"What? Fuck it, Miles. You couldn't have told me this earlier and let me find my own place to crash?" A livid Bass was gripping the table in front of him as Miles tried to save the bottle of whiskey now wobbling precariously toward the edge.
"Bass, you know I love you like a brother, but this shit between you and Rachel isn't going to get better, and I need to be able to sleep at night without worrying that I'll wake up to a blood bath in the house because you two couldn't act like grown-ups. You and Charlie get along now, and she's got all that space going to waste. Plus, I really don't like her living outside of town all by herself. You'd be doing me a big favor keeping an eye out for her."
Bass sighed heavily. He understood the concern Miles had about Charlie living on her own. Hell, he'd felt the same way, but he wasn't stupid enough to tell her that. His occasional visits just to drink some whiskey also allowed him to keep an eye on her. Plus her house was always so clean and she always smelled so good…and she was actually starting to turn into a decent cook. Bass gave himself an internal shake. Man, if he knew anyone else thinking the same way about some chick, he'd say they were whipped and call them out on it. Good thing he hadn't said anything to Miles about his concerns about Charlie, or the fact that he got a raging hard-on whenever he was near her for any length of time.
"Fine, Miles. As a favor to your sex life, I will move in with Charlie. And when things go all to shit, just remember that you're the one who planned and executed this whole thing. I'll go pack my things."
Miles smirked as Bass left to pack. This was working out great. He and Rachel could now safely deface every surface in the house, and he knew Bass would look after Charlie as if she belonged to him. Life was good. What could possibly go wrong?
The thump of boots on her front porch startled Charlie as she stared out her kitchen window. She'd pretty much been stuck in place since Miles' departure an hour earlier as she tried to figure out some kind of game plan for living with Bass and coming across as his friend and not subconsciously acting like some bar bunny who was ready and willing to jump his bones any time he looked at her.
A quick knock, and the front door swung open. "Charlie, are you here? It's me, Bass." Bass shook his head. Well, of course, it was him. She knew he was coming and she knew his voice…could he be any more of an idiot? He needed to keep the panic off his face and treat Charlie just as if she were one of his sisters and not the incredibly attractive woman that she had become since he first laid eyes on her in Philadelphia. In fact, now that he thought about it, the only other person that had gotten a similar rise out of him was one C King, who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He needed to revisit finding her if he was going to be able to live with Charlie and not think about pounding into her every time she walked by him.
Wiping her hands on a towel as she came out of the kitchen, Charlie opted to go for a casual vibe and took a deep breath to try and calm her racing heart.
"Hey, roomie. I hear you're stuck with me for a while until you finish this mural. Are you going to give me any inside scoop on what it's going to be?"
"Sorry, Charlie. It's an artist's prerogative to keep their work hidden until they feel it's just right, and I've decided that's what I need to do. If Frank's going to make me go through with this, then I'm going to make everyone wait for the final product…and that includes you. Is that going to be a problem?"
Please let it be a problem, Bass was thinking so that he would have an excuse to find another place to stay.
"Of course it's not a problem. I completely understand wanting to keep things private until, or if, you decide you want to share," Charlie stated as she thought about all the odd jobs she had taken to earn the money for her house. Her goal was to make sure no one ever found out all the things she had done to secure her house money. Miles and Bass would understand the hard work, but not the modeling gig and Rachel…well, who knew what she would do if she ever found out that Charlie had stripped down in a room full of strangers. She would have to leave town for a while if that came out.
"I also understand what it's like to have to live with Miles and my mom so you're welcome to stay here, but I've never really had a roommate before, Bass. Do we need to make some house rules or something? Like I don't mind doing your wash if I'm doing my own, but I'm not making a special trip just to do something you didn't get around to doing. And since there's only one bathroom, do we need to make a schedule? What about food? Hope you don't expect me to cook for you, too, because I'm not doing it. I'm not your maid." Charlie's underlying panic about living with Bass was starting to show as things kept pouring out of her mouth.
Bass help up his hands in surrender. "Charlie, calm down. This isn't a big deal. We've traveled together and stayed in plenty of rooms alone and we never had a problem before. Let's just take it one day at a time and see how it goes. If we need to straighten something out, we'll do it." In the back of his head, though, Bass was thinking, "You're General Sebastian Monroe, damn it. Don't let her see you're scared."
As he took his things up to his bedroom, Bass decided that he definitely needed to kick his latest attempt to find his model into gear. Otherwise, he might find himself accidentally sleepwalking into Charlie's bedroom one night. Before the blackout, he could have crafted a personal ad, "Seeking Miss C King. You whet my whistle and stroked my brushes when you modeled for my art class. Let's trace our freckles together."
Now, how the hell was he going to let C King know he couldn't get her out of his mind? Bass remembered a line from some chick flick talking about a 'grand gesture' being the way to let someone know you wanted to be with him. What could he do that would be talked about enough that it would eventually reach the ears of one C King?
