“Do you want a beer?”
The side of his mouth pulled up. “Yeah.”
I took the blanket with me into the kitchen, tiptoeing across the cold linoleum, and took out two bottles from the fridge and popped the tops. I juggled them with the blanket back into the living room where Charming had propped up his feet on the coffee table and had taken control of the remote.
“You’re watching an old movie?”
“I like old movies,” I defended.
“Yeah, me too.”
I tried not to gape at him. He actually said he liked something. It was a miracle. I handed him a beer and set the other one by his feet.
“Is that one for me too?”
“I didn’t think one was going to cut it.”
“You trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?” he said, tilting the bottle to his lips and taking a long pull. His throat worked as he swallowed and I noticed he unbuttoned the top few buttons of his button-down.
“Two beers will get you drunk?” I scoffed. “Lightweight.”
I sat back down on the couch, squishing myself into the corner. He seemed to be taking up a lot of space.
“Why did you let me in tonight?” His serious tone caught me off guard.
So did his question.
“You looked kind of lonely,” I replied, my voice hushed.
He took another long pull of the beer and turned up the TV. We sat there watching while he finished off both beers. He didn’t talk anymore and I didn’t ask him if he wanted to. I figured that the very little he said was more than he’d ever told anyone.
That knowledge changed something for me. It made me less angry with him, less appalled. It was hard to tell yourself that you shouldn’t care about someone when that someone desperately needed you to care.
At some point I dozed off. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I awoke, it was to the sounds of an infomercial for some kind of booty shaking workout. Charming was still beside me. He’d fallen asleep too. His arms were crossed over his chest as it rose and fell with every breath he took. He looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. Funny, I never realized how “on” he always looked until I caught a glimpse of him “off.”
I decided not to wake him. Instead, I turned off the TV and used the blanket in my lap to cover him. As the cover settled over him, he wiggled a little deeper into the cushions. I resisted the urge to stroke his cheek, settling instead for taking advantage of his slumber to stare at him.
“You know what I think?” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear me. “You aren’t dead. You just don’t remember how to live.”
I turned the lock on the front door as I went past and then climbed into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly and slept more soundly than I had in weeks. I woke to the sun streaming through my curtains, but I didn’t think about the weather or how I could languish in bed because it was Sunday. My first thought was of Charming. I wondered if he would still be here. Of what I would say to him if he was.
One way to find out.
In the living room, I noted the door was still locked. My stomach began to flutter around as I peeked over the back of the couch. I expected him to still be there.
He wasn’t.
But my cell phone was sitting on the coffee table beside his empty bottles.
I glanced back at the door, which was definitely locked. How had he gotten out and locked the door behind him?
I sighed and went to make coffee. It was just one more thing I could add to the very long list of things about Charming I wanted to know.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Weakness - something of which one is excessively fond or desirous.”
Charming
