To hold my hand.
But he retracts fast—so fast that my pulse skips. He doesn’t want to force you to come out. I hope that’s it, and it’s not Oscar being scared I’ll bail on him.
As we battle through the thick brush, my heartbeat rises to my throat. We keep glancing at each other, and the inability to talk or touch with Charlie so close is adding unnecessary strain.
We’re working.
That fact slams against us as we find Charlie in a small cloverfield clearing. He knew where he was going. I focus my shot on him. He leans against a mossy boulder, book in one hand and a blunt between his other fingers. He doesn’t glance up at us as we arrive.
“Getting lost in the woods together—one of my favorite romance tropes,” he muses and sticks the blunt in his mouth.
Oscar and I share a tense look.
Fuck.
Charlie hasn’t let go of this “set-up” even after confessing his intentions. I guess he wouldn’t. The more I’m understanding Charlie, the more I’m realizing he’s more of an open book than people would believe, but his pages are written in an ancient language.
“Hilarious,” Oscar tells his client, then presses a hand to his earpiece. Listening to comms.
My walkie-talkie beeps in my own surveillance earpiece. “10-2,” Jesse calls. “I’m a mile from camp. Can I go in the woods?”
10-2 is code for I need to take a number 2.
A shit.
I stifle a smile and detach my walkie, pressing the button and speaking low. “You can’t take a 10-2 in the woods. You’re a professional.”
He grunts like he’s running with gear. “10-4, over and out.” 10-4 means he’s received the message.
Oscar watches me attach my walkie, and surprisingly, he tells me under his breath, “Donnelly made a joke about Wawa catering the event on comms.”
We draw closer together. Quietly, I tell him, “My brother needed to take a shit in the woods.”
He laughs hard.
Which causes me to laugh, and Charlie eyes us from his perch on the boulder. Like we’re being discovered, the noise slowly fades from our mouths.
Back to business.
I hoist my Canon. Camera rolling.
Oscar scans our surroundings.
“I have a question,” I tell Charlie.
“And the sky is blue.” Charlie flips the page of his book, smiling at something he’s reading. I can’t make out the title of the paperback. It looks like he—or someone else—scratched off the letters with a knife.
I prod further. “If you hate Ernest, why don’t you just quit the board?”
“It’s not a job. It’s an obligation,” Charlie tells me for the umpteenth time.
It hits me now.
“You can quit a job,” I realize. “You can’t quit an obligation.”
Charlie flips another page. “I suppose I could quit an obligation, but it’d have far reaching consequences.”
“The company would dissolve?”
Charlie nods. “My parents, my aunts, and uncles would pull their money out. Something Maximoff built from the ground up would be destroyed overnight.” His yellow-green eyes flit up to me. “I don’t love being the life support, but it’s where I’m at.”
He sinks into his book and his blunt, and while my subject is stationary, I change lenses and focus on wide shots. Oscar chats with security, and I try not to bother him.
An hour later, we walk the same densely wooded area back to the open field with the starting line and registration. Charlie doesn’t try to lose us this time. Maybe giving up on the whole “romance lost in the woods” act.
We breach the thick, tall trees, and I’m surprised no crowds are here. The only runners who’ve completed the 5k loop are Sullivan, Ryke, and Maximoff.
Sweat barely stains their tees, water bottles half-empty, and they loosely stretch on the grass like they just jogged one-lap around a block.
Oscar, Charlie, and I walk closer to the registration tables.
Something…itches…
I scratch my shoulder. Grimacing, I try to relieve the irritation a few more times, but the itch only grows. “Hey, Oscar,” I say. “Is something on my back?”
He walks around and scratches at his own bicep. He zones in on my shoulder that peeks out of a sleeveless tee. “Highland…”
My eyes fall to his arm. Small dark bumps dot his brown skin. Oscar. “What’d we walk through in the woods?”
He itches his bicep again. “Let’s go to the cabins.”
Medical is located in the camp cabins.
Shit.
18
OSCAR OLIVEIRA
Charlie is scratching his neck, so I tell him to seek medical with me and Jack, and on our way to the cabins, I’m resisting the urge to maul the inflamed patches on my bicep.
Poison ivy, that’s my best guess.
We frolicked through motherfucking poison ivy.
I could grumble over comms, but A.) Jack is beside me and I don’t want to be that petulant in front of him. I have to show some class.
And B.) drama strikes.
“Fight at the refreshment tents!” an Epsilon temp shouts over comms, using the main frequency for the event. Every bodyguard is on the same channel. “I need backup!” His voice pitches in my ear. “I need backup!”
I narrow my focus on the white tents as we cross the open field. A bunch of teenagers are crowding the table with water jugs and cups. And two teenage boys are yelling at each other while the stocky temp tries to pull them apart.
They shrug off the bodyguard and keep shouting. Can’t piece apart the words from here.
I strain my eyes, making out dark-brown shaggy hair and a camera in his hands. Holy fucking shit, that’s Jesse Highland. Alarm triggers in my body, and I don’t think. Just react.
“Charlie stay here for a sec,” I tell him.
His brows knit together, but he stops mid-walk.
Jack hears the commotion under the shady white tents, and he takes off with me as I sprint towards the fight. “Jesse!” he yells at his brother, camera gripped tight. “JESSE!”
I click my mic and speak as I run. “Oscar to Security, I’m handling the fight—don’t send anyone else.” Last thing Jack needs is to
