“You might.”
“Okay, I might. But I won’t think less of you.”
And I believe him. I blow out a breath and fetch my notebook. Charlie reads it as I stand over his shoulder, arms crossed in front of me.
He glances up. “ ‘Low-key drugs, question mark, question mark, question mark’?”
“I was the kind of girl people assumed wouldn’t touch a joint. I was literally passed over more than once.”
“What would you have done if you’d been offered a toke?”
“I would have declined,” I say.
Charlie beams up at me. “You were a good girl.”
“The goodest. What about you?”
“The opposite. I was reckless. Cocky. Jealous. Competitive. I was a little shit.” There’s no humor in his smile. “I guess not much has changed.”
Hearing Charlie talk about himself like this pulls at something in me. I sit beside him.
“Charlie, I don’t think there’s enough room in an airplane hangar for your ego. But you’re not a shit. I doubt you were back then, either.”
“I was. It’s probably a good thing we didn’t meet when we were kids. I did a lot of stupid stuff to distract myself from how I was really feeling. You wouldn’t have liked me.”
“You lost your father when you were fourteen. I can’t imagine how hard that was.”
Charlie pins me with the full force of his stare. “Don’t go soft on me now, Alice.”
So I stare back. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here. I’m an excellent listener and a vault when it comes to secrets.”
“I’m sure you are.” His chest rises and falls. I can tell he’s making a decision about me, weighing how much he can confide. I get the sense that he doesn’t confide in many people, that he doesn’t sit with his feelings very often as an adult, either.
“I had great parents,” he says slowly. “My dad was a steadfast, serious guy, but he was also kind and thoughtful. He had this drysense of humor. Sam is a lot like him. My mom was full of energy, always laughing. Everyone loved her. You just felt good being with her, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at him. “I know.”
“From a young age, I could tell they were so in love. Being around them felt safe.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “They grew up together. They were friends first. And even though they worked their asses off at the restaurant, they made our time together count. My mom would cook these epic breakfasts…” His voice catches, and he clears his throat. “We were like one of those TV families. Almost perfect.” My heart squeezes even before he says the words: “And then my dad died.”
Charlie stares down at his hands. “I was fourteen, but Sam was only twelve. Our mom was a wreck. My grandfather gave me this talk about being the man of the house, and it scared the fuck out of me. I didn’t know what that meant or what I was supposed to do or how to fix things.”
“Of course not. You were a child.”
He makes a sound like he doesn’t quite agree. “I did everything I could think of. I helped at the restaurant and tried to make our mom smile and made sure I didn’t fall apart in front of Sam. If you were the turtle of your family, I was the joker. The guy who didn’t take anything too seriously, who didn’t let anything bother him. It felt like, if I was normal, then they would be normal, too.”
“And did that work?”
“Sort of. Sam curled up inside himself after Dad died, and Mom worried about him. I didn’t give her reason to worry about me.” His smile is so profoundly sad. “That’s not to say I didn’t piss her off.”
“What teenager didn’t piss off their parents?”
“I bet Alice Everly didn’t.”
“Busted. Heather was the rebel; I was the easy one. Although.” I lean closer and lower my voice to a whisper. “In second grade, I stole a library book.”
Charlie’s dimples appear, and I’m overwhelmed with the need to keep them there, adorning his cheeks, to be the person who makes the joker smile.
“It was a children’s encyclopedia of birds,” I say. Charlie chuckles, and I feel exhilarated, like I’m jumping from a cliff into the lake. “It had all these colorful toucans and lorikeets on the cover, and I wanted to keep it forever. I ripped out the library card envelope, thinking I was brilliant. When my mom found it in my room, she made me return it to the librarian, tell her exactly what I’d done, and apologize. It was so humiliating, I never wanted to get in trouble like that again.”
