LOVE LIES ☆ HENRY DANGER

Chapter Two

Charlotte texted Carmen at exactly nine a.m. the next morning.
Charlotte: Hey change of plans. Can you go today?
Carmen replied about two minutes later. Not that Charlotte was counting.
Carmen: Yeah. I can meet you in about thirty minutes.
Charlotte scratched her head. Meet her? Could she not just swing by her house?
Charlotte: I can just swing by your house. What's your address?
Carmen replied again:
Well, uh, I'm at my dad's store right now.
Charlotte contemplated this. She could swing by her dads store and pick her up.
Charlotte: If you give me the address, I'll come meet you there. Are you working?
No. Gooch and my dad can handle it, I think. I'll ask.
Charlotte: Alright.
It was a few good minutes later before her phone was buzzing, signaling a call from her new friend.
"Hello?" Charlotte answered after hitting the green button.
"Hey," Carmen's voice sounded at the other end of the line.
"So, I can swing by your dads shop and meet you or we can just meet at our first stop-"
Charlotte was stopped abruptly at the end of her sentence as a loud crashing noise sounded through the phone.
"Hang on a sec," Carmen's voice said. Her voice was muffled, now, but Charlotte could clearly tell what she was saying.
"Guys, stop! I'm on the phone!"
Charlotte could hear the static as Carmen pulled her hand away from the speaker on her own phone. "Sorry," she said abruptly. "It gets kind of crazy here."
"How crazy can it get?" Charlotte laughed, and she heard the blonde do the same on the other end of the line.
"Well, we sell fake and decorative swords here, and everyone here is a guy. It also doesn't help that my dad is basically a man child."
Charlotte laughed. "So you want me to head there or what?"
"Yeah, I'll be standing outside. It's on 24 Market Street, a store called Junk 'N' Stuff."
"I live near there!" Charlotte exclaimed. "I live on fifth street."
"Neat-O," Carmen said. The phone's sound quality muffled again as Charlotte heard Carmen shout at someone.
"Dad, I'm leaving now!"
Charlotte could hear a man's voice in the background but the phone was muffled and he must've been too far away for Charlotte to eavesdrop on him, too.
Carmen's voice came back to the phone and Charlotte got excited.
"Alright, see you in thirty minutes,"
"Okay. Bye."
"Bye."
Charlotte hung up the phone and changed into a red and white long sleeve shirt, black jeans, and white converse and headed down the stairs.
"Bye, mom!"
"Bye, sweetie!"
Charlotte grabbed her coat off the hook by the door and headed out. She told her phone to take her to 24 Market Street.
Charlotte got there a little after thirty minutes and had gone into three different stores before remembering the actual name of the store Carmen was at and mentally facepalmed. The reactions she got when she went in looking for Carmen Manchester who was apparently nonexistent in any other store except Junk 'N' Stuff were hysterical.
Charlotte let the sound of jingling bells flow through her ears as she opened the door to Junk 'N' Stuff, the actual store this time. There were no glass bottles around the walls, like at Glass from the Past, or buckets that would be Jasper's heaven at Bucket Hut, and clothes didn't line the wall like at Linen Lining. Now that store was new, but Charlotte knew that the store wouldn't last long. She'd made a mental note to head there later, though, because there were some cute rompers, heels, long sleeved tees and jeans there.
"May I help you?"
Charlotte jumped back a step or two. She didn't notice when she came in that there was a mysterious foreign man at the front desk who Charlotte assumed worked the cash register.
"Uh, hi, uh, yes sir, uh, sorry," she stopped rambling and took a deep breath. "Hi, I'm Charlotte Page. Sorry about the rambling, you kind of caught me off guard. I'm here looking for a Carmen-"
"Do not worry about the rambling. I am Gooch, and I work the cash register here at Junk 'N' Stuff."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Gooch," Charlotte proceeded to stretch out her hand towards the foreign man named Gooch and shook his as he shook hers.
"So, uh, do you happen to know a Carmen-"
"Yes, I know who you're talking about. I'll just call her on my phone and tell her you're here."
"Well, I mean, I can call her, it's not too much trouble-"
Just then, said girl walked out of a doorway Charlotte assumed led to the back.
"Hey!" Charlotte said upon seeing the girl she'd met a couple nights ago. "I'm here after three stores. Where'd you run off to?"
"Oh, I had to, uh. . ." Charlotte pretended not to notice, but she could've sworn she saw a panicked glare cross Carmen's face at Gooch, if only for a split second. ". . . use the bathroom."
"Okayyy. . . that was awkward. Okay, let's go! Day doesn't last forever!"
"Bye, Gooch!" Carmen waved.
"Nice to meet you!" Charlotte said as she went out the door.
There was an awkward silence, because Charlotte knew both girls were thinking about something similar, if not the same thing. She considered bringing up the help me glare she saw Carmen shoot Gooch in the store but decided against it because it was the first time they'd hung out, ever, and Charlotte did not want to ruin the friendship she'd been getting with the girl who she bumped into outside of an old run-down grocery store.
Of course, Charlotte was the one to break the silence.
"So," she clapped her hands together once. "where to first? Nacho Ball, Glass from the Past-" a shudder went down Charlotte's spine. "- Swellview Mall?"
"I think we should go to the new thrift store down the street," Carmen suggested. "Afterwards, we can head over to Swellview Mall and eat at the food court. They've got enough stores to keep us there for hours."