Who: @thexcarrollxtimes ft;Charles Where: Gasket Auto
Be calm, Grace. Be professional. You are here to have your car fixed, you probably won't even have to see him. Hopeful that it would be one of the younger men there behind the desk when she came with the keys to her Jeep, which had been screaming at her for an oil change for far longer than she should have let it.
Charles Payne was as much on her list as Sada Vang, even if they'd shared a brief, burning moment oh so long ago, she'd returned to Carroll as a lawyer only to watch him spiral into the exact man that the entire town had expect him to. Pulled down and held to those gutter standards by the gutter that was Sada Vang.
In the end, all these years later, she'd pitied him. Pitied him but also knew that some day he'd end up before her on something far harder than drunk and disorderly. And it would all be that horrible woman's fault. Maybe Grace had her own not entirely healed wounds from the horrors of high school she'd suffered at the hand of his 'wife'.
Stealing herself to not let an ounce of her thoughts on him show on her face when he appeared around the corner, she instead put on as friendly a smile as she could manage.
"Charles." His full name. Always had been, always would be. "It's that time of year again. Pretty sure if I ignore the change oil light any longer that old Jeep is gunna try and eject me."