Obsessive Compulsion by CE Kilgore Read Free Book Online Page B

back if you promise
not to give it a bath.”
    Her bright red eyebrows shift upwards as she
holds the coffee cup to her nose. She smirks at me behind the rim.
“Maybe you better hold on to it, then. My mamma didn’t call me
Tornado Charlie for nothin’.”
    Tornado Charlie ? Seriously? Of course
I snort at that.
    Fuck, I hate my stupid laugh. Her smile
widens at the sound, though. What’s up with that? “Alright, but
you’ll have to come by my place and sign it.”
    “Why, Mr. Rider,” she continues to eye me
over the steam rising from her cup’s mouth vent. “You tryin’ to get
me up to your apartment?”
    “Consider it an open invitation,” I shrug,
refusing to admit that I’ve been dreaming about having her in my
apartment for a month now, knowing perfectly well it would never
happen. Well, maybe that’s not a complete impossibility now, but my
past experiences still refuse to agree on the matter with my
current situation concerning Charlie.
    She nods then shakes her cup at me slightly.
“How’d you know what time I’d be comin’ out?”
    “I spoke with Emma,”
    “Emma,” she finishes with me and rolls her
eyes.
    I can’t tell if that annoys her or not. I’m
pretty certain she wasn’t pleased that Emma told me about the
studio. The last thing I want to do is cause some sort of wedge
between them. “It came up in conversation over breakfast on
Saturday. Emma said you’d picked up an extra class for a sick
teacher?”
    “Yeah, well, she’s not so much sick as she
is eight months pregnant.” Charlie brushes her hand through her
hair and my own hand twitches because it wants to do the same
thing. “Her Color Theory class is moving into reductive tenting
today, and she’s not supposed to be around things like paint
thinner and tincture.”
    “Eight months? Why isn’t she on full
leave?”
    “That’s what I said!” Charlie huffs. “She’s
one of those homeopathic hippy-chicks. Says that laying down and
resting all day isn’t good for her or the baby. She even does
something called birthing yoga.” She shrugs. “I dunno. To each her
own, right?”
    “Well…” I snort again. Dammit.
    Charlie blushes. Wow. I think she may
actually like it when I do that. “I thought, maybe, I could drive
you in and then we could do lunch?”
    “So, are we dating now?”
    “Uh,” I’m not sure how to answer that.
    I want to say ‘yes’, but I don’t want to
label this, either. Dating often means different things to
different people. It’s that grey area between friends and having an
actual relationship. I don’t know what she wants out of this thing
developing between us, whatever it is. I’m not even sure what I
want, aside for a chance to try and make something in my personal
life function somewhat normally. “Thought we weren’t going to label this .”
    “Right,” she smirks behind her coffee.
“Alright. I could use a ride, anyway. My car’s having alternator
issues again.”
    I open the passenger door to my sedan and
hold her café mocha while she gets in. Once we’re on the road, I
don’t like the silence that hangs. “You should get a more reliable
car. Didn’t it break down last week, too?”
    “Yeah, well, guess I should get a more
reliable paycheck and stop spendin’ all my money on art
supplies.”
    I frown. Smooth, Rider. Really smooth.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t want you to end up
stranded somewhere. Especially not in the middle of winter.”
    She sighs, stretching out one hand over the
heating vent. “I know. Right now, I’m just lucky I have a job as an
artist that lets me afford a studio space. It just doesn’t leave
much wiggle room anywhere else, and since I haven’t received tenure
at the university, I’m not guaranteed a position past the current
semester.”
    “Why did you turn down Brandon’s offer
then?” I ask the question that I already know the answer to, but it
still bugs me that she’s doing all this work for us for