Page 63 of Country Road Romance

Goodbye, Charlie Garrett. It was nice while it lasted.

CHAPTER 20

After they left the theater Sheri didn’t say anything, her face an expressionless mask. Even though Charlie tried to convince himself that it wasn’t that bad, he could tell that she was well and truly furious with him, more than she’d ever been in all of their years of working together. The fact that she’d swept them out of the theater before the movie had even started–thus denying him the chance to explain himself to the waiting reporters–made it even clearer. He’d fucked up, and she was surely going to let him know about it.

There was a car waiting for them, of course, because Sheri wasn’t the type of person to ever leave anything to chance. She’d probably figured that he was going to pull some stunt like this and had made sure that she had the means to get him out of there as quickly as possible. He paused for a split second and looked back–was he hoping to see Jared come running out of the theater, or was he just trying to get a last look back at the place where his next great venture just went down in flames? He honestly couldn’t say–but there was no one there waiting for him, no one running out to say anything.

I guess I left them in shock,he thought a little bitterly.

Then they were in the car and racing toward the airport, and he didn’t really have time or energy to think about much of anything.

The trip there took a remarkably short amount of time, and he was pretty sure the driver ran more than a few red lights. Clearly Sheri had told him that getting back to California as quickly as possible was of the paramount importance, and what Sheri wanted, Sheri got. She didn’t say a word to him, of course, but she seemed to radiate anger and frustration, and he didn’t feel brave enough to try to start a conversation: not when they drove up the hill toward the airport, not when they got out of the car, and not even when they started to get on the plane.

As he got on-board the jet, Charlie cast one look back in the direction of Huntington. He’d only been here a short time, but for some reason it had already cast a spell on him. He knew well enough why that was–it was the place that Jared called home–but he also knew that there was nothing more for him there. Jared had already made quite clear how he felt, and Charlie had to live with that.

He settled into a seat and buckled up, Sheri seated across from him. As the plane taxied and began to take off, he couldn’t help but wonder what Jared was doing at that exact moment, and there was a tiny part of him that wished that he would see Jared come racing up that hill, desperate to get to Charlie before he took off.

But, of course, that didn’t happen.

“You’re not going to believe this, but your socials are blowing up right now, and the news is actuallygood.”

It took him a few seconds to realize that Sheri had started speaking to him and that she’d actually given him a piece of good news. When it finally sunk in, he couldn’t help thinking that it paled in comparison to the disappointment of Jared not showing up, either to the screening or afterward.

Just accept it,he thought.He told you how he felt, and that’s all there is to it.

But had he? Yes, he’d been cruel and hurtful, but Charlie thought he’d seen something else beneath all of that bravado; he suspected there was a sensitive boy there that was still trying to figure things out and to decide how he felt about…well, everything.

“Is that so?” he asked.

“Don’t be like that, Charlie,” Sheri said. “This is good news for you. You could have really shredded everything with that speech. For once in your life, can you just take the win and make both our lives easier?”

He knew that he should just tell Sheri what she so clearly wanted to hear and at the very least make this plane trip more enjoyable. However, something about giving that speech had opened up all kinds of opportunities for him, and he was going to start standing up for himself, even if that meant going against what Sheri wanted.

“Yes, it’s great,” he said, measuring his words with care, “but I’m sorry that I didn’t start saying what I thought sooner.”

Sheri gave him one of her level looks that suggested he was being unnecessarily dense.

“Really, Charlie? You’re really going to start in on that again? How many times do I have to tell you that sometimes you have to just do what’s expected of you so that you can make bigger gains later? You might have notched a win this time, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then he decided against it.

“Okay,” was all he said.

They settled down into a quasi-comfortable silence after that.

When he got backto California, Charlie tried to get back into his old routine. As Sheri had predicted, he was fending off offers left and right, and while some of them were projects that really did appeal to him, he still couldn’t quite get the motivation that he needed in order to take on any of them. There was still a part of him that was back in West Virginia, and he was starting to think that there always would be.

Finally, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided that he was just going to have to talk to Sheri about it. She might not completely understand where he was coming from, but she would at least be able to give him some advice that he badly needed.

As soon as he got to her office, he could tell from the look on her face that she knew why he was there.

“You’re thinking about Jared, aren’t you?” she asked as soon as he took a seat. She sighed and shook her head. “I knew this was going to happen. I’m starting to think that I should have just told you that he was waiting for you outside the theater that day.”

“Wait, what do you mean Jared was there outside the venue?” he asked. For a minute it felt as if the room was tilting around him, but he forced himself to remain calm.

If Sheri was aware that she’d just dropped a bomb on him, she gave no sign of it. In fact, she looked utterly unperturbed. They could have been talking about the weather for all the more emotion she showed.

“You already told me how much of an asshole he’d been to you,” she went on. “I didn’t, and don’t, think you need any more of that kind of energy in your life. You have a career, Charlie, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news or to be the adult in the room, but that has to be the thing that you work on the most right now. You don’t have time to get into some long distance relationship. They don’t last, anyway. Trust me.”

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