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“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you might be resentful because it took me away from you.”
“It wasn’t your job that took you away from me,” she says quietly.
And she’s right. The mood is less passionate and more somber when we arrive at the hotel. I try to lighten it up by describing my ratty bachelor pad. “It’s in an apartment building with a bunch of other sailors and Marines. Cabby doesn’t understand why I haven’t moved away.”
“Why haven’t you?” she asks as she carefully stows away all of her clothes and sundry items. She’s as neat as a sailor.
“It’s not like I spend a lot of time there.”
“Still, it’s not like you couldn’t afford something better.”
“I don’t like to flaunt the family money. It’s not really mine. I didn’t earn it other than by being born, and a lot of the other guys don’t come from money.”
“No matter. Take me to your lonely bachelor apartment and make love to me in your virgin bed,” she declares, zipping her suitcase shut.
I grab it from her. “Is it still virginal if I’ve beat off to pictures of you?”
“It’s pure as the driven snow until you take me there and pleasure me in all the ways that you have fantasized about.”
I break a lot of laws getting to my apartment. Halfway there, though, she kills my erection.
“I live in Dallas now, near Nick.”
Nick. God, the poor bastard. I’ll need to call him, and so will Charlotte. “That’s right. Weren’t you living with him for a while?”
She nods. “For a few months after he first moved there. We didn’t know how long he’d need me and then, after a while, I became a really easy excuse for why he couldn’t bring women home.”
“He said you were his girlfriend?”
“No. His sister.” She grins. “But after the third woman showed up in a trench coat and heels, I moved out.”
We share a laugh, but when I pull into the parking lot of my building, Charlotte grabs my arm before I can jump out.
“I can stay a couple of days, but then I have to go back and take care of another client. My life is in Dallas, Nate.” The turmoil of our uncertain future is clear in her eyes.
“I’ll fly to Dallas for the rest of my leave. We can head up to Chicago and see the parents too.”
“What are we going to tell everyone?”
“Stay there,” I order. I can’t do this sitting in the Jeep. I need to be able to see her straight on.
“This whole situation is emotionally confusing for me,” she says.
I round the front of the Jeep and then haul her out. I hadn’t planned on doing this right now. There were better, more romantic ways, but I can’t wait another minute. The box in my pocket might burn a hole through the cotton. I picked it up right after Charlotte dropped the stationary in my arms and indicated there was a way she’d hear me out.
Ignoring the increasing number of male eyes pinned on the spectacle I am making, I grip her shoulders. “I love you, Charlotte. I want us to be together. I’ll do anything it takes to keep us together. I want you to come to see where I live. I want to see where you live. I want to meet your friends. I want you to meet my friends. I want our families to know we are together. I don’t want Nick to feel that he is in the middle of a bad divorce.”
“So you know it has been a strain on him.” She’s wide-eyed, wondering where I’m going with my crazy rambling.
“Of course I knew. Half the reason he can’t settle down is because I’ve screwed him up so bad. All he sees is his big brother turning his back on something wonderful and how much pain it has cost both of us. He’ll take the hits on the field but doesn’t want to suffer them off of it.” I hadn’t just pushed Charlotte away; I’d placed a wedge between our families, harmed my brother, and made my own life miserable.
I bend down on one knee, in the middle of the parking lot, next to my dirty Jeep, surrounded by salty military men and women.
I take her hand in mine. “Charlotte Randolph, since the moment I held you when you were an infant and I was two, I knew that we were destined to be together. I fought that destiny but no longer. Living without you is merely existing. And it’s impossible. I’ve tried it for so long. I’m only half a person. You are so courageous having fought for your life and then for me. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve another chance. But you’ve told me you love me, that you always have, that you always will, so I can’t turn away even if I should.
