Page 28 of For All It's Worth
Chapter Twelve
Max
Itonlytookaweek to realize that having Charlie working with me was going to be torture. We hadn’t spent much time together; our coinciding shifts were short and we didn’t see each other afterwards, but I could see the changes. He was different from how he used to be, but in a good way. Less hectic energy and more introspective calmness.
I hadn’t meant for the comment about the gym working for him to slip out, but it was an honest observation. To be fair, it wasn’t hard for him to look better than the last time that I’d seen him in the hospital months ago. The image of him in the hospital bed would haunt me for a long time.
My supervisor Heather and I did the handover and I wrote some checks before I left for the day. If I didn’t need my car for work the next day, I’d have taken a cab home. I hated driving tired. As usual, I’d slept terribly and was paying for it now.
During the night, sick of tossing and turning, I’d gotten up and folded laundry and done some dishes, working through my cleaning routine. My roommate was staying with his girlfriend again since her apartment was closer to his work, so I didn’t have to worry about disturbing him. After catching up with the laundry, I put on the TV, turned it down low, and watched it until I’d fallen asleep.
Getting home mid-afternoon with no real plans, I ate and sat myself back in front of the TV to pick up where I’d left off before I fell asleep.
I needed to get my mind off Charlie. Off how he looked on his first day working, filling out the dark green tee he wore that showed every line of muscle. Off how he smelled, clean and fresh without a hint of booze. The feel of that hug, how tightly we’d clung to each other, refusing to let go. I remembered all of it later that night in bed when I found myself jerking off to the memory of his body against mine.
I’d offered to pick Charlie up for work on Wednesday, but his mom’s house was out of my way, so he refused politely. There was still a strange undercurrent between us and I wanted to try and recover the same closeness we had before everything went to shit.
Our calls during rehab had been hellish. I often regretted allowing him to call me since we had so little to talk about. I couldn’t tell him a lot of things over the phone and it had hurt to have this gulf open up between us.
With him back, I tried to bridge the gap. Encouraging Charlie to let me in was harder than it used to be though, but after some coaxing, he told me about how he’d finally told Will some of the Ethan stuff. Alex was being a dick to him and I was more than sure that Charlie was being made into the scapegoat for all the other crap Alex had going on. I felt bad that he was getting divorced and that his ex was already pregnant by someone else, but none of that was Charlie’s fault. I’m sure that he loved Helena in some way still, but if Will was over stuff then Alex had to work it out with Charlie, too. It wasn’t fair to keep treating him like dirt because of some misplaced grudge. Anger flared, sharp and insistent, as I thought of Alex, but I pushed it away. I’d always fight in Charlie’s corner when it was needed, but we weren’t anywhere near that yet.
Charlie was frustrated with living at home. His mom was constantly on top of him about his sobriety, eating, and therapy. She was worried about the stress of him working, even though it was with me and he badly needed to be out of the house on a regular basis before he snapped.
When we hit a lull at work, I pulled up a property website on my phone and Charlie and I browsed for a bit until he got despondent over the lack of anything good being available.
Though there were times that we could chat, I knew I needed to see him outside of work to clear the air over what had happened so we could move on from it. I could feel it hanging between us in the way that he was hesitant with me. Before we would casually touch each other and now I didn’t know if that had stopped because he wanted to appear professional, or if he was just unsure over our whole friendship. The whole thing had been playing on my mind and I just needed to purge it, just get it out so we could talk it over.
Since we had the day off together, I suggested we meet up for lunch and maybe go to a movie and Charlie accepted quickly, which was a huge relief. Part of me wondered if he would make an excuse to get out of it.
“I wasn’t sure where we stood. If we could hang out outside of work,” he said softly. I wasn’t used to this quieter version of Charlie. The version that thought before he spoke, who didn’t push for what he wanted all the time.
I picked him up for lunch and was grateful that his mom was out and his sister was at school, so we didn’t have to make small talk and explain why I hadn’t been around as much. I felt kinda shitty that I’d left Charlie to explain my absence over the weeks he’d been home recovering. Alice had been nothing but kind to me, but her priority was Charlie and that was fair. I wasn’t anyone to them. They’d had enough to contend with recently without dealing with my stuff, too.
We decided not to eat out, so I drove us to the grocery store so we could pick up the ingredients to make lunch at my place, where we could talk without being overheard. I got the feeling that Charlie was feeling nervous being around a bunch of people and wondered if the attack was on his mind more often than he let on.
Charlie quickly took over making us a pasta dish that I loved, with the special gluten-free pasta I liked, and I watched him move competently around the small kitchen serving us the food from my place at the sink. My job was going to be cleaning up after him. He wasn’t the cleanest cook and seemed to use every pot and dish that I owned. My fingers twitched every time that he made a spill or didn’t put something in the correct place, but I willed myself to calm down.
Settling on the couch, we didn’t speak much while we ate and the tension ratcheted up the longer that the silence sat between us.
Taking a deep breath, I set my plate down and started the speech I’d been rehearsing. “I need you not to interrupt for a minute while I get this all out, okay?”
Waiting for him to agree, I paused. He nodded, looking concerned, and put his plate on the table.
“You’re my best friend and we’ve been through so much together. So I know that you know, what went down was something big.”Not the greatest opening line, you sound like you’re breaking up with him.I mentally rolled my eyes at myself. I’d practiced my speech and already it was off the rails.
Another nod. His eyes scanned my face. Sweat broke out on my forehead as my heart started hammering in my chest. I hated the words that I was working up to speak.
“It wasn’t that you left me, Charlie. I knew that you didn’t mean to, and really, you shouldn’t have to watch over me all the time.”
Another deep breath. My fingers trembled as I ran a hand through my hair.
“You got aggressive with me a couple of times when I tried to curb your drinking,” I finally blurted.
Charlie inhaled sharply. Shock spread all over that handsome face before tears filled his eyes and he tried to speak.
“No. You didn’t hurt me. I swear.” I had to stop for a second to hold back my tears. I grabbed at his hand, needing to touch him, soothe him somehow. “But I did get scared and I’ve never been scared of you before. I’d always felt safe and suddenly that was gone.” The words kept spilling from me. “You would loom over me, or growl at me and you just….you just weren’t you.” The words faded out.
He took a sharp breath and seemed to push back tears. “Why don’t I remember that? I don’t blackout.” His voice was firm, completely sure of himself.
