Remembering Phoenix (10 page)

“I’ll email the paperwork over later. I’m not home right now to get to a computer, and I didn’t send the files to my phone.”

“I need the paperwork by the end of the day, so I can read it over with the client and their attorneys tomorrow and close on this deal,” Paul, my right hand man, says. He’s worked in the construction business since before I ever came along, and I’m damn lucky he’s stuck with me.

“Paul. Have you forgotten this is
my
business? I’m the boss. But don’t worry, you’ll get the damn paperwork. Patience.”

“Yeah, I hear ya, Beck.”

I hang up the phone and slide it in my pocket, looking up at the apartment number. I don’t really know why I’m here. I mean, yeah, I want my coat, but I have twenty more. I don’t
need
my coat.

But I
need
to see Charlie. I’ve had this weird feeling in my gut since last night and it’s got her name all over it. It could be because I haven’t quit thinking about her since the night of Stetson and Lizzie’s wedding. It could be because that kiss has me messed up.

I don’t do messed up. Yet here I am about to knock on her door and use the excuse that I’m here for my coat.

I’m so messed up.

I rap my knuckles three times and stand back and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more.

I knock three more times.

Finally, the door cracks open. One eye peeps at me through the crack of the door. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“I need my coat.”

“Jacket,” she says, opening the door wider. “How do you know where I live? Stalker.”

“Uh, I might have an informant in the form of a brother. Don’t blame him. I really need my coat.” I point inside. “Are you letting me enter your lair?”

She cuts her eyes to me, and when I get a good look at tem—bloodshot and puffy—my heart dips. It can only mean one thing…

Phoenix.

“Never mind,” I say, not wanting to make her shove me out the door before I ever make it through. “I’m coming in. Thanks.”

She turns around and walks down the short hallway until we enter the living room. The first thing that catches my eyes is a liquor bottle shattered on the floor. Then, I see pictures scattered everywhere. “What the hell happened here?” I ask, looking around her apartment further. My eyes go to the walls. Bare, white walls. Not a single picture hung on them. What photographer doesn’t have any pictures hanging on their wall? It’s completely bare of
any
personal touches, minus the mounds of pictures strewn across the floor.

“Nothing,” she quickly replies, falling back down on the only couch in her living room. “Your
jacket
is hanging on the rack by the fridge. Get it and go.”

I walk over and retrieve my coat before sitting back down on the couch. I’m not ready to go, and I don’t think she’s really ready for me to go, either. “Need help cleaning up?”

She stares blankly for a beat. “Why are you being nice again?”

“Uh, because I’m a nice guy?”

“That’s been disproven.”

“How so?”

She scoffs. “Because you took advantage of me.”

I shrug. “You kissed me back.”

“Did not.”

“You did. Our tongues tangled. You kissed me back.”

“Tangled? Gross. Could you stop? I’m not in the mood to argue with you.” She leans her head back and looks up at the ceiling, sighing heavily.

“Okay. But I win. Now, do you need help cleaning this mess up?”

“You did not win.” She looks around the living room, whispering to herself, “Holy crap. It is a mess.”

“It is,” I agree.

“I don’t even remember doing any of this,” she admits, dropping her face into her hands. I get up and start picking up the scattered photo albums. “You don’t have to do that.”

I drop the pile of pictures on the coffee table. “I know.”

“Then stop.”

I ignore her, picking up the rest of the mess before putting it up. “Do you have a broom and a dust pan?”

“You sweep?”

“No. But I also don’t stitch feet up well, so I’m going to sweep up this glass. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“You don’t have to take care of me,” she snaps.

I look her straight in the eyes. “I think you’re pretty capable of doing it on your own.”

She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “Then leave and let me do it.”

“I’ve got you, Charlie.”

“I don’t need you to
got
me, Slayter,” she snaps.

Once again, I ignore her. I sure as hell don’t think I
need
to, but I can’t help but want to. And damn, if it wouldn’t make my life easier if I just walked out that door and forgot all about Charlie McGee. But I can’t because she’s stuck in my head.

I walk into the kitchen, looking around for the broom. I open up the pantry and spot it. After sweeping up the glass and dropping it in the trash, I put the broom up and walk back into the living room where Charlie is still nicely planted on the couch. “Your feet should be safe now.”

“Thanks,” she whispers, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“When do you leave?”

She looks at me, confusion masks her face. “What?”

“Lizzie said you were going to some photography thing.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember everything that has to do with you.” When the words come out of my mouth, I regret it. I regret it because I’m scared of scaring her away. The last thing I want is for her to run when I have finally conceded to the fact that I want her. Her green eyes widen at my confession, so I change the subject quickly, needing the mood to lighten. “Tired of seeing me, yeah?”

She laughs lightly. “Actually, yeah. You’re distracting.”

“Attractive, you mean?” I wink, thankful she got over my slip up quickly.

“Distracting,” she corrects, shaking her head.

“Same thing.” She rolls her eyes and smiles. She smiles, and I feel some twitching going on in my chest and it needs to fucking stop. “Want to go grab pizza?” I’m suddenly really hungry for pizza and she seems like the perfect person to do that with.

“No.”

“Okay, well, pizza can come to us.”

“You don’t give up, do you? I’m not kissing you again, so you can go ahead and get that out of your head.”

I dial the pizza place down the street and order a large pepperoni pizza. I look back up at Charlie. “Who said I wanted to kiss you again?”

She looks at me stunned for a few seconds. “Uh. No one.”

“Maybe I just like your company,” I sit back down on the couch, grabbing the remote and turn the television on, flipping through channels.

“I’m not a very pleasant person.”

I find
Steel Magnolias
on a movie channel and turn it on. It seems fitting for the occasion.

“So I’ve noticed. Are you a Ouiser?”

Her mouth goes agape. “You’ve seen
Steel Magnolias
?” she asks in disbelief. “I’ve watched it a million times in the past two years.”

“I have. It was my mom’s favorite. I was the good son who watched her favorite movies with her.”

She looks at me with those big, green eyes as they start to shimmer with unshed tears.

Shit. Don’t cry, Charlie.

“That’s really sweet,” she whispers.

“What can I say? I’m a good guy.” I hope this makes her laugh.

Please laugh, Charlie.

Her mouth kicks up at the corner. A sound comes out of her and it’s like angels are singing.

She laughs. She really laughs.

Keep laughing, Charlie.

“I love when you laugh.” Great job, Slayter. Way to act like she doesn’t affect you.

She stops laughing suddenly and stares at me blankly for a moment.

“I often forget what it’s like to laugh.”

“You should laugh every single day,” I admit. “You’re even more beautiful when you laugh.”
There you go again, letting your mouth overload your ass.

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop that—saying I’m beautiful. I’m not beautiful and I’m not going to fall in love with you.”

Whoa. She said the L word. Not in that context, but she still said it.

“Who said anything about loving me?”

She lets her mouth hang open for a moment before speaking. “No one. I just felt it was important for you to know, I am incapable of loving anyone. Ever.”

“You don’t need to love me if you let me kiss you again. I’m good with just kissing…and maybe more.”

She laughs again, and dammit, there’s a twitching going on and it’s brutal. Brutal yet amazing.

Shit.

“Can we just watch this movie? Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis make me laugh.”

“We can watch it on repeat, then.” I wink at her. I could be crazy, but I swear I just saw her cheeks grow a little redder.

We watch the movie. No, I lie, s
he
watches the movie and I watch her. I’m lost in watching her laugh, seeing her eyes squint with laughter when a really funny scene happens, until the doorbell rings. I snap out of my unabashed staring and run to the door, grabbing the pizza. I throw a wad of cash at the delivery guy, and tell him thanks. I probably gave him enough money to pay this month’s bills, but I don’t care. I need to see Charlie laugh more—now.

“Pizza?” I ask, putting the box on the coffee table.

“Sure.”

I grab a slice and take a huge bite off of it, and hand Charlie a slice. “Uh,” she says, taking the greasy pizza. “I have plates. Napkins, even.”

“No need to waste good China on pizza. Eat.”

We eat our pizza in comfortable silence. She nibbles at her pizza, her one slice to my three.

“That was good, but I’m full.”

“You ate one slice.”

“It was a big slice.”

I shake my head at her. “I could eat the whole pizza by myself. Probably why my abs disappeared.” She eyes me up and down until she catches me watching her watching
me, then she turns her head away from me quickly. “I caught that.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” she says, staring at the television. She tries to stifle a grin.

“Why the black, Charlie?”

“What?” She shakes her head, smiling. “You’re extremely random.”

I point to her clothes. “You’re always in all black. Why the black?”

“You really want to know the answer to that?”

“Absolutely.”

She takes a deep breath. “Because colors remind me of
happy
, and that’s not me.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Is that really even a question?”

I scoot closer to her, throwing my arm on the couch behind her head. “Yeah it is.”

Charlie slowly turns her head and looks at me before turning back to the television. “I’m not answering that.”

“No one said you
had
to. I just want to know more about you. Even the sides you don’t like.”

She takes a shuddering breath and stares at me for a second, neither one of us saying a word. Her eyes are pained, tears swim around, threatening to fall over her lashes. “Because my life was ripped from me. I don’t even know
who
I am.”

“You don’t have to know who you’ve been or who you are. You just have to know who you want to be.”

“Are you a shrink?”

“No. I just like to get what people are thinking out of their minds before it swallows them whole.”

She looks up at me through those dark lashes. There’s so much pain and suffering bottled up inside that beautiful head of hers.

I don’t know why I feel a pull to her. I don’t know why, but every time I see her, it makes me only want to be around her
that
much more. I don’t know why I have this innate need to just
be
a part of her life. I thought all of my life’s purpose was gone the day I got the results from the paternity test in. I was broken. I went to the bar looking to forget all my problems because I thought they were too much to carry. Then I met Charlie. And how can I go through my life wanting to forget, when I’m lucky enough to have a memory that allows me to
remember
? Missing Claire hurts. It hurts like hell, but at least I have memories I can grasp on to when I think about her. Charlie doesn’t even have that.

Maybe I have this invisible pull to Charlie because she showed me life was so much more than my petty problems. She showed me there are people out there who would
kill
to have the problems I have. I just hope I can maybe give her some sense of normalcy in a life that is anything but.

“You’re one of the only people who has ever talked to me like I’m a human being and not a fragile piece of glass. I am fragile. I know that, but it’s nice to feel like someone isn’t walking on eggshells around me.”

I stroke my thumb along her shoulder before pulling her into me. She hesitates for a moment before succumbing, and falling into my side. “I didn’t come here to just get my coat,” I confess.

“I know,” she whispers. “I’m really glad you’re here. I get so lost in my own misery when I’m alone. I let the darkness consume me. You saved me from that today. Thank you.”

“You don’t ever have to thank me. I’ve got you, Charlie.”

“Why?” Her voice is so soft, I’m not even sure she wanted me to hear.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” I murmur, brushing my lips along the top of her head.

She leans her head back and looks up at me. Our faces are mere inches apart. I want to swoop in and kiss every ounce of hurt and sorrow off her beautiful face, out of her heart, and make her whole. I wish I could fix it—fix her hurt—but I can’t.

I want to kiss her so badly, but I won’t. Because, if I kiss her, I’ll get lost in her while she runs, and I won’t let that happen. So I’m going to walk away. Right now, at least.

“I’ve got to go. It’s getting late.”

She quickly stands up, nodding her head. “Yeah, yeah. I need to pack, anyway. Thanks for the pizza.”

“You can have the leftovers. I had plenty.”

She grabs the pizza and puts it away, then walks towards the door. I follow behind. “Thanks for uh… visiting. I actually didn’t have a miserable time.”

“Ahh. Progress,” I tease.

“Yeah,” she says, looking down at her feet, “progress.”

“Be safe on your trip. Can I see you when you get back?”