Two and a Half Years Later #2
After completing his Master’s of Education and the requisite student teaching, he found a position teaching history to high school freshmen.
When Charlie asked why history, he explained that he’s always loved it.
He wanted the opportunity to challenge young minds, change preconceived beliefs, and maybe encourage a few people to change history.
While they’ve grown and learned and moved across the country together, it’s not always easy.
Of course it’s not. There are days when Charlie still retreats inside herself, when her confidence dips.
Moments of uncertainty when she questions everything she’s doing even though she ultimately knows that it’s right.
He reminds her to take breaks, reminds her that he’s her partner and she can talk to him about anything, even when she thinks she is the only one who can solve her problems.
She has to remind him of the same things.
While his mother was thrilled about his career plans, his father, unsurprisingly, was not.
Wes’s relationship with him, already strained and distant, became even more so, and his father makes unsubtle digs about Wes’s career choice every chance he gets, often making Wes question himself until Charlie pulls him out of his hole of self-doubt.
She’s always been able to see him.
But shedding more than two decades worth of family expectations is hard some days.
Even when his mother finally filed for divorce, it turned out that dropping Quinn from her name did not affect her popularity.
In fact, polls reported that it made her more relatable, especially after she appeared on a popular late-night talk show and spoke candidly about the problems in her marriage that she’d ignored for a long time.
How it’s easy to give people all the advice in the world but difficult to practice what you preach.
Charlie’s parents are a different matter.
Wes met the stiff, austere couple for the first time at graduation, sitting through a very formal and uncomfortable dinner while making attempts to lighten the mood by bringing up neutral topics.
Who did they think had the best chance at winning the NBA finals?
(They don’t watch basketball.) Did they root for the Cubs or the White Sox?
(They don’t watch baseball.) So sad to hear about that actor passing away.
(His last few movies were not good.) This steak is fantastic. (It’s a little dry.)
On the drive home, Charlie was quieter than he ever remembered her being, and he spent a frantic twenty minutes believing he’d fucked up so badly that she was going to break up with him.
And then they stepped into his apartment, and she shoved him onto the couch without warning, dropped to her knees, and proceeded to show him exactly how grateful she was for his attempts to connect with her parents.
“To show my appreciation,” she murmured, making her way up his body, sucking on his neck, and straddling him.
He’ll never forget the first time she went down on him, so eager to learn—he nearly came after thirty seconds. But then again, she’s always had that effect on him.
It was a week after the expo, and she’d just learned that they’d not only raised enough money to prevent the clinic from turning into a crisis pregnancy center but that they had enough funds to remodel the waiting room and add two additional exam rooms, something Victoria had wanted to do for years but had never had enough time or resources to accomplish.
With the clinic closed for repairs after the fire, it was the perfect opportunity.
Charlie climbed on top of him and immediately set to removing his pants before he knew what was happening.
He’ll always remember the way she looked at him with those impossible doe eyes and asked him with that perfect mouth to teach her how to get him off using her lips and tongue.
He was more than happy to oblige, especially when he discovered how much she enjoyed the way he tangled his fingers in her curls and gently pulled.
She’s a fast learner, his marvelous, intelligent woman.
Her parents plan to visit on Sunday for a birthday lunch.
While she won’t admit to it outright, he recognizes her anxiety by the way she goes quiet when he mentions it, picking at her cuticles and worrying her bottom lip.
She speaks more with his own mother—weekly, he discovered a year into their relationship—than her own.
But he can tell her parents are trying in their own way.
Since she’s moved closer to her hometown, they’ve visited a few times, and even though they refuse to enter their apartment (“We live in sin, Wes”), Charlie said it’s the most time they’ve ever spent in Chicago.
While she’s trying to meet them halfway, she admitted late one night, lying in bed in the comfort of darkness, that she’s not sure she can ever truly forgive them for how they made her feel as a child.
He reassured her that was okay.
Their apartment is in a fourteen-floor complex with a doorman and plenty of young couples with dogs.
Their one-bedroom contains the sofa from the apartment she shared with Syeda—for sentimentality’s sake, he told her when he insisted they bring it with them—a TV, several bookshelves, and a small kitchen table.
He arrived home one day shortly after they moved to find she’d hung up a dozen-odd photos on the walls of their friends and the two of them.
“So we’ll always have them with us,” she explained with a shrug.
He’s never loved her more.
It’s the most a place has ever felt like home to him, but he suspects that’s largely due to the other person occupying the space.
Now she sets the box of treats on the counter before her post-work ritual of trading her work clothes for a sweater and leggings. Even though Chicago is clinging to the last gasp of summer, she prefers these items when lounging around their home.
He’s told her that he prefers her in fewer clothes, but she just rolls her eyes.
When she plops onto the couch with one of her binders from the office, she shoves her perpetually cold feet under his legs. He wraps his fingers around one ankle and drags his thumb down her arch.
“Quinn.” She attempts to pull away—her feet are astoundingly ticklish, something he discovered six months into their relationship and now exploits any chance he gets. “I need to review this before dinner.”
Well, that won’t do.
He plucks the binder from her hands and tosses it on the floor.
“Wes.”
“Ah, ah,” he scolds, shifting so he’s hovering over her, caging her in against the cushion. Her eyes darken even as she makes a valiant attempt to remain unaffected by his advances. “You don’t get to use ‘Wes’ when you’re mad at me. I only like it when you say it under very specific circumstances.”
She glares. “We have two hours until dinner. Let me just go through—”
He kisses her, silencing her excuses. “I have a much better idea for how to spend two hours, Rogers.”
She shivers, and he groans. It will never get old how stubborn she is, thinking she can resist him, and the way she falls apart at his touch. His sweet, lovely woman.
“It’s my birthday. That means I can do whatever I want,” she argues in a whisper.
“I never liked that rule.” He continues his ministrations to her neck, relishing the soft, involuntary gasps coming from her mouth while his hands begin their explorations under her sweater.
“Why—why not?”