Page 44 of For All It's Worth
Chapter Seventeen
Max
Wepulleduptothe building where Henry had his apartment and I surveyed the area. Some of the blocks were newer and there were a number of local businesses. It wasn’t actually that far from Books & Biscuits or Henry’s gym—one place I had yet to set foot in. Out of all the places that we had looked at online, this was already shaping up to beat them.
There was resident parking in the rear and I pulled into a guest spot and parked. Next to me in the passenger seat, I felt Charlie tense. Clicking off my seatbelt, I shifted to face him, giving him my whole attention.
“What’s up?”
He was silent for a moment while his gaze wandered the area. “Uh, nervous I guess. It’s been a long time since I lived with someone that wasn’t you or family.”
I rubbed his arm gently. “It’s not like Henry is a stranger though and it doesn’t have to be long term. You can keep looking for somewhere if it isn’t a good fit for either of you.”
Charlie digested this before shrugging. “Yeah, I know, it’s just a lot of change.”
“And you don’t do well with change. I know.” I smiled at him to let him know that I didn’t mean anything by my remark.
He gave me a quick grin and moved to get out of the car. I needed to have a proper talk with him because his emotions were giving me whiplash with how quickly they were shifting.
We gathered up the bags, attempting to make just one trip to the fourth-floor apartment. I was happy to see that they had an elevator and that it was working. An elderly lady was exiting as we waited by the doors to get in, the bags strewn around us.
“Handsome boys,” she cooed. “Do you live here?”
“I’m just moving in, ma’am. I’m Charlie, this is Max.” Charlie told her politely. He had such a sweet way with old ladies and they adored him, like he was catnip with kittens. They flocked to him constantly.
I smothered a laugh as she gravitated towards him and set a wrinkled hand on his arm.
“Which floor, sweetie?” She asked.
“Fourth, ma’am.”
“Ma’am nothing, you call me Lily y’hear?” She demanded in her sweet southern accent, as she continued to pat his arm. “I’m in 502, an’ it gets lonely on my own sometimes, so don’ be a stranger.” She gave his arm a final squeeze and let go.
“Well, I’m in 402, so if you ever need anything, pop down to my apartment, okay?”
“Oh you’re Henry’s new roomie! I just love that boy,” she gushed, her eyes practically filled with cartoon hearts. “Always helps with my groceries an’ I make him these protein balls my grandson loves. My grandson, Kelly, just started going to his gym. I was telling him about Henry’s pretty sister an’ he said, ‘Nana, you know I don’t date girls,’ an’ I told him it was a shame that Henry didn’t date men because he’s so handsome an’ kind.”
I stifled a laugh and Charlie sent me a look, a sort of panicked expression that had my shoulders shuddering with the effort it took to keep quiet.
“Oh, I… uh, work there, too.” Charlie finally managed to get out.
“Have you met my Kelly?”
“Um, I dunno. What’s he look like?”
I didn’t think we were ever getting away from Ms. Lily as she gave us a detailed description of her red-haired grandson, even looking through her phone for photos of him.
“Um, no Lily, I haven’t met him but he probably works out in the evenings with his job.”
“Of course! That’ll be it.” I got the feeling that Lily was lonely and I felt bad for her. I hoped that Kelly visited often.
I decided to step in before she tried to set Charlie up with Kelly. “It’s been lovely to meet you Lily, but we better get Charlie moved in. He promised me dinner.”
“Oh, of course! I need to get goin’ before I miss the ladies. We’re getting cocktails! You boys have a lovely dinner. What a handsome couple you make!”
I glanced at Charlie, but neither of us made any move to correct her and that hopeful feeling rose in me again. This was progress. Of course, we’d played the fake boyfriends game to deter unwanted attention before, but Lily’s assumption had been something different. In situations like that before we would have immediately rushed to ensure that it was clear that we were just best friends.
We said our goodbyes to Lily and headed up to the fourth floor and the well-appointed two-bedroom where Charlie would be living for the foreseeable future.
