now or never - charlie gillespie

chapter twelve

"What are you doing here?" I asked him as he set me on the ground.

"I had some free time so I thought I'd come surprise my favorite hard worker," he said giving me another hug. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Gosh, he smelled amazing.

"But- and how- you and Sawyer-" I stuttered trying to understand.

"I asked Sawyer for her help to surprise you. That's why you guys didn't go out today," he explained, high fiving Sawyer.

How adorable was he?

"Where's my favorite passive aggressive girl?" He asked looking around for Ava.

We all walked over to the spare door. Charlie tried to turn the handle a couple of times, but she had locked it.

"C'mon Ava! We're real sorry for scaring you," Sawyer pleaded, banging on the door with her hand a couple of times.

I couldn't help but giggle. There was never a dull moment with Ava.

"No!" She said sounding angry.

"Not even for me?" Charlie asked holding back his laugh. Ava replied with another grunt. "Come on! You have to admit it was pretty funny."

"Yeah. Sure. Very funny Gillespie," she said. After a couple minutes of pleading her to come out we finally heard the door unlock. The door handle turned and she stepped out squinting her eyes at Sawyer and Charlie. "You've won this round, Gillespie. But I'm warning you. Watch your back," she said glaring at him and she walked past us all and over to the couch grumpily.

"I can't believe you're really here," I whispered to him as Sawyer went over to Ava to try and reconcile things.

He laughed at them and turned around to look down at me. I took a good look at what he was wearing. Jeans and a white shirt with an oversized plaid shirt over it. No one pulls of plaid like him, I thought to myself.

"I know," he said moving in closer. "You have no idea how hard it was keeping it a secret from you," he said laughing. "Jeremy almost let it slip a couple of times when you were FaceTiming is the other day. Speaking of," he said grabbing his phone from his back pocket. "I promised I'd show you these" he said showing me his phone.

He flipped through several pictures from his Halloween party, showing me everyone's costumes. "Oh no! No way!" I said covering my mouth with my hand when he showed me a picture of Owens costume. He was dressed as an jazzercise instructor from the 90s. From the hair to the headband, he really put a lot of effort into it, I had to give him that. "He did not," I said staring at the pictures and videos in awe. Owen was really something else. Then he showed Jeremys costume. He and Carolynn dressed up as the hotdog that killed their characters in Julie and the Phantoms. "This is amazing," I said as he showed me more pictures of all of them together.

"It was so fun. I wish you could've been there," he said putting his phone back in his pocket and looking down at me.

"I'm so glad you're here," I said honestly, smiling up at him. "Well now that you're back in Hawaii, what do you wanna do?" I asked pulling him by the arm to the couch.

"I'm actually kind of tired," he said yawning. "Could we just chill here for a bit before I have to go?" He asked looking at Sawyer.

"Go? Go where?" I thought out loud, quickly bring my hand up to my mouth. Did I just say that out loud?

Charlie looked at me and giggled. "Yes you did. And go back to the hotel. That's where I'm staying," he said.

"None sense. You can stay here," Sawyer said clapping her hands. "We were gonna have a sleepover anyways. Yay! This is going to be so much fun. We'll watch movies and do face masks and-" as she rambled on I turned to Charlie on the couch.