlotte gave the salad one last toss, then snapped the lid onto the bowl and slid it into the refrigerator.
“Amarie’s birthday is coming up, and Matt wants to throw a party for her.”
Glancing up, Charlotte noted the careful expression on her friend’s face. As Matt’s girlfriend and co-owner of Elli’s—the little bakery they’d both inherited—Rowan had acquired all of his friends. She always invited Charlotte to their gatherings, which Charlotte appreciated—but sometimes she felt completely out of place.
“I know you’re always the seventh wheel,” Rowan said, “and I know it’s weird for you, being around Amarie . . .”
“Weird” didn’t even begin to cover the situation. She held back a sigh. It’d been nearly six months since she’d met Amarie during a camping trip, and what she’d first thought was a silly crush had only blossomed. Amarie had a boyfriend, though, so Char kept her feelings to herself. Well, okay, herself and her best friend.
“I wanted to extend the invitation, though,” Rowan continued. “Amarie’s had a rough time lately, so we wanted to do something nice for her.”
The sigh escaped Charlotte’s lips, and she immediately regretted it. She did not want to make Rowan feel bad for being part of a “we.” Still, being the sole single person in a group of neatly coupled-up people took its toll sometimes. She wasn’t about to be that desperate girl, hitting up clubs in New Haven just to find a girl to take home with her—otherwise, she had zero opportunities for dating.
The 545 mostly attracted singles—straight singles. Watertown wasn’t the most diverse place. Not that she had much time for scoping out the dance floor between orders. Drunk people wanted their food right away, and there were always plenty of them queued up at the bar, desperately trying to soak up the alcohol in their stomachs before closing time.
“You don’t have to come,” Rowan said gently.
She didn’t. That was true. If she sat Amarie’s party out, though, she’d be the lonely girl binge-watching something she’d seen a thousand times on Netflix. Possibly drowning her sorrows in wine and leftover beer-battered onion rings from work. On the other hand, if she went to the party, she’d be the lonely girl giving Amarie’s boyfriend the green eye of doom.
It wasn’t that Lucas was a bad guy. At least, she didn’t think he was. He was Amarie’s boyfriend, though. In the almost year since she’d met Rowan, she’d hung out with Matt’s friends several times. At first, she’d thought she was just imagining the glances between her and Amarie that lasted a heartbeat longer than they should—or just projecting. A couple of weeks earlier, though, a tipsy Amarie had squeezed her hand during a housewarming party at Matt and Lucas’s apartment.
She couldn’t have imagined that.
Charlotte would never forget Amarie leaning in close, those bright brown eyes of hers smoldering so intensely, she’d been convinced Amarie was about to kiss her. Or her own hand lifting and brushing Amarie’s fringe of curls out of those eyes. She was convinced they would have kissed, had Lucas not walked into the room at that particular moment.
Charlotte totally got a bi vibe off of Amarie. She knew—damn it, knew—that Amarie was attracted to her too. She was no girlfriend thief, though. No matter how pretty the picture of her and Amarie together looked in her head, she was not a home-wrecker.
She would just have to deal with the “we” that was Amarie and Lucas. He would definitely be at his girlfriend’s birthday party—and maybe it was for the best.
Rowan smoothed a hand in soothing circles across Charlotte’s back. “You can totally sit this one out.”
“It’s her birthday, though,” she whispered, looking down. If she was a true friend, she’d be there. Especially if Amarie was having a hard time. She swallowed hard. “What’s going on with her, by the way?”
Rowan crossed the kitchen and peeked into the oven. “Just one more minute,” she said, eyeing the pepperoni on their pizza. She took out the mozzarella sticks and garlic bread, though, setting them on top of the oven.
“Ro?” Charlotte took several steps toward her, then hesitated. “What’s going on with Amarie?”
“I didn’t purposely keep this from you,” Rowan said, “but she’s been pretty sick. Like . . . bedridden, Matt said. I guess Lucas is having a hard time getting her to leave the house.”
Charlotte frowned. “You mean depressed?”
Rowan shook her head. “Remember that time we saw her walking with a cane? I guess she has some kind of autoimmune disease. Matt said it’s undiagnosed but it’s basically ruining her life. It’s like arthritis but her doctors can’t figure it out because her blood work doesn’t match up or something.”
Biting her lip, Charlotte looked down at the floor. “I can’t believe I didn’t know this.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Rowan said gently. “Matt said she keeps it on the down low. She usually plays it off when she’s out and about. It’s been bad lately, though. I don’t know much about autoimmune diseases but Matt said she’s talked to him a bit about it. I guess hers gives her awful joint pain. That’s why she needs the cane. She has it really bad in her hip.”
“So my gi
rl is sick.” Heat flushed Charlotte’s face. She pressed her lips together, as if it wasn’t already too late to stop herself.
Rowan gave her an understanding smile. “Yeah. And from what Matt says, Lucas isn’t the most supportive person.”
Charlotte frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Shit, I forgot to keep an eye on the pizza.” Rowan opened the oven and inspected the pizza. “Hope you don’t mind your crust a little crispy.” She pulled it out and set it beside the other goodies.
“Aw, that’s perfect.” Charlotte nodded toward it. “The pepperoni is nice and crispy on the edges, and I never eat the crust, anyway.”
Rowan stumbled backward, a hand pressed to her chest in mock agony. “You’re an alien! How can you not eat your crust?”
Charlotte shrugged. “It always cuts up the roof of my mouth, no matter how ‘soft’ it is.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “Anyway. What’s Lucas doing?” Her eyes narrowed as she brought the conversation back on track.
“This is coming from Matt, so it’s past secondhand at this point, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Spill it.” She needed to do something to keep her hands busy. Otherwise she was going to brave the storm to get to Matt and Lucas’s place, and punch Lucas. She carried the pizza over to the counter and grabbed a pizza cutter from the drawer.
“It’s so sweet how protective you are of her. It’s not even me and I’m swooning a little,” Rowan said. “Anyway . . . I guess Lucas was bitching that she never wants to go anywhere anymore. The four of us were going to go skating at Taft, but Amarie canceled at the last minute. That was the night you and I went out for karaoke.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Charlotte grinned. It’d been a good night. She’d nailed a song that had once been out of her range. Practicing in the shower had paid off. She finished slicing the pizza and set the cutter down.
“The guys stayed in, and Matt got some beer. He said Lucas got pretty drunk and was going on and on about all of the things that he and Amarie don’t do anymore.”
Scowling, Charlotte took out her ponytail. Fading teal locks fell onto her shoulders. She needed to touch up her hair color. “If she’s not feeling good, of course she isn’t gonna want to go ice skating and shit. That’s super physical. It takes a lot out of you even if your body is up to the challenge.”
“Yup.” Rowan grabbed paper plates and handed one to Charlotte. “Come on, let’s go start the movie before this gets cold.”
Taking the plate, Char started loading it with food, but her appetite was long gone.
∞∞∞
Streaks of light from the occasional passing car drifted across Charlotte’s bedroom ceiling. She’d been lying awake long enough to know that Rowan’s street—or her new street—was a ghost town after about 8 p.m. It was a major change from where Char grew up. French Street saw steady traffic throughout the night, the susurrus of passing cars as soothing as the sound of waves. Though she’d lived on a side street, she’d been close enough to hear them, always drifting off to sleep to the sound.
It was too quiet at Rowan’s. Somehow she hadn’t noticed that before. She’d slept over plenty of times. Apparently girls’ night and actually moving in were two different things.
She sighed and rolled onto her stomach, hoping that the change of position would remind her brain that it was bedtime. Her mind churned, though. At first she’d been busy thinking about the movie they’d just watched, a disaster film based on a true story. Eventually, though, her thoughts had turned to Amarie.
She had to stop thinking about her. Amarie was none of her business. Their connection was gossamer, acquaintances connected by mutual friends. Nothing more. She shouldn’t worry about how Lucas might be treating her. She had enough of her own problems, anyway.
She was outgrowing The 545, maybe even Watertown in general. She didn’t want to admit it. She’d just moved in with Rowan, and her best friend was super excited. Of course, she was happy too, but she wanted more. She always had. During the long days at Kaynor when she was a teenager scrubbing stainless steel counters with Comet, she’d daydreamed of someday being the boss. When that day came, she’d be the one watching grunts scrub while she worked on the next day’s menu. She was going to own a five-star restaurant in New York someday.
That particular dream had shrunk.
After high school, reality had stuck its face in her plans and put her in her place. The distance between graduation and running an award-winning restaurant seemed more like a chasm. It was far more likely that she’d eventually become head chef at some place like TGI Friday’s or something.
Great. She’d gone from reliving the tsunami scene of a drama to mentally beating the crap out of herself. Apparently she wouldn’t be sleeping.
∞∞∞
Charlotte woke to sunshine and a silent house, as if the snowstorm had never happened. When she glanced outside, she saw that Matt had come back at some point and plowed the driveway again—probably early that morning, before he and Rowan left for work. She was glad that she never had to get up that early. Not getting up before the birds was one perk of not living her dream.
Nope, she was perfectly content with rolling out of bed on the later side of morning and relaxing until she had to go in and get started with prep. There was only so much to do for bar food, though. Most of the menu came in frozen bags and required deep frying. She did make the onion rings from scratch, and the sauce that went on the wings. Still, she could go in later than scheduled and still get everything ready before her boss walked in the door.
She could do it all in her sleep, really.
Yawning, she made her way to the carafe on the counter. Next to it was a Post-it. “Good morning, roomie,” Rowan had written in black Sharpie. “Have a great day!” The smiley face she’d drawn was slightly lopsided, as if Rowan hadn’t quite been awake yet.
Grinning, Charlotte poured herself a cup and saluted the empty kitchen. It was weird to wake up in an empty house, but it was nice to have coffee ready and waiting for her.
Her phone pinged with a text from her brother Elliott. “Traitor,” he wrote. “Now there’s no one to drink coffee with me.” Both of their parents were tea people. “I’ll have to drink this whole pot by myself.” He added an emoji of a screaming person holding its face in horror.
Charlotte: Maybe you can come over for coffee tomorrow. And please don’t do that. You’re already hyper enough!
Elliott: Don’t be a caffeine buzzkill.
Chuckling, she brought her mug along with her as she got ready for the day. By the time she finished showering and had French-braided her hair, the mug was empty. Rinsing it, she left it in the sink, then grabbed a blueberry muffin.
She was the first one to the lounge, as usual. Her bartender Brandon was never on time, but he’d be in soon. She could count on him—for the most part. The rest of the people she worked with were as flaky as they came. With a sigh, she tossed her bag underneath the bar counter, then grabbed her chef’s jacket from a hook on the wall.
Brandon came in just as she finished mixing the sauce for the wings. “How’s my favorite girl?” As he slid past her behind the bar, she caught a whiff of his cologne. With his piercing green eyes, olive skin, and short afro, anyone with a pulse couldn’t help but appreciate his good genes. He looked like a carbon copy of Jesse Williams from Grey’s Anatomy.
“I’m only your favorite because I don’t blow up your phone, begging you to call me back,” she replied as she set the sauce on ice.
“Touché,” he said. He grabbed a tray of clean beer steins and began putting them away.
“Nor do I show up at your work before they’re even opened,” she said.
“Aw, come on. That’s never even happened.” He gave her his trademark shy grin—just enough of a flash of teeth but short-lived.
She nodded to the young woman standing in the lounge’s entryway. “It is now,” she murmured.
Turning, Brandon nearly dropped the glass he was holding. �
�Sweetie,” he said—probably because he couldn’t even remember the poor woman’s name. Over his shoulder, he muttered a promise to Charlotte that he’d take care of it, then strode toward his latest.
She sighed. While she could never be a serial one-night stand girl, at least Brandon wasn’t alone, pining after a girl who belonged to someone else.
Glass shattered, making Charlotte jump. She turned back toward the entryway. Shards glittered on the floor. Brandon held his hands up, speaking in a soft voice. The woman reached for the other glass that he was still holding.
Char sighed. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 3
Amarie massaged her wrist, resisting the urge to run straight out of the school. Or hobble. It was a bad pain day. Her bad hip throbbed, whether she stood or sat. Using the dry erase marker on the whiteboard aggravated her wrist. And, of course, the little red-haired boy whose name she still couldn’t remember was testing her.
Then again, she’d only been a real pre-school teacher for a week.
She glanced again at the name tag on the table in front of his seat. “Isaiah,” she said in her best stern teacher voice. He peered back at her from underneath long red lashes, his startlingly bright blue eyes round with innocence. “Sit in your seat or go sit in the corner. Your choice.”
The little boy hesitated, then parked it in his chair. “Los siento, Miss Amarie.”
She could hug him. Though he was probably her biggest challenge in her afternoon class, he was also her brightest and sweetest student—when he wanted to be. Mostly he ran circles around her, both literally and metaphorically.
She clapped her hands together. “Okay, class, eyes up here. How many sides does an octagon have?” Several small hands rose into the air. At least she could keep them from calling out of turn. Shifting her weight, she gritted her teeth against the ache. According to her own classroom schedule, she was supposed to work on the day’s mini lesson for ten minutes. She wasn’t sure she could make it, though.
Any Other Love Page 2
