He leaned forward and kissed her. His hands came up to her face, her neck, her hair — always her hair, the brown curls he couldn't stop touching now that he'd started.
"Yes," she said against his mouth. "I'll be your girlfriend."
He grinned. She felt it against her lips. "Yeah?"
"Don't make it weird."
"Too late."
He kissed her again. She climbed into his lap and his hands went to her waist, her hips, pulling her flush against him. She could feel his heartbeat through his shirt: fast, uncontrolled.
He carried her, standing with her legs wrapped around him. She laughed — a wild, joyful, entirely undignified sound — and he carried her down the hallway, through the door and set her down on the bed.
They undressed each other slowly. He kissed the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her collarbone, the place on her stomach that made her inhale sharply. She traced the muscles of his back, the ridge of his spine, pulled him down to her.
When he entered her, she said his name, and he said hers —Charlie, my Charlie— and she wrapped her arms around hisneck and held him close and moved with him. Slowly, then not slowly. His forehead pressed to hers, his breath on her lips, his eyes open. She kept hers open too. Just the two of them, in a bed, in a life they were choosing together.
Afterward, he lay with his head on her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair.
"The Hoffman Education Fund," she said.
"Mm."
"That's going to be on paperwork. Official documents. Grant applications."
"That's how funds work, yes."
"My name. On everything."
He lifted his head and looked at her. "Your name. On everything. Permanently. Irrevocably." He kissed her sternum. "The way it’s engraved on my heart. I love you, Charlie. I’m going to say it every day for the rest of our lives.”
EPILOGUE
CHARLOTTE
Two Years Later
This time, her wedding dress was simple.
No beading, no crystals, no bodice that required two assistants and a prayer to zip. Ivory linen, tea-length, with a square neckline and pockets deep enough to hold her phone, her lipstick, and a tissue she already knew she'd need. Charlotte had bought it off the rack at a boutique in Park Slope where the saleswoman had said, "You look like you know exactly what you want," and Charlotte had said, "It took me a while, but yeah. I do."
Kate zipped her up in thirty seconds. No snagging. No holding of breath. No turning blue.
"There," Kate said. "Done."
Charlotte turned to the mirror. The woman looking back looked like her. Brown curls loose past her shoulders. Minimal makeup. Bare feet, because they were getting married on a beach and shoes were optional. Ginnifer Weston could have an opinion about it if she wanted but Charlotte wasn't going to hear it over the sound of the ocean.
She looked like a bride. She looked like herself. For the first time, those were the same person.
"You're gorgeous," Kate said from behind her, chin hooked over her shoulder so they were both in the mirror. "You ready?"
Charlotte beamed. "I'm ready," she said.
The beach was in Montauk. A stretch of public shoreline that Charlotte had found on a weekend trip with Dominic. They'd ended up sitting on the sand watching the sun drop into the water. She'd turned to him and said, "I want it to be here."
The guest list was twenty-four people. They included Charlotte's parents and Dominic's parents. Ginnifer wore a tasteful navy dress, Roland in a suit he'd actually chosen himself, both of them demonstrating a cautious, fragile warmth that had taken two years of dinners to cultivate. His parents were still his parents — Ginnifer couldn't help commenting on the wedding venue ("a public beach, Dominic?"), and Roland still occasionally brought up the company at Sunday dinners.
But. They came to the school showcases. They made an effort to get to know Charlotte at the family dinners they invited her and Dominic to. They wrote a personal check to the Hoffman Education Fund, with a note in Ginnifer's own handwriting that said,For Charlie's students.
