17. Gwen
“Open mine next!” Kenzie sings, snatching her gift off the coffee table and tossing it into Ana’s lap.
She giggles and carefully peels open the wrapping, preserving the paper as best as she can. Inside a glittery gold box are little tester sizes of a million different skincare products, from cleansers to moisturizers to sunscreens.
“Look, I love that you do the cool special effects makeup, and you’re incredible at it. But if you’re gonna put that shit on your face, you have to take care of your skin afterwards.” Kenzie leans over and picks a few things out, handing them to Ana. “We’ll try different things out and see what works for your skin, and then whatever you like the best, we’ll go get full sizes together, okay?”
Ana sets the box back on the coffee table and throws her arms around Kenzie.
“Thanks, Kenz, you’re the best,” she says, and Kenzie squeezes her tight.
“Anything for my favorite kid.”
I lean against the dining table, letting the comfort and joy of this day settle into me. Gray’s sitting next to Ana, peeking over her shoulder while Kenzie explains the utility of oil-based cleansers. Linda and Paul are across from them, entertaining Maddie and watching the kids laugh with soft affection. Ana’s happy. Really, truly happy.
“You feeling okay?”
Charlie bumps his shoulder into mine as he settles next to me, arms crossed. He nods at the hand I have cradled against my chest and I flex my fingers automatically, feeling the pull of the bandage on my skin. The cut isn’t deep, but it hurts like a bitch.
“Yeah, it’s nothing,” I say, trying to brush it off.
Embarrassing enough that I slipped when Charlie pressed his fingers against my wrist to adjust my grip the other day. I will not let him know both the injury and my ego still sting.
Charlie just raises his eyebrows, like he knows I’m lying but is letting it slide, and I try not to blush. It’s been a month of training, not just with him, but with other members of The Syndicate as well. Sometimes Lily, Ana’s shadow, will have Zane cover her so she can teach me hand-to-hand combat. Zane walks me through restraints, both how to make them and how to get out of them. He even lets me drive every once in a while, showing me how to handle a car when it’s running over one hundred miles per hour. Once, Charlie joined us at a tiny airstrip in the middle of a cornfield where Diego, The Syndicate’s resident fleet expert, offered to teach me to fly a prop plane.
Some time over the past four weeks, I’ve learned to manage whatever the fuck happens to me around Charlie. It helps that I have a release valve now. I can blame the intimacy of learning how to kill and maim for the way my body thrums around him. And then, when we leave that little room, I can compartmentalize.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. I don’t have many other options.
There’s a small part of me that I know is not convinced. It’s fed exclusively by the memory of Charlie’s voice coming from that shower. When I’m laying in bed at night, listening to his steady breaths next to me, it seeps into my mind like poison into water, permeating every inch of the insulation I’ve built.
We watch as Ana opens the envelope from Linda and Paul—tickets to Awesome-Con, their standard gift for the past few years. Ana thanks them, and she and Gray talk about their cosplay plans in a level of detail I will never fully comprehend.
“You think she’s going to be up for tonight?” Charlie asks, watching Ana hide a yawn behind her hands.
She’s been back at school for almost a month, and while her energy levels seem to get better every day, she still passes out right after dinner almost every night. But she slept in today, knowing we have evening plans for her birthday, even if they’re a surprise to everyone but Charlie.
“You’ve amped her up too much. She’d tape her eyes open before she missed this,” I reply.
“Hello? Can I open yours?” Ana asks for what sounds like not the first time, staring at Charlie and me with her eyebrows raised in annoyance.
I shake myself again and join her on the couch, squishing between her and Kenzie.
Ana carefully unwraps the paper and lifts the lid of the box I hand her. Her hand stills over the top.
“You don’t even know if I’m going to get in.” Her voice is tight, breaking a little on the end, as she picks up the sleeve of the vintage Carnegie Mellon sweatshirt. The edge is embroidered with the year she’ll graduate.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, kid,” I say, pulling her under my arm and tucking her head under my chin. She squeezes around my ribs, and I hope she can feel how much I believe in her.
An hour later,Kenzie takes off for her shift, and the McCallum family piles in their car to follow us to whatever surprise Charlie has planned.
“You’re still not going to give me any clues?” Ana asks Charlie as Zane pulls the SUV around.
Charlie opens her door for her and narrows his eyes.
“You’re not getting anything out of me at the last minute,” he taunts, closing her door and walking around to the car to open mine. “She’s not big on surprises, is she?”
“She’s a control freak,” I say, and Ana sticks her tongue out at me.
“Wonder where she gets it from,” Charlie laughs.
Once Charlie’s in the passenger’s seat, Zane takes off, ensuring the McCallum’s car is following close behind. Ana only lasts for a few minutes before she’s trying a new angle.
“Hey, Zane,” she says, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Do you happen to know what the surprise is?”
“Ana,” I scold, slapping her arm lightly as Charlie laughs again from the front seat. “Don’t try to get insider info a half an hour before we’re there.”
But she doesn’t even look at me. She’s staring down Zane, a challenge in her eyes, and I wonder how he’ll hold up to her.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” he says, nodding his head toward his boss beside him. “But I promise it’s really fucking cool.”
She laughs, and I lift my arms up in defeat.
“Can we watch the language around the minor?” I implore, shoving her arm again. All she does is laugh and look down at her phone, obviously texting Gray.
“Sorry about that, Miss Byrne,” Zane says, but I catch his smile in the mirror.
A half hour later, we’re pulling into a small artsy community in Reston. There are gallery spaces with warm lighting and wine bars with their outdoor seating covered in tarp to keep the ice away. Zane pulls us through a few blocks before idling in front of what looks like a large fabric studio.
We all get out of the car, Gray scrambling to catch up with Ana as his parents wrestle Maddie out of her car seat. Charlie hits the intercom, letting whoever’s inside know we’ve arrived. I can’t help but be impressed by the wall of fabric rolls lining one of the walls inside. It looks like art, the way they’re stacked, creating a chromatic grid across the whole space. The big, open windows let us see a few long, high tables with drawers underneath, and I wonder if we’re at some sort of upholstery shop.
I hear a whispered holy shit from Gray as a stunning woman in her thirties and a shorter, curly haired man around the same age appear from a back office. Paul turns around to give Gray a look, but he doesn’t even notice because both he and Ana are staring open-mouthed at the studio.
“I’m assuming you know these people?” I stage whisper to Ana, and she turns to me incredulously.
“You’ve watched her YouTube videos with me. She’s only like, the most famous cosplay designer of the last decade.” Ana turns back to the studio as her apparent idol unlocks the door. “I think I might be dreaming.”
Ana and Gray are nearly vibrating out of their skin as the designer shakes hands with Charlie and introduces herself—Jessica—and her co-designer, John-Michael. They usher our group inside, and the kids are shown to a table where they perch themselves on stools, watching in awe as their cosplay heroes start to unravel fabric and teach them things that go way over my head.
The adults, plus Maddie, stay back a bit, while Zane stations himself at the door like a sentry. When she gets squirmy, I swing Maddie onto my hip and walk her around the studio, and we point out all the colors that she loves.
I watch Charlie and Linda and Paul continue to chat quietly while John-Michael instructs the kids on some sort of intricate stitch that has them both smiling from ear to ear. I can’t keep my eyes off Ana, though. It’s such a hard emotion to place, this mix between joy that she’s so clearly enjoying herself, and grief that I’m not the one who gave this to her. It feels selfish to even care about that when she’s so happy, but I don’t know how to turn it off.
The front door chimes, and I watch Charlie exit the building, his phone pressed to his ear. His brow is furrowed and his shoulders are tense as he leans against the side of the building, staring at the cracks in the sidewalk.
I bring a half-asleep Maddie back to her parents, watching Ana out of the corner of my eye as I wander toward the exit. Zane positioned himself between me and the door, and I don’t know what he would do if I tried to leave. But I don’t need to. The glass isn’t thick enough to keep out Charlie’s voice completely.
“I’m not sleeping with her, and I have no plans to do so. Gwen’s proven that she can handle our work, and we negotiated an agreeable arrangement, like generations of Costas before us.” The words are a little garbled, but they hit me squarely in the chest as I stare at Ana and Gray, pretending I’m not listening. “I’m doing my duty.”
He’s quiet for a bit, nearly motionless as he listens to the person on the other end of the phone.
“Are you asking as my sister or my boss?”
Clara then. I grip the edge of the table, wishing I hadn’t walked over here, and knowing I needed to hear this.
“It won’t be a problem. Gwen and I are a means to an end for each other,” he says with finality. I don’t turn to see if he’s hung up, just plaster a smile on my face like I’ve been watching Ana and Gray the entire time.
The door chimes again, and I feel Charlie’s warm presence slide next to me.
“Sorry, that was Clara,” he mutters, keeping his voice low to not disturb the lesson.
I nod, angry at myself that I feel so betrayed. He didn’t say anything I didn’t already know, but it’s still painful. Evidence that I’m not nearly as good at compartmentalizing as I think I am.
“We’ve got an event tomorrow night,” he says, his body still tense. “A charity dinner. I’m sorry for the last minute notice.”
I clear my throat, trying to swallow past the lingering disappointment, the words means to an end on repeat in the back of my mind.
“That’s fine. I’ll be with Ana and her class at the nature conservatory all day, but she’s spending the night at a friend’s after to finish their project. Her mom will take them to school in the morning.”
Lucky timing, I guess. I would hate to leave Ana sitting alone in that house so soon after her birthday.
“Thank you,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.
I refuse to look at him, watching Ana’s face light up as she pulls a swath of fabric off the table.
“Thank you, for doing this for her,” I whisper to Charlie next to me. I feel his fingers tap the back of my hand, almost like he wants to lace his fingers through mine. But he doesn’t. And I’m grateful. Because I can’t take being any closer to him.
“You did this,” he whispers back. “I told you, you’re the kind of person who would do anything for the people you love. You found a way to protect her and give her the world.”
I swallow hard and watch Ana, her brows furrowed in concentration as she studies a seam Jessica is showing her. And, even though it does nothing for my self-preservation, and only half of me actually wants to do it, I reach out and take his hand in mine.
He doesn’t let go.