Jackie pulled the Doritos out of her tote bag. “You love me,” she corrected. “Eat something, you’re cranky.” Charlotte obediently shoved some chips in her mouth. “Good job. Chew. Swallow. Okay, now walk me through your feelings.”
“I feel irritated.”
“Do not make me pull up the Feelings Chart on my phone.”
“Oh Jesus.” Charlotte threw a hand up in the air. “Fine. I’m confused. Okay? He was all flirty one minute. Then, the next, he went into platonic friend mode like I was just another drinking buddy. He didn’t seem mad at me for how things ended, but then he got all prickly when Ben came up in conversation. And when we wound up alone, he looked at me…”
She trailed off. There was no way to describe the way Reece had stared at her last night.
“Like you were put on this earth to ruin his life,” Jackie repeated.
Charlotte stroked Misty’s fur. “Something like that.” The pup’s steady breathing helped her racing heart rate slow.
Jackie ran the tip of her index finger around the rim of her cup. “When it comes to Reece, it’s probably safe to assume he’s always flirting with you.”
Charlotte studied Reece as best as she could from a distance. He stood still, waiting for Liam to fetch another runaway throw, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun. His threadbare tank top revealed the hard planes of his shoulders.
Another stowaway detail returned: the memory of her fingernails digging into his back. A lost night in the bathroom at a house party, her shorts on the floor, her ass at risk of falling into the sink.
“Maybe,” she said. She took a deep drink of her cocktail but still felt parched.
Jackie stared at her, her expression unreadable. After a long pause, she said, “Unless it’s not his feelings you’re worried about.”
Charlotte set her cocktail in the grass, a tremor in her hands. “What?”
“Maybe this isn’t about Reece at all. You’re surprised you had feelings for him in the first place. And you still do.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “You’re making me sound like a dick.”
“When the dick fits—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
In college her feelings for Reece were simple: pure, uncomplicated attraction. She knew he wasn’t capable of being anyone’s boyfriend, especially on the weekend, when he lived in the margins between hungover and trashed. He had a reputation as a respectful but restless flirt, never getting involved with a woman for more than a few weeks. Too sweet to be a fuckboy, but too gorgeous and sloppy not to break some hearts.
The first time they hooked up in some dark corner at Amy’s birthday party, there was nothing romantic about it. They’d been sitting next to each other at 3Ds meetings for months, exchanging looks and keeping their small talk light outside of group discussion. Charlotte knew she wasn’t ready to date again, but Reece didn’t seem to want a relationship either. When he asked her to dance that night at Acronym, he made it so easy to say yes. Charlotte sank into the sensation of him: raspy stubble and searching green eyes. Her brain had no room for other thoughts. Reece left a bite mark on her neck that made her look like she’d been mauled by a bear.
Charlotte admired his broad shoulders and his ability to distract her whenever she needed it. If she invited him over on a weeknight, he showed up within twenty minutes of a text message and never slept over. He was a casual but generous hookup who prioritized her comfort and her pleasure just as much as his own, if not more—a precious rarity in college. After Ben, who whined for sex acts she wasn’t comfortable exploring, she appreciated that Reece understood that no was a complete sentence.
Sure, she’d cared about Reece. She liked bantering with him, and communicating silently with their eyebrows during 3Ds meetings, and eating junk food together after a raucous party. He gave other members of the support group weirdly good advice, remembering minor details of their family dynamics that even Charlotte forgot. Spending time with Reece was comfortable. She didn’t have to brace herself for critical comments or worry about accidentally provoking him, the way she had with Ben. She never forgot that they had no future, bound for separate lives in different cities, but that didn’t mean their present hadn’t been fun. And then that present became the past.
This was something really great, before it wasn’t.
Maybe she’d had feelings for Reece, once upon a time. Maybe Charlotte actually liked him, and it terrified her to be vulnerable after everything Ben had put her through. But that didn’t mean she felt the same way now.
Did she?
Her instincts screamed at her to change the subject. Maybe she felt a lot of things, and she didn’t like it one bit. She wanted to shove those colorful, kaleidoscoping feelings in a shiny new storage container and not let them see the sun.
On the field, Reece threw his body after the Frisbee and collapsed in a heap. His laughter boomed across the quad. She watched him roll over and hold the disc aloft, victorious.
How long had it been since she’d felt as much as she did last night? How long had it been since she felt present in her own life, alert and exposed and wanting?
Jackie watched her patiently. Misty continued to huff and pant at her side, her warmth a soothing reminder of where she was. They were the two living beings in this world least likely to judge her. And she didn’t want to carry this embarrassment alone.
Charlotte picked at the dry skin around her fingernails. “Ben is here.”
Jackie lurched forward, her eyes sharp. All trace of tough love vanished from her voice. “What? I thought he wasn’t registered.”
“He was on the English majors’ panel with Amy last night. I had to leave out the back.”
“That prick…” Jackie hissed through her teeth. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
No. I’m not.
“It’s fine.” Charlotte addressed her answer to Misty’s dark eyes. “It’s been years.”
It didn’t feel like years when Ben sat at the front of the lecture hall, surveying the crowd like his kingdom. It felt like only days had passed since he last sneered in her face, his voice pitched low so that no one would overhear him. She was the one who initiated their breakup after eight months of agony, but Ben made sure to get the last word. He always did.
Misty licked Charlotte’s palm, demonstrating that eerie canine ability to pick up on people’s moods. That or Charlotte still had some brie on her hands. She rubbed Misty’s long ears. Her fur was blissfully soft, like a cashmere baby sock.
“Don’t let him ruin this weekend for you,” Jackie urged her. “You’re free of him and his entitled, nasty shit. For the first time in five years, you and I are together on campus with all our friends. We are going to have the time of our gay little lives.” She tilted her head to catch Charlotte’s eye. “You deserve some fun. You hear me?”
She nodded. “Yeah.” Misty wriggled and curled up on her side, her ear slipping from between Charlotte’s fingers.
Apparently satisfied by the interrogation-slash-therapy-session, Jackie lay back down on her towel and slid her huge sunglasses back on. “I’m going to nap now. Have fun ogling Reece.”
Charlotte scrunched up her face like an angry pug, miffed by Jackie’s ability to be so annoying and so correct, but her best friend waved her off. Dismissed, she dug her phone out of her bag to set up the wifi hotspot. She scowled when she saw yet more messages from Aubrey and her boss.
