AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her forehead emerges from her hands. It’s wrinkled. Shit. Then her eyebrows. They’re as arched as it’s possible for eyebrows to be. I might be about to throw up my heart.
Her eyes are big and full and a deep warm brown like thick, melted chocolate. And they’re impossible to read.
As her head rises, a bead of sweat trickles from my neck down my spine. It inches lower, one vertebra at a time.
Then Charlotte’s cheeks appear, flushed and full, with a broad smile spreading across her face as those beautiful eyes focus on the screen.
It’s all I can do to stop myself from letting out an audible sigh of relief.
“Oh my God,” she says through laughter as she takes in the image.
Cartoon Elliot limps like a hunched old man toward a massage table where Cartoon Charlotte awaits, flexing an enormous pair of throbbing hands.
The real Charlotte looks down at her real hands. “They’re not that big, are they?”
“They’re the perfect size,” I tell her. “And absolutely fucking magic.” Running the risk of pushing my luck here, I let myself continue. “And I would love to return the favor sometime.”
She cocks her head to one side and gives me an exaggerated look of exasperation.
“And my final reason you should date me?” I flick to the next slide. “Five. This is Your Time.”
The “your” is in a script font and surrounded by the same stars as our names on the title slide.
Charlotte presses a hand over her mouth, her eyes suddenly so full they threaten to overflow.
My chest heaves. She might, just might, be starting to believe in what I’m telling her.
“You worked so hard for this new job.” I gesture to the little room we’re in. “You deserve this chance so much. You created the opportunity for yourself because this is your time.”
One tear spills out and trickles over her cheek until it hits her fingers.
“But it’s not only your time for the career you’ve been craving, it’s your time for all parts of your life.”
I nudge the presentation to the next image and watch her face as her eyes rove across the screen.
It’s divided into quarters. In the top left, Cartoon Charlotte sits at a desk, talking into a headset while typing with one hand and writing in a planner with the other. The top right sees her sitting next to Cartoon Elliot on a sofa, eating pizza, drinking some Toasted Tomato beer, and watching a movie.
The bottom left is filled with lots of smaller scenes. We look up at the Eiffel Tower in one, and another has us on a Venetian gondola. Then we lie on beach loungers sipping drinks with umbrellas in them. In the next scene, we stand on top of a high hill, wearing backpacks and looking down at a lake below. And then there’s one of us sitting around a Christmas tree with cartoon versions of my parents, her dad, and her brothers.
And the final square, in the bottom right, shows us tucked into bed, fast asleep, me spooning her as the moonlight shines through the window.
She takes it all in, staring silently and intently at each image, one by one. A tear rolls out of the other eye. And the longer she looks at the graphics, the more tears follow.
After a few seconds, she wipes her face as her attention slowly shifts until her eyes meet mine. “You really think I could have all that? That I’m allowed all that?”
“Allowed?” My heart snaps in two, and I can’t keep my hands off her any longer. I reach across her desk and cup her face, thumbing away the endless tears. “You think you might not be allowed to be happy? You sacrificed yourself to make sure your brothers got the very best start in their lives, but you still think you might not be worthy of being fulfilled in all parts of your life?”
Her soulful, honest gaze never leaves mine. “It’s hard to believe I could be that lucky.”
“You’ve made your own luck, Charlotte. I want to watch you move up and up until you become the best goddamn executive Harvest Enterprises could ever wish to have. I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will never hold you back. I will wallow in your victories.” Her body jerks as she swallows back a sob. “I can’t wait to watch you succeed at everything.” I run the back of my fingers down her damp cheek. “Then fall asleep next to you.”
As hard as it is to take my hands from her, I let go of her face, stand up straight, and fling my arms wide, offering everything I am to her. “It’s all right here for the taking. You just have to say the word.”
She sniffs. “Well, then I think?—”
“Hold on. I have one last point before you make your decision.”
“I thought you said there were five.” She pulls a tissue from the box on her desk. “That was five.”
