Chapter 26 #2
It hits me all at once how much of herself she’s still hiding from the world. From me. How many versions of Annie exist, raw and unexpected and real. How many I haven’t even earned yet.
I am so fucked.
“Hey, Nico,” May’s voice says from next to me.
I snap out of it and go in for a hug. “Hey, you.” It’s wild how similar she feels to Annie, but also completely different. I could tell them apart with my eyes closed, just by how they felt in my arms. “Congratulations.”
She smiles. “Thank you.”
We watch her sister as she quacks like a duck and barks like a dog. The tiniest kid is laughing so hard he’s barrel rolling across the restaurant floor. Annie looks unbothered, majestic.
“I wanted to apologize to you for making you bring Annie on your work trip, but I’m not so sure I should apologize anymore.”
“Yeah?” I mumble, only half paying attention because Annie is currently using the skin on her arm to wipe another kid’s nose. I am not well. My body is trying to reach towards her on a cellular level, my sperm shouting for her eggs.
May’s laugh brings me back from my daydreams regarding the color of our daughter’s hair.
I blink. “What?”
“You’ve been staring at her this whole time like she’s just arrived on a bed of sunshine and rainbows.”
I finally meet May’s eyes. “If you mean clouds of hellfire and darkness and other equally impressive, terrifying things—then, yeah.”
May’s grin changes into something knowing. “You get it.”
“I get it,” I say, dead serious.
Her face shifts again, and suddenly… it’s Annie’s. Not literally, but enough to make me tense. Same tilt of the jaw, same flash in the eyes. She leans in. “Then it’s time for me to tell you this,” she says, voice low. And murder-y. “Annie is the best person I know. Don’t you ever hurt her.”
“I won’t,” I vow, but now I’m a little scared. Jesus. The Li sisters are like a fuckin’ Category 5 hurricane. Of knives. “But honestly, I’m worried about the other way around,” I admit.
Her face doesn’t change. “She will never hurt you. Not purposefully. If she does, then it’s an accident.
But even if she thinks she’s hurt you, she’ll retreat.
” May seems to grow ten times her size. Did her teeth just get sharper?
“And that’s when you fight for her, Nico.
You fight for her because she deserves it. Because she’s worth it.”
I rub my arms. Did it drop thirty fuckin’ degrees in here? “Okay!” I half-yell. “I will! I promise!”
“Good,” she says brightly. “Have fun. Enjoy the ride. I hope to see you at Christmas.” She strides away with perfect, delicate posture.
Annie catches my eye and raises an eyebrow in question.
I love you and I will fight for you, I try to say with my eyes.
She smiles.
Towards the end of the party, I decide to treat myself to a scotch. Something peaty and sharp, methinks. I’m halfway through mentally sorting the shelf by distillation method when I spot him.
It’s that big, handsome, goofy fucker who I owe my millions to—Charlie Fischer.
He’s leaned against the bar, half-slouched, dress shirt rumpled, sleeves pushed up. Drunk. Like, capital-D Drunk. His eyes are aimed at something directly across the room.
“Charlie,” I say, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “How’s it hangin’? And I don’t mean literally,” I add, tipping my head toward his crotch.
Because Charlie Fischer is a porn star. A real one.
A real-life sex worker, who has sex on camera for money.
And he’s one of those people who own it.
So much so that he recommended it to me a few years after I had just moved home to be with my mom, had started my PhD program, and was severely strapped for cash.
We were out at a bar with May, I think, maybe a year after he and May had broken up, once they were in the ‘comfortable friend-zone.’ He’d always been a chaotic sort with a hundred different jobs, an artist and philosopher and wanderer and model and bartender, and he had just stumbled into the porn industry (filming for Harlot) and was raking it in.
He took one look at me and told me I could do well on their new subscription-based creator content platform.
Never got to thank him for it, though, ‘cause I ain’t telling anyone. Except Annie.
He blinks over at me, slow and glassy. “Nico. My man.” His grin is loose and toothy. “He’s been hangin’ in private. I’ve been out the game for a bit now.”
Huh. “Nice. Why’d you get out?”
He shrugs and takes a healthy swig of his drink.
“Whatcha drinkin’?”
“What aren’t I drinking?”
“Touché. Nice of May to throw us a classy-ass, top-shelf party.”
He hums. “May did good,” he replies. It’s quiet and the opposite of what I’m used to from him. Neutral, and maybe resigned, and I’ve never known Charlie to be neutral about anything.
I nod, even though he’s not really talking to me. I follow his gaze—May is dancing now, in a cute white dress, smiling as her wasted fiancé tries to spin her in a circle. Elegant. Collected.
Some things click into place in my head. “She looks happy,” I offer.
Charlie mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “Does she?” under his breath.
He lifts his glass in a lazy, saluting motion, like maybe he’s toasting her or maybe he’s warding off a punch to his stomach.
“She was always gonna end up like this. Stable and centered.” He doesn’t clarify; instead, he takes another big gulp of whatever brown substance is in his glass.
“I saw you with Annie earlier,” he says, changing the subject with the subtle grace of a wrecking ball. He smiles, and this one is genuine. “Pretty different from the last party we were all at.”
I laugh. “Yeah, we didn’t set anything on fire this time, so I’d call that progress. We spent the last week together road-tripping here.”
A ghost of a smile now. “Annie’s got that thing,” he says. “She’s like me.”
I look at him.
“She’s fucking anarchy. She’s fire,” he adds. “Annie. You don’t date a woman like that to settle down. You date her to burn through a phase of your life.”
Why is everyone testing me tonight? “You don’t know her,” I warn.
He doesn’t push. Just shrugs. “Neither did you, a week ago, seems like.”
Fair. But unfair, too.
“Sorry,” he murmurs.
I nod.
A long pause stretches between us.
He drains his glass and sets it down on the bar. Then turns and studies me. “You think you can build something real with someone so messy?” He seems genuinely interested in knowing the answer.
I shrug. “I think everything’s complicated. It’s just a matter of whether it’s worth dealing with.”
He nods slowly. “Huh.”
I watch Annie gathering flower arrangements and throwing them in boxes while complimenting the wedding planner on tonight’s success. And I come to a conclusion.
“Maybe,” I say, more to myself than to him, “stability isn’t peace and quiet. It’s staying. It’s choosing someone. Again and again, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.”
Charlie looks away. “That’s a nice idea.”
“It’s not an idea,” I say more firmly. “It’s a plan.” A tentative one, but still.
He blinks slowly. “You’re serious, then.”
“And you’re full of shit.”
He laughs, and it’s a real one. Tired and a little grateful. He raises his glass, eyes a little clearer now. “To anarchy, then,” he says.
I clink my glass against his. “And to the people who make it feel like home.”
Home. A place where I’m safe and protected and unafraid. I take a deep breath, and from this new place, the one Annie helped me find, the anarchic fortress she let me into, I decide that maybe… I should give something a shot.
“Hey,” I say, shifting awkwardly on my stool. “I never said thanks.”
He raises an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For the Harlot suggestion,” I admit, scratching the back of my neck. “You said I’d do well. You were right.”
His brow lifts a little higher. “You actually did it?”
I nod once. “Yeah. PhD wasn’t paying, Mom got really sick, bills started stacking up, rent was high—I needed to. But it turned out… I was good at it. Made real money. Kept it quiet. Still do.”
Charlie whistles, low and impressed. “Well shit. Must have left before you got big. Good for you, man. Proud of you.”
I huff out a laugh, surprised by the rush of relief I feel. I’m not even sure what I was expecting. Judgment? Mockery? But of course not. It’s Charlie. He’s a very, very famous porn star.
“You ever regret it?” I ask.
Charlie doesn’t react right away. He just rolls the empty glass between his palms, eyes back on May across the room. “Yeah,” he finally says. “But not for the reason you think.” He shakes his head. “Does Annie know?”
“Annie’s the only person I’ve told,” I say after a beat. “She didn’t flinch. Said I shouldn’t be ashamed of any of my choices. Should be proud of them, even.”
Charlie nods slowly. “That’s a good woman, man.”
My chest swells. Not just with love, but with something sharper and quieter beneath it. Permission. Not to change, but to stay and to grow around the things I used to hide.
“Yeah,” I agree. “She is.”
He looks at me again, more sober now. “So what’s the issue?”
That one takes me a minute.
“Because being proud of something means I have to admit it matters,” I finally say. “And if it matters, then it’s not just something I did. It’s… part of me.”
Charlie lets that settle. Then he claps me on the back, harder than necessary.
“Congrats,” he says. “You’re officially in the emotional nudity stage. Way scarier than the full-frontal kind.”
I bark out a laugh. “No shit.”
“You gonna tell more people?”
“Maybe.”
He grins. “Start small. Like your mom.”
I grimace. “Jesus.”
“She loves you. She’ll be fine.”
“Would you be?”
“Hell no,” he says cheerfully. “But I’m not a mom. I’m just the porn star who accidentally talked a PhD student into becoming one, too.”
I catch her in the hallway leading to the bathroom and press her against the wall. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Wanna come back to my room?” I say into her mouth.
Her entire body shivers. “I do, but I told May I’d stay with her tonight. She’s sleeping in my room because Tom’s a wreck.”
I groan so loudly I ruffle the hair on the top of her head. “Fine.”
She looks up at me, almost shy. “I also think it would be good for us to spend a night apart. Really think things through.”
“I’ve thought it through, Annie.”
She plays with the buttons on my shirt. I notice she’s covered up my hickeys with makeup, which makes me unreasonably upset.
“But what if you’re wrong?” she asks quietly. Fragile Annie Li.
I blow out a breath. “Here it is, honey. I l—like you. Really like you,” I decide this is a normal thing to say to a Currently Scared Annie Li, With Whom You Fell in Love With in the Span of a Week.
“And I think you like me too, but you don’t know what to do with those confusing things called…
fuzzy feelings. But we’re always gonna figure it out.
And I’m going to prove to you, over and over again, that I am not wrong. ”
Some infinitesimal part of her relaxes, but her face doesn’t change. “It’s only been a week, Nico,” and I know what she means.
No matter.
I’m gonna fight for it, and it begins today.
“It’s been months, Ali,” I remind her gently. “And even so, it’s only a tiny fraction of the rest of our lives.”
Annie blinks at me like an owl.
“Annie.”
We look back over my shoulder. It’s her dad. He says something in Cantonese.
When I look back at Annie, she has already retreated behind her force field of barbed wire. It’s actually fuckin’ terrifying how quickly that happened.
“I gotta go bring my parents home,” she mutters to me. “After the wedding, okay? We’ll talk.”
“Annie, honey.”
She lifts up and gives me a peck on the lips. “Later.” She walks away.
Leaving me, forcing me… to really think it through.