The Opposite of Love

Ch 16

Charlie and I had continued with the rapid-fire questions until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer, though this time he was alert enough to pass out with a pillow and blanket on the floor, leaving the whole bed all for me.

The alarm sounded much too soon the next morning – or rather, later that morning. I yawned and stretched and then gently – sort of – kicked Charlie awake with my good leg.

"What do you want?" he muttered, still half asleep.

"It's morning. We have to get up."

"Morning is the perfect word for it," he said as he slowly sat up with a yawn and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "It's when we are mourning the end of sleep."

I yawned in response.

He yawned back before frowning. "Ugh. We have to go back to reality."

After my still-sleeping brain processed his words, I realized they were phrased well. The day before had been like a dream. It was way out of my normal routine, and the fact that I was in the same room as Charlie Stone and we weren't even trying to rip each other to bits was unbelievable. The idea that we had been helping each other and even laughing together seemed completely impossible.

But once it was officially the next day, we had to get back to reality, a.k.a. our normal routines. I hoped that didn't mean we would go back to hating each other, but I was afraid it might. Habits we hard to break. Besides, just because we got along for a day doesn't mean we could make it last. And on top of all that, our families and those around us hadn't changed their minds just because we had.

"I have to go to work today," he groaned as if he had completely forgotten about his job until that moment.

"Yeah, me too," I realized. "At The Shoe Shoppe. I have to mentor a seventh grader who's on a job shadow."

As he tossed the materials from his makeshift bed back to where they started, he asked, "Naomi doesn't do that herself?"

Sometimes I forgot that we lived in a small enough town for him to know my boss's name, even though he hadn't been in there once since it became a Gordon store.

"Normally, she would, but out of boredom, I've been perfecting some much more fascinating ways to get stuff done, and last time she did a job shadow, the kid was so distracted by my actions that she just let me take over. She must have liked what I did, because she had me do this one all on my own."

"Who wants to shadow a retail employee? I mean, I'm sure a lot of them will end up working retail anyway, but don't these kids have dreams and aspirations?"

"The last one actually wanted to design shoes. Brommendale doesn't have a shoe designer close enough to us to allow for a good job shadow, so the school settled for a shoe store."

"Interesting. Hey, do you think our clothes are back yet?"

I stifled a yawn before replying, "Why don't you check the hall?"

As promised, our clothes were clean and dry and waiting in the hallway. We took turns getting dressed and then finished packing up our belongings. My knee was actually doing much better, and I could walk at almost my normal pace. I was still limping, of course, but it was much less noticeable. I still played it up once we left the room, though.

With well-wishes from the Riggses, we checked out and walked back to his car in the fast-food parking lot across the street, making sure they were well out of view before we got in. The sky was still as grey and gloomy as it had been the day before, but the rain had almost stopped; it was only lightly sprinkling.

I tried to stay awake so I could ask all the questions I put on hold while Charlie drove us back home, but once I rested my head against the cool window, I couldn't help but fall asleep.

Some time later, Charlie woke me up with a nudge.

"Callie, are you up?"

I yawned again. "I am now," I said bitterly. Why did he have to ruin my blissful sleep?

I looked around. We were already at my apartment. I slept through the whole trip.

Charlie had parked on the street, right behind my car. "I assumed you wanted to be dropped off here so you could change before work," he said. I glanced at my sweatpants and deemed that a wise decision.

"Yeah, Naomi likes me a lot more than some of the other employees, but she would still crack down on this much of a dress code violation."

It was a pretty lenient dress code; we had to wear either khakis or jeans with a black top, and then the uniform, which was just an apron around the waist and a nametag pinned to the shirt. Closed-toed shoes were required, but beyond those specifications we could pretty much wear whatever we wanted to.

If I had showed up in sweatpants, my blue shirt, and no apron or nametag, I wasn't sure what she would do.

"What time is it?" I asked.

Charlie glanced at the clock on his dash and said, "8:04. When do you have to be to work by?"

"8:30."

"You better get going, then," he said, almost sounding a little sad. But my sleep-deprived mind was probably just misinterpreting.

I didn't really have to get going yet. It would only take me about five minutes to get to The Shoe Shoppe from my apartment, and I could get dressed in less than a minute. Though I should probably make it two with my injuries.

My point was that I had almost twenty minutes to waste, and weirdly, I kind of wanted to spend that time with Charlie.

Clearly, there was something wrong with me.

It was probably a good thing we had to go back to work. Some time apart would get me back to my usual mindset.

"Before you go, we should talk about our next steps," Charlie said.

"Next steps for what?" I asked as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

"The investigation. We should decide where to go next."

"Well, obviously, we go to the bank," I said.

"Yeah, but by the time we are both done working today, it will be closed again."

"Okay, let's go over some ideas later, then." I opened the car door, anxious to get out. I had tried to keep it all out of my mind since we were stuck together for the day, but now that we were parting ways, I allowed myself to think of the way he was acting towards me, and the way I had started to act around him. And now that I was thinking about it, I realized how abnormal it was. Hopefully, once I had some distance from him, my brain would quit acting so weird and I could get back to normal.

"How's 7 tonight?" he asked before I could get up.

"Sure, fine. Whatever." I got out of the car and reached back in to grab my bag.

"Okay, great. I'll pick you up here?"

"Yep," I said, practically bouncing. My mind was feuding. Half of me wanted to run away as fast as I could and forget this whole thing ever happened, but the other half – the crazy half – never wanted this trip to end. My logical brain was really hoping that the first half would win, but if he kept talking to me, I was afraid I might not leave.

Luckily, once I closed the car door, he waved goodbye. Even though he waited until I had my door open to drive away, he didn't say anything more.

But the second he left, I wished he would come back.