Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“This designer is pretty hot,” Rye said. Charlie agreed, but he couldn’t deny the pang of jealousy that shot through him too.

What, you think that once someone touches you they’ll never find another human being attractive ever again?

“Jeez, the carpenter’s even hotter,” Rye said. “Is everyone on this show hot? No wonder you like it.”

“I’ve never even seen it before.”

“You could totally have your own show,” Rye mused a few minutes later, when the designer and the carpenter were discussing the challenges of the space and bouncing ideas off each other about how to bring the girl’s love of French architecture into play in the family’s Rhode Island home. “Only you could be the designer and the carpenter.”

“Nah,” Charlie said. But he was flattered.

“Sure you could. You designed this place, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. But this place was just for me.”

Rye shot him a look from where he was splayed over the couch.

“Not all for you,” he said.

Charlie froze.

No one knew. No one knew that Charlie had picked out things that were neutral enough that he hoped they would appeal to someone who might someday live here. Because what if he’d painted the living room green and they hated green? Sure, he could always repaint, but what if that paint color—or the drawer pulls, or the molding—was the thing that stood between that person seeing themselves at home here and not?

He’d made his bathroom exactly what he wanted and felt great about it for one week, until this had occurred to him. Tile wasn’t so easy to change. But he decided he wouldn’t make the same mistake with the rest of the house. He wouldn’t give that person any reason not to stay with him.

It was cringeworthy, but once the thought had invaded his mind, no amount of visualizing windshield wipers had managed to clear it. This, he could control. This, he could manage. He couldn’t know who they might be or what they might like—hell, he didn’t even really believe they would ever come along—but he could make sure that nothing he chose was particular enough to push them away.

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked, keeping his voice completely neutral.

“You must’ve picked a lot of this stuff cuz you thought it’d help you sell the house,” Rye said. “It’s all so, what’s the word? Neutral. It’s not really like you. Except the bathroom. But that makes stuff easier to sell, right?”

Charlie swallowed his relief and cleared his throat.

“Right,” he choked out.

* * *

“Bro. I know you’re into him because I saw you together,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

He’d come into the store on the pretense of buying a new axe head, but obviously just wanted to grill Charlie about Rye. He’d tried texting Charlie about it but Charlie hadn’t responded. He was too worried that he’d leave his phone lying out and Rye would see a text come through from Jack talking about it.

“Simon agrees with me,” Jack continued. “He says Rye has that whole feral cat being slowly domesticated at the hands of a patient human thing going on.”

Charlie couldn’t help but smile at that description. Simon’s powers of observation were nothing if not specific.

“Maybe. And much like a feral cat, when he decides it’s time, he’ll go back to the wild,” Charlie said.

“I knew it.”

“Jack. Do not say anything to Rye.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Jack said, looking affronted.

He fiddled with the stapler on the desk Charlie had set up in what was once their father’s closet. It felt cramped with just Charlie in it. With both of them there was hardly room to move.

“I didn’t... I didn’t know you liked guys,” Jack said.

Charlie shrugged.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Never told you I liked girls, but apparently you still thought I did.”

Jack shook his head.

“Actually, I thought you were probably ace. Since you never mentioned being attracted to anyone.”

Charlie was struck by an overwhelming wave of gratitude for his brother.

“So?” Jack prompted.

“So, what?”

“So, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie told him. It seemed impossible to convey to Jack the cocktail of panic and desperation that had accompanied everything in those years after their parents died, and it wouldn’t do any good to make him feel like part of what caused it.

“It’s not something I was keeping from you,” Charlie said. “I wasn’t in that mode, in my head. I mean... I didn’t...like anyone.”

“Until now,” Jack said.

Charlie slumped in his too-small chair and Jack clapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m really happy for you.”

“Don’t be. He’s not gonna stick around.”

“You don’t think so?”

Charlie shook his head and forced himself to say his greatest fear out loud, because sometimes just saying it out loud took some of the sting out of it.

“I think he’ll sell the house once we’re done and get out of here. Probably go back to Seattle.”

He stared at the wall but he could feel Jack’s eyes on him. It didn’t take any of the sting out of it after all.