"Why are you walking back there?" Charlie questioned as she turned to look back at Connor over her shoulder, only to catch him staring at her ass.
"Just enjoying the view," he responded with a smirk. "I mean there aren't many other forms of entertainment around, especially considering I'm not allowed to talk."
Charlie shook her head in annoyance before picking up her pace.
Connor just grinned to himself as he continued to watch the view.
Charlie woke up in the morning and shot straight up, gasping for air. It took a few seconds before she realized where she was and fell back onto the ground, relaxing a little.
"Are you alright?"
She turned her head to see Connor sitting a few feet away with a look of concern on his face.
"I'm fine," she mumbled as she sat back up.
"Really? Because that didn't seem like you were fine to me," he commented.
"Why did you ask if you weren't going to listen to my answer anyways?" Charlie questioned as she ran a hand through her hair. "I said I'm fine."
He opened his mouth to say something else, but she quickly cut him off.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine. We won't."
They'd been walking for a while when Connor decided to try and ease the tension a little.
"Somehow I didn't peg you as the growing up in a village kind of girl," he commented. "Seems like a village is too small to hold Charlie Matheson."
"I hated being stuck there," Charlie admitted. "It was supposed to be safe, but really it was just boring. I spent every day waiting to get out of there."
And now she almost wished that she hadn't. Things had been so much easier back in Sylvania Estates.
"Mexico wasn't that great either," Connor told her. "It wasn't exactly boring, but I still would have rather stayed in Indiana. I didn't exactly get a say in that though."
"I didn't really get a say in staying either," she responded. "I thought that I wanted out, but now I'm not so sure⦠But it doesn't really matter anyways. I can't go back to the way things were before. Not anymore."
"Seems like there's a lot of that going around these days," he replied.
Charlie wasn't sure exactly how she had ended up opening up to Connor, but she did know that she wasn't planning on telling him anything else about her life before leaving Sylvania Estates. She knew that she would probably have to eventually, since she was taking him back with her, but she wasn't ready to have to talk about the people that she had lost to Connor.
When they stopped for the night, Charlie immediately sat down and pulled her boots off of her feet and threw them a few feet away as she leaned back on her elbows.
She knew that it probably wasn't the best idea since they could end up getting attacked at any moment, but her feet were swollen from all of the walking and they were driving her insane. If she had to, she would fight bare-foot because she was exhausted and really couldn't stand to wear her shoes for a second longer.
Connor sat down at her legs and pulled her feet into his lap.
She lifted her head up and was about to ask what he was doing when he began to rub her feet and she cut her question short.
He shot her a flirty smile and she knew that she should probably stop him, but she couldn't quite make herself. Her feet were sore and she was not about to refuse a free foot massage.
Charlie really did not want to fall for Connor. She didn't want to fall for anyone, but she had already been developing feelings for Connor before his name had even appeared on her wrist. And even though he had agreed without a hint of a fight to come on this trip with her to get rid of the marks, it was clear that he was not going to make pushing away any feelings for him easy on her.
"Did you agree to come on this trip just so that you could flirt with me the whole time?" She asked him.
"Not just to flirt with you," he told her. "That's a part of it, but not all of it."
"Really?" Charlie asked in an amused tone.
"If you want to get rid of the marks, then fine," he told her. "I'm going with you, but that doesn't mean that I can't try and change your mind on the way."
"This is going to be a long trip, isn't it?" She asked him.
"That's what I'm hoping for," he responded with a grin.
She rolled her eyes at that.
"Look, I'm glad that you agreed to come with me, but I can guarantee you that I'm not going to change my mind on the way," Charlie assured him with a small smile.
"Well then I guess that means that you've got nothing to worry about," he replied.
"I guess so."
Charlie knew that she had plenty to worry about though. Miles has been right. She was in over her head on this trip and it was going to take a lot to try and fight her feelings for him. Her only hope was if they could get to Sylvania Estates soon, but it was quite the long walk and they weren't even halfway there.
A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to Sexy Meat Pies, ambrown1022, and decadenceofmysoul for reviewing the third chapter. :)
