Southern Charms

Math Problems

An hour and a half later, my cheeks hurt from laughing, and my stomach pushed uncomfortably against my pants. Our table was covered in open books, pens, and little red baskets with greasy parchment paper lining the insides. Charlie picked up his milkshake, looking into the near empty cup with sadness.

"How are you still eating?" Flannery groaned, rubbing her belly and pushing back in the booth. She flicked a fry at Charlie, but he caught it, popping it into his mouth with a wink.

"It's brain food," he insisted.

"It's a minute on the lips-"

"And a lifetime on the hips," I shouted, finishing the saying with Flannery. "Clemmy says that all the time."

"Clemmy?" Charlie asked. He pull a pencil from behind his ear and flipped open his BioChem book.

"It's what we call our grandmother. If you saw her, you'd understand she wasn't a Memaw or Mamaw type at all."

Flannery folded her arms on the table and looked at me, her eyebrows pulling into a deep v over her hooded eyes. "I think I've learned more about your family today then I have the entire time we've known each other."

"Some people are private," Charlie said, reading my body language and assuming correctly his sister's scrutiny was making me nervous. "Not everyone tells everybody all their business like you do."

"I just believe in honesty, and what you see is what you get with me."

"That's fine," he said, bopping her on the nose, "when you stick with you. The problem is when you tell other people's business."

I watched as they bickered, my lips settling into the line somewhere between a smirk and a smile. It would seem it didn't matter if you were human or supernatural, siblings were still siblings. Charlie dived to avoid Flannery's swinging hand, and she jumped up to round the table's edge to reach him better.

Without warning, he dropped below the table and popped up in the seat beside me. His large frame took up considerably more room than his sister's, and I was pinned between the window and his warm body.

"Sorry," he mouthed, both of us reaching for the milkshake glass wobbling next to my book.

Our fingers brushed against one another, and I jerked back, curling them against my chest as though they'd been burned. Smooth. Real smooth, Rose. 

Flannery paused in her attempts to maul her brother, long enough to bat her lashes suggestively at us. I blushed and ducked my head, only the resounding smack of flesh against flesh letting me know my determined friend had landed a hit.

"Damn, girl. That hurt. You best consider yourself lucky I can't hit you like that."

"Outta my spot."

When Charlie moved, the temperature dropped several degrees, and I found myself shivering, even with the late day sun beaming through the grimy window. Flannery flopped down beside me, but the soothing warmth didn't return. It was definitely all down to Charlie, and I didn't quite know what to do with that.

"So, did you decide to skip class today?" I asked, not looking him in the eye as I pretended to work an equation. The only problem was with Charlie's eyes on me, I couldn't handle more than one plus one. Ugh- math problems. 

"I only have a night class on Mondays, and the professor emailed yesterday that she had the flu. But I should get on the road soon. Don't wanna get back too late."

"And there's my brother. I was starting to wonder if he'd been abducted."

The easy going grin he wore while he teased his sister didn't fade, but something dark shuttered over Charlie's eyes. "A brother can't just want to spend time with his little sister?"