Random Acts of Hope (12 page)

Something gurgled in the distance.

“Hi,” she said shyly, running her hands through her hair, then wiping her eyes with that funny way chicks do it, with the pads of their fingers.

“What’s that sound?”

“It’s my—”

Beep beep beep.

She jumped up and shut off her phone alarm. “It’s my coffeemaker. I set it every morning
for ten a.m. after I’ve pulled weekend-night
duty. That way I can get up, check logs, and really be done when my shift ends.”

Duty. Log. Shift. I looked around the room and it felt familiar and foreign at the same time. Charlotte was a fucking grown-up. I was in her apartment—in a dorm,
yes,
but not a coed’s dorm room—and she had a real job, with a salary and benefits and the whole nine yards.

Instant uncertainty slammed into me. It was not a good feeling. I stripped for money and played rock star on the weekends when we could get a gig. When did she become so mature? I’ll bet she had a 401
(
k
)
and everything.

“Do you have a retirement plan?” I asked as she started to walk out of her bedroom.

She halted.

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Where’s the coffee?” I sat up and rubbed my neck. Shirtless. When had I taken off my shirt? She was still dressed completely, except for shoes. My pile of belongings was on the floor. I stepped in it as I stood.

Nothing carnal had taken place. My poor, throbbing
crotch
snake told me that. Rubbing one
o
ff in her bathroom would take about three seconds, but that was kind of rude, right?

Shit. What are the rules when you finally break five years of assholedom with the woman who owns your heart like it’s an appreciable asset but cheated on you and now you’re in her bedroom with a hard-on that extends into the next
county
?

No rules. I’d have to make it all up as I went along. Which was my life rule, actually.

“Coffee?” she called out from the other room. It was a combo living/kitchen area about the size of my entire shithole apartment.

“Yeah—thanks!” I
holler
ed back, fishing around for my shirt and pulling it on. Aside from the tousled bed, her bedroom was neat as a pin, with makeup and bottles of girl creams and crap like that on a little desk, some mirrors, a bunch of books sta
cked
on their sides on her
e
nd table, and an e-
r
eader tablet on top.

I threw my shoes on and wandered out. The furniture looked like someone in the Soviet army had issued it, but you could tell
C
harlotte had tried to personalize it.

She handed me a steaming mug with coffee the color of caramel in it.

“You remember?” I took a sip. Yep. A tiny bit of sugar in there, too.

She tried to hide a smile
b
ut it snuck out. “I have a memory.” Her shrug was supposed to take the edge off, but didn’t.

We both settled into old, metallic kitchen table chairs with duct-taped
vinyl
seats, facing the window. Sunlight poured in around the buildings outside. Her view left much to be desired, just a
n expansive
look at the other side of the huge compound w
a
lled with brick buildings.

“We used to make fun of this college,” I said, trying to think of somethi
n
g to say other than
I want to take you right now
.
Up against that wall. In your bed. Anywhere. Please. God, Charlotte
—please
.

Her hands couldn’t stop fidgeting, which meant she was super nervous. Years ago, I would have been, too. Now I just had a boner bigger than my head and a preternatural calm that I’d only recently cultivated.

“Pays the bills,” she said, sweeping her hand around the room. “And who could give up this life of luxury?”

I knew she was joking, but I came to her defense. “This is amazing.”

“You have frighteningly low standards.” She picked at a piece of duct tape stuck to her ass.

“No,” I said, laughing. “Not the décor. But the job. You’re a grown-up. When did we become grown-ups?”

“We?”

Ouch. I deserved that. “Yeah, well, stripping doesn’t come with dental insurance, but it has other benefits.” Shit. That
wa
s not what I meant to say.

She snorted. “I’ll bet it does. Just stock up on antibiotics.”

How the hell did we go from awkward to wistful to putdowns?

I let silence prevail. If women can perfect the art of the icy stare, men can nail the brooding silence.

It worked.

“That was…that was rude,”
she admitted
 

“But true.”

“You get STDs in your line of work?”

“
I
don’t, because I only let them touch me. One-way street. Jack’s a walking
nineteenth
-century germ factory.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“One of my stripping partners.”

“Anyone I know from high school?”

“No. But you remember Sam Hinton?”

“Of course. The drummer.” She took a few sips of coffee and then her eyes bugged out of her head. “SAM?
S
am
strips with you?”

“Yep.”

“
T
he
minister
’s son?”

“Mmmm hmmm.” Way more fun not being the target of ridicule. Deflect it all on Sam.

She shook her head and took a long drink. “Good for you guys. You must make bank.”

“Five hundred last night.” I reach
ed
into my jeans and pull
ed
out a wad of money almost as big as my aching—

“Holy shit!” she chirp
ed
, excited and shaking her head in amazement. “Around here if someone has a wad like that we assume he’s a drug dealer.”

“If he’s built, he might be a stripper.”

She shape
d
her hand like a gun and pretend
ed
to pull the trigger. “Good tip. Thanks. Now when Julian down the hall keeps strange hours and co
m
es back smel
l
ing like
Estee Lauder perfume
I have a new line of thinking.”

“Good coffee,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Good company,” she
countered,
eyes shining.

“Yeah.” Keeping eye contact killed me, because five thousand words hovered in the air between us, begging to be said the way bachelorette party women begged to be noticed.

Charlotte d
id
n’t crack. Neither d
id
I.

And then—
tap tap tap.
 

She jump
ed
up so fast the last bit of coffee in her cup pour
ed
down her leg, the heavy mug thunking to the floor, falling on a tiny area carpet.

“Oh my God, no one can see you here! Why is someone knocking on my apartment door? Office hours aren’t—”

“Security,” the voice sa
id
. “We have an issue with the snake.”

“The Snake? Is that what you call me?”
I said with a teasing grin, looking down at my groin. “It’s big, but—”
 

“You have to hide!” she hisse
d
.

“Why?”

She bl
ew
out a puff of air, clearly panicking and trying to stay in control. “Because I live with about a
three
hundred eighteen- and nineteen-year-old
women
who have seen your YouTube videos a million times. Half the women in this building want to kiss you, and the other half want to fuck your brains out.”

“Which half are you in?”

“LIAM! I’ll never hear the end of it if someone finds out you’re here.”

“You’re ashamed of me?” This
wa
s f
u
n.

“No! I
t’
s just, I don’t know what”—
s
he wave
d
her hands between us—“‘this’ is, and I haven’t had a guy here ever, and—”

“No guy ever?”

“Shut up and hide!”

“We’re talking about this.
We are
so
talking about this later.
”

“Later!”

She pushe
d
me back toward her bedroom and I
went
behind the door, leaving it open. Watching her
wa
s a treat. She smoothe
d
her hands over her belly, tugging down on her t-shirt, sliding the cloth over her hips and ass, making me harder.

Her hair, which she seem
ed
to be worried about all the time,
wa
s that perfect black shade, like pressed coal with gleaming spots, and it
wa
s
a little rumpled. The good kind of rumpled, the way a woman’s hair looks after you’ve righteously fucked her, like you’ve spent hours pleasuring her in every way possible, as if nothing can tame her hair or eyes because everything has been given permission to go wild.

Except Charlotte’s hair
wa
s a mess and I
was
not responsible.

Ha
d
to remedy that.

Soon.

She open
ed
the door and some pimply faced kid who look
ed to be
about twelve stammer
ed
something about a snake.
We
re they serious? A real snake? There
was
a snake loose in the dorm?

“Okay,” Charlotte sa
id
to him, “I got it. You saw it go outside. No more wor
r
ies, then. Just write it up in your log.
Maggie’s technically on duty now, so go find her.”

The door click
ed
shut softly and she presse
d
her back against it, sighing with relief.

“Oh, no,” I sa
id
, finding my cup of coffee, then turning my back to her as I refilled it.
This felt awkwardly domestic, like we were two strangers put together on the set of a coffee commercial, expected to act like intimate partners. But I wasn’t
going anywhere soon, no matter what she sa
id
. “The snake escaped!”

“The snake
left
. Huge difference.”

“You have a
real
snake on the loose?”

“We have a six-foot boa constrictor
wandering around
in one of the dorms. Drew just reported that he saw it slither out one of the back doors. Thank God.”

“Why ‘thank
G
od’?”

“Because it’s not in any of
my
buildings anymore. Now it’s a grounds and facilities issue!” Her eyes l
it
up, then her entire face
went
into a scowl. “But we have to get rid of
you
. If only it were as easy as having you slither out near the dumpsters.”

“
W
here’d they teach you those manners? In grad school?”

“Yes. How to Make Your Ex Leave 101. I wrote a
forty-
page paper on it. I’m kind of an expert.”
Those big eyes remained on me, challenging.
 

Double ouch.

“I didn’t mean—”

A flash of five different undefined emotions rippled through her face suddenly. S
he look
ed
stricken. I fel
t
gut punched. This
m
orning
wa
sn’t going the way I’d hoped. Any other girl and I’d grab her around the waist, kiss her, fuck her silly and the awkwardness would be gone.

Any other girl and I wouldn’t have stayed the night curled up like an engaged couple in the Duggar family.

“I know what you mean. I’m kind of a big deal in the college scene.” I flashed her one of those shit-eating grins Joe tells me I’m so good at. “You’ll have a pile of Ashleys and Brittanies and Ta
y
lors and all that at your door if they learn we’re dating.”

More
uncomfortable
silence.
D
id I have a portable generator of awkwardness attached to me?

“Yes. Exactly. Except for the dating part.”
She ran a hand through her hair, the sweep of her neck begging for a kiss. I shoved more coffee down my throat and took a deep breath.
 

“Semantics.”

“Important semantics.”
Her voice was like a knife.
 

“Semantics are never important.”

“We can argue later.”

“Later. You said
later
again. You plan on seeing me
again
?”
Victory.
 

“Now you’re the one arguing semantics.”

“No. I’m the o
n
e trying to pin down a date.”

These words rolled out of my mouth like a ri
f
f, but not my riff.
I’m the one who was wronged. I’m the one who—
 

“God, I missed you.”
Emotion radiated in those eyes now, morphing her into the Charlotte I’d loved so much.
 

She said it first. From the way her eyes got so big, her hand smacked over her mouth, I suspect
ed
she’d been feeling it forever—like me—and had said it aloud for the first time in five years.

“Me too.”

And now it couldn’t be put back
.

Someone knocked on the door, and if it was
P
imply
B
oy he was about to get a free trip halfway across the quad, courtesy of my size-
twelve
foot.

“Charlotte? Missy puked on the stairs and she’s still passed out there and trying to crawl up the—”
a high-pitched, frantic voice nattered on behind the closed door.
 

“Hold on!” Charlotte called out, eyes locked on mine.

“Time to be a grown-up,” I said with as much sympathy as I could muster. Snakes and girl puke. What a job.

“I’ve been a grown-up long enough that this is nothing.” She paused, a tiny smile twisting her lips. “But barf in the staircase and a reptile on the loose are
easy
compared to a gaggle of freshmen discovering I had Liam McCarthy from Random Acts of Crazy in my apartment all night. So please sneak out the window and go.”