Chapter 59: Chapter 59

“I’ve always been very awkward,” Charlee began, “very shy, so bad that I had to be homeschooled because my socializing skills were non-existent.”

They stopped just outside his truck, and she glanced up at him for a reaction, but at the moment, he reminded her of his brother because his expression gave nothing away.

“My mom coaxed me into trying to go to public school a few times, but each time it was disastrous.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t always looked this way. My hair isn’t really straight either, it’s super curly.” He smiled. “But not like Roni’s, okay? We’re talking nappy curly. Add that to it being bright red with a face full of freckles and me being so incredibly shy that I’d turn bright red the moment any teachers called on me in class. I hated having all eyes on me, and I hated having to speak up, because every time I did, I’d flub my words. Once the kids caught on to how easily they could make me turn beet red, I was an easy target. I became their entertainment.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Now she saw his jaw working. “None of the girls wanted to be friends with Charlee the Freak, and even though I had Drew, who had been my friend since we were babies, she couldn’t always be there, so I begged my mom to take me out again and just let me be homeschooled.”

Hector opened the door for her and she got in. As soon as he was in his side, he kissed her but then asked her to continue as he slipped the key in the ignition.

“Anyway, we tried it again in middle school, and, God, that was even worse. I didn’t even last a week.” Taking a very deep breath, she braced herself before getting the next part out. “There was a boy who lived up the street from me named Danny. I used to watch him from my window as he and his friends walked to school. He was one of the only popular kids who was actually nice to me, and by nice, I mean he didn’t throw food at me or taunt me. He hung out with some of the kids that did, but he never joined them. And he even smiled at me a few times.”

Sitting this close to Hector, she noticed his body go stiff, and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “But he never stopped them from taunting you?”

She shook her head. “No, but silly me, just because he smiled at me, didn’t actually do the taunting, and, of course, because he was popular and cute, I made him out to be some kind of prince. For years as I watched him go by my house to school, I daydreamed of him and harbored this massive crush on him.”

He squeezed her leg, and she decided to spare him the details of all the doodling she did writing her and Danny’s name all over her notebooks and journals. “By the time I was old enough to go to high school, I tried again freshman year, and that was another disaster. Looking back, I realize it was me being too weak to fight back or stand up for myself. But I was so shy it was paralyzing.” She cleared her voice, realizing this is where the explanation about her behavior last night began. “As shy as I was, I was still your typical teenager with raging hormones. But as awkward as I was, I knew, or at least I believed very strongly, that I would probably never even be kissed much less experience anything more than just kissing. But as a young girl, I still daydreamed about it—a lot, especially every time I’d watch Danny walk by my house.”

Again he squeezed her leg, and she straightened up a little, feeling her face warm by what she was about to say next. “Like any normal teenage girl,” she turned to him, making sure he got this part, “because I’d been called a freak so often, I read up on it and looked it up on the internet. It was totally normal,” she waited until he nodded. “I started doing things—touching myself.”

He turned to her with a smirk.

“It’s not funny,” she said quickly.

“I’m not laughing,” he responded just as quick. “I’m just visualizing it.”

She nudged him, pressing her lips together. He’s seen you naked. You’ve made love to him. You rode him this very morning, and any badass cowgirl would’ve been proud. You can tell him this.

“Anyway, as the years passed, I graduated from just touching to doing other things.” She squeezed his leg now as he sat up, adjusting his pants. “Don’t you dare ask for details. Just use your imagination. You’ll probably be right.”

He stared straight ahead, smiling, pulling into the parking lot of a charbroiled burger joint, parked, and then leaned against his door. “Okay, I guarantee you my imagination is going nuts right now, but, please, go on.”

Charlee rolled her eyes, deciding not to further that part of her story until she had to. “So fast forward to senior year or rather the summer before I would’ve started my senior year in high school. The town I lived in was small, and everyone knew everyone else. I’d been labeled by all the kids as Charlee, the redheaded freak who couldn’t even deal with high school. Drew refused to admit it, but I knew what everyone thought of me, and I had long ago accepted it. At that point it didn’t matter. I hadn’t planned on ever going back to that school anyway.” She glanced down at his hand as he squeezed hers, hoping he wasn’t pitying her. “Drew was doing everything she could to convince me to enroll for senior year, and let me tell you that girl can be persuasive.”

He chuckled. “I don’t know her too well, but she seems as though she can make a pretty good argument. I still have to thank her for convincing you to move out here.”

Charlee smiled sideways, feeling bittersweet. “Danny had a hand in that decision too.”

Hector’s smile immediately went flat. “Fuck that. I ain’t thanking him.”

Soothing his suddenly tight upper thigh muscles with her hand, Charlee continued. “Now what I’m gonna share next stays strictly between you and me. It’s something very personal about Drew.” She paused until he nodded. “Right around that time, Drew’s parents separated. It was sort of this big local scandal. Her dad was always gone like he is now, and her mom started having an affair with her brother’s travel team baseball coach.” Charlee shook her head, remembering how devastated Drew had been. “The coach was also married, and his son was also on the team. All the other parents were appalled because apparently the coach’s wife was so very much involved with the team and well-liked that people took sides, and the team eventually fell apart. It was just a big mess. So only after having to see Drew go through all this did I begin to consider enrolling senior year. She said she needed me there for her. This happened during that summer, so she was dreading going back to school and have everyone talking about it.”

He watched her intently, and now she had to tell him why she was ready to run the moment she suspected he wasn’t being completely honest or that by chance he was secretly ashamed of her. “Since Danny lived up the street, we often ran into him at the local burger joint or convenience store up the street, and like he’d always been, he was nice to me: said hello, smiled, and was polite.” Even though Drew had been right about Hector, Charlee still couldn’t help roll her eyes having to explain the next part. “Drew’s always said she has this sixth sense about certain things, and she started to insist she was picking up on something from Danny when he looked at me and smiled at me. Of course, I didn’t buy it for a second. I was Charlee the Freak, and he was the popular good-looking jock in high school, but she insisted there was something about the way he looked at me. She said the same thing about you, by the way, when we first met you at the tournament.”

Hector lifted an eyebrow. “Did she now?”

“Yep,” Charlee nodded.

“And she picked up on the same thing from this guy?”

“Yes, but she was totally wrong about him. Only I’ve mentioned how persuasive she can be, right?” He smiled but it was strangely strained. “She kept insisting that every time we ran into him he stared at me a little too long or was a little too smiley or whatever. Finally, she asked him straight out when she ran into him at the library one day, and he said he thought I was cute and there was something special about me, so she gave him my number! Next thing you know he’s texting me and calling me, and Drew’s all full of herself.” Charlee couldn’t help laugh, but there was no humor in it. “I knew it! I called it! I knew he was into you and then . . .” She paused, unbelievably still feeling the hurt seep in. “After several long, very deep conversations with him where I really thought I began to feel a connection and he was so damn sweet, he asked me to a party.”

She didn’t even realize she’d fallen deep into her thoughts until he interrupted them.

“Charlee?” Glancing up at him, there was no missing how undeniably hard his expression had gone. “You said you’re over this guy, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded, but she was sure she wasn’t convincing. She hadn’t allowed herself to relive this in so long she was certain he saw the hurt she was feeling from scraping old wounds open and not understanding why it still hurt so bad.

“Are you sure?”

She stared straight ahead, nodding, realizing her eyes were now flooding quickly with tears and Hector wasn’t buying it for a second, but she couldn’t help it. After all this time, she still couldn’t believe Danny had done that to her. He’d been so sincere, so sweet. He called her Tangerine, damn it, because it was the name of his sister’s orange cat, which he always pretended to hate but secretly liked holding and petting when no one was around. That should’ve been clue number one: when no one else was around. He said it was because of her hair and the cat was orange and sweet, but she knew better now.

“Are you crying for this guy right now?” Hector straightened up so abruptly his elbow hit the horn, and he raised his voice just a notch, but Charlee caught the anger loud and clear. “Is that what I’m sitting here watching and listening to?” The anger changed suddenly, and there was suspicion now—severe suspicion. “Did you and him—”