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“Ohhh, my Charlie. What a deep accent you have.” Cherry shoots Garrett a wink and bites her lip before my mum sighs.
“It’s the cartoon, isn’t it? Simon used to watch it when he was little. That Charlie and Lola one.”
My brows shoot up at her understanding. “You mean you know stuff about me? Oh wait, that’s right. You said when I was little. That must have been those few years before you decided to spend your life travelling the world with a man that you would end up divorcing while your child was raised by nannies.”
The room falls silent as my mum’s face turns red in anger, and I stare into her eyes, not backing down. The silence is long and drawn out, and my mum's glare falters, looking like she is biting the inside of her cheek.
“Yes, Charlie. You are right. I don’t really know anything about you because I have been an absent mother.”
Her British accent is on point, having clearly picked up the game we were playing, but her words are what stun me. I never thought she’d take ownership of her absence, and now I kind of feel bad for being a prick to her. But then again, if I didn’t, maybe she would never have admitted it to me.
“Would you like to know more about him, Lola?” Cherry asks, staying in character, and my mum slowly shifts her hazel eyes across the table to my girl.
“Yes Lola. I think I really would.”
Rhys beams at my mum’s response. “Well, Lola. You already know how much Charlie loves Cherry pie.”
“Don’t remind me.” My mum scoffs, but smirks at the same time.
“He also loves feet.” Cherry continues, and I butt in.
“Ahhh… Lola, I don’t think she needs to knowthatstuff about me.”
Cherry giggles, and my mum bursts out laughing before Marcus tries to talk in an accent and tells my mum about school camp a few years ago. As the conversation flows in mostly bad accents, Rhys subtly smiles across the table at me and gives me a cheeky wink. I like seeing her like this. She has a way with people. An ability to take attention off someone else and put it on herself, even if it’s negative. I can see she really wants everyone to just get along. And if there’s a conflict or confrontation, she will throw herself in the firing line to take the heat off those she cares about.
I’ve never known anyone like her. She’s so unique that I’m almost afraid she will disappear at any moment. The need to contain her is overwhelming, but you can’t contain someone like Rhys George. She is the rarest of butterflies that needs to spread her wings and fly to wherever calls to her. I hope she realises that wherever she goes, Simon Hastings will be right there following behind.
We spend longer than I thought we would in the dining room chatting with my mum. I’ll admit, it was kind of nice, but a part of me wonders if she’s just trying to win me over in the hopes I’ll stop giving her grief about moving away. There’s nothing she can do that will make me leave my girl. Not now. Not ever.
“Please tell me we aren’t going to watch more of that cartoon?” Garrett grumbles as we stumble back into the rumpus room with full bellies.
“Oh, fine! You can have your normal bogan accents back now.” Rhys giggles, and Marcus nods.
“I kinda like my bogan accent.”
Rhys sidles up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging him down towards her lips. “I kinda like your bogan accent, too.” Then they kiss.
I can’t hide my grin. This girl is everything to us. She has each of us snared in the best way, and I fucking love how much she loves all of us right back.
When Marcus and Cherry break the kiss, she pulls her phone from her pocket, and I watch as the brief happiness that she’d been wearing for the last couple of hours falls from her face.
“What’s wrong, Kitten?” Shaun asks, noticing too.
“Uh…” She looks up from her screen. “Char just sent me a link to a podcast… I, uh, need to listen to it.”
“You can Bluetooth your phone to the speaker, and we can all listen, Cherry.” I offer, but she frowns, looking uncomfortable.
“I’m not sure you guys want to listen to this.”
Marcus wraps his arms around Rhys from behind and presses his lips to her head. “What is it, Rhee?”
Her chocolate eyes dart around the room before settling back on her phone. “It’s called Breaking the Silence. The podcaster tells stories. Other people's stories that they can’t tell because it will expose them. Then she uses her TikTok account to post info about the stories, which includes images of people who are bad and need to be caught.” Rhys looks up again. “This podcast is of my story.”
I can’t speak for the other guys, but I think I stop breathing for a moment as the reality of what she said sinks in. Her story. The dark one that she tries to keep hidden. The one where she was taken advantage of as a child. The one that still haunts her to this day. I know a little about it, but not everything, and I only want to know everything if she wants me to.
“Cherry? I want to listen to it, but only if you’re happy for me to. If that’s not something you want, then I will respect your wishes.”
Her smile is small yet warm as she looks at me. “Thank you, Sy.”
