Dissonance (12 page)

I looked from him, staring down at the table, to Alex, who looked smug. Suddenly, I understood. Her goal wasn’t to find me a date; it was to make Logan jealous. And, much to my surprise, it was working.

Looking disgruntled, Logan said, “Leo seems pretty uptight. He’s a working stiff.”

Finding a surprising amount of enjoyment in Alex’s game, I decided to play along. “There’s nothing wrong with work ethic.”

At that point, he crossed into full-out brooding. “He seems like an asshole, if you ask me.”

“Well, he has your number. You can decide for yourself when he calls,” Alex closed the discussion just as Eli returned. I started to wonder if she didn’t want him involved in it.

Lighter conversation filled in after that. Alex told me all about her job at the salon; Eli talked about working for Logan’s father’s company. His job was pretty cushy and paid really well. I made a mental note to thank Logan for pulling whatever strings he had to in order to get Eli a job there without a college degree. I held it back for the moment though, because he was still silently brooding.

After a while, Alex stood, announcing that she had to use the restroom. She didn’t walk away though, just stood there watching me like she was waiting for something.

“What?” I asked.

“Come with me,” she replied, giving me a look that told me not to question her. I wanted to laugh at her sudden transformation back into a sixteen year-old.

“You can’t manage it alone?” Eli teased.

“No. Who knows what kind of people I might run into,” she quipped back.

I laughed, hearing the warning Eli had always given me as a teenager thrown back at him. Apparently, Alex had heard the same lecture a few times.

Dragging me across the bar to the bathroom, Alex was almost giddy. “Did you
see
how pissed he was? He can’t stand the thought of someone else taking you out! God, I could kiss Leo right now for being so serious and discrete at work.”

“What are you on about?”

“Leo’s gay! His boyfriend, Justin, works with me at the salon. Leo’s always super serious at work because people can’t be so prejudiced against him due to his sexuality. They’re both totally up to playing along. Leo will take you out and everything. It’s so perfect.” She was nearly euphoric.

“What exactly are you hoping to achieve?”

“Honey, I’m already achieving what I hoped for. He couldn’t
be
more jealous. I just want him to see that if he doesn’t step up and make a move, someone else will.”

I gave her a stern look. “Alex, I don’t want more from him either,” I reminded her.

“Oh, really? Then why did you play along? Your comment about work ethic pushed him further than anything I said.”

Realizing, but not wanting to admit, that she was right caused me to walk away. I left the bathroom to return to our table, only to find it had been invaded by a tall, skinny blonde in an almost indecently sort pink dress.

She released a transparent, toothy laugh as her hand came to rest on Logan’s arm. My mind could only form one word:
skank
.

Ordinarily, I would have detested running into Kayla without warning, particularly with Charlotte around. But, in light of all the discussion of her potential relationship with Leo, Kayla’s annoying yammering was a welcome distraction from my musings about firing and maiming the son-of-a-bitch.

“Logan, sweetie! I didn’t expect to see you here!” she trilled in that obnoxiously saccharine voice I tried to forget.

Holding back the truth that I preferred it that way, I muttered half-heartedly “Hello.” Eli refused to even acknowledge the woman he’d complained about on more than one occasion.

Kayla said something then that I didn’t catch. I had been completely distracted by Charlotte emerging from the bathroom. She watched as Kayla threw her head back and laughed, placing a manicured hand on my arm. I’ll admit to a smug sense of retribution when I saw her freeze. I was waiting for her to turn green, to feel the choking jealousy I had been subjected to. But Charlotte didn’t react that way. If the short time I had known her had been any indication, I should have known better than to expect anything.

Her eyes dropped and she shook her head ever so slightly, as though it was to herself. When her head rose, her face was blank, completely expressionless. It was as though she had gone on autopilot and checked out.

Alex appeared behind her and looked immediately furious when her eyes landed on Kayla. She started talking quickly to Charlotte, who just gave short answers and remained stoic. With a side-long glance at me that contained all of the animosity a single look could muster, Alex led Charlotte back to our table.

Kayla was prattling on again when they took their seats. Alex and Kayla exchanged uncharitable glances before Kayla asked, “Who’s she?” She indicated Charlotte with ill-disguised judgment.

“Charlotte,” I replied reproachfully, disliking her tone. “She’s my-“

“Roommate,” Charlotte broke in. I had meant to say friend, but I suspected that she did not want to align herself with me.

“Hm. Well, I should go, sweetie.” Kayla leaned in to kiss me. The last thing I saw was Alex’s eyes roll. In all honesty, I would have done the same. I’d ended whatever bullshit I had with Kayla months ago because I was tired of her crazy need to lay claim to me. That, and I couldn’t take her god awful voice anymore.

When Kayla had finally flounced away, Alex spoke, her voice dripping with sarcasm and disgust. “Sweetie, huh?”

“You use pet-names all the time,” I pointed out, despite knowing I was only making things worse by defending Kayla.

“
I
am not a
slut
,” she bit out.

Eli sighed. “Let’s not rehash the same old argument.”

From that point on, Eli seemed singularly focused on drawing Charlotte out. He may or may not have caught onto why she had pulled away, but he recognized in her what I had, a complete emotional retreat. There was no question at all that I was the cause.

Eli gave me a scathing look when his efforts were proving unsuccessful.
This is why I told you to stay away
, it read. Apparently, he was aware that it was my fault as well. I did not have to pretend to be contrite. Nothing could make me as penitent as Charlotte’s blank expression.

My phone vibrated about a half hour later.

Kayla: Busy later?

Me: Yes.

Kayla: Come on, sweetie.

Me: Can’t.

I could see her sitting on the other end of the room, eyeing Charlotte with suspicion and malice.

Kayla: Who is she?

Me: Roommate. It has nothing to do with her. And I told you we were done.

Pushing my phone back in my pocket, I ignored the vibration that indicated that she had responded again.

“She seems like more than sex,” Charlotte spoke quietly.

It took a second to process her words beyond the shock of her suddenly speaking again. “She’s delusional.”

“Maybe she doesn’t get it.”

“No. She knows. I wouldn’t lead someone along like that. She’s just too used to getting what she wants. She can’t handle not being the center of attention, so she gets competitive when I’m around attractive women,” I explained. “She did it to Alex until she realized that Eli and her were completely devoted to each other, and that Alex would never give me the time of day anyway.”

Alex laughed and seemed to finally stop plotting my death.

“Why would she feel threatened by me?”

“Because,” Alex jumped in impatiently, “you’re hotter, and you can accomplish that without coming off like everyone has already taken a ride,” she explained the situation a bit crudely, but it was the truth. Charlotte was all the more beautiful for her modesty.

Charlotte looked over to where Kayla was sitting, still making pissy faces, though they were directed at me since I had stopped responding to her messages. In an almost unnoticeable way, Charlotte’s posture seemed to strengthen. There was almost no movement, but she suddenly read less fragile. It reminded me of the whirlwind that had blown in the night before and put me in my place. There was a powerful, intense woman in there, but somehow she had been forced to play second fiddle to all of the self-doubt and anxiety that had found its way into Charlotte’s mind.

Things were more comfortable after that. Kayla’s intrusion was masked, though not completely forgotten. Charlotte was still a bit removed, but only from me. It was a vast improvement, even if I still felt like shit.

By the time we dropped Eli and Alex off at home, Charlotte seemed as though she was at war with herself. As she settled into the passenger side and we pulled away, I could not stand the tension of it anymore.

“What is it?” I asked.

She looked at me like she did not know what I was talking about.

“I can practically hear you going back and forth in your head. Spit it out.”

“Why don’t you want love?” she asked without preamble.

“Who says that I don’t?”

“Well… you. You only seek out relationships where there is exclusively sex and no attachment. If you work so hard to remove emotion from it, how are you going to find something real?”

“I don’t know. I think life has a way of handing us what we don’t expect,” I countered.

“Maybe. But life may not do the work of keeping it around if it finds you preoccupied,” Charlotte offered.

Did I mention how overwhelmingly intelligent she was? Forget the hundreds of books she’d read, the girl understood the heart like no one I had ever known. Even though I had never really considered what she had just said to me, it sounded so obvious.

“Do you believe in soul mates, Charlotte?” I had to know. Somehow, despite all of my own insistence that the whole concept was crap, I could never get it out of the back of my mind. Or out of my lyrics.

I heard a deep breath escape her before she spoke. “Yes. I don’t want to. It’s so scary to think of how limited that makes the world seem. But, I can’t help it.”

I never responded to that. When we got home, I just laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking over Charlotte’s words. All I could hear was her gentle voice explain something that I had believed deep down all along. As I finally drifted off, I wondered how you were supposed to know when you found your soul mate. Could mine be in my life without me knowing it? Could she be quietly playing the piano down the hall, waiting for me to catch on? Maybe I had already found her. Maybe she had just shown up one day in the rain.