“Orrrrr,” Everett says, turning to hover-sit cross-legged on the couch. “You could say, ‘Charlie, you’re right that I’m a liar but I’m not lying this time,’ and put your tongue in his mouth.”
“I’m not talking to you anymore.”
Everett shrugs and goes back to watching Niles bicker with Frasier about wine.
Just then, Charlie comes in from outside. He looks into the living room, where Gretchen is staring at Everett disapprovingly. So to him, it probably appears that she’s just really angry at the couch.
“Uh, hey,” he says as he takes off his boots.
“Hey, I want to talk to you about some ideas I have for the farm,” she says. “Maybe over dinner tonight? I could cook...” What she could cook, she doesn’t know. Grilled cheese with some tomato is pretty much the extent of her repertoire.
“Ah, I wasn’t planning on eating here. I was going to go shower and then head out.”
“Oh. Another Friday night out on the town. Hot date or something?” She says it like a joke, although the thought of him saying yes in response makes her stomach feel like she’s riding a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl that may or may not be fully up to code. Whatever that’s about, she isn’t a fan.
He scoffs, as if he thinks she’s being sarcastic. Which she was. Probably. “Awfully interested in my comings and goings, aren’t you?”
“Wish she was more interested in your coming,” Everett mutters from the couch. “Maybe then we’d make some quicker progress here.”
Gretchen gives him a death stare. It’s ineffective (unsurprising, considering he is already dead).
“It’s not that I’minterested,” she says to Charlie.
Charlie doesn’t bother looking up from where he’s peeling off his socks as he says, “Oh? What are you, then?”
“Curious. Just curious.”
“Mm. Curiosity killed the cat, you know. You should be careful, Acorn.” He stretches his arms up toward the ceiling, then brings them back down to untuck his flannel shirt. But he doesn’t stop there! Her eyes are on his nimble fingers as he slips the shirt’s buttons through their holes. All of the saliva in Gretchen’s mouth disappears until her tongue feels like an old sponge left in the sun. “And why, exactly, are you so curious?” he asks once his shirt is open, and his voice just barely manages to pull her eyes away from the muscles hiding beneath his undershirt and back to his face.
“Probably because of the boredom. I’ve spent every single night here at the house while you’re out gallivanting—”
“Mostly I went out to Walmart,” he corrects.
“You know what? I’m so bored that a trip to Walmart soundsthrilling.”
He smiles. “Well, how about this. Go change out of those dirty overalls, put on one of those ridiculous little dresses you brought with you, and we’ll see what we can do to make you a little less bored.”
She can hardly believe her ears! Charlie is opting tospend more time with her? Take that, Everett. This is definitely progress, and she didn’t even have to go all femme fatale to achieve it. “Are you sure? I didn’t mean to intrude on your Walmart run...”
“Don’tquestionit, Gretch, geez. How did you ever successfullycon anyone?” Everett says from the couch, while Charlie says, “We’re not going to the store tonight.” And oh my god, he pulls his undershirt over his head, revealing an impressive chest and torso, slightly paler than his arms and face and lightly dusted with hair the same caramel color as his beard. The tattoos on his left forearm actually go all the way to his shoulder, where the branches of some kind of tree that begins on his bicep extend down onto his pectoral muscle, over his heart. “Be ready by eight,” he says, and heads up the stairs.
19
“Why are you being so secretive about this?” Gretchen asks as they bump down the dirt-and-gravel driveway. This is her second time in Charlie’s truck, but the first time she’s noticing that it smells like him after a long day of working on the farm—citrus and outside and exertion with a hint of hay. The scent really has no right being so alluring. She’s going to need to have a serious conversation with her brain about that.
“I’m not being secretive,” he says.
“Then what are we doing?”
The corner of his mouth kicks up, smug. “You’ll see.”
When you make your living knowing things you aren’t supposed to know about other people and their lives, you get used to having all the information. Since Gretchen arrived at Gilded Creek, Everett has been able to fill in some of the blanks for her, and the rest she’s mostly figured out by getting Charlie to slowly open up to her—those little revelations that she holds in her heart like a firefly carefully cupped between her palms. So this mystery ofwhere Charlie Waybill goes when he wants to have fun is driving her fucking crazy, and she’s fairly certain he knows it. He’s loving having the upper hand. That’s probably the reason he invited her along in the first place, to watch her squirm; she can’t think why else he would choose to be around her.
His cell phone rings through the truck’s speakers, connected by Bluetooth. The screen reads:Meadewood Assisted Living.
“Shit,” Charlie says, pressing the button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
It’s just past eight, which seems late for his grandfather’s assisted living facility to be calling. No wonder he’s gone as pale as a—well, not a ghost, because even Everett may not be this pale.
