Alex grabbed their suitcases from the trunk, following her inside.
She and Ben had shared this apartment on the second floor until three days ago.
As she unlocked the door, she turned to Alex. “I should warn you. A lot of Ben’s stuff is still here. He only packed a bag the night…we split. With the wedding, there hasn’t been time for him to move out the rest.”
“That’s no problem,” he said as they stepped inside. “I’ll help you relocate all of it to that dumpster we just walked by outside.”
Charley laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Come on. I’ll show you around.”
They walked through her apartment as she pointed out the living room, kitchen, and dining room.
He stopped to study the framed pictures of her book covers that decorated the walls of her office.
“So that’s Tomboy Tess. She looks like you.”
Charley had begged the publisher not to do that when the original artwork appeared.
Apparently, the artist thought it would be cute to mimic her look, even going so far as to give Tess short red hair and green eyes. Which didn’t help her try to perpetuate the lie that Tess was only loosely based on her as a girl.
That was actually one of the reasons she’d conceded on which sport Tess played. It gave her at least one argument whenever friends and neighbors pointed out how sweet it was that she’d included Alex and Bella and other characters they decided were representative of a local person…like her third-grade teacher, the town pediatrician, and her 8U hockey coach.
She really needed to move away.
“A little,” she said, walking away from the display in hopes that he’d follow her and stop looking at her childhood exhibited on book covers.
They walked down the hallway and she pointed out the closet that contained the washer and dryer and the bathroom, then her bedroom.
She hurried ahead of him, trying to pick up the dirty clothes strewn around the floor and hanging over a chair. “Sorry for the mess. I’m not a very efficient packer.”
Of course, it hadn’t helped that at the time, she was anticipating spending a very long, horrible evening with her ex and the woman he cheated on her with.
Which meant she’d spent way too long agonizing over which outfits she looked amazing in so that no one would make comparisons between her and Beverly and think “no wonder he left Charley for her.”
“It’s a really nice place, Charley. Homey.”
She’d felt the same way.
Until a few nights ago.
Now…it was hard to be here without remembering the three years of her life she’d just wasted.
They took a few minutes to unpack their stuff. She cleared out a drawer for him in the dresser, tossing Ben’s T-shirts into a pile in the corner of the room. Then they put his toiletries in the bathroom.
She stripped off her jeans, shrugging on her comfy yoga pants, and Alex followed suit, trading his jeans for a loose pair of cargo shorts.
It was early evening, and they’d both slept through the food service on the flight.
“Want to order a pizza with everything?” she asked. “I’ve got PBR in the fridge. We could watch a movie or…” She paused, stopping herself just in time.
Or so she thought.
“You want to watch the game?”
Charley grinned. “No. I mean…only if you do? We can root against Isaacson and make fun of what a shitty player he is.”
Isaacson was the captain of the team that had defeated Baltimore in game seven and a huge prick as far as Charley could tell. Tonight was the first game of the Stanley Cup finals.
Alex nodded. “I could go for that. But if they start winning, we turn it off and go down on each other instead.”
“Or,” she drawled. “We could just skip ahead to that. It occurs to me that hockey is seriously overrated.”
Alex wrapped his arm around her neck, playfully messing up her hair as she tried to bat his hands away. “Is that right? You do realize I make ten million a year playing that overrated game.”
“Which means pizza is on you,” she said, holding out her hand. “Give me your credit card.”
Charley was surprised when he pulled his wallet out and handed it to her, especially after the alimony comment she’d made earlier. She could only imagine how many women were interested in him simply because of the number of zeros after that ten on his contract.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing her cell off the kitchen counter where she’d tossed it earlier. “Why don’t you grab us both a beer. I’ll order the—”
Alex glanced over her shoulder to see why she stopped talking. “Damn.”
He pulled his cell out of his back pocket and flashed the screen at Charley. “She’s relentless.”
They both had nearly twenty texts each from Bella, who obviously wasn’t going to give up.
“Rock, paper, scissors?” she suggested.
He nodded. “One, two, three. Fuck.” He grimaced when her paper covered his rock. “Two out of three?”
“Nope. You call your sister. I’ll call for pizza.” She waved his credit card in the air. “I’m the big winner tonight.”
“I hate losing.”
Charley kissed him on the cheek. “I know. But if you’re going to stay here, you’ll have to get used to it.”
He snickered and pinched her ass.
Charley quickly called to order the pizza, trying to answer the questions about toppings and give her address and the card number, while listening to Alex’s explanation to Bella at the same time.
Once dinner was ordered, she hung up, leaning against the kitchen counter, not bothering to hide the fact she was eavesdropping.
Alex had remained true to his word, not telling his sister about their drunken elopement.
Charley could only imagine Bella was giving him quite an earful when he went quiet after telling his sister that he was staying at her place this week.
“Can you tell Mom and Dad that I’m beat, and I’ll stop by tomorrow to take them out for lunch?” He sighed in response to something his sister said. “Fine. You can come too. But I’m warning you right now, I’m going to bail if you and Mom start ganging up on me about Charley. Actually, scratch that.”
He looked at Charley. “What you doing tomorrow?”
Charley shook her head vehemently, waving her fingers in front of her throat in a “cut” way.
“Good news,” he said to his sister. “Charley’s going to join us.”
Charley threw her head back and groaned.
While she had no problem tossing him into the lion’s den, aka his family, she wasn’t a brave enough person to join him there.
“See you tomorrow, sis.” He hung up and placed his cell on the counter.
“You’re a dick,” she muttered.
“Nope. Just a sore loser.” He turned to open the fridge, grabbing both of them a beer. “Come on. Game’s probably already started.”
She flipped on the game, the two of them sprawled out on opposite ends of her couch.
Neither of them were passive hockey viewers.
Mercifully, Isaacson was having the worst game of his career, which only ensured they had a blast.
One beer turned to three. The pizza arrived, the two of them devouring the whole thing before the third period even started.