Page 19 of The One I Hate
“Why?”
She gives me a confused look. I think. She’s moving back and forth. Or I am. Maybe both. I might be dizzy, and I might be seeing double, but I can still see how beautiful she is.
Red lips. Full chest. Hips that I want to sink my fingers into. Red hair that I want to wrap around my hand.
Charlie lets out a huff. “Because you called me, dumbass.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
Shit…I did. In the words of the angelic Canadian songstress, it’s all coming back to me now…
Calling her. Apologizing. Demanding answers. Telling her that I wanted to kiss her.
Well, shit…
“Bug…”
“Stop,” she says, fixing her stance but stumbling a bit in the process. I think. The room is spinning pretty good right now. “No more of the Bug stuff.”
“Ah, man,” I say. “But that’s my nickname for you. It’s only mine. Which means I like it the best. Everyone can call you Charlie. Or Charlene. But only I call you Bug.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m not yours to give a nickname to, Simon. I never was, and I never will be.”
I don’t know why, but her fiery words and stare of death are only firing me up more. I mean, they always did. The woman could get me going unlike any other. You’d think that would go away after fifteen years, but apparently it hasn’t.
I crack my neck, suddenly feeling more sober than I have all night. “Why are you here, Charlie?”
The use of her real name throws her for a second, but she quickly recovers. She lets out a little scream and starts pulling at her hair. “I don’t know!”
“You don’t know?”
“You!” She points at me, her finger slightly shaking. “Why?”
Maybe I am still drunk, because now I’m confused. “Why what?”
“I was fine!” She starts pacing the room, which is only a few steps each way, before she turns around. “I was living my life. It was a fine life. I had a job. And a friend. And yeah, my job was shit most times, but whose isn’t?”
“I like my job.”
She snaps back around to me. “I’m talking. You shush.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“As I was saying, my life was fine until one night, I was minding my business at work. Doing my thing. Making sure a dear friend had the food she wanted at the wedding of her dreams. And then I hear the one fucking word I hate more than anything in the world.”
Damn, I think she’s talking about me.
“Wipe that smile off your smug face,” she says, her face getting as red as her hair.
“I won’t.”
“Why are you the way you are?”
“To drive you fucking crazy.”
“Well, it’s working,” she says. “Because I was living a mildly decent life until you came back. Then I thought you were gone again. Cool. Great. Awesome. Then today happens, and what the fuck, Simon? Why are you back in my life?”
