Time To Live

Chapter 07: Mountain

Today was the day that Jen was supposed to be accomplishing so much! The baby was with Brian and Angie, and she was supposed to be getting laundry and the apartment squared away, grocery shopping, and then racing home to squeeze in 2-3 hours of writing for work before she went to pick up Christian. Instead, her exhausted body felt like it had been mauled by an 18-wheeler and all she wanted to do was sleep. She had managed to stuff a load of dirty clothing into the washer, along with a few towels, but everything else was currently staring at her as she sat on her sofa gazing at the ceiling.

Just as her eyes began to drift shut, her phone rang and she grabbed it on a reflex. "Hello?"

"Is this Jenna?" A familiar, deeply masculine voice with an amused lilt spoke in something near to a laugh.

"Is this Charles?" She laughed as she felt herself waking up instantly.

"Sup?" he laughed then. "Are you alright? You sounded frantic!"

Realizing immediately that she couldn't exactly tell him that she was worried about her kid, she sighed and tried to search for a quick excuse. "Yeah, I was just falling asleep and the phone scared me."

"I'm sorry," he drawled softly. "I can let you go?"

Jenna leaned back into the comfort of the couch then and smiled. Gosh, she liked this guy more than she should ever admit; just his voice was comforting somehow. "Nah," she continued to smile. "I'm okay. What's up?"

"Well," he began and then coughed gently. "The other night I mentioned a hike at Ricketts Glen? It seems like that's happening on Thursday, and I wanted to see if you were still interested." He paused for a fraction of a second, but before Jen could speak a word, he continued. "And I wanted to confess something because it's been weighing heavily on me and I feel like shit."

Ah, Jenna thought. Here's where I find out that he's married and has a baby on-the-way. But, she thought, I might as well let the dude finish talking. "Please don't tell me that your uncle is Jeffrey Dahmer," she quipped.

Charles laughed, and he had an infectious, truly amused chuckle; one of those laughs that you could not fake. "I am not related to any killers, serial or otherwise. Although, I can utterly destroy a Grande Meal at Taco Bell!" he finished up with another chuckle. He seemed to sigh nervously then, and she felt a tingle travel up her spine. "Look, Jenna, I wasn't entirely honest with you the other night. The guys and I were out, and, uh, one of the dudes wanted to play this game, and I went along with it. But now I feel like shit."

Her mind raced to a hundred places at once, and her heart tried to erect a panicked firewall. She knew that she should have never gone to that bar with Angie, never trusted another man, and never considered anything with a penis attractive ever again. Going for nonchalance, she sighed. "What is it?"

"My name is not Charles," he laughed awkwardly. "Matt, uh, A.J. was fucking around and playing this game, seeing if we could pick up some ladies by using fake names. He and Shane thought it was funny, and I just fucking, I went along with it. It was dumb! I'm sorry."