In Your Room (18 page)

“Girls, come on, Celeste already has plans,” Sally said, trying to quiet them.

“I’ll take you guys there another time,” Celeste offered. “But you can come if you want,” she said nonchalantly, throwing a glance Charlie’s way. It was the first time she had even acknowledged he was in the room.

Everyone stared, waiting for him to respond. Saying no would make him look like an ass, especially since he didn’t have anything else to do. She was meeting friends, so it wouldn’t be so bad, and he’d wanted to check out the market anyway since Molly had mentioned how much she loved it there.

The words came out of his mouth in a rush. “Sure, I’ll go.”

Celeste ran up to Molly’s room to change and came down in a low-cut green top and a short jean skirt that made her legs look like they went on forever.

“No Porsche tonight?” Charlie asked, getting in her SUV.

“Nope.” She was still giving him the cold shoulder.

Charlie ignored her and looked out the window. She was baiting him, but he wasn’t going to engage; he was going to stay strong.

They arrived at the open-air market a few minutes later and wove their way through the scents of the Greek, Chinese, and Cajun stalls blending together in an alluring way as they passed.

Charlie heard two girls doing a really bad, off-key rendition of “Livin’ on a Prayer” as they approached the area where clusters of people were gathered around tables, in line for the bar, or on the makeshift dance floor in front of the mic where the karaoke machine was set up.

It didn’t take long to figure out that (a) Celeste wasn’t meeting any friends and (b) she was only there to drink.

“Wait right here.” She forced her way to the front of the line, flashing a demure smile to the guys she pushed out of her way, ignoring the girls who protested, and got the bartender’s attention in about ten seconds flat by leaning over the counter and flashing her cleavage.

She returned balancing a beer and two overflowing shot glasses.

“What is it?” Charlie asked, eyeing the pink concoction.

“I have no idea, but they were free.” She downed her shot and chased it with some beer. “This one’s for you, in case it wasn’t clear,” she said, waiting for him to drink.

He forced it down and took a swig of beer too, mainly to keep Celeste from drinking it all. She was the one driving, and he wanted to keep it that way, but it was too late. She was already on her way back to the bar for more.

She returned with two more shots, only this time they were blue. “Are we
making our way through the colors of the rainbow?” Charlie asked, taking his.

“Shut up and drink.”

She pounded the shot, grabbed his hand, and pulled him onto the dance floor, squeezing their way to the middle, where they were packed in, surrounded on all sides by drunken dancers singing along to the music. Celeste started swaying her body, the same way she had at the party in the hills, only this time she was inching toward Charlie. The combination of the alcohol, which was just now starting to hit him, and the crowd made it difficult to move when she started rubbing up against him.

She leaned in close and whispered into his ear, “Are you going to admit you’ve been avoiding me?”

Her breath smelled like pink lemonade. “No.” That was all he could manage to say. Every fiber in him was telling him to run, but he couldn’t, and instead he allowed her to run her fingers through his thick, wavy hair.

Everything happened pretty fast after that. One minute they were dancing and the next Celeste had her lips pressed against his.

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered again, leading him off the dance floor.

Molly was too excited to fall asleep. She stared up at the stars glowing on the ceiling. They now reminded her of so much more than just her dad.

She checked her e-mail again to see if there was a new message from Charlie. She still hadn’t heard back from him all night. He’d never said he was going to respond, but it still seemed strange.

The old Molly would have been convinced it was a sign that Charlie suddenly didn’t like her anymore and the whole thing was off, but the new Molly had no reason to believe that at all.

She shut her laptop, lay down, and closed her eyes, reminding herself that in less than twenty-four hours she and Charlie would be looking up at the real night sky together.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until the phone started ringing. She looked over at the clock; it was almost one.
It’s Charlie
, she thought.
Something is wrong.

“Molls? You awake?” The door opened just wide enough for Laura’s head to peek through.

Molly was already up and halfway to the door.

“It’s Rina, honey. She was very insistent that she speak with you.”

Molly ran past her and flew downstairs to the phone that was lying off the hook on the console in the hallway waiting for her.

“Rina? What’s going on?” Molly hadn’t actually spoken to Rina, heard her voice, in almost two months, and it wasn’t the warmest way to greet her best friend, but her heart was pounding way too hard for niceties.

“Hi, Molls.” Rina was trying to sound upbeat, as though she always called in the middle of the night, but Molly could hear her voice catch and go up an octave. “I’m sorry to be calling so late. I tried your cell but—”

“I know, I don’t get any reception,” Molly jumped in, hoping to speed things along. “What’s wrong, Reen? Just tell me.”

“I hate to be doing this, but I felt you had to know.” She paused before continuing. “You can then decide what you want to do, and I swear I won’t pass any judgments.”

Once she knew it wasn’t Charlie calling, she hadn’t considered that the bad news could possibly pertain to her. “Okay, okay, just tell me.”

“I went to the Grove tonight to see a movie, and when I was walking through the Farmers Market on my way to the car I saw Celeste.”

“Uh-huh,” Molly said. God! Couldn’t Rina just spit it out?

“I was going to walk over and say hi but before I could she was…” Rina stopped to consider her choice of phrasing. “Well, she was kissing someone.”

Molly stood frozen, listening. She knew where this was going, but she couldn’t get her mouth to form the words to tell Rina to stop, that she’d heard enough.

“I don’t really know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it. It was Charlie.”

Molly slumped to the ground, still clutching the phone to her ear. She knew it. She knew Rina was going to say exactly that. But hearing his name out loud like that was even worse, because it meant that it was true.

“I’m so sorry, Molly.”

She couldn’t cry or move or speak.

“Molls? Are you still there?”

“I have to go,” she whispered, letting go of the handset. It hung from the table, spinning around in tight circles, months of coiled-up cord finally being set free.

She could feel her mother’s presence before she saw her. She closed her eyes as she heard her approach.

“Let’s get you upstairs.” Laura wiped the hair out of Molly’s face and, with a hand on each of her shoulders, guided her up.

Charlie started up when the alarm started blaring at five-fifteen in the morning.

“Turn it off,” a voice grumbled above him.

He looked up from the floor, where he had spent the night, and saw Celeste in Molly’s bed, coming to beneath a mountain of pillows. His stomach twisted into a thousand knots.

She’s not supposed to be here.

“Whoa, scandal!” Celeste said, reading the mortification on Charlie’s face. “It’s more comfortable up here, you know.”

He shot up and threw some clothes into a backpack and scanned the room for anything he might be missing. There was no way he was going to let
this
make him miss his bus, which was leaving in less than an hour.

Now that he was more awake, the events of the night before started coming back. The only reason she was lying there was that she’d been too drunk to
go home, and having been too exhausted and tipsy himself, Charlie hadn’t known what else to do with her, especially after she passed out in the cab on the way back. She had tried to convince him to let her drive home, but he’d refused, confiscating her keys, and hailed a taxi instead.

Nothing had happened beyond their initial kiss on the dance floor, but that was bad enough, and Charlie felt nauseous every time he thought about it.

“You have to go now.” He was standing by the door, holding his backpack with his jacket on. He could barely look at her. “And, please,” he said, finally making eye contact. “This stays between us.”

• • •

The bus pulled into the Greyhound terminal thirty minutes late, but Charlie still had enough time to clean up a bit and get the flowers before Molly got there.

He went to the information booth first to make sure her bus was on time. A short, wide man wearing a burgundy vest and a name tag that read L
ARRY
greeted him.

“How can I help you, sir?”

“I wanted to see if the bus from Boulder’s on time?”

“That depends. When is it scheduled to arrive?” Larry asked in a very officious manner.

“It’s due in at five.”

Larry turned his attention to the computer screen. “Actually, it’s coming in fifteen minutes early.”

Charlie looked up at the clock in the middle of the terminal. “So you mean it’ll be here in five minutes?”

“That’s correct, sir. Gate twelve.”

Charlie got a bottle of water, a pack of gum, and a bouquet of mixed flowers, then parked himself on a bench right in front of gate twelve. Every time he heard an engine approach he craned his neck to see if it was Molly’s bus arriving. His head still hurt when he moved too suddenly, but much less than it had that morning. He’d had almost twelve hours to review the events of the night before and had decided that he was going to tell Molly what happened. And that meant
everything.
He didn’t want any secrets between them, especially now that they were taking things to the next level; he was sure she’d understand.

The bus finally pulled in at four forty-five on the dot, just like Larry had said. Charlie rose from his seat and went to wait over by the entrance to the station, where he was visible but not in the way.

A depot worker appeared and opened the luggage compartment.

It felt like forever until a passenger, a middle-aged businessman who was decidedly not Molly, emerged.

A heavyset man was next, followed by a mother and her two sons.

An old woman got off next, but on her way down the steps she realized she had forgotten something, causing a delay in the exiting process.

“Hurry up,” Charlie chastised the woman under his breath. The anxiety was killing him.

The woman reappeared a minute later, a steady stream of people disembarking behind her.

None of them were Molly, either.

Charlie stepped closer toward the bus. Maybe he’d be able to see her through the tinted windows, sitting in her seat, patiently waiting for her turn to get off.

But the bus seemed empty except for the driver, who was walking up and down the aisle, checking the seats and overhead bins to make sure nothing was left behind.

Something definitely was not right.

“This is the end of the road, son,” the driver said, intercepting Charlie as he climbed the three steps onto the bus.

“Wait, my girlfriend’s still on here.” He didn’t have time to think about his choice of words or that she wasn’t technically his girlfriend. All he could focus on was the fact that Molly was nowhere in sight.

The driver followed Charlie down, shutting the door behind him. “Check the station. This bus is empty.”

But Molly wasn’t in the station, or the bathroom (he had three different women go in to check) or the parking lot or anywhere else in the vicinity.

He tried her cell continuously for almost an hour, getting voice mail each time. After leaving his tenth message, it finally began to sink in.

She wasn’t coming.

Molly had moved her stuff into Mia and Heather’s room as soon as she woke up and hadn’t left it all day.

She couldn’t bear to be around Charlie’s things or anything that reminded her of him, much less live in his room.

She had dragged all her belongings and dumped them in a messy, disorganized pile on one of the twin beds; she had spent most of the day sprawled out crying on the other.

Her mother and Ron had taken turns bringing her things like coffee and chocolate chip cookies to entice her out of her stupor.

But they didn’t force her to talk. They just let her cry.

The phone rang at five forty-five in the afternoon. The shrill ring reverberated throughout the house. Molly knew it was Charlie. She’d been expecting his call.

Someone finally picked up after four long rings. Two minutes later, there
was a knock at the door. It was like last night all over again, only this time it was Ron delivering the message.

“There’s a boy named Charlie calling for you.”

Even though she had been expecting this moment all day and had even prepared what she was going to say, just the sound of his name brought on another round of tears. She would not be marching downstairs the way she wished she could, picking up the phone and telling Charlie that she didn’t have room for liars in her life and would appreciate it if he never contacted her again.

She wouldn’t be making it beyond this room. “I can’t…” she began. “I can’t speak to him.”

Ron gazed at her. Understanding, then steely resolve flashed in his eyes. “Don’t worry, Molly. I’ll take care of it.”

• • •

There had to be some kind of explanation.

Charlie called the house and Ron answered after the fourth ring. He didn’t introduce himself, but who else could it have been? Charlie asked to speak to Molly, the whole time hoping Ron would say,
Molly’s away for the weekend
, and then she’d appear right next to him, ready to board the bus to Park City, the whole thing having been a big misunderstanding.