Conviction (11 page)

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if you had been here when we got back.” He laughed into my shoulder, but I knew by his tone he wasn’t amused.

“What do you mean?”

He let me go, and despite my grip, I didn’t have much of a choice but to let him. Charlie started pacing, and I followed him as he backed away from the group. Running his hands through his hair, brows pinched, no one in their right mind would have bothered him then.

But I was hardly in my right mind.

“We got back and Elise said you hadn’t showed up. Nobody thought nothing ‘bout it, but then you weren’t picking up your phone…” He continued to pace, mumbling something to himself I didn’t quite hear.

“What—but I texted her and told her I’d be here in the morning…” I reached for my phone and searched the message. The one I sent to Elise wasn’t there. Then the epiphany hit and I went for my home phone.

Sure enough there was the message I sent to Elise. Only it wasn’t to Elise, it was to the next number in my contact list. I had accidently sent it to Harpsten.

I could have kicked myself. “Oh God.” I closed my eyes, swearing quietly to myself. “I sent Elise a text; it just went to the wrong number—”

Charlie threatened to laugh but stopped when I began staring at him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. How sloppy and reckless—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.

“It’s ‘lright.” He laughed. “Really.” He held out his hand, and I took it without hesitation, intertwining my fingers with his.

“I was just scared for you.”

I rammed my head into his chest. “You were scared for me? I was terrified for you.”

“What? Why?”

“Reid storming my dorm at the crack of dawn…I just assumed the worst.”

He groaned. “Sorry ‘bout that. I would have gotten ya myself—”

“No,” I insisted. “It’s good you didn’t. Campus police have guns too, you know.” I swallowed hard and he chuckled in my ear. “You lettin’ that imagination of yours go AWOL again?”

I nodded, the words were against me and I didn’t want to battle them any more than I had to.

“I’m glad I ain’t imaginative like you.”

“Why is that?”

“‘Cause you run through my mind all damn day as it is—”

I blushed so hard my skin was like flames.

He must have known how his words would affect me when he took my chin in his hand and brought my lips to his. I swallowed hard and let him. I tasted the panic in his kiss and took it for the both us, just grateful that we were both safe.

“Aren’t we a pair?” He breathed into me, fueling me with something other than anxiety.

I sighed. “We definitely are.”

We sat around the pool despite the weather. It was crisp and frosty, but we all seemed to need something to distract us, something to complain about other than our own worries. Elise wore a fur coat, whether it was real or not, I didn’t know. And though my own arms were covered, Charlie kept me secure in his.

“So…” Elise rubbed at her temples, obviously tired by the dark circles under her eyes and lack of makeup. Looking at her only made me feel worse for the slight scare, so I avoided eye contact with her, focusing on rubbing the callused pads on Charlie’s fingers instead. “Explain this to me again.”

Ben Walden sighed, wrapping his arm around Elise’s shoulder. He looked tired too, but not nearly as tired as Elise. “Someone got there before we did.”

“Could you have gotten some bad information?” I asked.

“No,” Yuri added, “we reconfirmed before we went in.”

Ben continued, “The warehouse was ransacked and the sirens began a moment later. We were lucky to get out of there when we did.”

They all nodded in agreement except for Polo, who was too preoccupied with picking the fresh bandage wrapped around his hand. I was assured his injury was the only one, and of his own doing, but it still made me uneasy to be reminded of the mortality of my friends, to see they were just as vulnerable as anyone else.

“Someone from security must have seen you break in.”

“We paid off the only ones who matter. They know they don’t get paid if somethin’ happens to us, and they risk getting caught themselves,” Charlie explained.

Elise tried again. “I thought you had a safeguard for these things.”

“Don’t you get it? Someone got to the shipment before we did.”

“I’m afraid Reid is right,” Ben said. “Things were too ransacked to ignore. It was probably a larger group.”

“Bikers?” Yuri asked.

Ben shook his head. “Much too organized for a gang.”

“Yeah.” Reid started punching his hand. “They knew when we were there and how many of us there’d be.”

“How?” I asked.

“That’s the problem,” Charlie said. “We don’t know.”

“I hate this,” Elise said. “I absolutely hate this.”

When she got up and stormed back into the house with Tyler on her hip, Ben went after her, but the rest of us stayed silent in the stillness, listening to the end parts of their arguments and muffled curses back and forth.

“Oh man, oh man!” Polo shook his head.

“I hear ya, buddy. I hate when Mom and Dad fight, too.” Yuri slapped him on the back in camaraderie, but it was Reid who asked the obvious question.

“What are we gonna do?”

No one said anything.

Reid threw his arms in the air. “Does anybody have a Goddamn clue?”

More silence.

“Well,” Yuri said after a minute, “I’m not going to sit around all day and yell about it.”

“Me neither,” Charlie said. “I’m going to bed.”

Reid slapped Polo’s hand away from the other. “Knock it off.”

“Yeah.” Yuri rested his head against the glass table, and I wondered if he’d fall asleep right then and there. “You’re an infection waiting to happen.”

When Charlie stood up, his hand was still tangled in mine. I was okay with going inside, walking alongside him until the stairway became too narrow and he followed behind me, his eyes trailing my lower extremities. Every instinct in me wanted him in every possible way. And from where I was standing, nothing was going to keep him from me, or keep us from each other. I stopped abruptly and grinned at him. His face, sleepy but happy, grinned back at me.

We shared frantic kisses the rest of the way upstairs and down the hall, each touch more insistent than the one that came before it, every pulse more rapid than the last. His kiss finished the one that I started; my hands encouraged where he hesitated. We crushed each other like massive waves, cascading into another until it seemed either he or I, or both would drown in it.

My want was transgressing into pure desperation, but other needs were imploring for attention.

“I—” Pulling away enough to get his attention, I navigated us over in front of the bathroom. “Just, ah—” His smell was all around me, the taste of him in my mouth.

“It’s good,” he said in between labored breaths. “Take your time.” But then he changed his mind, tugging me back to him at the last second to kiss me again. We laughed together.

“Two seconds…”

“Right.” He nodded, reserved but still smiling. “Right, right.”

I didn’t intend to take a shower really, but once I took a look in the mirror, I decided it was completely necessary. My hair gave off the combination of cigarettes and Melinda’s hairspray that stuck to my scalp. And suddenly after a night of worrying and internal mayhem, I was eager to just wash it all away.

By the time I got back to the room of blue roses, Charlie Hays was asleep in my bed, nearly bare and prime for the taking. I was tempted to do to just that, but remembering his lack of sleep, I reconsidered. Frankly, it was the only thing keeping me from exploring my deviant desires right then and there. He continued to sleep soundly as I lay beside him; covering us both with the blanket I called my own. There were a million and one questions, but for now they could wait.

All we needed was each other.

When I awoke, the faint snoring beside me alerted me to Charlie’s presence, his chest beneath my head thumped with his heartbeat. I made myself pull away if only to charge my phones. I was about half-dressed when I heard the catcall from behind me, followed by a low southern chuckle at my response.

“I
thought
you were asleep.” I struggled to put a t-shirt on, though I secretly hoped he would stop me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I peeked over my shoulder to see him grin and look me up and down again. “I’m just an artist appreciating some art…”

I bit back my blush as I climbed back on top of him, decidedly not a wise decision, but one I wanted to make nevertheless. I thought that maybe with his physical need so obvious, I might have some essence of control, but the interlude was brief and my power fleeting.

“How bad is this thing that happened last night?”

Then the power was gone. He sighed and rubbed his knuckles against my back.

“Did you know just for aiding and abetting in California you could get a year in county jail?”

“Charlie—”

“That’s for a misdemeanor. For the felony it’s up to three years in a state prison.”

“Charlie, nothing will happen to me.”

“That’s right.” While not directed at me, the anger was back, fresh and flavored while he pushed me off of him and pinned me to the bed. “‘Cause I ain’t gonna let it.”

Above me, his kaleidoscope eyes were bright and wide. Strangely enough, I wanted him more right then than ever before.

“I ain’t gonna be tellin’ you nothing from now on. If that makes you mad, then I’m sorry, but it’s how its gotta be.”

I began to laugh, but his weight only sank deeper into me, his thumbs rubbing the veins that protruded from my wrists.

“Charlie Hays, are you trying to give me plausible deniability?”

“If that’s what it’s called,” he sighed, “then yeah.”

His seriousness made me frown. “It does make me mad. But it won’t make me leave, which is what I know you were thinking.”

He grinned. “I shoulda never asked you to come out here with me.”

“You didn’t ask, remember? I told.”

He laughed. “Yeah, yeah you did.”

“And I’m not going away.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “So there.”

“Goddamn girl.” He shook his head. “What am I gonna do with you?”

My face and neck felt like wildfire. “I have a couple of ideas.”

I kissed him at the corner of his lips, threatening more with a flick of my tongue than words ever could, and when he responded, I pushed against him, reveling in the feeling of him and the touch of skin on skin. Those were the infinite seconds between pleasure and lust, between want and need, when everything else between us stopped and escalated like we weren’t even there.

As his hands tugged at the end of my shirt, I lost coherent thought; everything falling in-tune with the trace of a finger and the shaking of a palm. He brought me to the edge of the world and back, again without ever leaving the bed, and before I knew it, we were
both
ready to fall off the edge of the world, panting and grasping at one another like two wild borne animals.

“I-if you’re gonna want me to stop, you’re gonna have to say somethin’ real soon—”

“I don’t want you to stop. I want more.”

“Are you sure?”

I kissed his eyes, his cheeks, the brim of his nose. “What do you think?”

He groaned into me. “I can’t think.”

“Good.” I smiled, kissed him harder. “It’s probably the lack of blood flow.”

“You’re a Goddamn vixen…”

“Charlie?”

He gulped, his heart throbbing a million miles a minute. “Hmm?”

“Don’t make me wait anymore.”

We connected then, reborn and baptized in one another.

Chapter 8

Charlie was gone when I woke up, though it had obviously not been for long, since there was still a gentle imprint of his head on the pillow beside me. I smiled so hard it almost hurt, and stretched long, pulling the covers away. I listened intently for noises from downstairs but couldn’t hear much of anything. Still, I wasn’t very motivated to get dressed and hoped that wherever Charlie had gone, he would return soon.

I knew my excitement and joy from the night before would prevent me from going back to sleep so I didn’t bother trying. Instead, I leaned over and grabbed my phone from the nightstand, even slightly more elated to see a new e-mail from Robbie. 

Addie,

I got approval for leave for July 27 to August 7
th
. You taking summer classes?

Dad says you’re dating somebody??? Do I have to kick some asses and take some names??? If you’re serious about this guy you better bring him over. Dad keeps probing me for information and its driving me freaking crazy. Let the Old Man in on the essentials at least. He’s also talking about going to the beach? I think you need to remind him that I’ve had nothing but sand for the last 6 months.

Either way I’m probably going to kick this mystery guy’s ass.

Hope school’s going good.

Robbie

I knew I’d get this e-mail eventually. I was just hoping it would come much, much later. How could I express how much I cared for Charlie without sounding half-crazy? Though Robbie took my side with important stuff, I was sure he had never been in love before so I couldn’t give him an experience to compare. Perhaps it was self-centered, but I wanted Charlie and I to be able to share our relationship with other people I loved. If they knew how far he had come, wouldn’t they care about him as much as I did?

Dad,

Stop hounding Robbie—I never tell him anything anyway.

My boyfriend is a good guy. Promise. If you promise not to freak out about it, I’d like to bring him home over the summer. Let me know what you think.

Lots of Love,

Addie

That seemed simple enough. If I started now, then maybe by the time summer came around Dad would be open-minded about Charlie. I would just have to take elaborate measures when they met in person to prevent any freaking out.

Yes, I decided, this would work. I would ease Dad into this just like I had eased him into the idea of me going to school in California. If I could shift my words to make Dad feel like being with Charlie was his idea, then maybe it could work. It had worked with coming to California…I would make this a gradual process; tell him a little bit more about Charlie in each e-mail. If I could do that successfully, then he would feel like he knew Charlie better. Hopefully, by May when the semester ended, I could have Dad feeling confident.

Dear Addie,

I’ve been stuck with lecture duty (I guess all the new agents get stuck with it at some point). A colleague of mine and I are doing a lecture series in a couple of cities out West., I doubt we’ll be at SSU but at the Stanford campus for sure. That isn’t too far from you. Maybe we could meet up somewhere and get a bite? I’d like to see you, but if you’re too busy, I understand.

Talk to you soon,

Adam

A shiver started in my toes from the unspoken fear. Adam would be right here, within an hour of me and then only another hour from Charlie? Did he know? Had I given something away?

I re-read every e-mail sent between us, searching for some sign that I had given myself away, but found none. Where had I messed up? Or did he not know anything at all and I was just being paranoid?

Adam,

Everything is sort of crazy right now, but if my schedule allows it, I’d love to meet up. I hope everything is going well on your end, and you aren’t working too hard.

Addie.

I decided that a friendly course of action was the best course of action.
If
he knew or even just suspected something, then agitating him wouldn’t do any good. If he didn’t know anything, then keeping a friendly relationship could
only
be good by maintaining a gracious face.

Charlie was distant when he came back from strategizing with the guys in the garage, but I disregarded it as the end of dealing with Reid and Polo combined with a lack of sleep (that part I was responsible for). So I indulged his temperament and layered him with kisses and compliments, hoping that by the time I went back to school Sunday afternoon, it would wear off.

I picked a piece of lint off of his shirt. It was red flannel, and tight around the muscles of his arms. The same arms that I had missed the night before while he avoided me. At different intervals when I woke up, I’d see him standing over me, watching me try to sleep.

He dropped me off at the bus stop when I refused to let him drive me to campus. I told him it was because of Melinda, but in reality I didn’t want to risk him even going near campus. With Adam coming in just a few days, I had to keep them as separate as possible.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded, hitting his forehead against mine. “Remember what I said the other day?”

“That you love me?”

I got a smile, at least a little one. “Other than that?”

“I’m on a need to know basis?”

“Yeah.”

I sighed; there wasn’t much of a compromise here. “If it affects you, then it is need to know.”

He kissed me, trying to wrangle me in with a touch of his lips.

“You’re such a jerk.”

“I know…but ya gotta trust me.” He frowned as he said that last part, his sadness tugging me in more than I could have imagined. It made me feel wretched for confiding in Melinda the other day, for thinking even for an instant that I could be annoyed with Charlie in any way. Yes, I didn’t care very much for some of his more intense methods of affection, but I had to remind myself that after nearly a decade in prison, he was almost as socially stunted as I was. We would have to learn together.

“You want me to trust you, but trust is a two-way street. You can’t get without giving.”

“Hmm? And here I thought I was pretty good ‘bout giving.”

My skin became flames. “Hey—that, you—”

He laughed into my hair. “Seriously though, I don’t want ya worrying. College is supposed to be fun, ain’t it?”

I shrugged. “That’s what I hear.”

“That’s my point.” He sighed. “You should have better things.” He mumbled. “Everything you want.”

I pulled him as close as I could manage while still breathing. “Do you know I love you?”

“Yeah,” He smiled, but only a little. “I know.”

Melinda regaled me with her usual end of the weekend gossip when I got back to campus, swooning and sweating from the gym in an attempt to work off her hangover. I listened with half-interest, waiting for the questions that were bound to come, still grateful that she had taken to being my friend and of her protectiveness when she thought I might be in trouble. But when I thanked her, she only shrugged and went to doing jumping jacks.

“Hey, us girls have to stick together. Creepers are all over the place.”

I had the distinct feeling that with her words she was trying to share something more than just friendly advice, maybe a personal experience laid in there somewhere, but I didn’t push the issue, thinking that if she wanted to share it with me, she would.

“I was getting some bad vibes from that guy who was here the other day, by the way. And when you left without any of your books, I started to think something bad went down.”

“Reid is okay.” Was he really, though? He had stayed away from the house the rest of the weekend, his anger parallel to Charlie’s, only I didn’t know how much of it I’d be able to handle or control.

“Reid?” She scoffed. “What kind of name is that?”

“That’s, ah—never mind.”

“And what’s with the missing fingers? Is he military like your brother?”

“No, but…trust me when I tell you
he
isn’t a good idea, okay?”

She laughed. “Oh, I figured that out. Too bad he’s such an ass; otherwise he’d have some potential.”

I sighed and went back to my ethics paper. Watching her bounce around like that was making me motion sick. “Can we change the subject?”

“Sure.” She abruptly stopped jumping and went to push-ups, and not the girly kind, but the kind that
did
remind me of Robbie, and intimidated me.

“We could talk about your mystery boyfriend…”

“What?” I wasn’t shocked or anything, more surprised by her willingness to bring up something she couldn’t have possibly known for sure. For an instant I craved her confidence, but too easily imagined the kind of trouble it got a girl like her into.

“Come on.” She giggled. “You
have
to tell me…it’s like roommate code.”

“What makes you think I have a…boyfriend?”

Her eyes rolled and she fell over to do crunches. “It’s written all over your face. You can’t be an actress without being able to recognize love on someone’s face.”

“I’m that obvious?” I sighed.

She nodded. “Yep. So spill. I’ve been very patient; am I ever going to at least meet the guy?”

“No,” I stressed. “He’s busy with work—”

“He doesn’t go here?” She sighed again. “I figured that. What does he do?”

I searched my head for a lie, Dad would probably want to know this too when the next e-mail came. I had to think of something quick, something tangible.

“He’s—ah, in logistics.”

She almost laughed. “That sounds convincing. What is he, like a prostitute or something?”

“No, Melinda.” I put my
Philosophy and Law
textbook on top of my head to clear the vision of the past weekend out of my head.

She laughed hysterically. “Well, what then? You don’t even have a picture of the guy! I’m beginning to think you made him up.”

I sighed. “I’m not
that
crazy. Not yet, anyway.” I mumbled the last part, though whether she heard me I’m not sure.

“What is it, then?” I could hear the giddiness in her voice; her flare for the theatrical sounding off.

“He and I just have to keep certain aspects of our relationship, um, away, I guess, from certain people in our life—”

“Oh, are you two having an affair?” Melinda’s voice turned up two octaves at the prospect alone.

“Will you shut up?” My attempt to shush her was no use. “It isn’t exactly that…” But affairs were a secret, and Charlie and I were just that.

Dad and Robbie didn’t know about Charlie, while my second family didn’t know Adam and Melinda, my only other sort-of-friends in the world. I was constantly lying about one thing or another to cover the fact that I was with Charlie. What else did that make us but an affair?

“We just can’t tell certain people that we’re together for a while…”

“Why?” Her expression became serious, full of phantom concern and a sisterly expression I wasn’t too familiar with other than on Elise’s face. “Is he like married or something? Have kids? Super old? Eww! Super young?”

“What? No. No. Nothing like that. It’s just that there are a lot of people who wouldn’t approve.”

Her smile came back instantly. “Oh okay. I got you. Well, that’s not a big deal. It’s actually kind of exciting. A Romeo and Juliet kind of thing.”

I choked on my laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“Come on, it’s romantic.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s impractical and annoying.”

Melinda rolled her eyes and began chugging on a water bottle. “You just need to get into the spirit. Why don’t you tag along with me to rehearsal again tonight? Everybody’s been asking about you.” Before she could finish her sentence, I began shaking my head.

“No, thanks. I have a lot of work to do.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. Does this mean I have to tell everyone you’re off the market?”

“What everyone?” In truth, I wasn’t even that curious, but that didn’t stop Melinda’s interrogation.

“Yeah, I ran into a couple of the guys from the Frat since the other night, and there were a couple of inquiries.”

“I’m taken.”

“Okay, okay. Enough said. But if you’re not going to let me meet this boyfriend of yours, can I at least have a name to go with the image?”

I chewed on the end of my pen. Giving her Charlie’s name probably wasn’t inherently dangerous, but the long-term prospects of it only threatened to give me a headache. And maybe it was because his visit was a new impending problem in my life, but Adam Harpsten weighed on my mind. I could have picked any name out of a million names, but for whatever reason, it was his I said out loud.