"How do you kiss someone like that," I said, without preamble, without hello, without any of the scaffolding of a normal conversation because Charlie and I had not needed scaffolding in years, "and then say we can't?"
A pause. Short. The kind that meant Charlie was not surprised but was choosing his words.
"Felix said we can't," he said, "or Felix said I don't want to?"
I stopped.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. I was aware of my keys, still in my hand. I set them down on the cushion beside me.
"...we can't," I said.
Charlie was quiet for a moment. Then:
"Okay. That's different."
I put my elbow on my knee and pressed my fingers to my forehead. "Is it? Because from where I'm sitting,"
"Shay."
"He still said,"
"Shay." His voice was even. Not soft exactly, just , steady, the way Charlie was steady now, the way he'd learned to be. "I know what he said. I'm telling you we can't and I don't want to are not the same sentence."
"They lead to the same result, Charlie. I'm alone in my apartment with my shoes on."
"I know." A beat. "Take your shoes off."
"That's not,"
"Humor me."
I took my shoes off. I didn't know why that helped. It did, slightly.
"We can't is about something outside him," Charlie said. "Fear. Logistics. The team, management, the thing your dad," He stopped. Started again, more carefully. "It's about the situation. Not about you."
I was quiet.
"I don't want to," Charlie continued, "is about you."
"He didn't say I don't want to."
"No," Charlie said. "He didn't."
I lay back against the couch cushions and looked at my ceiling. My ceiling had a water stain near the corner that I'd been ignoring for two months. I was now very aware of it. Felix would have had it fixed the same week. Felix would have known about it before it was a stain. Felix had probably already identified a contractor.
"He kissed me back," I said. "I want to be clear. In case that didn't come through in the ten,minute voice message. He kissed me back."
"I got that part."
"Both hands."
"Shay."
"I'm just , for the record."
"I know." A pause. I could hear, distantly, something in the background at Charlie's end , a sound, a movement, the murmur of Henry somewhere in the house. The easy noise of a place that had been built by two people for two people. I had a water stain and a bag by the door. "Can I ask you something?"
"Theoretically," I said.
