Page 46 of The One I Hate
“Fine. What is it?”
“I won’t call this a date. And in exchange, you finally tell me your name.”
She throws back her head in defeat as I snicker in my chair.
“Come on, Bug. Tell me. It’s only fair.”
“Fine,” she groans, tilting her head back up. “Charlie.”
I don’t know what name I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. But I love it. It’s perfect for her in so many ways.
“Charlie…”
“Yeah,” she says, almost as if she’s a little embarrassed. “It’s short for Charlene.”
“Well, it’s beautiful.” I say. “Unique. Just like you.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to lie, Simon.”
“Nope,” I say, taking her hand. As soon as I have my fingers wrapped around hers, I feel a heat between us that takes me off guard. But I push that down, because she needs to get one thing clear. “I’m not lying. I don’t lie. If I say it, then I mean it. Especially about people I care about.”
This seems to take her aback, and frankly, it does the same thing to me. I didn’t mean to lay all that out there. It’s not like I planned any of this. Yes, I’m impulsive and rarely have plans, but with Charlie, I’m completely winging it. She’s the treasure I’m searching for without a map.
“Well, thank you,” she says. A blush comes over her cheeks, and I have to hold myself back from leaning over the table and kissing her just to see what her warm skin would feel like.
“You’re welcome.” I reluctantly let go of her as we fall back into our studies. “You know I’m still going to call you Bug, right?”
She looks up, then back down again, and shrugs.
“I figured as much. Even though I hate that name.”
She doesn’t hate it. She doesn’t hate it at all.
“Here you go,” Emmett says, placing down two takeout bags of what smells like burgers and fries. “And in case you wondered, I put them on your credit card.”
I reach for the bag and pull out the foam container, but Emmett swipes it away from me. “Hey! What’s that for?”
“No food until you tell me why you had me do everything you just had me do.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Simon, I spent my drive over here calling in favors to fix up an apartment for a woman I barely know who is about to not pay rent on said apartment, which she doesn’t know. I need answers more than you need this burger.”
So he says. Little does he know I only had a smoothie for breakfast.
“Fine, what do you want to know?”
“How about everything?”
“Everything? That will take forever, and I’m really hungry.”
“Then quit stalling and start fucking talking.”
“Fine…”
I start at the beginning, all the way back to the days at UT. That yes, I was interested in her, and that it might have started with me asking her out incessantly, that we developed a genuine friendship.
“How did I never meet her?” Emmett asks as he slides me my burger. Thank God. My stomach was starting to growl.
