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Chapter 12
Charlie and I stayed on the playground for an hour before heading back up the path toward my apartment again. A couple of people had come and gone while we were down at the lakeside park, but we never talked to anyone else.
"What time is it?" I asked as we came to my apartment complex.
"It's after eleven," he said without looking at his watch to make sure. "I know you need to be up early. I didn't mean to keep you."
"No, it was fun," I said.
I looked at him as we meandered slowly down the path. It was quiet out, aside from the sound of frogs or cicadas or whatever it was chirping in the woods.
"I'm glad you came over," I added. "Next time you'll have to take me back to Broken Arrow in a boat."
"At night?"
"Yeah," I said.
"For a thousand?"
"Yeah, sure," I said, nodding and shrugging like it was a possibility for me to pay someone a grand for such a thing, which it wasn't.
"Okay, I'll do it for a thousand," he said with a deadpan expression.
"I'll have to put it on layaway," I said. "I'll get on a payment plan."
"I'll just do it one night, and then you can owe me a thousand in goods and services over like the next few months or so."
I laughed, knowing we were joking. "Thank goodness you're going back to Miami."
"Thanks a lot," he said sarcastically.
"No, I just meant I'll get out of my responsibilities—the theoretical thousand dollars. I won't be happy to see you go, Charlie."
"Are you thinking about coming out to the house tomorrow?"
"Yeah, maybe. We talked about it. I mean, I guess I'll text AJ in the morning and see what he has going on…" I trailed off and shrugged awkwardly. I didn't know what to say, honestly. I felt uneasy about the whole AJ thing now.
"You don't have to wait on AJ to invite you," Charlie said. "You can come over because I invited you. I'm better friends with you than AJ is, anyway."
"I know, but your family already saw me there with him. And I already told him I was going to go tomorrow, so I'll probably head over there after I get off of work."
I stooped down and picked up a rock.
I started to sense a little tension radiating off of Charlie at the mention of AJ, and it made me feel some type of way. I felt like he was jealous, and the idea of it caused a warm gushing sensation to happen in my core. I had wanted Charlie so badly that my body automatically responded even though having him was no longer an option. He was such a good man, but my ability to have feelings for him turned off when I found out he was married. I could appreciate him for the wonderful, funny, dependable, sweet, handsome, masculine, amazing man he was and still be aware of the fact that I would not end up with him in the long run.
But I wasn't going to end up with AJ in the long run either. And if I was going to end up with neither of them, it didn't matter who I kissed. I told myself that kissing Charlie was the same as kissing AJ—no harm, no foul.
I thought of kissing Charlie, and my stomach started to feel funny again. I looked at his face and I suddenly felt like I really wanted to do it. My heart raced, and I was glad he couldn't hear my thoughts. We headed toward the parking lot, and I knew we would find our way to his truck. There was a picnic area to our left, and Charlie's truck was straight ahead and toward the right.
Charlie hesitated when we came to the path that led to the picnic area. There was a large gazebo off to the side. I wasn't sure if gazebos came in different shapes, but this was one of the round ones. It was a nice one, actually. It was painted white and there was some kind of flowering vine growing all over it. The apartment complex was called "The Gazebo" and this very structure was their mascot and logo. The owners really kept it looking nice. It was large enough for ten or twelve people to sit comfortably, but it was empty now.
I followed Charlie as he walked toward it.
"What's going on with you and AJ?" he asked as we took the path. He kept walking, going inside the gazebo and looking around. I was taken aback by his question and I took a second to think of how I wanted to answer it.
"Nothing actually. What you saw was all that happened. We're just friends. I rarely come in here," I added as we made our way inside. "When I first moved into this place, I thought I would be coming in here having a picnic every day, and I think I've come in here like three or four times in two years."
"Hope."
