Chapter 17 #2
Holly nods. “Yeah, that would be good. I’ve rescheduled the plumber twice because of team stuff, and we haven’t had hot water for almost a week.”
“Dude. What are you doing without hot water?” Theo asks.
Suddenly, I feel bad that we’ve been spending all this time talking about me when we clearly need to be talking about Holly. Most of the time, he seems like he’s doing okay. But when stuff like this happens, I’m reminded of just how much he’s trying to juggle on his own.
He shrugs. “Taking cold showers? I warm up water on the stove to add to Charlie’s bathtub.”
“Definitely don’t leave your house,” I say. “You gotta get that fixed. I’ll take care of Charlie this afternoon.”
“Are you forgetting you’re also my ride?” Theo says.
I shoot him a look. “What else do you have to do?”
Theo frowns. “Not go to a playdate,” he grumbles.
Charlie comes back into the garage, a pink backpack tucked over her shoulders. “I’m ready,” she says.
“What did you pack?” Holly asks. “Can I see?”
She stops in front of him and spins, and he unzips her bag. “Charlotte, is this the entire box of Rice Krispies Treats?”
“Yep,” she says without a shred of hesitation.
Holly nods, then slowly zips the bag closed again. “Right. Good sharing,” he says. “Are your glasses also in the bag?”
Charlie studies her dad. “Possibly,” she says slowly.
“Charlie,” he says, and her eyes turn pleading.
“I lost them, Daddy. I promise. I have no idea what happened to them.”
“In the five minutes since you were out here last?”
“Maybe you should check the Rice Krispies Treats box,” Theo says under his breath, and Charlie shoots him a death glare that makes me fight a laugh.
“Charlie, you have to wear them,” Holly says. “You remember your headaches? You’ll keep getting them if you don’t wear them.”
“I haven’t had a headache all week,” Charlie says.
“Because you’ve been wearing your glasses,” Holly says patiently. “If you want to go to Poppy’s, you have to wear them. That’s the rule.”
She huffs, folding her tiny arms across her chest. “Fine. Then I won’t go.”
Holly tilts his head. “Are you sure about that?”
She stares him down for a long moment. I gotta hand it to her. The kid has grit. Finally, she turns and stomps into the house, returning a minute later with her glasses back on her face.
“Good girl,” Holly says. “So what would you say if Uncle Carter and Uncle Theo drive you over to Poppy’s for me?”
“You can’t come?” Charlie asks.
“I have to stay home so the plumber can fix our hot water.”
“Finally!” Charlie says, and Holly grins.
“Will you be okay going with these two?”
She looks up at me and pushes her glasses up on her nose. “Will you stay for our picnic?” she asks me. “Poppy is bringing the juice boxes, and I’m bringing the snack. We’ll have extra.”
Holly grimaces over Charlie’s head, like he’s realizing he just signed me up for a lot more than giving Charlie a ride, but I shake my head.
“I’m always down for a picnic,” I say.
She nods. “Okay. Then it’s okay if you drive me.”
“Thanks, man,” Holly says as he pulls Charlie’s booster seat out of his car. “I owe you one.”
“Why do the kids always like you best?” Theo asks from the passenger seat as I back out of Holly’s driveway.
“Kids?” I ask.
“At youth clinics.” He tilts his head toward the back seat. “Charlie. Even that kid on the airplane.”
“Because I talk to kids about them,” I say. “You talk about you.”
He rears back the slightest bit, like he wasn’t quite expecting a serious answer. “Dude. That was brutal. Insightful. But brutal.”
“Uncle Carter, do you like horses?” Charlie asks from the backseat.
“Who doesn’t like horses?” I say, and then she talks for the rest of the ride to Anna’s.
I listen with one ear, but I’m mostly thinking of Sarah.
It’s been four days since I kissed her goodbye in New York, but she didn’t get back to Georgia until late yesterday, so I haven’t seen her yet.
We’ve texted a few times, but we haven’t made any plans to see each other, leaving me wondering what the protocol will be between now and the wedding.
Since we aren’t really in a relationship, we could go days, even a week or more, without needing to see each other, not unless we have some public event to attend.
But that feels weird when we’re getting ready to live together.
Shouldn’t we at least be spending some time in each other’s company? Getting to know one another?
Then again, my motives aren’t exactly pure. I really just want to see her.
I’ll follow the rules. I’ll respect every boundary she puts in place.
But I can’t stop myself from wanting to be around her. It’s too late for that.
When we pull into the driveway at Anna and Miles’s house, Poppy and Olive are in the front yard using sidewalk chalk to decorate the front walkway.
Anna is sitting on the porch, but I don’t see Sarah anywhere.
Her car is here—I can see it parked by the pool house—so I’m hoping that means she’s somewhere close by.
“Uncle Carter to the rescue,” Anna says as I approach the porch. “Miles is inside if you’re interested in watching a hockey game.”
I glance at my watch. “Right now? There’s one on?”
“He’s rewatching the 2008 Winter Classic,” she says dryly. “He watches it at least three times a year.”
“Dude. Is that the one where Crosby wins the shootout in the snow?” Theo says from behind me. “Can I go on in?”
“Be my guest,” Anna says, then she looks back at me. “How are you? Congratulations on your very realistic engagement.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I say. “Everything went pretty well.”
“Griffin Knox had a lot of really nice things to say. That was well-played, going somewhere you knew he’d be.”
“I’m glad it worked out.” I push my hands into my pockets. “Is Sarah here?”
“Yeah,” Anna says. “Back in the pool house. Working, last I saw.”
“Do you think she’d mind if we went back to say hello?”
“Not at all,” Anna answers. “The girls have interrupted her fifty times already. You’ll probably be a welcome surprise.”
“I’m gonna steal Charlie for a minute and take her with me,” I say. “She’s been having a hard time getting used to her glasses.”
“Ohhh,” Anna says. “Good thinking. I’m going to sit right here and enjoy the tiny bit of winter sun we’re getting without moving a single inch in any direction.”
I laugh. “Sounds like a good plan.”
“Is Miss Sarah the lady who had the chicken nuggets?” Charlie asks after I explain where we’re going.
“That’s her.”
“She’s pretty,” Charlie says. “Is she your girlfriend? Is that why you want me to say hello?” Honestly, it’s nice to have Charlie’s barrage of questions as we make our way through the backyard to the pool house.
I’m more nervous than I should be, and she’s giving me something to focus on besides whether I’m supposed to hug Sarah hello when I see her again.
Pretty sure that would qualify as the “friendly touching” we talked about, but is it what she would want? I don’t want to assume.
“She’s my fiancée,” I say, “which means we’re getting married soon. And I want you to say hello because Sarah wears glasses just like you do.”
“Really? I don’t remember her glasses.”
“She does. And she started wearing them when she was your age.”
We finally reach the pool house, and I knock, palms sweating, but then the door opens and…
there she is. Looking more beautiful than ever.
Her hair is up in some kind of knot on her head, and a pencil is sticking through it.
Or maybe the pencil is holding it? Her fingers are tinted gray, and there’s a smudge of what I’m guessing is charcoal along her cheek, just below the frame of her green glasses.
“Carter!” she says, and then she’s leaning in to give me a hug.
A friendly hug, I remind myself, but I can’t stop myself from breathing her in. It feels so good to have her back in my arms. “Hey,” I say as she pulls back. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks,” she says. She lets her gaze drop to Charlotte. “Hi, Charlie,” she says. “Do you remember me?”
Charlie nods. “You gave me chicken nuggets. And Uncle Carter says you wear glasses just like me.”
“Sorry to interrupt your work,” I say. “I was just telling Charlie that you guys were the same age when you started wearing glasses.”
Sarah’s expression brightens as she looks at Charlie. “That’s right! Except mine were not nearly as cute as yours. You want to see a picture?”
Charlie nods, and the three of us make our way into the pool house. The space is tiny. A living room, a kitchenette, and what I’m guessing are two bedrooms on either side of the living room. It looks like Sarah has been sitting at the small table in the kitchen, working on some sketches.
Sarah grabs her phone off the kitchen counter, then makes quick work of pulling up a couple of photos. She and Charlie move into the living room and sit down on the couch, but I linger in the kitchen.
The table is covered in Sarah’s work. There are at least six different sketches in various stages of completion.
They look like ideas, mostly, like she’s brainstorming.
On one sheet of paper, there’s a hand with two fingers bandaged together.
On another, there’s the curve of a woman’s neck, her hair pulled up, a string of pearls looped around then hanging down her back.
They’re incredibly realistic, but I love that in her finished work, she always makes it about more than that.
There’s one on her website of a face and shoulders that look real enough to be a photograph, but then the rest of the person just…
falls apart. Arms blur, hands dissolve into streaks of color and light.
They aren’t all as abstract as that one, but so far, it’s my favorite.
I won’t pretend to be an art critic, but it feels like she wants people to notice what she doesn’t include on the canvas as much as what she does.
She told me via text that her meeting at the Rooke went as well as she could have hoped. The owner, who is from Georgia, is coming to her show in Atlanta at the end of March. If she likes what she sees, she wants to have a conversation about showing Sarah’s work at the Rooke.
I could tell from her message that Sarah’s trying to stay chill and not get her hopes up, but I think she has every right to reach for the stars.
She’s that talented.
I pick up the sketch of the hand and look a little closer. It could be a hockey player. Or any athlete, really. The roughness. The bruising. The wrapped fingers.
When I move to put it back on the table, my eyes catch on another sketch, one that was covered up before. My heart starts pounding as I swap the one in my hand for this one.
Sarah once told me she makes up the people she paints. But this sketch—it’s me.
My eyes. My jawline.
“Snoop,” Sarah says, her tone gently scolding. My eyes dart up, heat flooding my face as she gently tugs the paper from my hands.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I left it out, so I can’t be mad you saw it.” She looks down at the sketch, then sets it back on the table. “I was just messing around. I really want to try using oil. See if I can capture the color of your eyes.”
“Are they different from other blue eyes?”
“They’re totally different,” she says. “They almost look translucent in some light, but then, when you’re wearing navy blue—like, Jaguars navy blue—they shift into looking more like…ocean blue. So the goal would be to capture all the different shades they can look at the same time.”
“Sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my eyes.”
She grins. “In a strictly professional sense, I have.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I suddenly feel like I’m tumbling down the side of a hill, gaining momentum so quickly, there’s no stopping where I’m headed.
I love talking to this woman. I love what she does.
I love how she makes me feel. I love that she has charcoal on her cheek right now, and it only makes her more beautiful. More real.
I told Theo my heart wasn’t involved yet, but right now, I’m not so sure that’s true. I’m at least on my way there.
That realization might have worried me five minutes ago. But those are my eyes she’s sketching, and that has to mean something.
She clears her throat. “Anyway, I’m going to show Charlie my glasses collection. Are you going to be around a while?”
“I’ve got a picnic date, actually.”
Sarah’s expression falters the slightest bit.
“With Charlie and Poppy,” I add.
“Ah,” she says, something like relief passing over her expression. “That sounds fun.”
“I get a juice box,” I say. “I’m totally stoked.”
“Miss Sarah?” Charlie asks. “Did you draw these pictures?”
“I sure did,” Sarah says. “And you know what helps me do it? Wearing my glasses.”
Charlie looks at the drawings for a long moment, then she nods, like she’s finally decided something. “Do you want to come to our picnic?”
Sarah smiles up at me. “Do I get a juice box too?”
“I can ask Poppy if she has an extra,” Charlie says. “But if she doesn’t, you can share with Uncle Carter.”
“Fine by me,” I say, and I mean every word. I’ll share my juice box…and anything else that Sarah wants.
That thought doesn’t terrify me nearly as much as it probably should.