Page 41 of Plentywood
“Beer stocks are down until tomorrow, sheriff,” Charlie hollered across the store after stepping in to ring me out for the gas. I had a county credit account for fuel, so he knew to write it in his log. My beer and snacks were on my tab.
I made my way to the counter, and a grinning Charlie, laying my eggs and milk on the counter. He gestured to the purchases. “What the fuck?” he asked. “Where’s your beer? We have your usual. I was just saying stocks are low if you wanted multiple.”
“Cuttin’ back,” I stated.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms as he studied me. “Cuttin’ back, huh?” he asked, ringing my items into his old cash register. “And why the fuck is that?”
“Just time, I guess.”
“Bull!” he exclaimed. “You’re fit as fuck, stud. What’s the real reason?”
I kept my eyes fixed on my palms as I mentally counted out some bills. I knew not to look at him directly. “Nine bucks,” I said, handing him the five-dollar bill while I unwrinkled four ones. “Keep the twelve cents,” I added. “I don’t need no change rattling around in my pocket.”
I looked up just in time to see a reservoir building in his eyes.Fuck!He knew, and I hadn’t said a fucking word. I looked away again as he shoved the bills into the register and sacked my eggs and milk in a paper bag.
“I fucking knew it,” he muttered, shoving the bag toward me. “Not even one fucking chance for me, huh? Not one goddamned chance?”
I was speechless and embarrassed at how easily he knew why I was cleaning up my act. Charlie and I had danced around this issue for months. I’d been desperate for contact, any kind of solace from the pain I lived under when he’d kicked my door down eighteen months ago, six months into my agonizing death march.
“It was more than just sex to me, Hunt,” he whispered, fighting his emotions. “I acted like I was just a fuck-hole for your pain, but I wanted that as much as you did.”
“I’m sorry, Skeet,” I whispered, wringing my hands and looking outside.
“Don’t you ever fucking call me Skeet again, Hunt. Don’t you fucking dare!” he raged, spitting as he spoke, swiping at his eyes. “I fucking love you! Do you hear me? Do you even hear me, Hunt? Do you?”
Bella cowered at hearing his agony, moving around the counter to console him the way a dog does when worried aboutus humans. She’d done the same for me for months and months. Why wouldn’t she recognize his hurt as well?
“I just can’t do that to Mark,” I replied. “You and me… well… you and me are weird. The idea is weird and strange.”
“We are not weird,” he shouted, slamming his fist on the counter. Bella quickly came back to my side of the counter that separated us. “We can be good, Hunt. We can be so fucking good if you’d just let me in.”
“You helped me, Charlie, and I appreciate that, but it was sex. I was numb,” I insisted. “I’m still fucking numb!”
He leaned across the counter, hurt and anger simmering on his skin. “But not so fucking numb that you aren’t getting your shit together for some New Yorker?” he asked. “Some rich pretty boy whose eyes are the same color as Mark’s? Yeah! That’s right. I noticed his green fucking eyes, Hunt. Big fucking deal. He ain’t Mark!”
I knew better, but I lost control of my words. “And he ain’t you either.”
Charlie literally leaped over the counter and shoved me down the aisle, bags of chips falling on the floor as he wrestled to keep me pinned to the shelving. “And what the fuck does that mean?” he hissed.
“I shouldn’t have used you,” I confessed. “I don’t see you that way and I fucked up, Skeet. I’m fucking sorry.”
“Donotcall me Skeet,” he insisted. “You don’t deserve my love, Hunt. And just so you know, I am more than you see standing in front of you.”
“I know you are. You’re amazing, but I can’t see you that way for some reason,” I defended, tugging on his arm as he tried to pull away. “You and I… are…whateverwe are. Fuck! I don’t even know what that is.”
Charlie turned back to face me, grabbing my hands, tears streaming down his face. “We are meant to be together, Hunt,”he said quietly, swallowing his need to cry. “We are. Why can’t you see that? I have fucking loved you since I was fifteen. Mark took you from me.”
He’d never made that accusation before. I was stunned and tried to move around him, but he held onto my hands. “No,” I said. “That’s not true, Skeet.”
Charlie let go of my hands and tilted his head toward the floor. A sob escaped before he could catch it. My heart broke at seeing him so vulnerable. I didn’t know this Charlie. He’d never displayed this side of himself to me.
He nodded his head over and over. “He did,” he whispered. “I begged him not to, but he still did.”
“Skeet?” I asked, grabbing one of his hands. “Mark didn’t know that you admitted to me you were gay back then.”
“He did. He knew.”
“How?” I asked.
