Make You Mine by K.T. Quinn

21

Charlotte

I was watching Netflix on my laptop in the motel room, waiting to see if Jayce would text me, when my phone rang. Momma was the only person who had been calling me, and it was about that time in the evening, so I answered without looking at the number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Charlie.”

Hearing his voice, and his nickname for me, made me freeze. Something crawled around in my chest and then settled back down. The grinding of ignored emotions reawakening after a few days of slumber.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “Scott.”

“Is now a good time?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Like he was trying too hard to be soothing. “Can we talk?”

I never want to talk to you again, I thought bitterly.

“Sure,” I answered, trying to sound nonchalant. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Did you get my voicemail? I left you a voicemail.”

“I listened to it. Most of it.”

He let out a sigh. “I’ve been so worried about you, Charlie. At first I didn’t blame you for not answering your phone, but I got more and more worried, and then I called your parents and they told me what happened…”

I snorted. “What’d Momma have to say to you?”

“Nothing good.”

I laughed with more humor than I felt. “Sounds about right. What do you want, Scott?”

“It’s about the truck.”

The knot in my gut tightened. “If you’re under-staffed, maybe she could help you.” I couldn’t bring myself to say Tammy’s name. Not out loud.

“Business is fine,” he said. “It’s really good, actually. Lots of people visiting for spring break. I’ve had to restock the condiments twice in the last week alone.”

“Oh, wow,” I said, biting back my resentment. “That’s great.”

“But I still want to pay for an ad in the food magazine,” Scott went on. “The meeting we had, the one you walked out of, went really well.”

“We talked about it before the meeting,” I replied. “The cost was too high.”

“It’s a little steep,” he admitted. “But it’s what we need to do. You have to spend money to make money, right? Nobody can buy burgers if they don’t know our truck is around town. Anyway, if you’re okay with it, I’ll send you the invoice so you can pay half.”

I sat upright in bed. “What?”

“It’s more than I can afford on my own. And we don’t have enough cash in the floating account. It’s only fair to split the cost since it’s an expense.”

“Fair?” I asked.

“Sure. Just like the truck cost, and the supplies, and all the other little things we had to pay for along the way…”

“We,” I repeated. “You keep saying we. You wanted to take a break from our relationship, and then you started seeing Tammy behind my back. I’m gone now, Scott. We’re done. So why do you keep saying we?”

There was a pause of silence on the other end. “I don’t know. I thought you’d come back eventually.”

“And what?” I said, voice rising. “Continue on like nothing ever happened?”

“We worked together for the last month…”

I jumped up and began pacing because I was too angry to sit still. “It worked okay because I thought we would get back together. You acted like it was just a temporary break! I didn’t know you were already looking for your next lay…”

“Don’t say that about Tammy,” he cut in. “She’s not just a random hookup.”

“Oh, excuse me for not showing her the respect you think she deserves. That wouldn’t be fair, now would it?” Before he could respond, I charged forward with the question that had been nagging me for the last week. “How long have you been seeing her? Were you two talking while we were still dating?”

His hesitation told me everything I needed to know.

“That’s what I thought,” I said bitterly.

Scott cleared his throat. It was something he did when he was trying to collect himself in an uncomfortable situation, and I imagined him on the other end of the line standing up straighter. Puffing his chest out.

“Charlie, let’s get back to the original topic. Your name is still on half the business. This ad spot in the magazine would really boost our daily foot traffic, which means less spoiled food—”

“I don’t care,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to be part of it anymore. As far as I’m concerned, it’s your business now.”

“You have responsibilities,” he said in the condescending tone I had grown to hate. “If I purchase this magazine ad spot, you owe me half the cost.”

“I don’t care what you do.” I took a deep breath, like the wind-up before throwing a punch. “Go fuck yourself, Scott.”