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"Woman," he said, shaking his head, but he was smiling. "You trying to kill me tonight?" he added, looking up, his eyes warm. Happy. Excited.
I knew those feelings all too well.
Mixed with others.
Because the timing was off.
Because we were just getting on our feet.
Because we didn't have a place of our own yet.
Because we weren't married.
Because I wasn't sure I knew how to be a mother, not having had a lot of time with my own.
There were so many worries to ponder.
But Charlie cut through my swirling thoughts as he was so often known to do, pulling me away from their oppressive weight, lifting me up.
"What do you think of the name Ryan?" he asked, head ducked to the side.
"It won't work if it is a girl," I told him, feeling my swollen lips twitching even as I said the words because I knew what would follow them.
"That's fine. Because we're having boys. All boys," he told me as his arms moved to wrap around my lower back.
"All, huh?" I asked, tipping my head back to keep eye-contact.
"I'm thinking five."
I snorted at that, rolling my eyes. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one who has to carry and birth them."
"Aw, come on. Five boys. What isn't there to look forward to?"
"Bloody noses, bad aim, and stinky feet?" I suggested, head lolling to the side a bit as his fingers found the exact sore spots on my back, pressing into the knots with the precision that came from experience. My own personal massage therapist. I could get used to a lifetime of his magic fingers. Among other things. Which was good. Because a lifetime was what I was planning to have with him.
"It will be an adventure."
"What if I want girls too?" I asked, brow raising.
"I dunno. Someday they will age up, settle down, and bring some girls around."
"In what? Thirty years?"
"We got nothing but time, baby," he told me, eyes warm, mind clearly on the same track as mine, a realization that made my heart swell in my chest. "We need to move," he added a long couple of moments later when I had finally given in to the comfort in his hands, leaning into his chest, letting him work all the tension out of my body.
"Yeah," I agreed, not willing to admit it aloud, but feeling the whole space was now tainted by Bobby and his evil ideas.
"I'll start looking for apartments tomorrow. Gotta start somewhere. Especially with a baby on the way. And neighbors would be a good thing if I have more late nights in the future." He paused for a moment, then pressed a kiss to my temple. "I'll get you a house before that baby turns one," he assured me.
"Promise me one thing," I said, turning my head into his neck, breathing in his scent, something that never ceased to make my heart swell in my chest.
"Anything."
"You'll always be home for Sunday dinner."
I don't know where it came from, never having known the tradition in my own life.
But maybe that was exactly it.
It was a thing people did.
Normal people.
And if there was one thing we could use in this life bound to be fraught with worry and concern and illegal activity and cops and uncertainty... it was a little normalcy.
I had no idea at the time what that would eventually come to be.
It was just a wish from a woman about to be a wife, about to be a mother, made to the man she wanted to build a life with, however unusual.
"I'll never miss a single one," he assured me, voice firm.
Time would tell that he would make good on that promise.
He never missed them.
Not a single one.
And I never stopped to ask what the hell ever happened to Bobby.TENCharlie - 3 yearsThose early years weren't easy.
For the business.
For me.
For Helen.
It was one thing to struggle. As a single person. With no one for it to affect but yourself.
It was another to know that my struggles were her struggles, were Ryan's struggles, were Eli's struggles when he followed not long after Ryan.
I had three mouths other than my own to feed, had four people living in a too-small house in a crummy neighborhood because when there was extra money, it had to be reinvested back into the business.
"We have a house, Charlie," Helen told me as I leaned back against the kitchen counter, a half-drained coffee cup hanging from tired fingers, the knuckles crusted over with scabs, a hint of blood under one of my fingernails where I missed it while scraping when I got home.
"The schools on this side of town suck."
"The boys aren't in school yet," she reminded me, sending me a soft smile even if her words were firm.
She'd gotten good at it.
Adapting.
But the thing was, I didn't want her just to live with the life I could provide her. I wanted her to flourish. I wanted her to have the soaking tub I had seen her mooning over in a magazine once instead of the tub/shower combo we had with the sliding glass doors and brass accents that I heard her cussing out on cleaning days. I wanted her to be able to watch the boys run wild in the backyard, not the little square patch of grass we currently had. I wanted her not to have to storm over to the neighbor's house that was nearly butting up to ours, pound on the door, and tell them to pipe the fuck down when she was trying to put the boys to sleep.
