Page 34 of For All It's Worth
Chapter Fourteen
Max
Charlietextedmeafterhis shift last night to tell me that Henry had asked him to move in and that I’d get to meet him since he was coming by during our shift with the keys.
Unused to sharing Charlie’s attention, I had to admit that I’d felt a few prickles of jealousy when he talked about Henry over the last few weeks. It was all “Henry this,” and “Henry that,” which was fine, totally fine, but the photos on social media…weren’t. Henry was hot, and together they looked great, striking even, which left me feeling insecure and needy.
It seemed like they’d really hit it off, and I was grateful to Henry for giving Charlie work to do since I hired some more staff and couldn’t give him a ton of hours. I felt like maybe I was taking advantage of our friendship by hiring him, and then not being able to give him more hours once everything stabilized. But when I voiced that with him, he insisted that while he was happy to help out, he wanted flexibility around therapy appointments and working out at the gym. He’d been spending more time exploring the city taking photos, too.
We texted back and forth about him moving out. Charlie didn’t think that his mom would take the news well. Her worry over him put a lot of pressure on Charlie to act a certain way. The typing soon got exhausting, so I called him instead.
Deciding on a video call rather than just voice, I got myself comfortable and angled my phone to look half decent. Why did front-facing cameras always make me look like shit? Charlie quickly picked up the call, his hair a disheveled mess from running his hands through it. Stress pinched at his mouth and his eyes were dull.
“Hey, look, take me with you and I’ll help you talk her down.”
“You sure?”
“Of course. I’ll be the voice of reason or something.” I gave him a quick grin and he chuckled.
“Okay,” the screen blurred with movement and I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Mom?”
“In the kitchen.”
Charlie came into view as he settled his phone on the kitchen island where I could see them both as they sat on the bar stools.
“Hey, so I’ve got something to tell you and Max is here to explain it better than I could.”
She turned to look at me on the screen. “Hey, Alice…look…”
An hour later, Charlie was back in his room taking time out from the stress that was his mom. She had not taken the news well. “It’ll be okay. Just let her get used to the idea.”
“I know, I’m just going to hit the treadmill for a bit, okay? Thanks for trying.”
He disconnected the call once I’d said goodbye and I couldn’t help but worry about him.
Alice’s anxiety over Charlie’s well-being and about everything that had happened to him was understandable, but instead of feeling cared for, all Charlie felt was smothered. It was all he’d complained about recently, even though he was seemingly happy in every other part of his life. For both our benefits, I’d stepped back a bit with him because I’d sensed some frustration at how little freedom he had. My ability to read him well had come in handy more than once. Feeling trapped and suffocated was the last thing I wanted for him. It could’ve undone all his progress if he had snapped under the pressure and returned to drinking.
I got why it was so hard for him to adjust to the attention; he’d never had this sort of watchfulness from his family so he didn’t know what to do with it. His mom expected him, as a grown man who’d been on his own since college, to report his every move and it chafed at him on the regular. She was constantly texting him when he was with me, not that he was with me often outside of work. Charlie hadn’t felt free enough to hang out on my evenings or days off much, which sucked because things were so good with us now.
Since we cleared the air weeks ago, I’d tried to focus on this new Charlie. The one that thought before he spoke, was better with people in general, showing more patience and understanding. There was an empathy in him that he didn’t have before, and like an unused muscle, it’d grown the more he’d used it. A few of my more vulnerable customers had taken to him and it was sweet the way he lit up when they gifted him with smiles.
I just wished that I could move things forward with us. We flirted constantly and I used every opportunity to get into his space, to touch him casually. There was no mistaking the heat, the interest that I’d seen there in Charlie, but something was in the way, some sort of hidden barrier to us taking our friendship into more.
The bell above the door rang, breaking me from my thoughts, and as I noticed the time on the clock above the café counter from a table in the back, I started to tidy up all the paperwork I was getting nowhere with.
“Max. Hey.” Charlie blushed as he came over to greet me.That’s new.
“I’ll just go stow my stuff and be right out. Where do you want me today?”
Home, in my bed. Preferably without clothes.
I coughed and pushed that thought away, “Um…can you do the coffee orders today? Denver struggles with it when it’s busy.”
“Sure thing.”
He headed to the office and the lockers that I’d had to buy. A few things had gone missing recently. Luckily for me, they’d happened on days when Charlie wasn’t in, otherwise, there might have been a need to have had an awkward conversation with him. I was a hundred percent sure it wasn’t him, just as I was pretty sure he wouldn’t cope well with being questioned about the thefts though. It was bad enough for him that his mom was doing weekly alcohol tests.
As it was, I'd had to wire up cameras over both the registers, the bookstore stockroom, and the office, since inventory was missing too, alongside cash from staff members' wallets.
