The circle goes silent.
“How?” Eli asks, sounding genuinely baffled. I open my eyes, raise my head, and look at him.
“Because she’s seven,” I tell him. “Seven-year-olds aren’t very good at keeping secrets.”
“Yet you told her that you and Charlie were faking,” Eli says.
“What was my other option?” I ask. “Letting her think that Charlie was gonna be her stepmom? She’d have been over the moon, and then devastated a few months later when we told her it was off.”
“True,” Eli admits.
There’s another quiet moment. For the record, I don’t blame Rusty for spilling the beans. Like I said, she’s seven.
“When you think about it, an engagement is quite an ephemeral concept,” Levi says slowly. “What makes two people engaged? Someone asks, someone accepts, there’s a ring. Or there’s no ring. Or two people discuss the matter and mutually decide that they’ll marry.”
Eli looks over at me.
“He’s got a point,” he says. “There isn’t even an exchange of goats.”
“Truth be told, you and Charlie are just as engaged as anyone,” Levi goes on. “You asked. She accepted. There’s a ring.”
“Technically, I asked if she’d fake it,” I point out.
“There’s no proof of that,” Eli says. “Crystal can say whatever she wants, but unless she’s got some sort of proof, it’s nonsense.”
“Well, apparently everyone in town knows it’s not real,” I say, pointedly, to Levi.
“One person,” he says, huffily. “I told one person.”
“I know how to keep my mouth shut,” Silas says.
“She’s going to look like a lunatic in court with Charlie standing right there,” Levi says.
“Just canoodle in front of the judge,” Eli says, and Levi sighs.
“The burden of proof is going to be on her in this case,” Silas says. “You make a crazy accusation like that, you best back it up.”
“Family court is nothing but crazy accusations,” I say. “Half the time I’m pretty sure it comes down to what mood the judge is in that day. There’s hardly ever proof of anything, and I can keep track of what happened when to my heart’s delight, but all Crystal has to say is that’s not what happened and then our lawyers are going at it for twenty minutes.”
“Tell the court her belly’s fake,” Eli offers.
“That’s extremely provable.”
“They’ve got some really good fake pregnancy bellies these days,” Eli says. “There’s even one that’s got machinery inside that fakes the baby’s movement—”
“Why the fuck do you know this?” Silas interrupts.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I was watching one of those true crime shows,” Eli says. “There was an episode about a crazy woman who faked a pregnancy and then stole her best friend’s baby. It was nuts.”
“Shit,” Silas says.
“I don’t think I can convince the court of that,” I say. “No. Wait. I’m certain I can’t convince the court of that.”
“Daniel,” Levi says, sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced together. “You and Charlie had most of the folks you know completely convinced for several years that you were secret lovers when you, apparently, were not. Show up, be yourselves, and your engagement will be the single most credible thing to ever occur in that courtroom.”
I thump my thumb on the wooden armrest of the chair I’m sitting in, thinking.
Crystal’s usually full of shit, and I’m tempted to think that this is more of the same. I want to think that the judge will dismiss her accusation out of hand, due to lack of evidence and also the fact that she’s a psychotic hosebeast.
But I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s got evidence. I don’t know what evidence she could possibly have — the texts we’ve sent each other? Recordings of private conversations between Charlie and me? Signed testimony from someone who knows the truth?
Meanwhile, all I’ve got is a girlfriend who’s wearing a ring.
Girlfriend.
The thought is weird as fuck, but I like it.
“He’s right,” Silas says, standing. “I gotta piss. Anyone want another beer?”Chapter Twenty-SevenDanielThen, suddenly, weeks go by. Charlie and I fall into a rhythm: I go to her apartment Mondays and Thursdays. Sometimes she comes over for dinner. Sometimes one of my brothers or my mom babysits, and we go on a date.
And the weirdest part is that it isn’t weird at all. It doesn’t even feel different, it just feels… more. It feels like this is the way things always were, or at least this is the way things always should have been.
Best of all, we don’t hear a single peep from Crystal.“That one’s pretty intense, especially with a pack,” Caleb is saying.
He and Charlie are on the floor of the living room, the coffee table pushed out of the way, maps spread across the floor.
“It is?” she asks, leaning in for a closer look.
“Yeah, that part up to the Twins is all crazy switchbacks across a rock face,” Caleb says. “Hold on, I’ve got the USGS topo here somewhere.”