Charlie #4
I shuffle over, the paper towel still damp in my fist, and he pulls me up with both hands until I’m settled across his thighs, my knees drawn up and socked feet dangling just off the floor.
“Ready?” he asks, and I nod, not sure why my heart is suddenly beating so fast.
He starts quietly, at my ear. “Glykó mou agóri,” he says, the words so soft and rich I almost lose them. “Eísai to karpí mou, to fos mou.” I feel the vibration of his voice in his chest, and also in my cheek, which is pressed to the collar of his shirt.
I want to ask what it means, but I don’t want him to stop, so I just close my eyes and let him talk. When he’s done, there’s a silence, broken only by the gentle rocking of the chair.
“What’d you say?” I whisper, after a moment.
He strokes my hair back behind my ear. “I said, ‘My sweet boy. You are my fruit, my light.’” He chuckles at my face—at my eyes, probably wide as saucepans—then kisses the top of my head. “Too much?”
I shake my head, maybe too fast, and feel the heat blooming all the way to my hairline. I don’t know how to explain the feeling, how it makes my skin fizz under his palm.
“You can ask me anything, Charlie,” he adds, voice softer, like he’s tucking me into the words.
I swallow, and the next question jumps out before I can decide not to ask it. “What do you do, exactly? For work, I mean.” I stumble over the words—only realizing I might have crossed a line when I see his expression slip.
He blinks, then the smile is back, but it’s a little different. “That’s a big question, sweetheart.”
“I just um…” I can’t stop myself. “I was wondering, with what you and Constantine were talking about at lunch. And, well… you also um… took me, without thinking of any consequences, but it’s a crime? And the stuff with the gun, and you seem really, really wealthy…”
“What do you think I am, Charlie?” he asks.
I take a moment before whispering, “A mobster?”
A grin splits across his face. “Not exactly,” he laughs. “I run a business. A few, really. Shipping, mostly, and holding companies. Real estate. I buy and sell things for people who want to keep their hands clean.”
I absorb that in silence, staring at the way his hands rest on my body. Even when Nikolaus is so tender it makes my head spin, I think about how easy it would be for him to break me in half.
“I don’t really get what that means,” I say. “You buy things for people?”
He shrugs.“Some people have money and no patience,” he says, “and some people have things they can’t move through the usual channels.
I connect them. Sometimes it’s art, sometimes cars, usually something a little less, ah, conventional.
” He leans back against the rocker and pulls me with him, so my head tips into the hollow of his shoulder.
“It’s just business. All perfectly above board, at least on paper. ”
I try to picture him in a boardroom, in those expensive suits, negotiating over who gets what priceless painting.
“Is that what Constantine does, too?” I ask. “He looked up my whole life, right? Where I live, my bills, all that stuff.”
He nods, unbothered. “Constantine is my right hand. There is nothing he can’t find. That’s why I trust him with you.”
My face must be doing something nervous, because Nikolaus sets his hand under my chin and lifts until our eyes meet.
“It’s not dangerous for you,” he says. “Not unless you try to leave me.” His thumb sweeps once along my jaw, and I swallow, a shiver going down my body at the threat.
“But I don’t think that’s what you want,” he says quietly.
I’m not sure what I want. Not yet.
Or more…
I’m sure what I want, but unsure of what I need.
“Can I ask another stupid question?” My voice sounds younger than it should.
“There are no stupid questions,” Nikolaus says, but his mouth twitches like he’s holding in a joke.
“Do you, like… hurt people?” I’m not sure if I mean physically or something else.
He’s quiet for a moment, looking out the window where the sky’s gone dark. “Sometimes,” he says. “If they deserve it.”
I wait, but that’s all he says. Like, “if they deserve it” is the full explanation, and maybe it is for him.
He must see my confusion, because he adds, “Most of the time it’s just numbers. That’s the world, Charlie. Money and the people who want more of it. I’m very, very good at making it, and better at keeping it.”
I nod, even though I don’t really get it.
I yawn after a few minutes of comfortable silence. His mouth pulls into a fond smirk, like he’s been waiting for this moment all evening.
“Someone’s sleepy. Time for bed,” he announces, not as a suggestion but a verdict.
I glance at the crib, already planning to curl up there again, bundled and small and safe in my own little pen.
But Nikolaus shakes his head. “No crib tonight,” he says. “That’s for naps, and when you need to feel extra small.”
“Where do I sleep, then?” I ask, and immediately want to take it back, because obviously he means his bed, with him, like at the hotel, but something in me wants to be sure, to have it said out loud and not just implied.
“You’ll sleep with me, baby, in my bed.”
I burrow my face into his chest so he doesn’t see the quickly spreading blush.