I nodded. “Uh-huh. There it is.”
She cleared her throat and looked back down at her book. “There’s nothing.”
“You gonna be pissy because I made you smile?” I teased.
“I’m not pissy because you think you made me smile.”
“Then why are you pissy?”
She rearranged in her seat, still not looking at me. “I’m not pissy.”
“You are.”
“Says who.”
“Says me.”
“How do you know?”
I reached forward and covered her hand with mine. For a fraction of a heartbeat, I thought she was going to pull her hand away. She tensed, then looked up at me before she slowly relaxed. Her eyes looking right into mine.
There it went again.
My heart jolted in my chest. My breath caught. I got this feeling in my stomach that made tingles spread down my arms. Her eyes reminded me of rich, hot chocolates shared in front of the fire on a winter’s night while we re-watched the whole Marvel library. Her lips were pink and soft, the sheen of her lip-gloss winking in the light. She’d worn the same one for years and, even though I wasn’t close enough just then, I could smell it. I’d never wanted to taste it but, as she licked her bottom lip, I suddenly wondered what it did taste like.
There was a weird feeling in my chest. It was like it constricted but warmed.
“Zane?” she whispered.
Her voice broke whatever weird moment I’d fallen into and I tried to pull myself together and remember what had started it.
Her lips thinned. She was pissy. That was it!
“What the hell is up?” I asked her.
She pulled her hand gently from under mine, and smiled as she looked at the ceiling. “Nothing. I’m fine.
I coughed, dragging my hand back to my side of the table. “Good.”
She nodded. “Good.”
I ducked my head and made it look like I was working on Geometry. After a few moments, I heard Charley’s pen scratching against the paper.
But I couldn’t focus on Geometry. I couldn’t focus on much of anything. Nothing but whatever had just happened.
There had been a definite moment there. A something-more-than-friends sort of moment. I just didn’t know if it had just been me or if she’d felt it too. Charley’s poker face had always been better than mine – she’d been beating my arse at poker since her Grandma taught it to us when we were seven. She was the closed book, the blank slate. I was the one who couldn’t hide a single emotion from my face.
Which meant she probably just saw me go completely moony just then.
She continued not saying anything though, so it was either just me or I’d actually not given it away for once.
Well, that or it had been both of us and she just didn’t want to say anything.
Which it couldn’t have been.
It was totally just me.
Because Charley didn’t like like popular kids – and my ego was plenty large enough for me to think I was one of the popular kids. She liked the sorts of guys who wore guyliner and listened to old alternative rock songs. Or guys that played an instrument, preferably electric guitar. So, there was no way she would even consider liking me.
Not that I liked her.
No.
I was just a little…unfocussed of late.
It was merely the product of me being properly single for the first time in forever coupled with the fact that it was the first time I’d been single that Charley was too. That was all it was. My brain was just allowing her to be an option given the current circumstances. Every straight guy with a chick for a friend surely went through it at some point? This was mine. I just had to have the thought, decide it was a no, and move on.
Simple.
I just needed a new girl to occupy my thoughts and everything would be fine again.
Charley was just a friend.
There was absolutely nothing more to it than that. Even if she had turned into a seriously stunning young woman, inside and out.
No. Bad Brain.
I shifted.
“You good?” Charley asked.
I looked up and found her watching me.
I nodded. “Sure. Fine.”
“Good.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be talking?”
“I’m allowed to talk. You’re not allowed to talk.”
“But I’m talking right now.”
“I see that.”
“If I didn’t talk, I couldn’t answer your question.”
“I guess so.”
“And that would just be rude.”
She smirked. “I s’pose it would.”
“Does that mean I’m allowed to talk now?”
“Was there something you wanted to talk about?”
Just when things felt like they were going back to normal, they felt all weird again. But it was definitely just me, because she was wearing that self-satisfied half-smile, her eyebrow up, that she always did when she was teasing me.
How had her being pissy turned into me being weird?
I knew how to fix it.
I nodded solemnly. “Yes. There is something incredibly important I need to talk to you about.”
All humour on her face dropped and she looked about ready to bolt. But she covered it with a swallow. “Uh-huh. And…uh…what was that, then?”
“Toddlers.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, unsure how to respond to that. Finally, she said, “Sorry. Toddlers?”
I nodded, leaning back on the chair and lacing my hands behind my head. “Toddlers.”
“Exactly what about toddlers did you need to talk about? Shit. You haven’t gone and fathered one, have you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. That is exactly it.”
She crossed herself. “Immaculate conception. Modern miracle.”
I snorted. “Blessed be.”
She looked at me and we laughed. And everything was back to normal again. For real this time.
Chapter 5: Charley
My eyes had been lingering on Zane for the past few minutes and I seemed powerless to stop them. Every time I dragged them away, the next thing I knew, I was looking at him again. Always when he wasn’t looking, my eyes were apparently desperate to catch those small moments of unfiltered Zane.
Which was ridiculous. Because even unfiltered Zane was more often than not a butthole these days. Him with his ridiculous guffawing with the other Pops. It lighting up his grey eyes with mirth as the lot of them for some reason went into slow motion. Those dimples at the side of his mouth that always made me smile. The way he looked up through the strands of his hair that…
Oh. My. God. No.
I turned quickly, trying to remember what the hell I was doing, and my face smacked into a whole heap of books. Library books.
The piece of paper in my hand told me I was looking for a book.
Library was a good place to start with that.