51. Chapter 51
Chapter 51
Aiden
‘ T ell me something about yourself.’ Charlotte’s voice cut through the stillness of the room as she made her way back to bed. It was the Wednesday following the girls’ night that had left my kitchen in a mess and had had Louise gabbing on about the merits of “flouncy shirts” until she’d left on Sunday afternoon. Despite the fact that my apartment was now sister free, we’d ended up at Charlotte’s after work.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Tell me,’ she said, teasingly and with exaggerated slowness, as she set the clothes we’d discarded in our mad rush to get naked on top of the chest of drawers, ‘something about yourself.’
‘Why?’ I pushed up into a seated position, leaning against the fabric of the headboard—some kind of suede-not-suede material. It was nice. Soft. Like most of Charlotte’s furnishings. So in contrast to the outfits that I’d left scattered across her floor. From what I’d seen, Charlotte’s workwear was predominantly made up of crisp lines and dark colours, items that concealed any hint of softness. Hell, even her hair was forced back into some kind of twisty-thing most mornings.
‘Oh, relax.’ The mattress dipped beside me, and I turned in time to catch Charlotte rolling her eyes towards the ceiling as she folded her legs and turned her body to face me. ‘I’m not brainstorming baby names,’ she joked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
The easy laugh I’d attempted to return caught in my throat and I ducked my chin, dropping my gaze to study my hands where they rested on the duvet covers. They didn’t feel clammy. And I didn’t think my heart was racing… I frowned at my open palms. Aside from the strangled laugh, my body hadn’t reacted at all. A prickle of unease shot down my spine and I snapped my head back up, forcing myself to meet Charlotte’s gaze even as my pulse itched beneath my skin.
‘It just occurred to me,’ Charlotte continued, and I focused on her lips, on the sounds they were making, ‘that for all the time we’ve been spending together, we don’t know each other all that well.’
Heart hammering in my chest, I reached forward to cup the soft swell of her breast, brushing my thumb across the fabric of her oversized tee, pleased to see her nipple stiffen beneath my touch.
‘What else is there to know?’ I asked, twisting my lips into a smug smile in a feeble attempt to mask the panic that had spread through my veins like ice.
‘Oh, very funny,’ Charlotte said, slapping my hand away and folding her arms across her chest.
‘I thought so.’ I shrugged, forcing myself to relax against the headboard.
‘Please,’ Charlotte begged, batting those pretty green eyes at me in a shameless attempt at coercion. ‘I’ll make it worth your while…’ Her voice trailed off suggestively in a low tone that had the blood rushing straight to my cock.
‘Oh?’
Charlotte leaned forward, reaching for the bedside table. The heat of her radiated against my bare skin as she stretched across my torso. I inhaled, breathing in her light floral scent as desire coursed through me. All too soon, she pulled back, reseating herself beside me and brandishing a bar of chocolate.
‘Ta-da,’ she sang and my heart clenched in my chest at the sight of the innocent smile curving the corners of her mouth. She was so fucking adorable.
‘Chocolate?’ I arched a brow.
‘Not just any chocolate,’ she protested, her expression suddenly serious. ‘My favourite chocolate.’
‘High praise indeed,’ I commented, forcing my gaze away from where she clutched the bar to her chest, its bright red wrapper peeking through her fingers, and up to Charlotte, who was nodding her agreement.
‘Fine,’ I sighed exaggeratedly, watching as a pleased grin spread across Charlotte’s face. This constant oscillation between flight and fuck, and the subsequent blood rush to different body parts, was giving me a headache. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Oh!’ Charlotte paused, her finger freezing beneath the wrapper that she had been easing open with care. Charlotte was probably one of those people who never tore wrapping paper and would be the last to have their presents open on Christmas morning. I shook the thought from my head and focused on Charlotte’s thoughtful expression, ignoring the unpleasant pinch in my chest that had settled alongside the realisation that whatever Charlotte did on Christmas mornings was not something that I could ever be privy to.
‘Any allergies?’ she asked at last, her head cocked to one side. My eyes widened in surprise. Charlotte could have asked anything, and she picked allergies? I blew out a breath that was a confusing mix of relief and dismay, schooling my features before answering.
‘Presumably this is an equal exchange?’ I asked. ‘Tit for tat?’
‘Of course,’ she agreed without hesitation, breaking off a piece of chocolate and holding it out towards me.
‘Then no,’ I smirked, accepting the chocolate. ‘No allergies.’
‘Cheat,’ Charlotte huffed, shoving my shoulder playfully with her now empty hand. ‘Well, I don’t have any either.’
‘Good to know,’ I acknowledged, nodding my head in mock-seriousness. ‘But not what I was going to ask.’
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open in either protest or surprise. But before she could say anything, I reached forward and popped the piece of chocolate between her parted lips. My eyes tracked the movement, lingering on her pinking cheeks as I extracted my fingertips from her mouth, halting at the soft skin of her lips.
‘Okay.’ Charlotte raised a hand to cover her mouth as she chewed, avoiding eye contact as her blush deepened. ‘What’s your question?’
Shit. For all my puffed-up pride at gaining the advantage, I hadn’t actually had a question prepared. I deflated as my mind whirled in a flood of possibilities that were either too boring or too personal. I narrowed my gaze on the woman in front of me, studying the openness of her expression as she waited for my question, and I bit down on a groan of frustration. I wanted to know it all, and I hated myself for it. Fumbling internally, my eyes darted around the room, ping-ponging over a number of things that inspired nothing before coming to a stop on the photograph next to her bed.
‘Who’s this?’ There. Innocuous enough.
I reached over to the small table beside the bed and picked up the frame, holding it out to her. The similarities between the woman in the photograph and the woman in front of me were striking. Striking enough that when I’d first seen it a couple of weeks ago, I’d thought it was Charlotte. I smiled down at the picture in my hand, taken just as the woman turned to look at the camera, a small smile twisting her lips as she stood in what looked like a kitchen. There was no doubt in my mind who this woman was, but as I looked up from the glass in anticipation of the easy answer to my question, my smile faltered.
Charlotte’s throat constricted as she swallowed, carefully setting the mostly-wrapped chocolate bar to one side and brushing her fingers over the bedcovers. Her eyes were locked on the framed photograph in my hand, but her eyes were focused somewhere beyond the glass.
‘That’s my mum.’ The softness of her voice triggered a warning in my head, an interior siren sounding even as the pre-prepared follow-up question tumbled from my lips.
‘Is she in London too?’
‘No,’ Charlotte said blinkingly, a sad smile toying on her lips. ‘She died when I was sixteen.’
Fuck.
‘I’m sorry, Charlotte.’ The words hung suspended in the air, buoyed by their insufficiency. My hand reached out, fingers spreading across the covers in search of hers, desperate to make up for where my words had failed. But before my hand could reach her, she raised her own from the covers and reached to take the photograph from me.
Clearing her throat and giving her head a little shake, she straightened beside me.
‘That’s alright,’ she said, her voice thick with a cheery, false bravado, but her casual demeanour was belied by the stiffness of her shoulders. ‘Equal exchange, right?’
She turned her gaze to me, her forced smile twisting into a pained grimace as her gaze found mine. My fingers splayed on the covers between us, my pinkie and ring fingers nudging her outer thigh to bridge the gap between us.
‘You don’t need to talk about it if it upsets you.’
‘It doesn’t always,’ she said after a while, her weary voice tinged with something lighter.
‘What?’
Charlotte lifted her gaze from the frame in her lap, turning those green eyes on me.
‘Talking about her… it doesn’t always make me sad.’ The corner of her mouth fluttered in an almost-smile before she turned her head and her attention back to the photograph.
I swallowed past the tightness constricting my throat, watching with rapt attention as her finger hovered over the image as if she longed to touch it but didn’t want to smudge the glass.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I said after a while, my eyes locked on the woman beside me who only had eyes for her mother.
‘She was,’ Charlotte agreed with a nod. ‘She was like…’ She lifted her chin, staring into the distance as she grappled with her words. ‘She was like sunshine.’
I reached for her then, crossing the inches that separated us to curl my fingers around the back of her hand. Saying nothing, I gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
‘I always thought she was so glamorous; working in London, rocking a pantsuit, two cell phones —before it was a thing.’ I let out a small huff of a laugh even though, with her focus fixed on the wardrobe across from us, I wasn’t sure any of what she was saying was directed at me.
‘I was so proud to show her off to my friends,’ she continued, and my chest ached for the woman beside me and the girl she had been. ‘Even though I had no idea what it was she actually did.’ Charlotte’s head rocked to the side to smirk at me. I smiled back at her, but apart from my thumb, which was moving in small circles across the back of her hand, I remained absolutely still. Our gaze held for a second, maybe two, before she looked away.
‘She was just really cool, you know?’ she continued, taking my silence for the invitation that it was. ‘She introduced me to most of the artists I listened to at the time and she threw the best birthday parties. Honestly, I have no idea how she did it. The commute, the job in the city, raising me… she must have been so exhausted.’
Charlotte’s head tilted back, and I heard the soft thunk as it hit the headboard behind us. I watched as she screwed her eyes shut, unsure of whether she was trying not to cry or fighting to hold on to whatever memory she’d conjured.
‘She was so warm and compassionate…’ she said, her voice thick with some unnamed emotion. ‘But her laugh,’ she chuckled, shaking her head. ‘She laughed like a hyena.’
‘A hyena?’ The words had slipped out without much thought, coloured with enough shock and disbelief that it drew Charlotte’s attention away from the wardrobe.
‘I swear…’ she chuckled softly, her eyes flitting in my direction. ‘She may have looked like she had stepped from the pages of People magazine, but that laugh smashed through the illusion like a wrecking ball.’ The corners of my mouth twitched at that. ‘She’d throw her head back and just feel everything with that laugh.’ Charlotte continued, so lost in the memory that she missed the frown that had smothered my smile.
I’d never heard Charlotte laugh. Not really. Nothing beyond a polite chuckle and certainly nothing as uncontrolled and carefree as what she’d just described. My chest constricted as an urgent sense of desire coursed through me.
‘I used to get so embarrassed by it,’ she whispered. ‘The way it crackled through the room like electricity.’
The sound of her shaky breath caused me to look up from where I’d been frowning. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I bit down on the wholly unwelcomed sense of longing and need that had spread through my veins like tar.
‘I’d give anything to hear it again.’ Her lower lip trembled, and she screwed her eyes shut, a single tear spilling over her lash line and tracking a path down her cheek.
Fuck it.
I shifted, my change in position causing the mattress to dip, angling her body towards me even as I moved to wrap an arm around her waist and lift her into my lap.