First Girl Gone(62)

Will said little on the drive back to Salem Island, and by the time they reached the parking lot outside Charlie’s apartment, she could tell by the grimace on his face that the pain was starting to get to him.

“Why don’t you come up and get some Tylenol? I probably have something we can put on your eye, too.”

She expected some kind of quip from him, but he only nodded, looking miserable. Their feet drummed against the metal steps as they climbed up to the apartment. Will paused inside the door.

“I forgot to ask before,” he said, his gaze lingering on the blank walls, meager furniture, and a stack of yet-to-be-unpacked cardboard boxes against one wall, “but who did your decorating?”

Charlie pointed at the mattress, secretly glad that he was making jokes again. She’d started to worry there for a minute.

“Sit.”

Will obeyed, lowering himself to perch on one corner of the bed. In the kitchen, Charlie snatched a bottle of acetaminophen from a drawer and then filled a glass of water at the sink. When Will lifted his arm to down two of the tablets, her attention was suddenly drawn to a dark red spatter on his sleeve.

“There’s blood all over your shirt.”

Will tilted his arm to see.

“Huh,” he said, totally nonchalant. “I don’t think it’s mine.”

“I might be able to rinse it out if it hasn’t set. Gimme,” she said, waiting while he unbuttoned and removed the shirt.

She filled the sink with water to wash Will’s shirt, then dug out a bag of frozen peas from her freezer and handed it over.

“Lie back and put this on your eye,” she said.

Sprawling out on the bed, Will rested his head on one of the pillows and let out a sigh of satisfaction. He squinted over at her through his good eye.

“You know, if this was a thinly veiled attempt to get me into your bed, it worked.”

Charlie scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“Oh yeah… every time I look at that puffy saddlebag of an eye you’ve got, I get the strongest urge to just tear off my panties.”

“I don’t know,” Will said, yawning. “You might have to take a number. Did you notice Zoe checking me out?”

“She’s gay.”

“I know. But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. This black eye magic is no joke. No woman is immune to its powers.”

Charlie shook her head, dousing the stains on Will’s shirt with dish soap.

“This is it, Charles,” Allie said. “You’ve got him right where you want him.”

“Don’t start up with this again.”

“Oh, please. Don’t tell me you brought him all the way up here, and now you’re going to chicken out. You’ve been fantasizing about this since you were sixteen.”

“I have not. You were the boy-crazy one, not me.”

When Charlie glanced over her shoulder at Will, his eyes were closed. She took the opportunity to study him openly. His face. His lean chest. His long arms folded over his bare stomach. OK, she probably had fantasized about a Will scene like this a time or two—maybe without the pack of frozen peas draped over half of his face.

“Ha! I knew it,” Allie said.

Charlie swallowed. She left the shirt to soak and took a step closer to where Will lay. She knelt next to the bed, watching his chest rise and fall. Slowly. Rhythmically.

“Will?”

He didn’t answer.

“Oh, come on,” Allie moaned. “He fell asleep?!”

Smiling to herself, Charlie carefully removed the bag of peas from Will’s face and returned them to the freezer. Then she climbed in beside him and closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to overtake her.





Chapter Forty-Nine





Charlie awoke the next morning to a knock at the apartment door. The clock on her phone said 8:12 a.m. She slid on a pair of sweatpants as she stumbled to the door.

The lock rattled as her sleep-stupid fingers struggled to unlatch the deadbolt. Finally, she opened the door.

“Gooooooood morning,” Zoe said, mysteriously full of energy at this unholy hour.

Charlie pawed at the corner of her eye with a knuckle.

“Can I help you, officer?”

“They’re interviewing the owner of the Red Velvet Lounge in a bit. Sheriff said it’d be OK if you came down to observe the interrogation.”

That got Charlie’s attention.

“For real?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a prank, would it?” Zoe crossed her arms. “Everyone’s so darn pleased with the bust that I guess they’re feeling mighty generous. Also, your good friend Zoe Wyatt might have put in a good word for you. Reminded them all that it was you who called it in.”

“This is gonna cost me, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah.” Zoe nodded. “You owe me big time.”

The hinges on the door squeaked as Charlie threw it wide and stepped back, waving her friend inside.

“Come on in. It’ll only take me a minute to get dressed.”

Zoe’s eyes swept the apartment, and she raised her left eyebrow.

“I love what you’ve done with the place.” When her gaze fell on the bed, her right eyebrow joined the first. A devilish smile spread over her lips. “Hello, Will.”