19. Charly
— ? —
Charly
He won’t tell me where we’re going, which is how I know he’s up to something.
Clarence is a planner. This is a man who color-codes his sock drawer and shows up ten minutes early to everything, including arguments. So when he just says “wear something nice, I’ll drive” and won’t give me a single thing past that, I know he’s been cooking this up for a while.
“Just tell me if it’s indoors or outdoors,” I say from the passenger seat. “So I know if I’m going to freeze in this dress.”
“You won’t freeze.”
“Come on, that’s not fair, you can’t just leave me guessing the whole drive.”
“Watch me.” He glances over, fighting back a grin. “Quit digging. You’ll see when we get there.”
“I’m not digging, I just want to know where you’re taking me.”
“I know you do. That’s half the fun of not telling you.” He reaches over without looking and laces his fingers through mine on the seat, easy, like he’s done it a hundred times. “Just trust me tonight, okay? I’ve got you.”
And the worst part is, I do. That’s what scares me.
I look out the window instead so he won’t see me smile. We’ve been doing this for weeks now, this easy back-and-forth that doesn’t feel like work anymore, and I keep waiting for it to scare me and it just doesn’t. That should scare me more than it does.
He pulls up outside a brick building I don’t recognize, a little run-down, a bar on the ground floor with a neon sign that’s half burned out. Not exactly where I pictured a man like him taking a woman in heels.
“You brought me to a dive bar.”
“It’s not the bar. It’s upstairs.” He kills the engine and looks up at the building for a second before he gets out. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
The stairs are narrow and the railing wobbles and there’s a door at the top that he pushes open without knocking, and then we’re standing in a big empty room with tall windows and string lights somebody hung along the rafters, and a single table set for two right in the middle of all that open space.
“What is this place?”
“This is where I had my first show.” He steps inside and looks around like he hasn’t been here in years.
“Twelve years ago. I rented this place for a weekend because it was all I could scrape together. Hung up four paintings nobody wanted to buy, put on a suit that was two sizes too big, and stood right over there in that corner all night thinking, this is it, this is where everything started for me.”
“Did it?”
“Two people came. One of them was lost looking for the bathroom.” He laughs, quiet. “But yeah. It did. Just slower than I wanted.”
I walk to the window and look out at the city going gold in the last of the light, and I don’t say anything for a second because my throat’s gone tight and I don’t trust my voice.
He could have taken me anywhere. A nice restaurant, a rooftop with a view and a wine list. Instead he brought me to the one room in the city that meant something to him before he had anything, before the money, before the name on the foundation, back when he was just a scared kid in a bad suit hoping somebody would look at what he made.
He didn’t bring me somewhere to impress me.
He brought me somewhere true. And I don’t know what to do with a man who does that, because I’ve never had one.
“Why did you take me here?” I finally ask. “Why tonight?”
“I wanted you to see this part of me. Where I started, before any of it. I don’t show people this place.” A breath, almost a laugh at himself. “It’s kind of lame, I know. But this is the only way I know how to say thank you and actually mean it.”
“Thank you for what?”
“For the idea. The engagement. It worked, Charly. The thing Adam was doing, the whispering, people pulling back, it stopped. Now they think I’ve got my life together. They think I’m steady. And that’s because of you.”
There it is. The thank-you. I knew there’d be one, I just didn’t think it would be a whole rented room with string lights.
“So this is a thank-you dinner.”
“Sure,” he says. “Call it that.”
The way he says it makes me turn and look at him. It came out low, rougher than gratitude, and he’s looking at me the way he’s been careful not to for weeks, like he’s finally letting himself.
I should change the subject. So I change it to the worst possible thing.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You’re going to anyway.”
“The woman at the gala. Celeste.” I watch his face when I say it, hating myself a little. “She said she was your ex. You never mentioned her.”
He doesn’t tense up the way I expect. He just nods, easy, like it’s a fair question.
“She is. Was. We were together a long time, on and off. She moved to Paris about a year ago for work, and we tried to make the distance thing work for a while, and it didn’t.
” He shrugs. “It ended fine. No drama. We just wanted different lives in different places. I didn’t mention her because there was nothing to mention.
She’s a good person who isn’t part of my life anymore. ”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” He tilts his head. “Were you jealous?”
“No.”
“You were a little jealous.”
“I was definitely not jealous. I was curious. She talked to me at the gala, that’s why I asked.”
“Whatever you say.” He’s smiling now, full, and the space between us has gotten very small without either of us deciding it should.
“For the record, I haven’t thought about Celeste in months.
” He turns to face me now, and there’s nothing easy left in it.
“I’ve been a little busy. There’s this woman living in my guest house who drinks my coffee and argues with me about everything and looks at me like she’s daring me to do something about it.
She’s all I think about. It’s getting to be a problem. ”
My heart’s going so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It is. It’s a huge problem.” He steps in, closing what little space was left, close enough now that I have to tip my head back to keep his eyes.
“Because she’s hurting, and her ex is my brother, and the timing is the worst it could possibly be.
I’ve spent weeks telling myself all the reasons I’m not allowed to want her. ”
“So what’s different about tonight?”
“Honestly? I just got tired of talking myself out of it.” He reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, slow, his thumb dragging along my jaw on the way down, and my whole body forgets it’s supposed to be sensible about this.
“So if you want me to stop, tell me now. Like last time. If it’s wrong, or too soon, just say it and I’ll take you home and we’ll pretend this never happened. ”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’m going to kiss you. And I’m not going to be quick about it.”
I don’t tell him to stop.
His mouth comes down on mine and it’s nothing like the hallway, nothing like the panicked, stolen thing that scared us both. This is slow and certain, his hand sliding to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair to tilt my head right where he wants it.
When I open for him, he makes a low, guttural sound against my lips that vibrates through my entire chest. My hands find the front of his shirt, bunching the fabric in my fists. I’m not letting go this time.
He pulls back a fraction, his breath hot against my skin, his lips barely skimming mine. “You have no idea,” he whispers, his voice a rough graze, “how many times I’ve imagined you right here. Just you, looking at me like that.”
“Bed’s not exactly an option here,” I manage, my voice trembling as he drags his mouth along my jaw, his lips hot against my skin.
“I’m aware. I’ve been thinking about that the whole drive.” His teeth catch my earlobe, tugging gently, and my legs go unsteady under me. “There’s a couch in the back room. I’m not proud of how much thought I put into the couch.”
“You planned this?”
“I planned the dinner. The rest of it I’ve been planning since the night you cleaned up my busted lip and wouldn’t admit you liked having your hands on me.”
“I did not like it.”
“You’re such a liar.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark, and there’s a hunger in them that makes my stomach flip. “I mean it though, last chance. Once I get you on that couch I’m not going to want to stop. I’m done being a gentleman about you, Charly.”
“Then stop pretending.”
He kisses me again, harder this time, demanding, his mouth tasting of wine and the wanting we’ve both been holding back for weeks. He walks me backward through the room, his hand sliding down my spine to find the zipper at the back of my dress.
The metallic slide of the zipper is the only sound besides our ragged breathing. I get his shirt half unbuttoned, my fingers fumbling with the buttons in my haste, before we make it through the door.
We drop onto the old, soft couch together, his weight settling over me, pinning me into the cushions.
Before he moves further, he stops. He props himself up on his elbows, searching my eyes, checking, still wanting me to say it.
That’s the part that gets me more than his hands do, the way he waits for me.
“Yes,” I tell him, my voice steadier now. “Whatever you’re about to make sure of. Yes.”
After that, there are no more questions.
He takes his time, slow enough that it almost hurts. He kisses my eyelids, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth, murmuring against my skin. “You’re so beautiful, Charly. Absolutely perfect.”
The dress slides off my shoulders, pooling around my waist. His mouth follows the path of the fabric, kissing the slope of my breast, the valley between them, his tongue swirling around my nipple through the thin lace of my bra until I’m arching my back, gasping for air.
When he finally reaches the hem of my underwear, he doesn’t rush. He peels them away slowly, his eyes locked on mine, praising me in a low hum that makes my thighs tremble.
“So wet for me,” he whispers, his breath ghosting over my center. “You’re shaking, sweetheart.”
He settles between my thighs, his hands gripping my hips to hold me open. When his tongue first makes contact, a jolt shoots straight to my core.
He licks me slow, a long, wet stroke from bottom to top that makes me cry out, my fingers digging into the fabric of the couch. He finds the small, swollen bud of my clit and circles it, his tongue moving fast, then slow, then sucking me deep into his mouth.
I’m tossing my head back, my breath coming in short, jagged sobs as he eats me out with a thoroughness that leaves me undone.
He knows exactly where to press, exactly how to swirl, until I’m sobbing his name, my hips bucking against his face, chasing the peak. Just as I’m about to break, he pulls away, leaving me shivering and aching.
He moves over me, the friction of his skin against mine sending sparks through my nerves. When he enters me, it’s a slow, full slide that fills me completely. I gasp, my legs locking around his waist, pulling him deeper. He presses his forehead to mine, his breathing just as wrecked as mine.
“Look at me,” he commands softly.
I open my eyes to the raw intensity in his gaze. I stop being careful. I stop being the girl who keeps her guard up and won’t let anybody close. I just hold on to him, every inch of him sliding inside me, the rhythm building from a slow burn to a frantic heat.
Somewhere in the middle of it he starts saying my name over and over, low and wrecked, and the world narrows down to just him filling me and the sound of our skin together.
The climax crashes through me, a crushing, beautiful weight that makes me squeeze him tight, my inner muscles clamping around him.
He groans, deep in the back of his throat, and thrusts one last time, hard and deep, as he spills himself inside me.
He doesn’t pull away immediately. He brings me back up slow, watching my face the whole time like it’s the only thing worth looking at in the world.
By the time we’re both catching our breath, I’m shaking and laughing and crying a little all at once. He pulls me in against his chest, wrapping his arms around me and holding me through the aftershocks without saying a word, because he knows there aren’t any words that could possibly help.
Afterward we lie tangled together on that old couch in the room where his whole life started, his fingers running slow up and down my bare back, both of us wrecked and in no hurry to move.
“I’m not going to be able to look at you normally at breakfast,” I tell his chest.
“Good. Normal’s overrated anyway.” He kisses the top of my head. “Stay tonight. In the main house, not the guest house. I want you with me.”
“That’s a pretty big ask for a thank-you dinner.”
“This stopped being a thank-you dinner the second you got all weird about me having an ex.” His chest shakes under my cheek when he laughs. “I’m crazy about you, Charly. Have been for weeks. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
I don’t say it back. Not yet. But I tuck my face into his neck so he can feel me smiling, and that’s almost the same thing, and he holds me tighter like he knows it is.
We drive home with the windows down and my hand in his on the console, his thumb moving slow over my knuckles at every red light, and the whole way back I’m lighter than I’ve been in months, maybe years.
Light enough that I let myself think the word happy without flinching at it. I keep stealing looks at him, at the easy set of his shoulders and the way he keeps glancing over at me like he can’t quite believe his luck either, and I think, this is it.
This is the thing I swore I’d never do again, and I’m doing it anyway, and for once it doesn’t feel like a mistake waiting to happen.
That should have been the warning.
Because when we pull through the gate and the headlights swing across the front steps, there’s a woman sitting on them. She stands up. She’s walking toward the car before Clarence even gets it in park, blonde and pretty under the porch light, grinning like she can’t wait another second.
Clarence goes still beside me. “Celeste?”
She doesn’t slow down. She’s at his door before he’s even all the way out of the car, and then her arms are around his neck and she’s kissing him, full on the mouth, and everything good I was feeling drops straight out of me.
She pulls back, beaming up at him, both hands still on his face.
“Surprise!” She laughs, breathless, delighted. “I’m back from Paris. For good this time. I wanted to surprise you.”
And over Clarence’s shoulder, her eyes find mine through the windshield, and her smile doesn’t change at all.