In Charlie's Arms

14 • Good Guy

"Tell me what?" Seraphina asked, not entirely sure if she truly wanted to find out the answer. Her brother never held such a serious expression on his face as he had then.

"Okay," he breathed out, "don't tell anyone I told you this, but he's not technically working at Pendalla Produce."

Sera felt her eyebrows lower in confusion. "What? I thought that Dad hired him." She looked away thinking it over. "Is he an unofficial employee to evade taxes or something?" She hoped that he would say yes, but he shook his head.

"No, and Dad didn't hire him. I did."

"You did?" Sera asked in disbelief. "But I thought only Dad could do that."

"Well, normally yeah, but I took care of all of the paperwork and stuff for it. And I'm the one who found him. He came up out of nowhere downtown at Ramiro's while I was doing a shipment and asked if he could help out. I said yes because it meant I had to carry less crates. Then, he started hauling off crates faster than me and the other worker could've ever done. It was a no-brainer to hire him."

Sera could remember that day. It was the first time she had ever seen Charlie. He had worn a white t-shirt and black joggers at the time, carrying three crates stacked on top of each other like it was the easiest thing in the world.

"When I pitched it to Dad and he met with Charlie and then made him go on a few test-drives with us," Micah continued, "he finally green-lighted everything and told me to get the paperwork in order. So I did. When I gave it all to Charlie, however, he couldn't answer anything on it; social security number, driver's license number, his phone number . . . nothing! I explained it all to him, but he told me he didn't have any information to give."

Sera's heart sunk in her chest. No words surfaced in her head, so she spent the next few moments staring blankly out the window. "So what does that mean?" She dared to ask after a while. "Is he . . . is he hiding something?"

Micah shrugged. "I think he's undocumented," he theorized. "My guess is that he's from Canada, based on the slight accent he has."

Sera mulled over his words, picking apart every memory she had of Charlie's voice. Micah was right, he did have a subtle lilt to some of his words.

"You didn't ask him why he couldn't fill out the paperwork?"

"I did," Micah replied. "All he told me was that he didn't have the information needed, but that he would work hard and be a good employee. So, I trusted my gut, pulled some strings here and there, and hired him."

Sera went bug-eyed. "Micah, he could be a serial killer running from the law or something! Why did you think this was a good idea?!"

"I know, I know," Micah frowned, "but I feel like I can trust him, and he's helped the company out a lot. He practically does the work of three men all by himself."

Sera shook her head. "This is serious, Mike, you can't just go with what you think on these things! I'm pretty sure that it is very illegal to have someone working for a company without being taxed, let alone having that same employee not having any identity whatsoever! Why did you do this?"

Micah scowled at her tone. "Because I could tell he was a good guy—and I was right. He's been nothing but good to this company and you for that matter."

Sera reeled back from his words, realizing that he was right. She was too quick to jump to conclusions, and forgot everything Charlie had done for her thus far.

"Still, this isn't okay, Mike," Sera informed, "if someone finds out—"

"No one is going to find out, okay? I've covered my tracks and I know that neither you nor Charlie are going to say anything."