I open my hand against her back. I force myself to ignore everything except Charlie.
Suddenly, there it is: the spark, the fire, the reason I’ve been thinking about this since we kissed in the driveway on Wednesday. Charlie relaxes too, moves closer, her mouth suddenly soft and warm and—
“Okay, that’ll do,” the photographer says, and we both pull away. “I think I got something useable.”
Useable. Great. High praise for my modeling abilities.
“Thanks,” Charlie says. I take her hand in mine again. “When’s it running?”
The photographer slips her camera into its bag and slings it around herself carefully.
“The regatta’s running tomorrow,” she says. “The announcement, probably Monday, unless they decide to do a story.”
“A story?” Charlie echoes, and the photographer just nods.
“That’s up to the section editor, though,” she says, and checks her watch. “Congrats on the win and the engagement!”
Then she’s gone, before we can ask any more questions like what kind of story or why is this a story at all?
“Okay,” Charlie says, mostly to me, after she’s gone. “Sure. A story.”
“There’s no way they’re going to do a story,” I tell her, trying to sound reassuring. “A story about what?”
“Are there any abandoned buildings we could burn down?” she asks.
I raise one eyebrow at her and wait.
“So the paper runs that and not a fluff piece about us,” Charlie explains.
I still don’t say anything.
“I did specify abandoned,” she says, a little defensively.
“True,” I drawl.
“Sometimes you need to be creative,” she says, sighs, and leans her head against my shoulder again. “Should we go find Rusty?”
“Probably,” I say, but I don’t move.
This is all turning out to be infinitely more complicated than I thought it would be — I thought Charlie would wear a ring to a hearing, and now here we are, kissing awkwardly for photographers and hoping that the newspaper doesn’t run a story about us.
But I don’t hate it. I don’t like lying to people and I don’t like the spotlight, but moments like this — Charlie’s hand in mine, her head against my shoulder, the two of us sharing a secret — make it almost fun.
We should probably practice kissing, though, I think. My heartbeat picks up for a split second.
“All right, what do we think Eli did with my kid?” I ask.
“Probably juggling knives,” Charlie says, and I sigh, scanning the crowd. Caleb, Levi, and Seth are still standing where I left them.
Caleb and Levi are talking about something, but Seth is just watching Charlie and me, looking contemplative.
I don’t like it.
“All right let’s go rescue him,” I say, and we walk off to find Rusty.Chapter ElevenCharlieSilas leans forward, the neck of his beer bottle dangling in his fingers.
“Look, she’s not really going around telling people this, but her asshole boyfriend also dumped her the same day she got laid off,” he says.
I gasp dramatically. It’s probably a bit much, but it’s the first Loveless Sunday Dinner after we announced our engagement, and I’m one-point-five beers in on an empty stomach.
“After she got laid off at the paper?” I ask, also leaning forward conspiratorially. “He knew she’d gotten laid off and then he dumped her too?”
Silas just nods.
“That seems unkind,” says Levi, frowning.
“Well, he’s a scummy asshole who wasn’t fit to be cleaning gum from the bottom of her shoes, let alone dating her, so I wasn’t terribly surprised,” Silas says, swigging some more beer.
Then he looks at me.
“Don’t tell her I said that,” he says. “June already thinks I’m a Neanderthal, so I’m trying to be reasonable about this when I’m within earshot of her.”
“Sounds like he sucked,” I say, sympathetically.
“He did suck,” Silas agrees. “She thinks I’m just being an overprotective big brother, but that dude sucked. He was some trust fund asshole, so even though he supposedly had a job with his dad’s company, it sure seemed like he mostly played golf and went on stupid weekend trips with his buddies.”
“Fuck trust fund kids,” I say, and hold out my own beer bottle.
“Fuck Brett in particular,” says Silas, and we clink bottles.
Levi doesn’t clink. He’s just watching us thoughtfully, not saying much of anything. We’re sitting in three deck chairs in one corner of Clara Loveless’s back porch, slightly away from the general hubbub.
There’s plenty of hubbub. Rusty and two of her friends are tearing around the back yard. Eli’s in the kitchen, making something that smells amazing, and Seth is in there assisting. Last time I checked, Clara and Violet, Eli’s girlfriend, were having some sort of in-depth discussion in the living room, and a few minutes ago Caleb came out the back door, frowned, and went back inside.
I haven’t seen Daniel in like fifteen minutes. He’s probably hiding somewhere.
“Luckily, I think she’s more bummed about the job than the guy,” Silas admits. “Like maybe, deep down, she knew all along how much he sucked, and now that it’s confirmed that he sucked pretty bad, she’s at peace with the end of their relationship?”