Drowning in You (17 page)

“
I’m still the
reason your family’s torn, Charz.”

If she’s as confused as I am
about me telling her to come back but back off, I don’t see it.
Charz closes her eyes, breathing in and dipping her head back at
the same time. Without thinking, I kiss the front part of her neck
and it’s more than the ecstasy I expected to feel. She starts to
slip so my hands fly to her waist and grip on tight. She resists,
and although I could make her body do anything I wanted to stop her
sliding down, I begin imagining what her bare waist would feel like
through her suit. Her very, very thin suit touches the material of
my shorts on my upper thigh. Two layers of material separate me
from her and this feeling hardens me more. She opens her eyes as if
I’ve said it out loud and thrusts against me.

I suck in a heavy breath and
start to protest again but she’s nose to nose and so I breathe into
her mouth, “I’m not good for you,” which makes it harder to pull
her cheek, her tightly wrapped legs, and her breasts, plastered to
my chest, from my body. But I do.

The rush of water unfuzzes my
thoughts.

Charz leans in again and I say
something horrible that I know will keep her from me. “I might know
who killed your mom. Who organized what happened at Mason’s.”

“
Now I think
you should leave,” Charz says wading past me to the
steps.

What’s up with her? Wouldn’t
she be dying to know the answer to this? Then again, who’d believe
those words? She’s looking for proof.

She catches her hair in a bunch
and squeezes out the water, body twisting, her breasts and hips
creating a tongue-wagging hourglass shape. The water drips from the
bends at her elbows, her legs, her ass.

Get it
together
.

“
I have
proof!” I choke out, trying to run after her, but my efforts result
in slow-motion lunges that ultimately trip me up and bowl me back
into the water. I get up, flip my hair as though it’ll make me as
sexy as she is when she does it, and jog up the stairs.

“
Here.” She
thrusts a towel at my chest. “Where are your…” She sees my path of
clothes trailing to the pool. The sneakers, shorts, white tank.
Then her gaze whips around to my crotch. She gulps, and her cheeks
redden.

“
Just—” She
fixes her arms in a bunch over her chest. “Get your stuff and get
out of here when you’re dry.”

“
Charz. Wait,”
I say catching her wrist as she turns again. She stops the second I
touch her, staring at my hand on her wrist. Is she remembering the
watch point at the reservoir like I am?

She finally meets my eyes.

“
I
have…something to show you. I thought you’d like—”

She slips from
my hand when I’m unaware and says, “Towel. Shower. Clothes.
Out
.”

As I fumble to pick though my
pockets for my cell, Charz disappears inside a bathroom attached to
the pool house. Something clicks when the door shuts. Great! She’s
going to call the cops on my ass.

I pull on my clothes without
drying off, and run through the files on my cell as I approach the
door. When I find it, I press play and slip it in the crack between
the door and the bathroom’s tile floor.

“…
I’d love
some of that cash. Get my grandson some proper equipment, my wife a
nice weekend away and a car. But I’m not stupid. What do you think
Lisa will say? She’ll ask where I happened to pluck out that five-
or six-figure sum. Tahny and Dexter will be clueless for a while. I
could hide it from them. But not Lisa. Not her.” Again, Dad goes on
to talk about how this is exactly stealing money and it doesn’t
seem “fair”. Then he moves on to other details. “Maybe I was
entitled to the money. Back then, yeah, but not after all that’s
happened—all
I
’ve
done.”

Time lapses. Everything is
quiet, except for the buzz of the recording and distant noises from
the restaurant. Two shadows spill under the door, against the
bright light, where I can imagine her head pressed against the
wood, her body crouched on her haunches and her forearms pressed
against the frame.

Dad returns, saying, “You’re
still planning to do it? That’s a cruel way to—”

Like before, the recording cuts
out the moment before we wait to hear “die”. My calves still aching
from crouching behind the bush outside Charz’s place earlier, I
stand and wait a few minutes but it’s silent behind the door. No
shuffles, no whimpers, no breathing, even.

Damn
. I count down the seconds from
sixty to one, tell myself I’ll leave it at that if I can’t convince
Charz by then. At “two”, the door swings open and the whoosh pulls
me forward—that or the shock—and I catch myself against the
doorjamb.

Charz looks me in the eyes and
says, “My dad started Roycroft Engines in the eighties and has
controlled quite a bit of the car manufacturing industry in
Australia since the late nineties, but…” Her eyes light up and she
rushes past me. She still has her suit on, with a loose,
see-through shirt, one shoulder poking out, on top. All I see are
long, long legs pumping to the door, then she leaps inside the
house and continues running.

“
Wait!” I
chase after her, hoping to God she isn’t hiding in her panic room
or something. I check in the kitchen because I feel familiar with
that room—although the psycho rummaging through that food was
someone other than me—but she isn’t there. I run down the hallway,
back up to the front of the house when I hear a sound. I go up to
the room.

Charz is flicking through a
filing drawer, flying past markers until she mumbles, “A-ha,” and
pulls out a file.

“
He’s worth…”
Charz starts, flicking through sheets. “I had no idea.” She goes
on, flicking mindlessly, her jaw slackening. “Billions.”

She drops the papers and points
to my face. “I mean, I knew we had millions, many, but… How did you
know?” She steps in and tries her best to keep her finger firmly
pointed in my direction, but the accusatory look in her eyes is
conflicted with fear. “How did that man know?”

“
That man is…”
I gulp and say “my dad” but she’s still staring at me, which means
I only said it in my head, not out loud. I look at the ceiling, my
fingers woven together behind my head.

Focusing on a tiny mark up near
the corner, I try again, saying, “That man is my dad.”

The shock buckles her knees and
she wobbles. I lurch forward and catch her waist, but the action is
far removed from our moment in the pool.

“
Mmm,” she
mumbles. I know she wants me off her. We haven’t been close for
long, but there are things I know and don’t know about her. I don’t
know if
this
is
too close but I know she hates being the center of attention, that
she doesn’t dress or act like other girls who think they’re hot,
and she absolutely will not say the most important things on her
mind if they’re rude or even just a little bit out
there.

That’s what’s happening now.
She won’t even push me away because she’s afraid of…what? My
feelings?

I don’t step back, but open my
fingers so she has to step away from me. She walks away so easily
it hurts.

I walk out of the room and head
to the front door, ready to get away from this when I try to
swallow and my tongue comes away feeling like sandpaper. I also
have a massive urge to pee. And drink four bottles of water.

This is my body paying me back
for bingeing on all the food I could find.

“
Why do you do
that?” a voice asks.

It takes me a moment but I
tighten my thighs, hoping to stop the urge to pee. Charz’s question
replays in my head and now I see she’s standing there, hands on her
hips, watching me.

“
Do
what?”

She comes to me and pulls my
hand from my pocket, sandwiching her fingers over mine. “You’re
shaking.”

Her face softens. I could swear
the brown of her eyes lightens into the color of melted chocolate.
Her lashes are so long, so beautiful, and just like every other
feature on her face they drive me crazy. I want her so bad but
becoming “us” would make me happy and I’m not done feeling like the
worst person in the world about fucking up her happy life yet.

Weeks ago, I would have stayed
away, but like an addiction, she’s becoming my normal and I don’t
have the perspective to notice if I’m doing anything I wouldn’t
have before she became my world.

And at this point, everything
about us feels fine when we’re alone. I just don’t know how that
will translate with the rest of the world.

She cups my cheek, causing me
to involuntarily lean in.

“
Oh, wow.
You’re burning up!” She squeezes the hand she’s still holding and
gestures inside. “Come with me.”

I don’t object. I follow her
into the kitchen. She walks over to the pantry, shakes her head
then goes to the fridge and pulls out two bottles. One of water,
one of Coke.

“
Water.
Please.” My voice sounds desperate and my mouth salivates just from
seeing the cold, clear liquid.

Charz sets an empty glass down
in front of me, emptying the contents of the bottle into it. In
five seconds the glass is empty. She stares at the glass for a
second before refilling it. I empty that just as quickly, which
prompts the urge to pee again.

“
Another?” she
asks incredulously.

“
No, but, um,
can I use your toilet?”

She chuckles and points out the
room. When I come back she’s leaning over the counter, and I see
that she slipped on a pair of short shorts while I was otherwise
occupied, but that doesn’t do much to stop me from wanting to
tangle myself into those legs.

“
Thanks.”

“
Well, it was
expected.” When she notices my expression, she adds, “After you
finished all that water.”

“
Oh.
Sorry.”

“
You didn’t by
chance, um, eat some rum balls? And cookies? And like, half my
pantry, did you?”

“
No,” I
lie.

“
Because I
always put the lids back on and tell Darcy to do the same, so I
don’t know why they look like that,” she says, pointing to the row
of glass containers, one spilled to the side, all with the lids
scattered around them.

“
So maybe I
did?”

“
You’re the
first guy to choose water over Coke, yet you break into people’s
houses only to eat from their junk food, yet you, er, are in
totally buff shape. You never fail to surprise me.”

“
I
don’t?”

“
Well, you
with your rep—” She cuts herself off, and starts picking at the
edge of the marble counter.

What? I have something? “Oh
shit. Not like that.” It didn’t take long for my “reputation” to
wedge itself between us. I have to fix this. “It’s not what you
think.”

“
Dex…” she
sweeps her gaze over me and back to the counter. “It doesn’t
matter. When you’re better you can leave. I don’t care what you
do.”

I move around the counter to
her side and lean into her, resting my hand on the edge. “I don’t
use drugs, Charz.” I gulp. “It sorta looks that way though?” She
nods, the movement almost imperceptible. That shyness has crept up
on her again, making her tuck her chin into her neck and look away
from the side I’m leaning into her.

Sucking in a
breath, I prepare myself to tell the third person in my life
outside those closest to me about my condition. My girlfriend,
Lily, was the second person outside of my family to know, beside
Elliot, and once I lost her and my brother, Jack, part of me shut
down. If I had to lose Charz, before even
getting
her… No, I can’t.

“
I get hypos
because I’m diabetic.” Realizing I’m speaking in jargon, I add, “I
get faint and need food with high sugar content right away.” She’s
staring into my eyes.
I could get lost
in
your
eyes
, is what I want to tell her.
“And your pantry saved my life. Essentially.”

“
Uh…you’re
welcome?” she says warily.

“
You saved me
from a coma.”

She covers her mouth with the
palms of her hands, her eyes like saucers.

I grab her hands and peel them
away, revealing an open jaw. I gently close that with a fingertip.
“Relax. I was kidding. I’ve never fallen into a coma before.”

She studies my face and then
says, “But you could?”

“
Yes.” I take
a small step back, shaking myself out of the drug that is Charlee
May. “If you won’t try to kick me out again, I’d like to tell you
something I’ve figured out about what happened to your mom and dad
and the others at Mason’s.”

She does that thing again where
her body cowers and she tries to get away from me without moving an
inch.

“
And why do
you do that?” I ask, throwing back her earlier question. “I thought
you’d want to know what happened.”

“
I don’t,
actually.”

What’s up with
her? Besides the fact that she’s infinitely different from any
other girl I’ve ever known, Charz has a side to her that doesn’t
compare to anyone. Everyone in my family is
answers now
and
fight-until-you-get-what-you-need
.

She perks up and stares at me.
“You know what I hate? I hate people asking my permission. People
who are important enough to someone else should know what’s
appropriate without resorting to cheating by questions.”