Page 69 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“It was lonely without you,” he says. “I even missed your terrible dogs.”
“I knew you loved them.”
“Love is a strong word. It’s more the way you miss hiccups when they finally stop coming.”
I laugh as I take a big swig of the gin and tonic he’s handed me. He’s so full of shit. He’d die for my puppies, and he knows it.
“Where are they, anyway?” he asks, looking around.
“I put them in Mom and Roger’s room so they wouldn’t be underfoot,” I reply. “Would you like to go see them?”
“Absolutely not,” he says, “but we’d better make sure they’re not tearing the place apart.”
Again: he’s so full of shit.
We take our drinks up to my mother’s room and wind up sitting on the floor with the puppies in our laps, our backs against the footboard, while he tells me what I’ve missed during the twelve hours we were apart.
I tell him that everyone’s treating me like I’ve just learned I’ve got a fatal illness and several people have referenced my dwindling fertility, and then Narcy knocks over my gin and tonic and we agree that the best course of action is to leave before my mother finds out we were up here at all.
Downstairs, we get more drinks. Ulrika tries to sideline Charlie and he excuses himself, telling her he wanted to talk to me about my dwindling fertility.
The night is saved. No, it’s better than saved. I’m bubbling over with my happiness. The way the puppies act when I come home? That’s how I feel when Charlie enters the room. Like I want to leap at him until he pulls me into his arms. And yes, it’s dangerous and a variety of other bad things, but tonight I’m just going to allow myself to love it. Because he came here for me, and that fact alone has me smiling so wide no one could possibly think I was brokenhearted.
Not once, for the rest of the night, do I hear “you’re handling this so well.”
Or maybe it’s just that I’m no longer listening to anyone speaking to me aside from Charlie.
The party rageson until the very early hours of the morning. The beds are entirely gone by the time we get inside—and so are the couches. Charlie pulls a big blanket out of the linen closet and grabs my hand, leading me down to the beach. The breeze is chilly, but once we’re lying down —my head on his very warm shoulder and the blanket around us—I’m as cozy as I’ve ever been in my life.
“I don’t want to fall asleep,” I whisper, fighting my drooping eyelids like a toddler.
“Me either,” he says, pulling me closer. It’s been a perfect night, possibly my favorite night ever, and if I can just stay awake, I can…
The sun’s first rays are in my face before I can finish the thought.
“Shit,” he says, reaching for his phone, and then his shoulders relax. “I’ve got to go. I forgot to set the alarm.”
Go? But he just got here. And I somehow had it in my head that he’d stay until I felt okay about him leaving again, but when is that day coming?
“Already?” I ask.
“I’m catching a ride with some guys heading to Kiawah in about an hour,” he says, climbing to his feet and helping me to mine. “And I can’t ask Elijah to work the hours he is and not at least be present.”
I want to argue that he hasn’t slept all night and won’t be any use to Elijah this afternoon anyhow, but even if that’s true, it would be unfair of me to ask him to stay. He already gave up aday in Oak Bluff to be here, and even if he’s useless when he gets home, he’ll wake up ready to go tomorrow.
I sigh in agreement. “I’ll take you to the airport.”
“You know,” he says, pushing the gate to my mother’s property open, “the party is over. I’m sure there’s room on the flight if you just want to come back with me now.”
As much as I long for sleep, I long for the peacefulness of Oak Bluff more. But it is not to be.
“I can’t. I told Andrew that I’d go to lunch with him.”
“Andrew,” he says flatly. “How are you going to get back to the city by lunch?”
I shake my head. “He’s here. In the Hamptons. I ran into him yesterday.”
Charlie tenses, his jaw locked tight. “So it’s a date,” he says.
