CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
(Matthew)
By the time Charlotte came back to the dining room, I’d already put away two pieces of cake.
“Where did you go to the bathroom? France?” I asked as she sat down and scooted her chair in.
“There was a line, so I had to go all the way back to the room.” She snorted a laugh and took the dessert plate I pushed toward her. “You’ll never believe what happened.”
“You ran into the ghost?”
Her face fell into a deadly serious expression. “The more you joke about that, the more nervous you make me.”
“I’m kidding, I promise.” I wasn’t, but I didn’t see the harm in the white lie, if it helped her sleep at night in my mother’s incredibly haunted mansion. “What happened?”
“I ran into your niece, and we had a very funny misunderstanding.” Charlotte pushed her fork into the slice of cake. “Although, it wasn’t that funny until I realized it was a misunderstanding.”
“Do tell.”
Around a mouthful, which she covered with her hand, she said, “She asked me how I knew your sister’s ‘paramour’ Scott.”
I barked a laugh that drew stares from a few of the guests still lingering in the dining room. “Where did she get that idea?”
“I have no clue. And I even asked her to clarify, because I was like, well, maybe she doesn’t know what the word means.” She reached for a water glass, which may or may not have been hers during dinner. She was too absorbed in her cake to notice, and I was too high and absorbed in her story to mention it. Taking another bite, she mumbled, “She knows it means lover, though.”
“She’s so little, she probably doesn’t know what that means either,” I said, though hearing my sister and my best friend linked at all in a sentence like that was troubling.
“I mean, it’s nonsense,” Charlotte went on. “I heard Catherine and the guy doing it while you were with Scott in the foyer.”
Relief loosened a knot in my chest that I had been previously unaware of. Maybe it was hypocritical of me, considering I was fucking his sister, but the thought of my best friend and Catherine grossed me out miserably.
A thought occurred to me. “You know what? Briony gave us a big clue.”
Charlotte tilted her head in question.
“She confused your brother for the guy we’re looking for,” I went on, impressed with myself at putting the pieces together while I was as high as I was. “Now we know it’s a guy who looks like Scott.”
“Ooh, you’re right!” Charlotte said, then quickly covered her mouth to prevent spitting out crumbs. More subdued, she added, “So, a blond guy. She has a thing for blonds.”
“Tall blonds, about forty years old,” I added. “This narrows our search.”
“Maybe I should have interrogated her further, but I feel like talking to a child about adultery might be one of those mandated reporting situations.” Charlotte made a face. “Kids that age should not know that stuff.”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “I knew that stuff.”
Her fork paused between her plate and her mouth.
I wished she wouldn’t look at me with the pity written on her face.
“About my dad,” I clarified. “My mom didn’t cheat on him. Ever. But he always had his dick busy in someone.”
Charlotte set her fork down. “That must have sucked.”
“I didn’t know it was unusual. But it taught me about the kind of man I wanted to be. And that man is not one who is going to cheat on his wife.” I shook my head. “You know, if I ever have one.”
“Yeah, maybe if you meet that special someone, someday,” she said with a twinkle of humor in her eyes.
Happy to move away from the subject, I added, “And our kids aren’t going to know about any type of paramour. Except the Hayley Williams kind.”
“Our kids?”
Fuck my mouth. “I was kidding. I know we talked about that, and you didn’t—”
“Don’t freak out. It’s a thing people say. Like when they talk about their future spouses.” She waved a casual hand. “I don’t think you’re looking to seriously family plan while we’re high and eating cake at your mom’s birthday party.”
“Right.” Although, now that I’d said it, my brain latched on to it. We had briefly discussed children. Very briefly. And I’d said clearly that I didn’t want any.
But my mind flooded with images of Charlotte holding a baby, me helping a little version of her learn to ride a bicycle…
That was the THC talking.
“Anyway, I’m glad that isn’t the kind of life you’re looking for. The thing about your dad, I mean,” she added.
I pushed my chair back and stretched my aching leg out. I’d been ignoring my body too much over the weekend. Not even marijuana was touching the pain.
“The ball, the dancing, all of that? I’m not looking for that kind of life either.” I was looking for a pain pill and a place to put my feet up.
Light bulb.
“I just had a great idea,” I said. “Unless you’re into dancing with a bunch of strangers, why don’t we find Scott and ditch this party? We can hide in the movie theater, smoke, and actually enjoy ourselves.”
“The movie theater, huh?” she asked. “That totally normal thing most people have in their homes. Seriously, you want to cut out on your mom’s birthday?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Charlotte might not want to. She’d put a lot of effort into the hair and the makeup and the dress. While I knew she’d been stressed about the night, maybe she’d been looking forward to parts of it.
“Did you want to stay and dance?” I asked. And for the first time, I realized that I…couldn’t. I didn’t have the balance, my leg was exhausted, and the nerve pain was relentless.
“As much as a fancy ball is every girl’s fantasy, no,” she said with a shake of her head. “I feel like everyone is looking at me and trying to figure out why they haven’t seen me at the polo grounds. But hanging out with Scott? It’s still kind of awkward.”
“I should have told you this sooner,” I began with a sarcastic sigh. “But Scott is my best friend.”
“I know.” She poked at the remaining frosting on her plate with the tines of her fork. “And you’ve been spending all your time with me lately. You want to hang out with your best friend. I get it.”
I put my hand on her wrist. “You’re not the person who’s been isolating me. You know I don’t blame you for that, right?”
“I mean…. I guess I am the one who got you to leave Ascend Red finally, after you ran away from home.” She didn’t sound convinced about her role in that development.
But she was right. “Exactly. Who knows how long I would have stayed down there? I might have even missed my own mother’s birthday because I was too busy fucking around both literally and figuratively.”
She laughed.
“I have a bad habit of getting into a new relationship and totally disappearing from my friends’ lives for a while,” I admitted. “Right now, all I want to do is be alone with you, doing absolutely nothing but fun stuff. I seriously considered leaving my job entirely when I had to go to work the other day.”
“I think your bank account would survive,” she said dryly.
“Fair. I don’t want you to think you’re interfering in my life or messing it up in some way. I’m perfectly capable of—and was in the process of—doing that all on my own before you came down to Ascend Red,” I promised.
“Confession time? I do that too.” Her face crinkled up in disgust. “Not that I’ve had serious relationships or anything. But I would get these infatuations where all I wanted to do was stay with that person I was infatuated with, doing nothing but, well. Them.”
“See? There’s another thing I love about you. We’re both broken in similar ways.” I was relieved that she laughed, because otherwise, that statement would have sounded grim and judgmental.
“I’m glad we have such healthy things in common,” she added. “Okay. I’m about done with my uncomfortable undergarments. If we’re going to do a movie, I need to change first.”
“Only if I get to peel that dress off of you.” I’d been looking forward to that all evening.
“We could make a quick stop by the library,” she suggested. “Unless you’re insisting on letting your awful punishment stand.”
“My word is set in stone,” I said, because I wasn’t going to let her weasel out of her punishment. I’d said she couldn’t come until eight-thirty in the morning, and I would stick to that.
No matter how painfully hard my cock got at the thought of pushing her up against a bookcase and drowning myself in her pussy.
She curled her lip and went back to morosely drawing patterns in the smeared frosting on the plate.
“Do you want to pout, or do you want to get into your pajamas?” I asked.
She nodded decisively. “Good point. Let’s find my brother.”
* * * *
We made it halfway through the movie before Charlotte passed out cold.
“In hindsight, maybe we should have let her pick what we watched,” I said, giving her a little nudge that made her produce an adorable snore.
We sat on the double-wide seat, Charlotte curled up beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. My T-shirt was rapidly becoming a drool rag.
“Never give her that power.” Scott had put a seat between us; the straight man’s buffer zone. He shook his head, eyes firmly on the screen. “She’s been like this her whole life. Get used to every movie you watch at home turning into a napfest.”
I chuckled.
“If you’re lucky, she’ll wake up halfway through and ask a lot of questions. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘What’s he doing?’ I don’t know, maybe watch the damn thing.” His monotone recitation bore the lengthy suffering of lifelong siblinghood.
“You know, the fact that my girlfriend is your sister might come with some unexpected benefits,” I mused aloud. “You can tell me all these annoying little details.”
“If you want red flags, I’ve got ’em.” He shook his popcorn bucket. “I’m getting more. Want some?”
I held up my hand to decline. “I don’t know how you have room for popcorn after a seven-course meal.”
He stood and went to the back of the small theater, where the old-timey popcorn machine was. “There’s always room for popcorn.”
“And no, I’m not looking for red flags,” I called, continuing our conversation from before. We’d seen the movie so many times, we could quote it by heart, so I didn’t feel bad talking over it. “I don’t think there’s anything that could make me want to end things.”
“What if I told you she had a pet bear?” he dropped back into his seat and propped his feet on the back of the next row.
“That might be the only thing that would give me pause.” I added, “I’m glad you can joke about it now.”
“It’s not super easy, but I’ve moved into the anger phase of my grief.” He stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Good. I’m glad. Because you should be angry.” I stopped myself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t tell you how to feel.”
“I wish someone would. Where the fuck were you a few months ago?” He reached under the seats for the twelve-pack of soda we’d snagged from the kitchen. “Oh, right. You were recovering from getting attacked by my bitch ex’s stupid bear.”
“I take it you’re not on speaking terms with her yet? The woman, not the bear,” I clarified.
“I don’t plan on having any contact with either of them ever again. And not because she left me at the altar. Honestly, she could have called me two days later, said, ‘I’m sorry, I made a huge mistake, let’s go to the courthouse and get married,’ and I would have said, ‘what time?’ But with the benefit of hindsight, I see now how she treated the people who were important to me.”
My arm tightened protectively around Charlotte. “I fully understand.”
His gaze fell to my hand on her shoulder. “I know you do.”
We sat in silence, the movie playing in front of us, but it was clear neither of us were focused on it anymore.
Scott broke the quiet. “One of the problems with Lauren, I think, was that we were so isolated from everyone while we were dating. We were both far from our families, and our friend groups in New York were pretty small and casual.”
“I think it’s normal for a couple to isolate themselves a little, right at the beginning,” I said, knowing full well that I was making an excuse for myself.
“Sure,” Scott agreed, seemingly none-the-wiser. “But when we ended up engaged and only visiting her family? Red flag.”
Visit Charlotte’s family, I mentally noted.
“What was going to happen when we had kids?” he went on. “Were they never going to see my parents because ‘it’s too far to travel’? I mean, I guess that’s not going to be a problem for me anymore. If I do find someone else, I won’t be getting married until I’m like, fifty.”
That remark made me weirdly defensive, from a place I did not want to examine too closely. “Fifty isn’t too old for kids.”
“If I marry a woman in my age-group, it will be,” he said. “Age-group” came out a little bit pointed.
“Fair.” Since having kids had never been my priority, I hadn’t thought about it.
He sighed. “I think it’s time to face the fact that I’m awful at love.”
“No, you’re awful at picking the people you love.” Not that I had room to talk.
Until now.
Charlotte stirred a little. And snored.
Scott chuckled. “Yeah, I would say so.”
“Watch it. You’re talking about my girlfriend,” I warned. “Anyway, don’t set yourself up for failure. Your life isn’t over because this one bad thing happened to you.”
“Apply that logic to your leg,” he replied, matching my tough-love tone.
“I’ll try.” And I would likely fail. At least at the moment. “It’s hard, though. Do you know how much I would pay to be able to scoop her up and carry her to bed, instead of waking her up and being like, ‘Sorry, you have to walk and by the way, I might need your assistance stabilizing myself?’”
“Be honest. You work out a lot, but you were never going to be able to carry a grown human woman the length of this house. Nobody could. Not even a fireman,” Scott added, his attention drifting off. “Maybe that makes this house a hazard. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the fire department had to track you all down and rescue you?”
“Well, now I’m going to. Thanks.” I glanced at the screen, then at my watch. “I think we need to call it a night.”
“Not as young as we used to be,” he agreed. “But listen… I’ll make you a deal, okay? If you stop being weird about your leg, I’ll stop being weird about the fact that my ex left me at the altar.”
“I would shake on it, but your sister is crushing my arm. But I promise.”
It might not be the easiest one for either of us to keep, but I was willing to try, for my best friend.