FOREVER MINE (13 page)

Charlie is standing in the doorway actually pointing and telling me to leave her room.  I stand and stalk toward her putting all the desire I feel for her in my eyes, and my voice when I say, “I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Go.  Or I promise you will.”  I can tell I’ve affected her but she wants to hide it.

I can’t help the laugh that comes out of my mouth.  I don’t know anyone who can make me laugh so hard, and enjoy it. “I’m going to have to step up my game.  I forget you know all my moves.”

“Pig.”
  She is trying really hard not to laugh.  I don’t even think she is aware of the big goofy smile on her face. 

Laughing, I leave Charlie’s room.   I head to my room, looking at my bed, with the covers all neatly pulled up, I remember how great it was to fall asleep holding Charlie in my arms.  Twice in two days.  That’s got to mean something, right?

Shaking his head, Brody gets in the shower.  I can’t believe I am leaving.  I was hoping I could call in sick but my boss said we are learning a new computer program.  The guy I’m going with and I will be responsible for training the rest of the staff in a couple of weeks.

The flight should only be 1 hour and 40 minutes, so worst case scenario; I could be home rather quickly, if she needs me to be.  I feel like shit leaving her so vulnerable.  I could always call Officer O’Connor to see if he could arrange a drive by.  Thinking about the bear of a cop watching her back, Brody feels marginally better.  No less guilty though.

While he finishes his shower, he is thinking about how much he will miss her.  In just the two days she’s been staying with him, she has gotten under his skin, bad.  He shakes his head at himself, two days.  Yeah right.  He and Charlie have been tip toeing around each other for years.  The timing was always wrong; she was with Michael for 10 years, and he had a different girl in his bed every week.  Then 5 years ago he met Steph.  He thought he could stay with her. 
Forever.
 

Well no more.  He is done.  He is going to show her that he is here.  He wasn’t kidding last night when he said he wanted to be seen.  Well, seen he will be.  She will be counting the hours until he comes home.  He is going to make sure she is thinking about him, as much, as he will be thinking about her.

Sticking his head out of his bedroom door, he listens for her shower.  He still hears it running, so he quickly packs an overnight bag, walks outside and stashes it in the back seat of the car.  He walks back upstairs and hears that the shower has stopped.  He takes a deep breath to settle the nerves in his guts. 
Nerves?
  Come on.  Smiling, he knocks on the door and walks right in.

“Hey, you can’t just walk in here.”

“You should lock it, if you want me out.”  She is standing in her closet in nothing but a towel.  I eat her alive with my eyes.  I walk over to her and run my fingers through her wet hair, and watch as it falls past her breasts.

I stick a finger into her towel, where she has the end tucked, and pull it away from the rest of the towel.  I love the gasp that comes from her as the towel slides off of her and exposes her to me. I let my eyes roam over every inch.  Her nipples harden.  I pull her to my mouth and kiss her like it will be the last time.  I can’t get enough of her.  I am not trying for soft, this time.  I am not trying for romance.  I want her to know; that I want to fuck her, and it would be tremendous. 

I stop kissing her but don’t move away.  I rub my thumb over her nipple, and look intently into her eyes, for her reaction.  When she is shuddering from my touch, I pull the towel over her, tuck the end, and brush my lips over her shoulders. 

I smile, a smile, I have only for her.  “I want you to think about me, constantly, while I’m gone for the night.”  I kiss the tip of her nose.  “I want you to miss me, as much as I will miss you.”  I kiss her cheek and her bottom lip and walk out the door.

“Holy shit, I don’t know how I walked out of that room.” Brody is sitting in his truck with the engine running, trying to breathe.  He is having a hard time remembering how to drive, so it’s probably good to sit for a minute.  When most of the blood returns to his head, he puts the truck in drive and heads to work. 

Once at work, he takes a few minutes to settle in, then he pulls out O’Connor’s card and dials his number.  It goes to his voicemail.  Brody leaves a message for him to call him back.

He has to go on this trip with Kevin Maloney.  He is what we call a ‘one upper’.  If you are tired, he is exhausted.  If you’re sick, he needs the hospital.  If you have a beer with dinner, he has 3.  Get the idea?

Brody walks over to where Kevin is working on a program installation.  “Hey,
Kev
, you ready to go straight from work this afternoon?”

“Yeah, I made sure I packed everything as soon as I got home last night and put it right in my car.”

“Good, I want this to be over as quickly as possible.” 

“Oh, I hear ya my man, I have so much to do here.  Being gone a whole day will put me so far behind.”

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure you were ready, see you later.”

Back at his desk, Brody checks his phone for messages, there are
none.
  He opens up the internet, and does a quick search on the girl who was raped out west.  Her name was Emily Lawrence.  She lived in Hollister, California, located in San Benito County.  She was tall, and thin, with curly brown hair.  As he read the article a sick feeling started in his stomach.

He picked up his phone and called O’Connor again.  He has to get a hold of him.  Just when he is ready to hang up he hears his broken Boston accent bellow in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Officer O’Connor, I’m sorry to bother you, but”

“What? 
Whose
this?”

“Sorry, it’s Brody Harrison.” 

“OH, Brody, give me a second.  Is Charlie alright?”

Realizing another has fallen victim to the charms of Charlie James, I smile. “Yeah, she’s alright.”

“Good, good.  Well what can I do for you?”

“I actually have a favor to ask you, is it possible to have a car driven by my house tonight and some of tomorrow?”

“Your house is not in our jurisdiction.  Can you elaborate as to why you would need this to happen?”

“I have to go out of town on business today.  Charlie will be at my house alone.”

“Shit.”  He exhales loudly into the phone.  “I worked graveyard last night, I was sleeping when you called.  The only good thing about graveyard shift is usually get the next day off.  I will drive by the house personally today and sit on the house tonight.”

I let the breath I’ve been holding out.  “Thank you, so much.”

“I’m not doing it for you; I’m doing it for her.  I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if anything happened to that girl.  She’s a fighter, a survivor.”

“I know, sir.  If there is anything I can do in return, just so the word.”

“What time are you leaving?”

“10 o’clock.”

“What time does Charlie get done working?”

“She is usually done around 6, but she won’t be back at the house until 6:30ish.”

“Ok, here’s what I’ll do; I will meet her at work and follow her to the house.  Then I will do periodic drive
bys
, never at the same time, when I’m not at the house I will drive the neighborhood to make sure everything is alright.”

They men finalize the details, discuss the fact that there are no new leads in the case; it’s still all circumstantial until they can get Michael and do a DNA test on him, and say their goodbyes.  Brody says to
himself
, “I need to think of a way to thank that man.”

Charlie is at work trying to concentrate and take notes on an e-mail she just received about a fundraiser dinner that Mrs. Smith attends every year.  It always sounds like so much fun.  Everyone gets dressed up and dances the night away. 

A frizzy red head pokes her head around the corner of the cubicle.  
“Hey, Charlie,
whatcha
doin
?”
  Sara Jones says her hair is curly, I think it’s just a mess.  She is a sweetheart though, and I love her to pieces.  Her brown eyes look like chocolate melted over caramel.  She is about 5 feet nothing, but doesn’t need to be any bigger; her personality is big enough to fill any room.

“I am working.  Well, trying to.”  Charlie doesn’t have many friends but the couple she has held onto, are really great people.

“Don’t you fake eye roll me, missy.  I see its charity ball time.  What’s the theme this year?”

“It’s a masquerade ball!!”  Charlie couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

“That sounds fun.  Hey I hear you had some trouble last Friday.  
You alright, now?
  You need to talk about anything?”

“Um, yeah, I did.  I really don’t want to talk, yet but when I do you’ll be the first to know.”

“How’s your friend, Brody, he still seeing that bitch, what’s her name?  God, she is awful.”

“She’s not that bad.  No they’re not seeing each other, anymore.”  She takes a deep breath to combat the blush rising to her cheeks.  She remembers his kiss and licks her lips.

“You guys finally do it?”

“Sara!”  Charlie says her name like she is actually shocked, but in reality, she puts nothing past Sarah. 

“Oh, come on?  When the two of you are in the same room together the sexual tension is unbearable to anyone close enough to smell the pheromones.” 

“You’re crazy.  Brody and I are just friends.”  Crap, I can feel my face flush.

“
Umhm
, you keep saying that one day maybe you’ll convince yourself, as for the rest of us we have a pool going to see which one of you caves first.  Now that he’s single, it may change the odds in your favor.”

“Oh, my god.
  Are you kidding me?  Who is in on this pool?”

“Just a couple of us.”
  She smiles and I know I will get no more info from her.

“Well, I hope you lose.”  I stick my tongue out for added emphasis.

“
Me
, too, honey. 
Me, too.”
  And with that cryptic answer she walks away.

Charlie finishes taking down the information about the ball, when Sara leaves.  Apparently, last year was such a success they have opened it up to last year’s attendee’s and their interested employees.  All Mrs. Smith has to do is get a head count back to them in a week’s time.  It sounds fun, maybe she will ask Brody to go with her.

It’s still early when she finishes, she looks at the clock and takes out her phone.  She brings up Brody’s number and hits the new message button. 

ME:  Hey! When RU leaving?

B:  10am. Y? What’s up?

ME:  Nothing, just wanted to tell you to be safe.

B:  Always.  Miss me yet? ;}

ME:  Nope.

B:  LOL!! Liar!

She is sitting at her desk with a huge smile, yeah, she misses him already.  She is going to go crazy tonight in his house all alone.  She is just getting ready to say something else when her phone vibrates in her hand.

“Hello?”  She answers Brody’s call on the first ring.

“Hey beautiful.
  I wanted to call and tell you good bye.  I hate texting stuff like that.”

“I know.  I wasn’t sure if you were gone or in the middle of something, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You’re never a bother.”

“Thanks.”  That feels good.  I know I have bothered him in the past but if he chooses to forget, who am I to remind him?

“So I guess I will see you sometime tomorrow afternoon.  I will be there before you’re done with work.”

“Ok.  That sounds good.”

“I have arranged Officer O’Connor to watch over you for the next 24 hours.”

“What?”  Doesn’t he work?  He can’t possibly have the time to babysit me.”

“Don’t worry about it.  He offered, I accepted, end of story.”

“I hate this.”

“I know
,
it’s only this one time.  We will concentrate on finding Michael when I get back.  The sooner he is caught, the sooner we can move on.”

“Oh yeah?
  What do you mean, move on?”  I feel a little panic set in, but try to hide it.

“Just stay out of trouble or it won’t matter.”  He lowers his voice “I gotta go Kevin is ready, and standing at my door.  I love you”

“Love you, too.”

Charlie hangs up the phone, she feels better having spoken with him before he left, but she also feels worse, having a body guard feels weird and scary at the same time.  Weird; because only important people have body guards’ and scary; because Brody must think she is in real danger.

Shuddering, she tries to take her mind off the images running through her brain, by making a list of things in her apartment she needs to pick up.  She should grab some cleaning supplies and clean tonight to keep busy. Happy with her decision, she picks up the phone to call her land lord to see if she can get back in, yet.

The owners of the building live on the first floor.  They renovated it years before Charlie moved in.  It is beautiful.  It has an open floor plan.  There are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a laundry room so they don’t have to use to communal one in the basement.  They basically took one floor of tiny studio apartments and blew out all the walls to make one big apartment.

All their children are grown, so the bedrooms go to waste, but they are hoping for grandkids in the near future.  I hope the near future, because they are like, 90.  That is why after 6 rings, I still let the phone ring.  After number 8 a little old man picks up.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Roberts?  It’s Charlie James.”

“Hello, Charlie.  How are you doing dear?”

“Well, I’ve been better, but thank you for asking.”

“I’m glad you called there is something we need to discuss.”

Charlie starts to get a bad feeling about what they need to talk about.  She has a month to month lease.  When she first moved in it was great.  She wasn’t sure where she wanted to be or how long she wanted to stay there.  Now, she loves her little apartment, and knows she wants to be there for a long time.  “What is it you want to talk about?”

“Well I hate to have to say this, but when your lease is up in a little over a week, July 1
^st
, we are not going to renew it.  You seem to have trouble follow you and we can’t have that in our apartments.  We run a respectable business.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by trouble follows me, you have never had a problem with me.  And I didn’t do anything wrong someone broke into my apartment.”

“So you say.  We can’t have people thinking it is not safe here.  Soon as the word gets out that you had trouble, no one will want to rent from us and we’ll have to let druggies in.”

Charlie realizes she is getting nowhere with this conversation so she says, “Ok, fine.  But I get my deposit back.  There is nothing wrong with that apartment.”

“Yes dear, we planned on giving it back.  We still love ya to pieces kid; we just can’t have people thinking certain things.  You understand, don’t you?”

Getting choked up; Charlie knows it’s time to go.  “When can I come over and pack up my stuff?”

“Whenever you want to.
  The police took down the crime scene tape this morning.”

“I will be over after work.”  Taking a deep breath she says, “Give my love to Betty.  Goodbye.”  She hangs up the phone and goes to the bathroom.

In the bathroom she lets the tears come.  She is homeless.  Her little one bedroom apartment that she loves is no longer hers.  The fire place that holds her TV will never be used for a fire.  The claw foot tub she loves to take baths in will be someone else’s.  She takes a few moments to grieve for her loss.  Now, it’s time to do what needs to be done.  When one chapter is over a new one is waiting to be written.  This time she will rewrite her life with more positives and less unknowns.