Chapter 15
15
CHARLIE
“What do you want to do about the Wyatt portfolio?”
I rub my hand against the back of my neck and squint at the spreadsheets that cover the entirety of the kitchen table in the guest cottage. I’ve been up since three in the morning catching up on New York emails and talking to Selene since six, trying to manage the shitshow that is my client base.
I’m going to have to talk to my dad sooner rather than later. If he thinks causing a bunch of middle-aged men to panic into changing their entire savings plans is character building, I have news for him.
It’s irritating. And unprofessional. And stupid.
“Can we encourage him to invest in a rocket ship that will launch his adulterous ass into outer space?”
“Ooh.” Selene leans back in my desk chair in my office on the other side of the computer and takes a long sip out of my coffee mug. “You’re feeling spicy today.”
She looks immaculate on her side of the screen. Neat, dark gray suit and a creamy white blouse beneath. Her dark hair is pulled into a tight ponytail, and she’s wearing her usual thick, black winged eyeliner. She calls it her battle armor.
Meanwhile, I look like I’ve been to hell and back. I wince at my reflection in the top right corner. My shirt is on inside out and I didn’t bother combing my hair before answering this video call. I think I have dried granola on my collar.
“Is it the beard?” she asks. “Has it given you a personality transplant?”
“I don’t have a beard,” I mutter. I drag my palm over the scruff that covers my jaw. “I have a light dusting of facial hair. A starter beard.”
“The word beard was in that explanation. And don’t say, ‘dusting,’ it’s weird.” Selene gives me a look and crosses her legs, sipping at her mug. “Are you breathing in too many pesticides down there?”
“No. I’m just in a bad mood.” I slept like shit last night. My brain wouldn’t stop turning over Nova’s words. That sarcastic little laugh. Is that what we are?
Who knows what we are. Not friends, apparently. I don’t get to care about her; I just get to fuck her. I guess when she said she wanted me out of her system, she meant out of her life too.
“All right.” I blow out a deep breath and stretch my neck. No use making my bad mood worse by reflecting on it. “What else do you have for me?”
Selene stacks some folders, color coded with various Post-it notes, and drops them neatly in the complex organizational structure I keep behind my desk. I really should give the woman a raise. She keeps the show running.
“I have some advice.”
I drop my head to my keyboard and bang it there twice. “No, thank you.”
“You need to cut your father off.”
I groan louder. “I know that.”
It’s silent on the other end of the computer. I lean up and rest my chin on the trackpad. The only part of me visible on the computer screen is the top of my hair and thank god for it. Selene doesn’t need to see a car crash in real time.
Selene blinks at me. “I expected more of a fight, to be honest.”
“I know he’s causing problems, but I—” I have trouble with confrontation. I’m confident until I’m not, and I’d much rather do a bunch of extra work than talk to my father directly about what a pain in the ass he’s being. I’m a people pleaser, through and through, and it doesn’t matter that the person I’m trying to please is an asshole. All my brain recognizes is the itchy, uncomfortable feeling of disappointment. “That’s exactly what he wants,” I finally say.
“He wants you to cut him off?”
“No. He wants me to call him and give him the attention he’s craving. He pokes and prods me until he gets it. He’s a narcissist.” Among other things. If I don’t cave to his whims, he’ll keep escalating until I do.
“So, what are you going to do?”
I press my fingertips to the base of my skull, trying to ease the tension headache I can feel brewing. My arms and back are tired from the fieldwork yesterday, and I’m just…I’m tired.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Selene raises both of her eyebrows. “When will you take care of it?”
God. She’s been working with me for too long. She knows all of my avoidance mechanisms. “This week. I’ll take care of it this week.”
“Would you like me to pencil it in your calendar?”
A half-hearted smile curls the edge of my mouth. “What will it say?”
“It will be a blanket ‘Do Not Disturb’ titled ‘Standing Up for Ourselves.’ I’ll schedule the call, an hour before to panic, and an hour after to decompress.”
I snort. “That would be great. Thank you.” I think for a second and drag my hands through my hair again. “Could you color code it blue?”
?I spend the rest of my morning buried in email hell, the notification on my calendar to call my father an ominous countdown in my periphery. I don’t know if I can have it hanging over my head for the rest of the week, that blue block of pressure.
“Fuck.” I sigh and pick up my phone, dialing the number I refuse to keep saved but know by heart anyway.
He lets it go to voice mail, because of course he does. I finally give in to him, and he keeps tugging me along.
“You’ve reached Brian Milford, independent financial consultant.” I groan out loud. He shouldn’t consult anyone about anything. “Please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you.”
The phone beeps. Words come tumbling out.
“This is Charlie Milford, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop with the independent financial consulting. If you need attention, here it is. Call me back.”
I place my phone on the table gently, even though I’d like nothing more than to hurl it out the window. I don’t like getting angry. I don’t like losing control of myself. I hate the rolling, roiling tension in my head and in my chest. My thoughts pick up speed until I can’t pluck out a single one, just a constant stream of stressors and reminders and pieces of conversation. It’s like shoving my head underwater at a concert, everything muffled with endless, indistinguishable sound.
You’re missing things , my mind whispers. Focus . You’re falling behind. People are depending on you and you’re falling apart. Again.
I breathe in deep through my nose.
Out again.
I sit like that, breathing, for a while. My hands slowly relax from clenched fists and my thoughts slow to a trickle. I watch a brilliant red cardinal just outside the window, sitting on the edge of a bird feeder. He pecks at something on the ledge, spreads his wings, then flies off.
It would help if I opened the window. Fresh air always wipes away some of the fog in my mind. But I can’t seem to make myself move from this chair.
Lucy asked me what I deserve and maybe this is it. Maybe this is exactly what I’m meant for. This chair in this kitchen in this house that I do not own. In a place I do not belong. With friends who are my sister’s friends but who I’ve claimed as my own. So far away from New York and all the things that should be my responsibilities. The life I’ve built there, trying to edge my way out of my father’s shadow.
While all I’m doing here is shrugging on a jacket that doesn’t quite fit.
Nova’s voice: Is that what we are?
I’ve got no fucking clue.
?Someone knocks on the door of the cottage around dusk. The only source of light in the kitchen is sunlight slipping through the windows, painting everything a burnt, dusty orange. The table is more organized, but my brain is not. I spent the entire day hyperfocused on crossing things off my to-do list, and I didn’t stop for lunch. Time became a fleeting concept, a vague awareness.
I feel it when I stand and shuffle my way to the door, my body creaking and knees popping. I don’t know who I’m expecting, but it certainly isn’t Nova on the second step up to the porch, a box from Matty’s in her hands and a cute black beanie on her head. Her blond hair is in loose waves around her shoulders, cheeks flushed in the melting daylight. She frowns when she sees me.
“You shaved your beard,” she says.
I rub my knuckles against my smooth cheek. Sometimes it helps me restart when I rely on my routines. After my call with Selene, I did everything I usually do during a morning in the city, short a subway ride and an overpriced cup of coffee.
I skipped the suit too. I pulled on a Lovelight Farms hoodie and a pair of black sweatpants I think I’ve maybe worn twice. I don’t have much need for athleisure in the city.
“I shaved, yeah.” I nod at the pizza in her hands. “Are you delivering for Matty’s now?”
She glances down at the box like she forgot she was holding it. Her fingers tighten at the edges.
“New side hustle,” she says quietly with a quirk of her lips.
I resist the urge to fill the silence between us and lean my shoulder against the doorframe. She came here with something to say. I’m not going to rush her on it.
I’m also not going to make it easier for her.
She kicks at a crooked floorboard and blows out a deep breath. “I was a jerk last night.”
I shrug. She was honest. She held her boundaries. That doesn’t make her a jerk. “No, you weren’t. I pushed you and I shouldn’t have. You don’t have to talk to me about anything. I know the parameters of our relationship.”
I know my appeal. I’m the fun time. The break between more serious pursuits. The joke and the easy laugh. Nova made it perfectly clear what she wanted from me. I got carried away thinking I had a right to anything else. That she’d want me for anything else.
She blinks at me and climbs another step. I get a whiff of mozzarella and basil. My stomach rumbles in appreciation.
“I was a jerk,” she repeats. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“Which part?”
“The part where I told you we weren’t friends.” Her head tips to the side, watching me. I do my best not to flinch. “I was frustrated with myself, and I took it out on you. I thought I’d make it up to you with pizza.” She lifts the box in her hands in silent explanation. “Can I come in?”
I fix a smile on my face and reach for something that feels familiar. “You never have to ask me to come,” I quip.
She frowns, her face softening. “Don’t do that,” she says quietly.
“Do what?”
“That,” she says again. “The performance.”
I dip my chin to my chest, a falling sensation in the pit of my stomach. Like I’ve just stepped off a ledge and I can’t tell where the bottom is. I sigh. “I don’t want pity pizza, Nova.”
“It’s not pity pizza,” she responds. “It’s pepperoni pizza.”
It’s a fight to keep the smile off my face. I wish she wasn’t so fucking funny. It would make a lot of this easier for me. “Cute.”
She sighs and closes the remaining distance between us. She thrusts the pizza box into my chest. I stare down at her and raise both eyebrows.
“It’s a thick crust, extra cheese pizza with double pepperoni. I got it because I know it’s your favorite. And I know it’s your favorite because we are friends. Now, I’d like to come inside and eat this pizza before it gets cold. With you.”
“As friends,” I clarify.
That half smile curls her mouth again. “Yes. You can tell me about your day and I’ll tell you about mine. We’ll do some planning for the harvest festival and I’ll steal something to drink from your fridge. Then I’ll drive home and see you later this week.”
“Later this week?”
“Yeah. Later this week.”
I consider it. Part of me is still tender about last night, but there’s a bigger piece of me that’s tired of sitting in this little house all alone.
“I’m picking what we watch on TV,” I finally say.
Her smile slips wider before she tucks it back into place, lips pressed down against it. She rocks back on her heels on the rickety front porch, boards squeaking beneath her boots. “That’s fine.”
“And I’m going to eat your crust.”
“That’s fine too.”
“I’m going to take up most of the couch,” I warn.
I take up too much space , I want to tell her. I’m loud and sometimes I don’t know how to stop talking. I’m a lot and I know that. I can’t figure out how to make myself fit, but I’m trying. I promise I’m trying.
She shrugs. “I don’t need much room to be comfortable.”
I push off the door and open it wider behind me. Nova’s smile cracks open. Something in my chest stumbles over it, and I have to remind myself, again, that Nova Porter is not for me. I’ve already gotten everything from her that I’m going to get, and I can settle for this, or I can have nothing at all. Those are my options.
“Come on in then.”
She slips past me into the house, her arm brushing against mine.
“I hope you have hot sauce.”
I watch her wander into the kitchen, holding the pizza box in one hand while she wrestles her way out of her coat. It’s a tight feeling in my chest, seeing her in this space. Moving around it like she doesn’t want to be anywhere else. I blow out a deep breath.
“Of course I do.” I shut the door to the cottage. “I’m not a heathen.”
?We spread out on the couch with the pizza.
Nova burrows in the corner with her legs tucked under her while I spread out on the other side, my crossed ankles resting on the coffee table, my arm spread across the back. She drops a slice of pepperoni on a chipped plate with tiny Christmas trees along the edge and takes the box for herself, opening it on her lap.
“Did you not want a plate?”
“I have a plate.” She holds the box up off her tucked knees and wiggles it around. I urge it back to her lap, not willing to spend half of my evening scrubbing grease stains out of Stella’s couch.
“An actual plate.”
“What do you have against cardboard, Charlie?”
“Nothing. I just like coordinating dinnerware.”
She snickers as I scroll through the channels, looking for something for us to watch. I pause on the Home Shopping Network and she boos. I pause again on a show about dog grooming just to hear her laugh.
Her face lights up when I pause on the classic movie channel, Katharine Hepburn filling the screen. I toss the remote on the coffee table and reach for the pizza plate I set to the side. She peers at me from behind the lid of her makeshift plate with a surprised look on her face.
“What?” I ask.
“What, what?”
“That look on your face.”
She shrugs, one shoulder inching up to her ear. She drizzles some hot sauce on top of her slice and takes a massive bite. Tomato clings to the corner of her mouth. “You don’t strike me as a classic movie guy,” she manages around a mouthful. She swallows and swipes her thumb along her bottom lip, missing the spot of sauce completely. I am acutely focused on it.
“I think you’ll find that I’m a man of taste,” I manage.
She chuckles. “That you are.”
Dinner is quiet as we avoid any conversational landmines. We watch TV and talk about inconsequential things. Gus and Montgomery and their desire for a pumpkin art display. Ms. Beatrice and her brown sugar lattes. Sheriff Dane and his husband, Matty, and whether or not Beckett will force them to adopt a dog sooner rather than later.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t yet.”
Nova nods. “I think Evie getting him that cow has settled him down. For now.”
It’s calming in a way that’s usually difficult for me to find, sitting here on the too-small couch with Nova’s knee nudging mine, the edge of the pizza box digging into my thigh—hot sauce passed back and forth and a beer split between two mismatched mugs on the table in front of us.
“So.” I settle my mug on the arm of the couch, watching Katharine Hepburn spin around the room with a glass of champagne. “When can you pencil me into your schedule? For my tattoo.”
“Still on that kick, huh?”
“It’s not a kick. I really do want a tattoo.” I roll my head against the back of the couch and poke at her knee. She nudges me back with her sock-covered foot and leaves it there, tucking it beneath my thigh when I don’t protest.
She narrows her eyes. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do you want it?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“Typically, in my professional experience, if someone doesn’t know what sort of tattoo they want or where they want to get it, they’re not ready for a tattoo.”
I take a sip of my lukewarm beer from a mug shaped like a nutcracker and keep my eyes on hers. Her skin glows blue and gray in the light of the TV, her hair a silver wave over her shoulder. Her hat is on the table in the kitchen. Her shoes are stacked right next to mine.
“What would you pick for me?” I ask.
“A scorpion,” she says, right away. “On your ass.”
My smile feels stupid on my face. Too big. Too much.
“If you want to see my ass again, Nova girl”—I take another pull from the mug—“all you need to do is ask.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she laughs. The look in her blue-green eyes is a flash of heat. Smoke over rolling water.
My brain trips right back to our night together with enthusiasm, remembering the way she spread out beneath me, one of her knees at my hip and her hands above her head. She had looked at me like that then too. The same sort of calculated interest. Like she’s thinking about what she wants to do first.
One night , I tell myself. Out of our systems. Don’t impose. Don’t be too much. Take what you’re given and don’t ask for more. Don’t push.
I clear my throat and look away. I take another sip from my mug just for something to do with my hands. “How did you decide what to give Beckett? He didn’t know what he wanted, right?”
She shakes her head. A tiny frown line appears at the bridge of her nose. I want to press my thumb to it until it disappears. Chase away the thoughts that put it there. I’ve always been quick to empty everything in my head, but I think Nova holds on to too much. She keeps her thoughts and her insecurities and worries close, letting them buzz around her brain.
“No,” she says thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. He just told me to do whatever I wanted.”
I remember what she said last night about the weight of someone else’s expectations, how she feels the crush of it. “And you wanted to give him flowers and stars?”
On Beckett’s left arm, he has a full sleeve of constellations and planets, swirling purples and blues from his shoulder to his wrist. And on his right arm, he has the forest. Flowers and vines and towering trees. All the things I now know are Nova’s specialties, color and delicate lines and seamless, beautiful shading. Her work really is incredible.
“I wanted him to have the things he loves most with him wherever he goes.” She blinks quickly and glances down at the pizza box in her lap. She picks idly at the edge of it. “Beckett gave up a lot to make sure the rest of us got what we wanted. He’s always put himself last. It seemed like the least I could do.”
I watch her face carefully, shadowed in the flickering from the television.
“Why don’t you want him to see your studio yet?”
She traces the Y in MATTY. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nova huffs and gives me a look. I raise both eyebrows back.
“I just…I want it to be perfect.” Quieter, she says, “I want him to be proud of me.”
“You don’t think he will be?”
“It’s not that I don’t think he’ll be proud.” She curls her fingers in the sleeve of her shirt and rubs it against her cheek. “I know he will be. I know he is. But I’ve never done anything to deserve that from him, have I? He’s always just…given it. He let me do all of that work on his arms when I really shouldn’t have been tattooing anyone. He dropped out of school and gave up on his dreams so I could have mine. I want him to walk in and feel like all of that was worth it. And I don’t feel ready yet. There’s some stuff I still want to do before he sees it.” She peeks up at me and tucks her knees tight to her chest. “Is that dumb?”
“It’s not dumb.” I rest my hand against her ankle and trace the jut of the delicate bone there with my thumb. “But, Nova, you don’t need to be perfect.”
“Yes,” she whispers, voice cracking. “Yes, I do.”
I roll my lips against the desire to tell her that she’s wrong. That doing her very best is good enough. That she deserves all the things she has. “Do you come to the farm because you have to?”
She cocks her head. “What?”
“Why do you visit Layla’s?”
“Because that chocolate hazelnut cupcake changed my life.”
I squeeze her ankle. “And why do you get your Christmas tree here? Every year.”
“Because they’re pretty trees,” she answers, still bewildered. “And Beckett would murder me if I bought a fake one.”
“Do you feel like you have to support this place just because your brother owns a piece of it?”
Realization softens her face. “No. I just like to.”
I let myself trace her soft skin one last time before I let go, letting my hands rest in my lap. I widen my eyes in exaggeration. “Isn’t that interesting?”
“Subtle, Charlie.” She nudges me with her foot again and then withdraws, curling both beneath her. “I’m going to talk to him.”
I nod. I’m certainly not an expert on positive family interactions, but I like the idea of Nova and Beckett getting along. “I think he’d like that.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
She leans forward and plucks her mug from the coffee table, keeping her eyes on me as she takes a careful sip. “You’re here an awful lot, Charlie, for a man who lives and works in another state.”
I’m grateful for the low light and the flickering light of the television. “Too much?” I ask carefully.
She’s quiet until I turn back to her. “No. Not too much. Not if being here makes you happy.”
Being here makes me feel like…like the edges of myself that are too sharp everywhere else can be sanded down into something tolerable. Like I don’t have to put on a show. All the things that hold me in place in New York don’t feel as tight around my neck when I’m here. It’s easier to breathe in air that smells like pine with a cup of coffee from Ms. Beatrice’s and a croissant from Layla’s.
“Yeah, being here makes me happy” is what I manage.
She nods to herself and turns back to the TV. She watches it and I watch her. Her ink looks darker against her skin in the muted light, like broad strokes of a paintbrush. A thumb smudged through wet paint. She smiles gently at something on the screen, and the questions sitting idle in the back of my mind bubble up. She’s given me one of her secrets and I want the rest of them now. I want to know everything.
“What’s it like?” I ask.
She turns back to look at me. “What?”
“Your work. Why did you want to be a tattoo artist? Why not something else?”
“Because…” Her eyes flick up and then back down again. “Probably because I like the permanency of it. The idea that someone, somewhere, is walking around with something I made painted on their skin.” She smiles, bashful. “Our bodies are miracles, aren’t they? It feels like the best sort of gift to be trusted like that. An honor, really.”
“But you won’t give me a scorpion on my ass?”
Her face brightens again, a laugh in her eyes. “No, Charlie. I won’t give you a scorpion on your ass. Or a Looney Tune in the middle of your chest.” She leans back against the arm of the couch and looks at me. Eyes lowered, comfortable in the silence that stretches between us. It’s an honor to have this—this yawning quiet. This warm, settled feeling.
I’m aware of my heartbeat, steady in my chest. A bum bum bum that I feel in the palms of my hands.
“Think about it.” I take another sip of my beer.
“About your ass?”
“Always about my ass. But also about what tattoo I should get.”
She considers me, seriously this time. “I’ll think about it,” she says.
“Good.”
That half smile again. She looks over my head to the window above my shoulder, then leans back over the arm of the couch to check the time on the microwave. Her shirt lifts, and I get a glimpse of the soft skin of her belly. The gentle curve of her hip. I know that skin. I’ve felt it under my hands, my mouth. I’ve had it pressed tight to mine, her gasping breaths in my ear. Laughter in the dark.
She had been so soft. Every inch of her.
I swallow hard and look away.
“I should get going,” she says.
I nod and stand, stretching out my neck. “I’ll walk you out.”
She snorts and grabs the pizza box, collecting the remnants of our dinner and clearing it from the coffee table. “You could probably spread your arms and touch either end of this house with your fingertips. You don’t need to walk me out.”
“I’d like to,” I insist.
She is right though. The house is tiny. More of a studio loft than anything else. Stella said she built it just in case anyone wanted to rent the place for a weekend on the farm, but as far as I know, I’m the only one who has ever stayed here. The first floor is open with a medium-sized evergreen couch dividing the living room from the kitchen, a small wooden table that’s currently stacked with my work stuff. The stairs lead to a small open loft, a king-sized bed and a dresser at the top.
It’s the back of the house that turns it into something special. It’s all windows, just like Layla’s. In the morning it’s nothing but golden rolling hills and neat lines of Christmas trees. The smoke from Layla’s off in the distance and the rumble of Beckett on his tractor. The house seems bigger then. Like it stretches all the way out to the fields and everything beyond.
Now it’s just inky blue night, the stars a blanket above. A reflection of me and Nova in the dark windows.
I could bend down and pick her up. Make it easier for us to close the distance between our mouths and chase that hungry feeling burning in my chest until it’s satisfied. I could lose myself in her, in the way she makes me feel, in the heat that I know is between us.
She still has some pizza sauce clinging stubbornly to the corner of her mouth. I reach for her without thinking, hypnotized by the look of her in the moonlight. My palm cups her jaw and her lips part as my thumb touches her mouth. She sucks in a shaky breath. Desire pounds out a drumbeat at the base of my spine. That warm, soft, glowy feeling in my chest tumbles easily into an inferno.
“Pizza sauce,” I explain, rubbing once. My voice is a low rasp, grit at the edges. My fingertips slip into the hair just behind her ear, and I let my thumb trace the curve of her bottom lip, helpless not to. Her breath shakes beneath my touch, but I don’t look at her eyes. I can’t. I can only look at the petal pink softness of her mouth and my thumb at the corner of it.
What would she do if I slipped my thumb into her mouth? Would she make that whimpering, wanting sound—same as she did the other night? Would she let me drag it from her lips and trail it straight down over the column of her throat to that pretty red rose between her tits? Would she sigh my name? Would she like it?
Nova’s face tips up, open and willing and— fuck —trusting. She looks like she wants me to kiss her. I want to kiss her. But I’m always seeing the things I want to see, and I can’t trust that I’m what she wants right now.
I get it. I get what she said about trust feeling like a gift. Because right now with her looking at me like this, I want to earn that trust. I want to be worthy of it.
And I’m not going to push her. Not when she’s been so clear about what she wants.
It feels like trudging through mud, but I step away from her. I grab the pizza box out of her hands and hightail it to the kitchen, putting more space between us. She doesn’t say anything, and when I turn around again, she’s tugging her beanie on her head. She gives me a smile and…I must have imagined it. Whatever it is that just happened. Because everything is exactly as it’s always been between us.
No tension. No secret looks of longing.
Just me and Nova sharing some space.
“Thanks for the pizza,” I tell her.
She nods and shrugs on her jacket. “Thanks for the movie.”
I walk her to the front door and prop it open with my palm. She hops down the stairs to her car parked behind mine, a Chevy that is more or less seventeen times her size.
“I’ll see you this week?” she calls.
I lean against the door. I feel like I need the support. “For what?”
She kicks her boot up on the footboard of the truck and swings herself in the driver’s seat. She rolls down her window with three cranks of her arm. It makes me smile that she drives this old thing. I bet it was a hand-me-down from her dad or brother.
“We’ll do those business visits,” she says, bossy as ever. “Pick me up at the shop when you want to go.”
“As you please,” I yell back.
She smiles at me through the windshield. “Always.”
I wave as she drives off. She rumbles down the path in her gargantuan truck, kicking up dirt as she goes, her red taillights disappearing around the bend. I stand there until it’s just me and the moonlight, the slowly settling dust and the odd lightning bug, flickering in the darkness.
And for the first time in a very long time, I don’t mind the quiet.