Chapter 40 Charli
FORTY
Charli
The Gathering Place: The final destination of the route — where the music has been leading the procession all along, without anyone needing to say so.
The light filtering in feels wrong at first. Too soft, too even, like morning but not quite right. I blink against it, my brain catching up piece by piece. Underground. The bunker. Reeves.
The panic hits fast. Reeves and I fell asleep together in bed. Shit, another repeat of us scrambling to make sure Benjy doesn't catch up.
My hand slides across the sheets before I'm fully awake, searching for the weight and warmth that was there when I fell asleep. Empty space meets my palm instead. Cool cotton where his body should be.
I sit up, and the panic converts into dread. He's not here. And neither is Benjy.
We didn't get busted. I flop down, exhaling a sigh of relief. My hand goes to my forehead.
I stare at the ceiling as my heart rate slows. How is it brightening in here like it's morning, but we are underground?
I need to check on Benjy, so I reach for my sundress from the floor. Pulling it over my head, I smooth my hair down and take a sip of the water Reeves left on the bedside table.
When I run my hand over the hem, I see his hands there and the way he looked up at me last night.
The hallway is quiet when I step out, but not empty-house quiet. I hear voices coming from the front.
The voices get clearer as I move closer, and I recognize Benjy's laugh underneath Reeves's deeper tones.
I pause at the edge of the hall, not quite ready to break whatever moment they're having. Not quite ready to face how normal this feels, waking up in his space and walking toward the sound of him with our son.
Reeves stands at the stove in a new blue button-down shirt, the fabric wrinkled slightly, but somehow making him look more real than polished.
His movements are unhurried as he works at the stovetop.
Benjy perches on a stool beside him, chin propped on his hands, watching with the kind of focus he usually saves for nature documentaries.
"Now watch this part," Reeves says, cracking an egg into the center of a piece of bread. He flips it with one smooth motion, the yolk staying perfectly intact in its bread frame.
"Whoa!" Benjy's eyes go wide. "How did you do that without breaking it?"
"Practice. Lots of practice."
I lean against the doorframe, one hand resting on the smooth wood.
The ache starts low in my chest and spreads outward.
This is what I pictured in the quiet moments when I let myself imagine.
Not grand gestures or fairy tale endings.
Just this. A man at the stove, teaching my son how to make a special breakfast while morning light filters through the space around them.
Reeves leans down, saying something too quiet for me to catch. Benjy dissolves into laughter, the bright sound that always hits me square in the chest. The kind of laugh that means he feels safe and seen and delighted by the world.
"Mom!" Benjy spots me first, practically vibrating with excitement. "Look what Reeves is making! It's called egg in a hole, and you cut the bread first, and then you crack the egg right in the middle, and it doesn't break, and it's like magic, but it's real!"
The words tumble over each other in his rush to share this discovery.
Reeves glances over his shoulder. His expression brightens when he sees me, like he's been waiting for me to appear. He turns back to the stove, sliding the finished piece onto a plate.
"I picked it up during boot camp. It’s quick and easy when you're working with basic equipment."
His voice is steady, matter-of-fact, but there's more underneath it. Like he's trying not to make this moment bigger than it needs to be.
I step fully into the kitchen, and the shift happens immediately. No longer watching from the outside. Now I'm part of whatever this is becoming.
"Can you make one for Mom, too?" Benjy asks, already assuming this is how mornings work now. That Reeves will be here making breakfast and explaining things and laughing at his jokes.
"If she wants one."
Reeves's eyes find mine, and the question there isn't really about breakfast.
The kitchen smells like butter and bread and something I haven't had in years. The possibility of sharing mornings.
"I'd love one. Thanks, Chef."
The excitement comes out before I think about it. Before I can weigh the risks or measure the consequences. The smell of that bread and the way Benjy's face lights up and the careful way Reeves waits for my answer add up to something I want to be part of.
Reeves nods once, already reaching for another piece of bread.
I move to the coffee maker, but he's there first, pouring dark liquid into a mug. He already knows how I like it. One sugar, light cream. He sets it in front of the chair closest to where Benjy sits, not asking where I want to sit, just knowing.
My stomach aches in the best way.
"This is so good!" Benjy talks around a mouthful of egg and bread, too excited to remember his manners. "Can we have this every day?"
I open my mouth to remind him about eating with his mouth full, but Reeves answers first.
"Maybe not every day. Got to save room for pancakes and cereal and all that other good stuff."
"What about French toast? Do you know how to make French toast?"
"I do. But that's more of a Sunday morning thing."
Benjy considers this seriously. "Is today Sunday?"
"Tuesday."
"So we have to wait five days for French toast?"
Reeves looks up at me. He will be gone by Sunday, but neither of us want to burst this bubble right now.
"Five days isn't that long," Reeves says instead.
I sip my coffee and watch them negotiate the timeline of breakfast foods. Reeves treats every question like it matters. No rushing through answers or changing the subject when Benjy gets chatty. He leans forward when Benjy talks, giving him the same attention he probably gives mission briefings.
"What are we doing today?" Benjy swings his legs under the table, already finished with his egg.
"What do you want to do?"
“Everything. What can we do here?”
Reeves glances at me. "The Illusions Museum is pretty cool. Lots of things to climb on and explore."
"What's an illusion museum?"
"Rooms that trick your eyes and make you think you're walking uphill when you're really walking downhill. Mirrors that make you look ten feet tall."
Benjy's eyes go wide. "Can we go? Please?"
Reeves refills my coffee without me asking. How long since someone paid attention to when my cup was empty?
"We could make a day of it. Lunch somewhere good after," Reeves offers.
"Yes! Can we, Mom? Please?"
I look at Benjy's hopeful face, then at Reeves watching me carefully, not pushing but not hiding what he wants either.
"Sure. That sounds fun."
Benjy bounces out of his chair, already talking about which shoes he’s going to wear. Reeves reaches down and ties one of them before Benjy even finishes asking.
I reach for the sunscreen at the exact moment Reeves points to Benjy's nose. Small things that shouldn't matter but do.
He glances at me, and I feel it, like we’re both noticing the same thing at the same time.
It's almost too perfect.
Benjy licks chocolate ice cream from his fingers as we walk through the French Quarter, still vibrating with excitement from the museum.
"And the room where you walked on the ceiling! Did you see how I could walk on the ceiling, Mom? It looked like I was upside down but I wasn't really upside down."
"I saw that."
"That ride was so cool. How did they make it feel like we were flying?"
"It was awesome, right? I don't know, but you should have come with us, Mommy."
Reeves says it easily, like he’s always called me that.
My fingers tighten around the cone. Ice cream drips over my knuckle before I notice.
Benjy leans into Reeves, his eyes heavy with a mouthful of chocolate. Reeves wipes his hand with a napkin without thinking.
“I emailed that guy I was talking to while y'all did that simulator ride,” I say, more to fill the quiet than anything else. “The one who made the offer on my practice. Just to see if it’s still even an option.”
Reeves goes still beside me.
“You emailed Henderson?”
The name lands wrong. I turn my head slowly, looking at him.
“Charli, he’s a douchebag. You don’t want to be doing business with a guy like that.”
My grip tightens around the cone, ice cream starting to melt down my fingers.
“I never told you his name.”
Reeves blinks, and I watch him realize what he just said. His jaw tightens just slightly.
“You must have mentioned it. Yesterday, when we were talking about the practice.”
I know exactly what we talked about yesterday. I mentioned getting an offer. I mentioned the Medicaid investigation. I never said a name.
“No. I didn’t.”
The silence stretches between us while Benjy finishes his ice cream, oblivious. A street musician plays somewhere behind us, the notes drifting over the noise of the crowd.
Reeves exhales slowly. “I looked into it. The investigation, the timing. I had someone run the details.”
Had someone run the details. What the fuck does that even mean? My hand stills in my lap, sticky from melted ice cream.
I stand up and walk over to the trash can about twenty feet away. I do my best to wipe my hands and cool myself. Suddenly, I have someone in my life not only trying to insert himself into my routine with my son, altering the life I've built for us. But he's also meddling with my career?
It wasn’t his place to do any of that.
“Mom, can we go see the big fountain?” Benjy tugs on my dress from behind. I turn around and kneel to wipe his face and hands.
“In a minute, baby.”
My voice sounds normal. I see Reeves watching us, but there is a discernible shift in the air.
I don’t look at him.
Benjy tugs on my dress again, bouncing on his toes. “Can we go now? Please? I want to see how big it is.”
I smooth his hair back from his forehead, my fingers lingering for a second longer than necessary. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
I stand and start walking, not waiting to see if Reeves follows. I hear his footsteps fall in beside us anyway.
Rubbing my sticky hands together, I'm suddenly irritated, trying to figure out how to get over this intrusion.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out to see a text from Lucinda, Paolo's mom, asking if Benjy can spend the night. I put the phone in my purse. How I wish we were back in Bay St. Louis because that would be an amazing relief right about now.
Benjy darts ahead the second the fountain comes into view, the sound of water cutting through the noise of the street. He runs straight for the edge, leaning over just enough to make my chest tighten.
“Careful,” I call out, my voice steady.
“I’m fine!” he says, already distracted, pointing at the water. “Mom, do you have a penny? I want to make a wish.”
Reeves reaches into his pocket, but I pull out a few coins from my purse first, handing them to him. He takes off again, circling the fountain, completely absorbed.
I slow near the edge, the mist from the water cooling my skin. Reeves stops a step beside me.
Neither of us says anything.
I pull my phone from my bag, more out of habit than anything else, and open my email. I scroll back to the message I sent earlier, checking the time I'd sent it.
And then I realize he's already responded. I tap it.
It's short, and the message is clear. I'm officially pissed, now.
I lock the screen and lower my hand, gripping the phone tighter than I should.
“You had someone run the details for what, Reeves? Why would you do that? I didn't ask you to do that.”
He nods once, cautious. “I wanted to find out about the Medicaid thing. That's all. It snowballed from there.”
“How, exactly, did that lead you to know about the offer from Dr. Henderson?”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn't answer.
“You don’t get to do that.” My voice stays even, but my fingers curl around the phone. “You don’t get to show up in my life and start making decisions about things you don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t making decisions,” he says, quieter now. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me? I've been just fine, Reeves, before you showed up on Thursday. I didn’t ask you to step into my business and make decisions for me. That was my decision, not yours.”
Benjy runs past us, tossing a coin into the fountain. “I made a wish!” he shouts, already reaching for another.
I don’t look away from Reeves.
“Your little protection scared off Henderson. He's no longer interested in purchasing my practice. What did you do? Did you call him? He called you my representative.”
I'm so mad I can hardly see straight.
“Charli, I know you don't want to hear this, but he is a bad guy. He was trying—.”
"You know what? Stop. I don't want to hear another word. I don't care what you did because you overstepped and that isn't okay."
The words sit between us.
“He was going to take advantage of you,” Reeves says, his voice low but firm. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“It wasn’t your call to make.”
His eyes lock on mine. “I’m not going to stand by while someone—”
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me,” I say, cutting him off again. “Not now. Not ever.”
It’s the same look. The same certainty. Like he already decided what was best and acted on it. The only thing different now is we aren't yelling and screaming.
We can't.
Benjy runs up beside us, breathless. “Can we walk around again? I want to see if my wish comes true.”
I crouch down, forcing my voice steady. “Hey, buddy. I just got a message from Paolo’s mom. He wants to know if you want to spend the night.”
Benjy’s whole face lights up. “Really? Yes! Can I? Please? I want to tell him about the museum.”
I smile, brushing his hair back again. “Yeah. I think that sounds like a good idea.”
He takes off again, already planning it out loud.
I stand, turning back to Reeves.
“We’re going back.”
“Charli, don’t do this,” he says, stepping closer. “Don’t leave like this.”
I shake my head, already stepping back.
“It’s better this way. We never should have tried to do this again. There's just too much water under the bridge. I built this life, Reeves. Me. And I'm not going to have you or anyone coming in and making decisions for me.”