The Magic of Hollywood // Charlie Gillespie

Chapter 19

5 days later

"Victoria! Omg tomorrow is they day!" Valerie practically runs into my club excitedly. I still can't believe tomorrow is the day I've been dreaming of for years. The past two weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster ride, not only because of my club but it was definitely part of my emotional drama. "Of course you're already here" Valerie says rolling her eyes at Charlie sitting next to me. She isn't wrong though. In the past week he has sort of become part of my inventory. He spends every free minute he has at my club. Of course we had to go over some things, like what songs he'll play tomorrow, do some trial runs so the equipment works right and stuff like that, but mainly he is just hanging out, seeing if he can help with anything or just chilling in the corner playing some guitar.

Sometimes I have the feeling he is only here to distract me, because I need to admit whenever he's around I can't focus at all. The tension between is us driving me crazy. Sometimes I even regret ever sending him that stupid text about taking things slow, but whenever he's not around and, I can think clearly again, I'm glad I did it. I know there's clearly something between us but still... there's no reason to rush anything. I know I can't hide behind what happened with Max forever, but I also don't wanna be reckless and let the butterflies in my stomach take over my rationality. After the day at the beach nothing really happened between us. We somehow made it back to my club, looking like crazy people with our clothes completely drenched. Then we ran into Valerie, which was a little awkward but ever since then we kept our distance, even though we've been spending time together every day. Charlie seems to respect my wish, which is really sweet, and everything was really busy because of the upcoming opening. Oh, and Valerie was around most of the time too so...

"Good Morning to you too, Valerie" Charlie smiles at her. By now they are getting along pretty well. Valerie eventually told Charlie that she knows who he is. He didn't really seem to be bothered by her lying at first but then again, he seems so chilled all the time anyways. Nothing compared to how on edge he was the day we met. By now he figured out his way to get to my club and back to his apartment without anyone noticing. Every morning he orders an Uber to Starbucks, grabs us some coffee and then walks over, always taking a slightly different way then the other day. I thought eventually he'd get annoyed of having to hide but I feel like it became some sort of funny game to him. "Victoria, what's on the schedule for today?" Even though Valerie and I became really close over the past two weeks, she still treats me like her boss. Which I technically am, but it feels so weird since she is the one with all the knowledge and it used to be her business. "Nothing much, to be honest. We're pretty good. Someone has to go through the storage once again, just to be sure we have enough of everything. I'm gonna do another test run for all the lights and musical equipment with Charlie and yeah, that's pretty much it I think." Valerie nods. "Sounds good. I'm off to the storage then." She turns to leave winking at me and raising her eyebrows looking from me to Charlie and back. Luckily he didn't notice.

While we're doing the test run for the mic and the amplifier for Charlie's guitar and I can't stop staring at him. How did I get so lucky? His voice is amazing and he just has something special when he's on stage. It's like he belongs there. Once he's done he looks at me with so much intensity that my legs start shaking. "Sounds good?" - "Yep, perfect. We should do another run tomorrow like... about an hour before doors open?" He rolls his eyes a little but smiles at me. "Vic..." - "I know! I'm being paranoid but still... please?" In the last two days Charlie had do to about a hundred tries with me. I know it's stupid but I'm just so worried something will go wrong. Until now everything was too perfect to be true. "Anything for you, Vic." I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking into his eyes. After a few seconds of staring at each other - I need to say we do that way too much, it's like we both just drift off - Charlie clears his throat. "So, when I should I be here tomorrow?" I think about it for a second. "Doors open at 9:30pm so... maybe 7:30? Is that too early?" He shakes his head slightly. "Nop. I'll be there."

"Victoria! Can you come here for a second?" I turn around to see Valerie coming from the storage room. She looks a little concerned. I'm starting to get a little worried. Please, don't let anything go wrong now. I don't have time for problems. Suddenly I feel a hand rubbing my back. I turn to see Charlie right next to me. Immediately I start to relax a little. I smile at him thankfully. "Don't worry. It'll be ok" he whispers into my ear. He takes my hand and together we make our way to follow Valerie. Instead of the storage room she makes her way to my bedroom. My worry starts to turn into confusion. My room is completely dark, yet Valerie enters it anyway. What is going on? I look over to Charlie but he seems just as confused as I am. "SURPRISE!" I cling onto Charlies arm, grabbing his hand tighter, basically being scared to death. I've always been easy to scare. The light gets turned on. "OMG J!" I can't believe it! Jenny smiles at me, then her eyes move over to Charlie and down to our hands. "Oh you got a lot to explain girl"