She could lie. She could brush off Jackie’s accusation with some story about wanting to make amends.
But Jackie had watched their non-relationship sputter and die at close range. Who held Charlotte’s hand after the graduation ceremony when everyone else hugged their moms and chased siblings across the grass? Jackie. Whose family took her to dinner at Terry’s Bar to celebrate and insisted on buying her an extra bag of nachos? Jackie’s family.
If there was one person in this world who saw right through her, it was Jackie Slaughter. If Charlotte tried to hide her feelings, Jackie would just shove her sideways into the grass and call her a coward before feeding her more cheese.
When Charlotte and Reece ended, Jackie aligned herself with her roommate (hoes before bros) but maintained a friendship with him over the years. They hung out whenever he visited California, buying cheap tickets to L.A. Kings games and taking selfies in the nosebleed section of the hockey stadium.
Are you sure you don’t mind? Jackie texted her the first time Reece crashed on her couch.
Not at all, Charlotte told her. He’s a good dude.
Laser-focused on building a life for herself in New York, Charlotte never asked her about him. She didn’t like to think about the way she’d left things between them, and she didn’t know what to do with the occasional fun fact from his Instagram: Reece’s car broke down again, Reece has a new girlfriend, Reece is growing a beard. She could almost fool herself into thinking he was some influencer they followed on social media as opposed to the guy she rebounded with after leaving her horrible ex-boyfriend.
Now Jackie reached out to ruffle Charlotte’s hair. She laughed when Charlotte slapped her hands away. “I love you very much, kiddo. Even though you don’t know how to talk about your feelings.”
“Jerk.”
Reece danced backward across the field, his arms outstretched to catch a high throw. The Frisbee breezed past his fingers by a wide margin and he turned around to lope after it, utterly relaxed.
Jackie watched her watching Reece, her eyebrows raised.
“I just want to, like, talk about dogs with him,” Charlotte admitted.
Her friend’s topknot bobbed precariously as she stifled a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all you want.”
It wasn’t. She wanted to lick from his clavicle down to his groin.
Charlotte sat up to take a sip of her G&T. She scowled at the grass between her toes. “Last night was a shit show.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
“No, really. I got all stressed out and he had to walk me back to my room.”
Not that Reece seemed to mind. But had he kept her company out of kindness or desire? She considered how Reece ran his hand over his mouth as he stared at her, and that hug that was more than a hug. She couldn’t have imagined all that sexual magnetism, even if it had been months since she’d gotten laid.
“There was this moment when I thought something might happen, but it just—” She fiddled with the end of her braid. “I don’t know.”
“What?” Jackie prompted. “What don’t you know?”
“We shouldn’t go there.”
Jackie’s eyebrows came together. “Why not?”
Charlotte shrugged. She couldn’t explain how back in college, Reece felt like the solution to her problems until he created even more. When he made her laugh, she stopped hearing the grating loop of Ben’s Greatest Hits in her mind. When she sat in Reece’s lap with her lips at his throat, she didn’t feel quite so powerless, so weak, so worthless. But when he smiled at her in the darkness, she always wondered what he could possibly see in her.
Charlotte remembered how out of control she felt last night when Ben looked over the audience, and how much she wanted to disappear before his eyes found her.
“Seriously, why is it a bad idea?” Jackie demanded. “He’s recently single, you’re tragically single, what’s the issue?”
Charlotte licked her thumb and rubbed a smudge of dirt off her foot.
“Earth to Charlotte. You know how many people are here to hook up with their exes?”
She set her drink down on the ground, careful not to spill. “I’m not here to screw around, I’m here to work.”
Jackie scoffed. “God forbid you take a break. This is our chance to relive the best years of our lives. Maybe a solid orgasm would help you get your priorities straight.”
Charlotte looked around frantically to make sure no one was listening. Jio and Matt were absorbed in Instagram again, discussing some influencer they wanted to partner with at work. The hockey bros argued over a spliff, Reece rolling his eyes as he waited for the game to resume. Misty, well, Misty would keep her secrets because she was a dog.
“I do not want to discuss the merits of sleeping with my ex,” she hissed.
“We weren’t discussing the merits, we were discussing the obstacle that is you being a coward.” Jackie poked her in the shoulder.
Charlotte shoved her wrist away. “Would you stop?”
“If we were discussing the merits,” Jackie continued, undaunted, “we would be talking about his ass, and his excellent hair, and the fact that he still looks at you like you were put on this earth just to ruin his life.”
The description sent heat crawling up her neck as she remembered Reece’s burning eyes, and the way her name fell from his mouth under the fluorescent lights of the hallway. “How would you know how he looks at me?” Charlotte asked, tasting guilt in her throat.
“Because he’s watching us, dummy.”
Charlotte’s eyes found Reece on the field. He indeed watched them like a bemused dad monitoring his squabbling toddlers. He gave her a jaunty wave, and she bit the inside of her cheek before returning it. Reece smiled at her until Garrett sent the Frisbee flying toward his face and he had to duck to avoid it.
Jackie laughed and golf-clapped. “Well done, boys, well done!”
Reece bowed for them before sprinting off to retrieve the disc.
“I hate you,” Charlotte whispered.
