Summary: The day after James calls MC (Charlotte) during his bachelor party, she has a chance encounter with Zig in the woods.
Charlotte was nearly asleep when she heard her phone ring. She considered ignoring it, but the jingling notes were far too irritating so she groped blindly for her phone on the nightstand. Charlotte squinted, wondering if it was Kaitlyn. Instead, James’s name was on the screen.
“Hello?” Charlotte asked groggily.
“Hey,” James’s familiar voice filled her ear, although something wasn’t right. His words weren’t as crisp as they normally were, they were blurrier.
“James?” Charlotte asked. “Is everything okay? What time is it?”
“Um …” She could practically hear him checking his watch. “Almost 1AM.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at a party,” he said. “My party.”
Due to her exhaustion, it took her a moment before Charlotte connected the dots. The wedding was a week away–he had to be at his bachelor party.
“Why’d you call me?” she asked, too tired to beat around the bush. “Shouldn’t you be shoving dollar bills in someone’s G-string?”
“No!” he exclaimed louder than usual. “We’re not at a strip club, we’re just at a bar. A regular bar.”
“James–”
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
Charlotte sighed. She hated dealing with drunk people. Before Kaitlyn had decided to quit drinking, Charlotte had scraped her off the floors of so many bars she’d lost count. Then there was the stumbling, the vomiting, the hair holding; it was like babysitting an angry toddler.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked.
“I–are you mad at me? You sound mad at me.”
“No, I’m not mad,” Charlotte said calmly despite her mounting frustration. “What do you want to talk about.”
“You sound mad.”
“I’m not, but I will be if you don’t tell me why you called.”
“Okay, okay,” James said. He hesitated and for a moment Charlotte thought he’d hung up, but then he spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.” Yes, I can tell by the many texts I’ve received and your upcoming nuptials to someone else Charlotte thought. “And … I don’t know.”
Charlotte waited. She knew there was more and he was just cutting himself off.
“Sometimes I wish I was marrying you instead of Vanessa,” he finally said, slurring his fiancee’s name harder than the other words. “Am I slurring? I feel like I’m slurring.”
For a moment, Charlotte felt unable to speak; her chest was tight and everything had slowed down like she was underwater. Any lingering tiredness had vanished from her mind.
“I just think you’re so beautiful,” James said, barreling forward. “And amazing. And smart. Not that Vanessa isn’t, but you’re smarter. And more amazing … er.” He laughed at his made up word, a bark in the night. Charlotte closed her eyes and screwed them up tightly. She hated hearing James compare her to Vanessa; it was a comparison she’d made far too many times on her own, especially during the lonely nights when she missed him.
“James, why don’t we talk about this in the morning?” Charlotte suggested.
“I mean it,” James said, his voice sounding clearer and far more sober than it had a moment ago. “I’d be a lot better off with you.”
Charlotte thought about how many times she’d wished for him to tell her that very thing. She knew he was drunk, but didn’t drunk people tend to be more honest? Charlotte knew better than to let herself hope and yet there it was, a tiny candle flame in her chest.
“Let’s talk in the morning,” Charlotte said, gentler this time. “You should go back to your friends. And drink some water.”
“You’ll call me tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes, I promise.”
“I love you,” James said insistently.
“I love you, too.”
The next day, Charlotte found herself completely unable to focus on work. She’d waited to text James until after 10:00 AM, sure that his head was probably in a world of pain from the night before. She tried to write to take her mind off of her conversation with James the night before, but she ended up staring at a blank screen, the cursor blinking endlessly.
I’m sure he’s taking it easy today she told herself. “I’m sure he’s taking it easy today,” she repeated aloud, as if she might convince herself that it was true. Her tiny glow of hope from the previous night was growing dimmer with each passing minute. Finally, worried she was going to make herself completely crazy, Charlotte decided to drive into town and go to the grocery store. There wasn’t anything she particularly needed, but she had to get out of the house. She dressed quickly and grabbed her keys and wallet before heading outside to her car.
Charlotte drove through the trees, completely preoccupied. She couldn’t help but glance at her phone on the passenger seat over and over, just to check and see if she had a new message. During one such glance, the car jolted alarmingly. Charlotte swore and whipped her head up to look out the windshield. She didn’t see anything obvious that had caused the car to move like that, no new hood ornament that looked like Bambi, but she stopped the car and turned it off, her heart still racing. After a moment, she climbed out and walked around the car. Everything seemed okay until she got around to the front right tire. Flat. Christ, she must’ve popped it on a rock or something. She knew she should’ve listened to Kaitlyn when she warned her to replace her old tires. Charlotte sighed heavily, frustrated. She had a spare tire in the trunk, but no tire iron or jack, making the spare virtually useless to her in that moment. Charlotte reached back into the car and retrieved her phone and in addition to noting that no, James hadn’t tried to contact her, she also had no service.
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, her voice sounding intrusive to the woods around her. Charlotte thought for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. There was a phone at the cabin, but she was pretty sure she was about halfway to town already. She could go back and call somebody, or she could just walk the rest of the way into town and hook up with a mechanic there. Either way, she was walking. Charlotte grabbed her wallet and locked her car with a polite beep before heading down the road towards town. She knew there weren’t many houses in the area, but maybe she’d get lucky and run into one of her temporary neighbors.
Charlotte had walked for maybe a quarter of a mile when she heard the rumble of a truck and tires on the dirt road. It was coming from up ahead and Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. As the truck grew closer and pulled to a stop, she realized it was a forest service vehicle and felt even luckier than she had all day.
“Out for a walk.” Zig asked after he rolled down the driver’s side window.
“Sort of. I popped a tire on my car and didn’t have any service on my phone, so I was heading into town to find a mechanic,” Charlotte explained.
“That’s the bad part about being in the woods, there are a lot of dead spots for cell reception,” Zig said. “Or good, depending on if you want to get out here to take a break.”
“Definitely bad if you have a car situation,” she said.
“Do you have a spare?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a tire iron or a jack,” she said.
“Well, luckily for you, I happen to have both in the back. Hop in, I’ll take you back to your car.”
“Really?” Charlotte asked. “Thanks.” She walked around the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. Sitting beside him, she suddenly felt nervous again. Good lord, am I ever going to be able to be around him without turning into a teenager? “So what are you doing out here? Patrolling the road for damsels in distress?”
Zig laughed. God, even his laugh was sexy. “Sort of. It’s my turn to drive out here and check the roads. I’m usually not a fan, but I might revise my opinion after today.”
Charlotte blushed. Is he flirting with me? No, he’s not. Is he?
They arrived back at her car and Zig hopped out and grabbed the tools from the back. Charlotte popped the trunk of her car and retrieved the spare tire.
“Oh, I can do that,” Charlotte said as Zig began to work on her car.
“I don’t doubt it, but consider this part of the full service damsel in distress package,” he said, glancing up to flash her a smile. When her eyes met his, Charlotte felt a heat spread through her, pooling in her abdomen. She let her mind wander for a moment and she could just imagine those eyes locked onto hers as she straddled him, his fingers digging into her hips …
“Um, so, are you a car guy?” she asked, trying to focus on the situation at hand.
Zig shrugged.
“More of a motorcycle guy, really,” he said.
“Oh, that’s cool,” Charlotte said. “Motorcycles are cool.” Oh my god, shut up.
“Do you ride?”
“Me? Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I have a pathological fear of getting bugs in my teeth.”
Zig laughed. “I get that. Thankfully, my helmet has a visor so I don’t have to worry about that.”
“That’s good,” Charlotte said. “You don’t want … bugs in your teeth.” She felt stupid as the words came out of her mouth. Zig glanced up at her and smirked.
“You know,” he said. “I have a second helmet that also has a visor. If you ever want to face your bug fear, I could take you out for a ride.”
Charlotte imagined riding behind him on his motorcycle, the engine purring below them as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing herself into his back. She coughed nervously.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “But if my fear gets worse, I expect you to cover my therapy bills.”
“Deal,” Zig said with a grin as he stood up. “Okay, you’re all set.”
“Thank you so much for doing this,” Charlotte said. “Really, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I wasn’t looking forward to walking all the way to town.”
“Hey, it’s not problem,” he said. “Tell you what: do you know where the mechanic is?” She shook her head. “It’s off of Main St. and 4th, take a left and go up a couple blocks, it’ll be on your right. You can’t miss it. Tell them I sent you. I’ll call ahead and get them to set you up with a deal on a tire.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Charlotte protested as he tossed the tools and her old tire into the back of the forest service truck, but he brushed her off.
“This is a full service damsel in distress rescue, remember?” he joked. “Don’t worry about it, they owe me a favor anyway.”
“Well, thank you,” Charlotte said. “I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Zig said as he climbed into the truck. He tipped his hat to her and smiled. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, see you,” she said. He waved as he pulled away and Charlotte watched the truck for a moment and exhaled as she drove away. Every time she was around Zig, she felt like she forgot how to breathe.
As the mechanic put the new tire on her car, Charlotte sat in the waiting room and checked her phone. No new messages. The tiny candle flame in her chest went out with the smallest whisper, her hopes fading away like smoke.
