The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

93: Pretending Not to Be Magnetic

Charlie woke with the most terrible headache and only fleeting memories of the night before. She remembered staying out until dark in the Eagle's Nest and drinking so much champagne on the sunbeds up there she'd felt like she was filled with the bubbles she'd tried to eat in the bathtub as a baby. She remembered stumbling down the mountain and holding on tightly to Floyd's hand, as though she was afraid he'd try to let go, but he hadn't. There were a lot of blanks after that, but she remembered the cognac in the kitchen. For some reason her knees hurt?

And then she remembered the second almost-kiss.

The second. How had she let herself get to the second?

And then, of course, there was the kiss on the cheek. A real kiss. Maybe she'd been remarkably stupid to do it, but as she threw the comforter over her head and groaned at the pulsing in her head, Charlie couldn't bring herself to regret it.

She didn't get out of bed for hours. She forced herself to try to sleep most of the hangover off. When she did eventually get up it was to throw up everything she'd eaten the day before in the toilet, and she only just made it in time. Afterwards, she fell asleep on the bathroom floor, relishing how cool the tile felt against her flushed skin.

Boo found her and woke her up and, after Charlie threw up again, she helped her back to her bed. There, Charlie fell asleep one more time and woke up on her own to find the sun much past its peak in the sky, heading towards evening. Only now did she feel a little better.

"There she is," Autumn said with a tiny laugh as Charlie dragged herself into the kitchen. "Feeling better?"

"A little," Charlie confessed.

"That's good," Autumn replied chirpily, "because the men found another stash of alcohol in the hotel earlier today, and if I had a dollar for every time one of them asked if you were going to be joining the party..."

One of them? Charlie wanted to ask. One of them as in multiple ones of them at different times, or one of them as in a single one of them? One of them as in Floyd?

But she didn't say that. Because then she'd be asked what had happened last night, and she didn't want to share any of it just yet. She was only just starting to get her hazy memories back herself.

In the end, Charlie did decide to come out to sit with everyone, but she was firm in her assertion that she wouldn't be drinking. Indeed, she'd emerged from the house with a throw blanket she'd found in a closet wrapped around her shoulders and bags under her eyes, a pallor to her skin that communicated to everyone just how rigidly she was sticking to her water for the night.

Some of the men tried to get her to drink anyway, but after she resolutely declined a few times they left her alone. So she sat in a chair outside an abandoned restaurant in peace, her blanket around her shoulders and pooling in her lap and her hair down and loose, not because that was how Floyd liked it but because she hadn't had the energy to do anything to it. Or, at least, that was what she told herself.

Floyd was sitting at a table separated from Charlie's by three other tables, but he had a pretty good view of her anyway. And for his part he drank only a little, just a single local beer someone had handed him to keep the men off his back about not drinking.

He could still feel the gentle pressure of her lips on his cheek, her warm breath against his skin in the moment before she'd done it. Did she even remember it? He was surprised he did, really. Both of them had been so drunk. Had that been the only reason they'd gotten so close to kissing?

Charlie put her feet up on the edge of her chair and rested her chin on top of her knees. She could feel Floyd's eyes on her but was too scared to look, frightened of what expression she might find on his face. If only she'd stayed to see his reaction to her kiss last night. If only she hadn't run away before he could speak.