Chapter 29
29
NOVA
“Um.” His fingers flex at my waist before he pulls his hands back, touch lingering like he doesn’t want to let me go. His eyes keep flickering between my face and the dress I’m wearing, confusion twisting the curve of his mouth. “I’ve been here?”
“You were supposed to be at the library.”
It’s where I just was, elbowing my way through designer dresses and a string quartet doing their best Bridgerton tribute. When Selene told me where he was, I thought I’d show up, find him, and confess my feelings while the violin reached a crescendo. I thought I could harness a lifetime of not caring about romantic moments into creating the kind of moment Charlie deserves. But he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and a woman wearing enough Chanel N°5 to take out a small army spilled her cocktail down the front of my dress. I’m annoyed and sort of hungry and—it feels like too much. Standing in front of him in a dress he probably doesn’t remember while I yell at him.
So much for my movie moment.
But Charlie looks…well, he looks fucking delicious. He has one arm braced against the door, the other curled around my hip, the metal of his keys biting at me through the thin material of my dress. He takes two steps backward into his apartment, and I follow, watching him, backlit by the city lights, a million and one stars plucked from the sky and placed carefully along the towering buildings. He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. His shirt stretches across his chest, the top two buttons undone. His tie hangs loose around his neck, and all I want to do is wrap my hands in it and tug him close. Press my mouth to his until I don’t remember what it feels like to be apart.
“I was at the library, but I left,” he explains, still looking at me like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle. He tilts his head to the side and scratches at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m either unconscious on the street or having a very lucid dream. You’re here?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“In my apartment.”
I look around at the bare walls, the shiny countertops, the luxury finishes without a single hint of personalization. He has a postcard from Lovelight Farms taped to the front of his fridge. One of the flyers from the tattoo studio soft launch is there too. “I assume it’s yours, yes.”
“You’re here, in my apartment, in New York.”
“Yes,” I say, tighter than I mean to. I had hoped that standing in front of him would inspire me to say something beautiful and poetic, but all I feel is slightly off-balance and distracted by the sight of him.
“And you wore the dress,” he says, a grin breaking out on his face, so sudden and bright I almost tumble backward through the door and back into the hallway. I nod, mute, and watch the little crinkles by his eyes deepen.
He sighs, still smiling. “C’mere,” he breathes.
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
A chuckle rumbles out of him. “Because I want to hug you, Nova girl, and you’re too far away.”
That’s easy enough. I close the space between us and collapse into his arms, feeling myself settle and center for the first time in weeks. I’ve been missing this—the way he holds me just shy of too tight. His nose in my hair and his thumb inching down the line of my spine.
“You were supposed to be at the gala,” I grumble into this shirt.
His palm settles at the small of my back, fingertips toying with the edge of my silver dress. “Is that why you wore this?”
I nod. “I had a plan.”
“Not a very good one, apparently.”
I pinch his chest and another rough laugh rolls out of him. He grabs my hand with his and squeezes once, our palms slipping together. He presses our tangled hands against his heart. It’s beating slightly too fast. Mine skips to match.
“Can you tell me about it?” he asks, a plea in every word.
I tuck my smile into his shoulder. I haven’t given Charlie nearly enough of what he deserves. I want to change that.
“I was going to show up at your fancy gala in my fancy dress and find you across the room. Maybe the crowd would have parted just right or maybe I would have bribed the DJ to play a slow song, I don’t know. But I would have found you. And I would have asked you to dance.”
“You probably would have bellowed my name until I folded, huh?”
I laugh and rub my nose back and forth against his neck. “Yeah, I would have.”
“That sounds like something you’d do.”
I lean back until I can see his face, greedy for the sight of him after being without him these last couple of weeks. I missed him so much, this man I was never supposed to miss at all.
“In my plan”—my voice wobbles, and Charlie’s face softens—“we were going to dance, and we were going to talk, and I was going to tell you all the things I’ve figured out since you left.”
“Like what?”
“Like you were right about the phone tree,” I tell him with a grin. “They’ve been plotting and planning. Apparently we’ve been the topic of conversation.”
“I knew it,” he says. His hand inches lower, over the curve of my ass. His smile tugs wider. “Will they add me back on?”
I nod. “You should be getting messages as we speak. We’re old news. They’ve moved on to the Halloween costume contest. They’re scheming to get Dane in a couples costume with Matty. The front runners are Batman and Robin or Bert and Ernie.”
“I’m sure that will go well.”
“They’re making good progress.” I wedge myself closer to him. “But that’s not the only thing I would have wanted to tell you in the middle of a library, at a gala I definitely did not sneak into.”
He huffs a laugh. “What else?”
“I probably would have tried to kiss you.”
“That wouldn’t have been talking, would it?” He smiles, slow and quiet. A fraction of his usual grin. “But, yeah, I would have let you,” he says quietly. “I would have kissed you back.”
I smile and keep going. “And then after I kissed you, I would have told you how much I’ve missed you. That I thought it would be easy, but it hasn’t been easy at all.” I blow out a deep breath and make sure to keep my eyes on his. “I’ve always wanted to be independent. I thought being strong meant I had to be alone, that I could only have one thing at a time, but then I fell for you without even trying and…I think you might be my very best friend, Charlie. It’s nothing like I thought.”
“What is?”
“Falling in love,” I tell him, a tremble in my voice. “Being in love with you. I was going to tell you all of that and then ask you to come home with me. That was my plan.”
He stares at me for a long time. So long, I begin to get nervous that I’ve said the wrong thing. But his shy smile slowly creeps into a grin, his eyes shining bright in the glow of the city beyond the window.
“For snacks?” he asks, his voice rough.
I laugh and tip my forehead against his chest. He cups the back of my head and tucks a kiss against my crown, then lets his hand slip to my neck with a gentle squeeze.
“Can I tell you my plan now?” he asks.
I laugh into his shirt, weightless. Once upon a time I thought a relationship meant having shackles on my wrists, binding me to the needs of another person. I thought I’d have to sacrifice the things I’ve wanted most to be half of a whole. But now I know it just means I’ve got a safety net. Someone to lift me up and hold me steady. Someone to nag me about the spare key under my potted plant and someone to cut my grapes into tiny hearts.
A partner.
A friend.
“I was coming to you,” he says. “I was standing in that library thinking of you and how much I miss you. How fucking stupid I was for not telling you the truth before I left.” He leans back and brushes a kiss across my forehead. He holds himself there, just breathing, and I slip my hands beneath his jacket to press tight to his ribs, feeling every deep inhale and exhale. “I’ve taught myself how to be okay with fragments of feeling, but I don’t want that with you. I want more than what you’ve given me. I want to give you more of me too. I love you, Nova girl. I tried my very best not to, but you wiggled your way right in there with no respect for my opinion on the matter.”
“That sounds about right.”
He hums and I feel the curve of his smile. A half-moon against my forehead. “There’s plenty to figure out, but I know I don’t want to be anywhere you aren’t. I’m tired of letting myself be happy in increments. I want to feel all of it, and I want to feel all of it with you.”
I loop my arms around his waist and squeeze. “So, what do you think?” My voice is thick and my nose is burning and there’s a pressure behind my eyes, but I can’t stop smiling. “Do you want to come home with me?”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “I really do.”
We decide to drive back to Inglewild together, Charlie in the driver’s seat of my truck with his hand on my thigh. We drive until the city is a pinprick of light in the rearview mirror and the interstate rolls out in front of us, streetlights guiding us home.
He tosses me a bag of gummy bears, and I kick off my shoes, slipping my bare feet under me on the leather seat, the skirt of my silver dress pooled around my knees and Charlie’s jacket around my shoulders. We slip in and out of conversation as Charlie debates the best flavor of gummy bear and wonders after the history of interstate rest stops, and I close my eyes and listen to the rhythm of his voice. The rush of the wind at the windows and the low sound of the radio. It’s nothing special and everything wonderful at exactly the same time. Charlie and his thumb tracking back and forth over the top of my knee. Tip-tapping up until he can trace over the bottom of edge of my crescent moon. My hand finds his and he squeezes, my thumb tracing over his flower on the inside of his wrist.
By the time we make it back, the streets are quiet and dark. The pumpkin sculpture looms tall and proud in the fountain in the middle of the town.
“Still there, huh?” Charlie muses.
“I have no idea what they used on that thing.”
Charlie turns the wheel with a yawn, and I echo it with one of mine.
“Sleep?” I ask, stretching my legs with a groan.
“Sure.” Charlie stares at my exposed thigh with interest, a heated, heavy look in those blue eyes. “Right after I fuck you on that cute little table in your entryway.”
I blink at him, a flip low in my belly. “My table?”
“Mm-hmm, I’ve been thinking about it.”
Now I’m thinking about it too. The way he gets when he wants . Rough hands and biting kisses. His teeth against my shoulder. My name panted in syllables against the hollow of my throat. Clothes still half on, my legs looped high around his waist.
He turns onto my street. “I haven’t seen you in three weeks, Nova. You really think I’m going to take you to bed and go to sleep?”
I blink some more and shift my legs against my seat. Charlie notices and chuckles, a low, rumbling sound from somewhere deep in his chest. I want to feel that sound with my body pressed to his. I want to feel it between my legs.
We pull into my driveway and I frown. It’s full of cars that don’t belong to me and all the lights are on in my living room. A halo of golden light spills out from the front windows, making my front garden glow.
“That might have to wait,” I say slowly. Charlie puts the truck into Park and my front door opens. Beckett steps out onto my porch, his hands on my hips. “Yeah. It’s definitely going to have to wait.”
Charlie swallows hard. “Is he going to kill me?”
“I don’t think so.”
Beckett takes off his hat and drags his fingers through his hair, then tosses the hat to the side and cracks his knuckles. He points directly at the windshield, then at the pavement in front of him.
“Hmm,” I amend. “Maybe a little bit.”
Charlie blows out a breath and looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “What does killing me a little bit look like?”
I shrug and unbuckle my seat belt. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Awesome.”
I hop out of the truck and Charlie reluctantly follows, grabbing for my hand as soon as I’m close enough. Beckett stares at our hands clasped tightly together, an unreadable look on his face.
“What are you doing on my front porch at two in the morning?” I call out.
He ignores me. He keeps his gaze steady on Charlie, his eyes narrowing.
“You love her?” he yells from the steps of my porch, a challenge in his gruff voice. Charlie’s hand tightens around mine.
“Yeah,” he calls back.
Beckett shifts on his feet. “Is there a reason you didn’t feel the need to tell me you have feelings for my baby sister?”
Charlie shrugs. “Didn’t think I was good enough to.”
Beckett scowls. “Well, that was fucking stupid of you.”
I snicker. He turns his attention to me. “What are you laughing about? You weren’t exactly forthcoming either.”
The smile slips off my face. “That feels vaguely hypocritical, Mr. Elope-in-the-Middle-of-the-Day.”
“This isn’t about me.” He tips his chin in Charlie’s direction. “Do you love him?”
“You know I do.”
I literally shouted about it at family dinner. But Charlie releases a breath, and I know why Beckett asked the question. He wanted Charlie to hear it too.
Affection for my big brother warms my chest.
“Good,” he says. “Don’t fuck it up.”
And with that, he turns and disappears back into my house, slamming the door behind him. Charlie and I stand in my front yard holding hands, staring at the wreath made of dried mums on my front door as it swings back and forth.
“Was he talking to me or you?” Charlie asks.
“Both of us, I think.”
“Are we supposed to follow him, or—”
“I really don’t know. It’s my house.”
Charlie scratches at his jaw and glances at the rest of the cars in my driveway. “That looks like Caleb’s car.”
I nod. “And Stella’s.”
He grunts. “I guess this is what we get for hiding it as long as we did.” Charlie sighs, weary, and leans over to smack a kiss against my cheek. “Shall we?”
“I guess.” I tighten my grip on his hand and together we step onto my front porch. “I don’t think we have much of a choice.”
It quickly becomes apparent there is absolutely no choice, because Luka, Stella, Caleb, Layla, Beckett, and Evelyn are all in my living room.
I stare at Evelyn, standing with her back to my kitchen with one of my sweaters draped over her shoulders. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Houston?”
“Flew back early,” she explains. “Didn’t want to miss this.”
“Miss what?” I frown and look at the coffee table, currently covered with various plates and bowls. “Are those my pizza rolls?”
Caleb kicks out his legs in front of him, arms stretched over the back of my sofa. “They were your pizza rolls.”
Layla pats his knee with a warning look and then gives us her full attention. “I’m so glad you both could join us.”
“This is my house,” I point out. Again. It looks like they rearranged my furniture to make a large open space in the middle. There’s a stack of laminated, bound packets on one of my end tables. A large white poster board set on an easel next to the hallway. “Is that a presentation board?”
“It is.” Stella stands up from the armchair that’s been shoved in the corner, grabbing on to Charlie’s elbow and dragging him across the room. He clings to me and I’m forced to follow. She pushes him down in the chair and then pushes me onto his lap.
“All right.” Stella claps her hands together. “Places everyone. Just as we practiced it.”
There’s a flurry of movement. Luka and Caleb drag the coffee table into the kitchen and Layla rushes to grab the packets. Stella flips the poster board around on the easel.
Lovelight Farms Business Plan!!
It’s written with what I assume is glitter glue. There are big, silvery sparkles over the entire thing. Wobbly candy canes drawn around the border.
Evie brings us both a packet with the same title on the front page. There are little hearts for the i ’s. I’m assuming that was Stella.
“What is going on?” Charlie whispers in my ear. He shifts beneath me and curls an arm around my waist, tugging me further into him like a security blanket. Beckett clears his throat on the other side of the room.
I roll my eyes and settle, lifting the top page of the packet in my lap.
“No flipping ahead, please. There’s a flow to this presentation.” Stella clears her throat and knits her fingers together in front of her. “We would like to present, for your consideration, our five-year plan.”
Charlie’s arm tightens around my waist. “Stella, it’s two in the morning.”
“It’s two thirty, actually,” Luka offers from his spot on the floor, one arm thrown over his eyes.
“This couldn’t wait. Now please, hold your comments until the end. We would like to present, for your consideration—”
“For whose consideration?” Charlie asks, frowning.
My god. We’re going to be here forever.
Stella sighs and props her hands on her hips. “For your consideration, Charlie. It is for your specific consideration.”
“Why?”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Listen to the presentation!”
“Okay, okay. Fine. Please proceed.”
“Thank you,” she sighs. She points at the poster board to her left and then holds up the stack of paper in her hand. “If you flip to the first page, you’ll see a rough outline of what we’ll be talking about this evening.”
“Morning,” Luka corrects from his starfished position on the floor. He’s using one of my scarves as a blanket. “It is morning.”
“We’ve incorporated a lot of your ideas, Charlie, and we’re excited about what the future holds.”
“Why do you sound like an infomercial?”
“Please shut up.”
Stella then proceeds to walk through an incredibly detailed outline of the future of Lovelight Farms. There are spreadsheets and bar graphs and figures with little holly berries as status points. She hands it over to Layla to talk about bakery expansion and initiatives, and Beckett grumbles his way through his commitment to sustainable farmers markets. Luka rattles off some financial figures with a yawn, and Evie jumps in with some notes about the social media potential and organic growth. It’s fine—interesting from a business perspective, I guess—but we’re not even halfway through this document and I still don’t understand why all these people are in my living room giving a business pitch. This is not Shark Tank .
Charlie shares my confusion, frowning down at the paperwork in his hands. “This is all really great, Stella, but I don’t understand why you’re telling me.” He blinks up at her and fixes a half smile on his face. “I’m really proud of you. You know that. Are you—” He glances at Beckett, at Layla, at Caleb, and at Evelyn. Luka has managed to fall asleep halfway beneath my coffee table. “Are you applying for some sort of grant? Is this your practice run?”
Beckett drags his hand over his face. Caleb grins. And Stella keeps staring at her brother like she wants to hug him and throttle him in the exact same breath.
And that’s when I realize what’s happening.
I straighten in Charlie’s lap, the nicely laminated document sliding from my legs to the floor. “Oh!”
Charlie glances at me. “Oh, what?”
It’s a presentation. For his consideration.
They’re giving the full picture of where the business is and where it’s going. They’re trying to entice Charlie. With a job offer.
I think, anyway. They’re certainly taking the long way around.
And Charlie—Charlie who has always met the needs of the people around him without waiting for them to ask, Charlie who has given so much of himself over and over, Charlie who is used to being selected last or not at all—he has no idea.
“If you flip to the next page,” Caleb offers, a laugh in his voice, “you’ll see that Abuela would like to sweeten the deal with twice-monthly deliveries of tres leches. I promise not to take bites before it gets to you.”
“And Gus said you can pick the trivia team of your choice,” Layla adds. “You don’t have to wait for the new season to register.”
“Family dinners are on Tuesdays,” Beckett barks. “Your attendance is mandatory.”
They don’t just want him to join the business but the town, I realize. This family and these friends and—according to page thirty-eight, appendix twelve—the phone tree. The back half of this document is a list of all the things he’d receive if he decided to move here full time. A standing booth at Matty’s on deep-dish pizza night. Hazelnut lattes from the café with no hassle from Beatrice.
Charlie flips through the next couple of pages, his knuckles brushing against my thigh through the slit in my silver dress. I grin at the top of his head and try not to let it burst out of me, wanting him to come to the realization on his own. And I think maybe this might be it, the best part of loving Charlie. This bright, incandescent joy that’s spilling over in the middle of my chest that’s a little for me but mostly for him. Getting to hold on to his happiness like it’s my own. Getting to share it.
“I don’t—” Charlie’s sentence stutters to a stop, his gaze caught on a page that has a series of four stacked photos. Black-and-white and grainy, Peters, Stella in the top right corner. Luka sits up on his elbows and grins.
Not asleep, I guess.
“I want it to be a family business. Our family. You were right when you said we missed too much time together,” Stella explains. She sets her palm low against her belly. “And this little one is going to need Uncle Charlie around, don’t you think?”
Charlie stares at the presentation in his hands. His thumb traces the edge of the picture with his little niece or nephew, and he heaves a deep, rattling sigh. I rub the place between his shoulder blades and his other hand squeezes my leg tight. He looks at Stella. “I knew you were crying too much.”
She’s crying now. Fat, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. To be fair, she’s not the only one. Caleb sniffles but tries to hide it. Layla hands him a tissue from her pocket.
“We figured if Nova couldn’t close the deal on her own, we’d give it a shot,” Beckett says. Evelyn leans against his chest, and he wraps both of his arms around her with a rare grin. “Take it or leave it. The offer is on the table.”
Charlie swallows hard and looks up at me, faint disbelief in the blue of his eyes.
“Is this—” He has to pause to clear his throat. “Is this too much?” His voice cracks on the question. I hear what he doesn’t say, still staring up at me like he’s not quite sure he’s in the place he’s supposed to be. Am I too much? Are you going to want me for longer than this? Can I stay here with you?
I scratch my nails through his hair and tip my forehead to his. I circle his wrist with my fingers and trace my thumb over the flower I gave him when I wasn’t brave enough to find the right words.
But I have them now.
I kiss the bridge of his nose. The corner of his mouth. His hands tighten on me, and he tugs me closer, tipping my mouth to his.
I smile into his kiss.
“I think it’s just enough, actually.” I press another lingering kiss against his lips.
Beckett is grumbling somewhere behind me about public displays of affection. Stella is still sniffling. Caleb is back to rummaging through my fridge for snacks, and Luka is snoring on the floor. I hold Charlie’s face to mine and hope he sees it. The friends and the family and the home. The love that’s offered without strings or conditions.
“What do you want?” he asks, searching my face.
“I want you to stay,” I tell him. His eyes light up like clouds clearing after a storm. A smile lifts the corners of his mouth. I want to be the cause of this exact look every single day. I want to be the reason he believes he deserves this sort of love. I trace my thumb over his clean-shaven jaw. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been telling you, Nova. I want to give you whatever you want,” he says quietly. “For a long fucking time.”
I laugh. “That’s a good answer.”
“I thought you’d think so.”
I tip my head closer to his. “Do you think you could be happy here, Charlie?” I whisper.
“I am happy here.” His eyes dart over my shoulder at the buffoons in my living room. There’s a conversation happening about Hot Pockets or taquitos. I don’t know and I don’t care. Especially when Charlie slips his gaze back to me, his eyes tracing my face like I’m something precious. Like I’m something he can’t believe he gets to keep. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life, Nova girl.”
He says it in a whisper. Like a secret.
I drop my mouth to his and make it a promise.
“Me too.”