Progress (Progress #1) (23 page)

By the time Ryan parked the car, I’d made a conscious effort to block everything else out.

No more regret. No more worry. No more heartache.

“Have you ever been here before?” he asked in his refreshingly quiet tone.

The words
Battery Acid
were printed in a whitewashed font above the door, and the red brick building held all of the hometown classic charm of uptown: black bars ran across the windows, and decorative wooden accents and flower boxes adorned the exterior.

“Nope. I haven’t been a lot of places,” I admitted.

His cheeks buried his eyes in a wide smile, and he held the door open for me as we entered. “This is my favorite place to go. You’re going to love it. They play The White Stripes every night.”

“What are white stripes?” I asked.

His hand swept over his chest in an exaggerated attempt at being appalled. We stood in the small entry as his tall frame hovered over me. “You don’t know The White Stripes? They’re a band.”

“Oh.” I slouched. “Music.” I rolled my eyes, thinking how out of place he and I were together. “I’ve never been a big fan.”

He bellowed an airy laugh. “You realize you’re on a date with a musician, right? I’m a composer.”

The word
date
swirled in my stomach. “Yes?” I laughed. “I’m not
anti-
music. I’m just…maybe I haven’t really found anything I like yet.”

“Well,” he grabbed my hands and his eyes smiled down on me, “we’ll have to fix that.”

I bit my lip as he opened the door that led into the café.

An overwhelming stench of patchouli hit me as I entered, and the room was packed with almost a hundred people ranging in ages and physical traits. From late teenagers to baby boomers, everyone had tattoos, dreadlocks, black fingernails, or facial piercings.

I kept checking my hands to see if they trembled, but so far, so good. A faint aroma of chocolate and espresso hit me next. We approached the counter and Ryan slipped his hand onto my back once more. I straightened my back, but stopped myself while flinching away from his touch.

“There’s a table in the corner,” he said loud enough to be heard over the noise in the room. “Why don’t you go sit down and I can get us our drinks?”

I nodded. “A white chocolate mocha?”

“Good choice.”

Tiny white candles sat in the middle of every table, the walls held artwork from local artists, and the seating was mismatched. A scratched and worn table sat in a dark corner, and I hurried over to it before anyone else could claim it.

I closed my eyes briefly, giving myself a pep talk. It wasn’t that I was scared of Ryan; the man looked like a six-foot-four, dread-locked, friendly troll. His eyes were honest and he held none of the feeling I got when I looked at Jesse. My fear stemmed from a deeper place inside of me—a place where trying new things and experiencing new people wasn’t anything I was used to.

But it wasn’t enough to ask him to take me home. I wasn’t scared
enough
. And that’s what propelled me to stay.

“So tell me more about Charlie,” Ryan said, sitting down in the chair across from me. The candle flickered with his arrival and the crowd’s laughter faded into the distance. “We’ve covered college, the city you live in, and your
friend.
” He raised his eyebrow. “What else do you do?”

I warmed with his words, and smiled at the easy conversation. “I paint. I draw. I smoke.” An actual giggle escaped my mouth. “I drink a lot of coffee. And I’ve lost over seventy pounds in the last six months.”

I didn’t know why I said it. If I’d thought hard enough, I would’ve realized I’d said it
just in case
he would ever want to see me naked.
Just in case
he wondered about the loose skin and the faded stretch marks.
Just in case
he might be proud of me.

Because I was proud of me.

His eyes opened wide. “Seventy pounds? That’s amazing, Charlie! How did you do it?”

Aaand not so proud anymore.

If I’d told him the truth, he probably wouldn’t have believed me. So I went with the safest bet.

I lied.

“Exercising. Good eating habits.” I shrugged. “I still have a few left to lose, but I’m in no hurry.” I scratched my temple and quickly changed the subject. “Tell me about you.”

So much of the past few months had been defined by my friendship with Jesse that it was hard keeping him out of any conversation. My poor parents had to endure so much Jesse nonsense that I felt bad for putting them through that kind of torture. It was best if I kept the conversation about me—and inevitably Jesse—as far away from Ryan as I could.

He wasn’t much of a talker until I got him on the subject of music, and then he rattled my ear off for the rest of the night. I’d opened some kind of vortex to a classic rock kingdom, and his words took me on a ride through his thoughts.

There were so many things to like about Ryan: He had a quiet and shy way about him. His touch was gentle and his eyes remained bright, giving me most of the things I craved from a guy on my first date.

He was a perfect gentleman, adorable, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for his candor.

If he called me again for a second date, I vowed to stop comparing him to Jesse.

We pulled up next to my car in the back lot at The Crimson. Ryan turned down the music and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his palms against the thighs of his jeans. “Well, Charlie. I had a great time tonight. You’re really easy to be around.”

“I had a good time, too.” I kept my head down, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. “Maybe we could—”

“Do it again sometime?” he finished my sentence.

I smiled with a nod. “Yes.”

He exhaled. “Good. I’ll call you this week. Weekends work best for me because of school.”

I laughed. “Weekends are usually bad for me because of work. But I’m not usually there too late.”

He swallowed and my stomach flipped, though I couldn’t be sure if it was because of his intentions of kissing me goodnight or if I was reacting to his thoughts about me. Either way, I was eager to put my nerves to the test.

My body quaked briefly as I buried my hesitation.

“May I kiss you?”

I answered his question by leaning into him, closing my eyes, and parting my lips.

His mouth was soft, smooth, and I didn’t carry the same kind of anticipation I thought I would. No butterflies came. The feeling was deeper—lower—and assuming. His hand slipped behind my neck and his tongue gently touched my lip.

My heartbeat increased, the apex between my thighs ached, and I fought like hell to remove Jesse’s face from the backs of my eyelids.

Breathing heavily, he pressed his forehead against mine and swallowed. “Talk to you this week, then?”

I nodded, smiled, and raked a hand through my hair. “This week.”

“Thanks for saying yes, Charlie.”

I opened the car door and turned back to him. “Thanks for giving me a reason to say yes.”

He drove slowly out of the parking lot, and I kept my eyes on his little black car as it drove away.

“It’s just going to take some time,” I whispered to myself.

Sighing, I lifted the handle and sat down in my driver’s seat. As I turned the key, I looked up and gasped.

Not only was ska music blaring at the highest volume from my radio, but a single white daisy sat on my windshield.

Shivers bubbled through me, and I could do nothing but bury my face in my hands and allow the tears to come.

Chapter Two

Jesse

Five weeks, maybe six. I lost count.

I’d seen Charlie at the restaurant. I’d seen the dirty hippie come and go, taking her places she’d never been, showing her things she’d never seen, putting his hands on parts of her body that no one had ever touched before.

And I stomached my grief.

I tried like hell to not let it bother me. And to her defense, she didn’t bring him into the restaurant often. But the rumor was that they were a couple, and I’d pretended as though that meant nothing to her. Or me.

I kept my distance. I didn’t speak to her, and stayed away from the bar after my shifts. I cashed out my tips with management in back, and didn’t visit the hostess desk anymore.

I missed her.

But I had no right to miss her.

While I’d spent weeks away from her over the course of the past several months, she’d been alone too. It was only her right to experience the kinds of things I had—no matter how I felt about it.

But goddamn, it hurt.

It hurt because of the things he could do for her that I couldn’t. It hurt that she preferred his company over mine. And it hurt that he was going to be the one to take her virginity, if he hadn’t already, and I had no idea where his intentions lay.

There were few men I’d met that could’ve earned something so noteworthy. Charlie wasn’t a girl to play with. She was soft, sincere, honest, and good. Dammit, she was good. And I didn’t know if he was good
enough
for her.

Then again, I wasn’t either.

I’d played those thoughts over in my head every day for the past few weeks, wondering how I’d gotten to that point. Jake gave me shit about not sleeping with anyone, and all I could do was jerk off in my shower to ease the restlessness about it.

She was where I worked. I’d brought her into my mind, my bed, and my shower. She lived inside of me, whether she liked it or not. And I couldn’t seem to get rid of her.

She was everywhere.

I’d skipped my meds for several weeks and fought the anticipation of when I’d cycle again: the Madness, the Whirl, the Grim. None of it seemed bearable without her beside me. She may have worked in the same restaurant, but she was nowhere near me anymore.

She was gone. I’d lost her.

I’d taken for granted the reprieve I’d gotten just by having her around. I hadn’t experienced silence alone like I had with her. To escape the rapid thoughts and sluggish movements for a while was something I needed more of. There was no telling how long she’d stay away, or if she’d ever return to me.

One thing was for certain: I’d always crave those quiet nights in the park when I didn’t have to think about anything.  My life had exhausted me, and Charlie had swept in and made it better for a while.

But she’d made her choice the night she went on her date. I had never been so simultaneously proud and pissed off at anyone in my entire life.

***

“You wanna go out tonight?” Jake asked as I walked down the steps and picked up the controller next to him.

“Nah. No thanks.” I hit the start button and joined in. “No Julie tonight?”

He didn’t answer right away. “No. We broke up.”

“She finally figure out you were cheating?”

“Believe it or not, no. I don’t think she knew. She just said that she didn’t think we were meant to be.”

I paused the game and looked over at him. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

I scratched my jaw. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Definitely not. Keep your head down, keep moving, right?” He laughed, but his mouth turned down. “How are you and Charlie?”

The mention of her name made my jaw flex involuntarily. “We’re not.”

He nodded, looking down in thought. After a minute, he shook his head. “Don’t overthink it.”             

“That’s the problem, though, isn’t it?” I laughed. “I haven’t thought about anything for a long fucking time. Not anything that mattered, anyway. I haven’t taken the time to think about anything but myself. What ever happened to mowing the neighbor’s yard? Or helping a senior citizen across a busy street? What about volunteering to help save the frogs in an abandoned park just because they couldn’t save themselves?”

“Frogs?” Jake shook his head. “And what do you mean ‘what happened?’” he laughed. “Real life isn’t fucking Cub Scouts, asshole. No one is giving you a patch for Mom to sew on afterward. If you’re not going to get anything for it, then why would anyone possibly waste the time? What could dwelling on Charlie possibly do for you? What could it do for anyone else? If you had no intentions of putting a ring on her finger, then who gives a fuck?”

The Christmas tree in the corner flickered, and my focus blurred. “Maybe we just weren’t meant to be.”

“Man,” Jake chuckled. “We suck.” He swept his hair back. “Let’s go back to our single days. You know, like in the spring when we were partying every night and getting laid. Back before Julie and Charlie even existed.”

I threw the controller onto the couch and raked my hands through my hair. “Some things you just can’t come back from. Not when you’ve gotten a glimpse of how great things could be.”

“That’s uncharacteristic of you to say. A little optimistic, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“Well!” Jake stood, shaking off the mood. “Let’s do something besides sitting down here acting like losers. Let’s get drunk or something.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I have two problems with what you just said. The first being that drinking alone in our basement would do nothing to solve the
loser
problem we’ve got. And the second is that we always play video games. So either way, the action would be counterproductive.”

Jake laughed. “Let’s go to The Crimson, then. We’ll hang out in the bar so you can watch her—like the loser you long to be—and I can get drunk. At least we’d be out of the house,” he begged.

“I don’t want to go to my work. I spend enough time there trying to dodge her.”

“So show her you don’t give a shit. Don’t let her think she’s got the upper hand here. You’re Jesse Anders. You could get laid in a prison!”

My eyes shifted around the room before narrowing at Jake. “I don’t think that saying works in this situation.”

“Whatever. You know what I mean. Grow some fucking balls, like the sac you used to have!”

I considered the options. It wouldn’t hurt to go just to see if Charlie was there. But if she was with the scrawny hippie, I’d feel much differently about it. Jake was an instigator; I knew that by now. But was he right?

“I’ll just stay here and work on the song,” I said.

He bobbed his head with an exaggerated sigh. “What’s up with that song, Jess? You work on it constantly.”

I shrugged. “It’s nothing. It just gives me something to do. It’s gotta be perfect.”

“Why?” His hands flew up.

“It just does. Maybe someday I’ll become famous because of it. Or maybe she’ll want to know how I felt—”

“The song is for Charlie?” he stopped me. “You’ve been working on that thing for three months now. Never mind,” he added quickly. “I don’t think we should go to The Crimson tonight. Let’s go somewhere else. I’m going to call T and get some weed. We can figure out the details on the way to his house.”

I laughed. “Fine. I can do that.”

***

We hung out at Casper’s Lounge for a while—a dive bar close to home, listened to some horrible karaoke, and drank a gallon of cheap beer. We’d snuck out to the car three separate times to smoke T’s weed, and I was sufficiently fucked.

It wasn’t until I got out of the car that I realized Jake had driven us to The Crimson.

But by that point, I didn’t care. My mind spun in every direction, and there was a part of me convinced that if I saw her I’d be able to handle myself appropriately.

Angie glared at us, grabbing two beverage napkins from the serving station, and slowly walked to our booth.

“Hey, foxy,” I said, my mind slower than I was accustomed to it being.

She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess: beer? Looks like you two have had enough already.” She set her hands on her hips. “You’re drooling a little.”

I wiped my mouth. “Yes, Ang
ela
. Two microbrews for my friend and me.”

Her eyes shifted to the corner. “Coming right up,” she mumbled and walked away.

“Dude, Jess.” Jake nudged his chin to the corner. “
She’s
here.” He smiled, staring at Charlie. “And she’s alone.”

She’d lost more weight. More weight than looked healthy on her. Her cheekbones were defined, and her elbows were pointy. Her collarbones stuck out, and though I had a strange angle, her breasts were half the size that I remembered.

She’d looked better a month ago.

I cleared my throat, fighting the vomit that crept up. “So she is.” I shrugged, looking away.

“She’s fucking hot. Holy shit!” Jake whispered, leaning over the table to get a better look at her.

“Knock it off, motherfucker. Sit down. Leave her alone.” I didn’t feel so good about being there anymore—not with Jake’s reaction, nor surprisingly, my own. “We’ll just drink our beers, go home, and crash.”

“Why don’t you invite her over?” Jake asked.

“I haven’t talked to her in weeks. And we didn’t exactly part on good terms. She’s got a boyfriend now.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I can see why.”

Her head was down as she scribbled in a notebook. Red glasses rested on the tip of her nose, and a glass of water sat on her table next to a pack of Marlboros.

“Ignore her,” I said, then slammed back the mug of beer that Angie had dropped off.

“She has to have lost at least a hundred p—”

“Ignore her,” I yelled, drawing the attention of the people in the bar.

Charlie’s eyes met mine briefly before I looked away.

Shit.

“Hurry up and drink your beer so we can go,” I said, sobering quickly at the thought of Charlie joining us.

No matter how much I wanted to talk to her, I didn’t want to subject her to my mess, or to my salivating cohort, Jake.

“She’s grabbing her shit and getting up,” he said, making it obvious he was staring at her.

“Stop looking at her, man. Let her go.”

Jake laughed. “You just told me…” he continued, taking breaths between laughter. “
You
just told
me
to let her go.”

“Hey.” Her voice made my eyes shut, and I refused to look at her. She stood at the end of the booth, and with my head down I had a perfect shot of her thighs.

Too skinny, Red. Where did my Charlie go? What is she doing to herself?

My stomach turned with three hours’ worth of liquor, and my head spun from the weed.

“Hey, sweetie,” Jake purred, causing another lurch.

“Excuse me,” I said, stumbling toward the restrooms.

I tripped over someone’s foot on the way there, and would’ve puked on the spot if I hadn’t held my stomach until I got into the stall.

The filthy floor under my knees added to my nausea and I threw up repeatedly, emptying the contents of my stomach. Even after that was done, I continued to spew bile that stung the back of my throat.

She was there. She was within my grasp. She was alone.

But she wasn’t mine.

She’d made up her mind, and she hadn’t chosen me.

Whiz, whiz.

Chirp.

Swish, swish.

Honk.

I lifted myself from the floor and washed my mouth out repeatedly, spitting into the sink. The song hadn’t left me alone for a long time, and I knew why. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I was holding onto something that had never belonged to me.

With a clearer head, I walked back into the restaurant. Ten minutes had passed and I expected her to be gone, but she sat in my seat, giving Jake a courtesy laugh that I hadn’t seen since the night we met.

Both of the thoughts made me smile: the night we first met and the fact that she didn’t really find Jake amusing.

“There he is,” she said sadly, trying to smile. Her deep blue eyes settled into mine, and I looked away quickly.

“Sorry about that. It’s been a big night,” I said, fighting my frown.

I sat beside her so I didn’t have to look at her, and drank the rest of my beer in one gulp. Waving to Angie to get me another, I bounced my knee under the table as I waited for someone to say something.

It was agony. Should I have apologized for my behavior the last time we spoke, or had too much time passed? She was there. She sat right next to me, and I had an opportunity to say what I needed to say. But there was so much.

Jake’s presence presented a challenge, though. There was no way I could’ve said the things I wanted to in front of him.