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“Zoey eats potato chip sandwiches. Of course she’ll like this.”
“Camille used to make it. It’s an old Southern icebox pie called millionaire pie, because it’s so rich. Basically, it’s just ambrosia in a pie shell. But I thought it was magical when I was a boy.”
“I usually don’t like my dreams. But that one, I liked.” She didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, but she needed to say this. She wanted him to understand. “I know I’m not an easy person to get to know. There’ll always be a lot that people won’t know about me. I just wanted to say thank you. You and Zoey have made these past few weeks surprising. Surprisingly nice, I mean. I’m not used to that.”
“Do you think if we knew everything about you, we wouldn’t feel the same way?”
That was definitely something she didn’t want to get into. “It’s complicated.”
“We all feel that way. For one reason or another.”
“Do you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.” But didn’t elaborate.
“Well, anyway,” she said with a wave of her hand, trying to dispel any awkwardness, “thank you for your friendship. It means a lot to me.”
Mac paused as he took a lighter out of his pocket. “Is that how you see me, a friend?”
“Isn’t that how you see me?”
He set the lighter down and turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. She liked when he did that. She thought it made him look like a genie about to grant a wish. He considered her seriouslybefore he said, “I remember the day you moved in. I remember you were wearing jeans and a pink shirt. After Lizbeth chased the movers away, you stood alone on your patio with your eyes closed. There were glints of sunlight on your hair, and I remember thinking that it looked braided with stars.” He reached out to touch her hair, but he dropped his hand with just inches to go. “You looked so relieved to be settled, as if it were the best feeling in the world. I could’ve stared at you like that for hours.” He turned away and picked the lighter back up. He flicked it, lighting the first candle on the pie. “That’s how I see you, Charlotte.”
She went very still as the impact of what he was saying hit her.
He’d seen her that day, the real her, in one of her rare, unguarded moments. Charlotte never acknowledged that person, even though she kept pushing through the cracks. But Charlotte clearly remembered that no one had loved that little girl, so somewhere along the way she’d made herself believe no one ever would.
“But I thought…” She didn’t know how to say this without sounding ridiculous.
“What did you think?”
“Since you hadn’t made a move…”
He gave her a funny look. “You’ve beenwaitingfor me to make a move?”
Had she? Had she been waiting all this time? She was used to bottling everything up until she fell with a white-hot intensity that felt like the hunger of her childhood, when she would quickly fill herself out of fear of not getting enough. She’d never had this kind of slow attraction to a man before, something that felt like she didn’t need any more than this.
It was the strangest sensation.
It felt like finally being full.
“What’s the holdup? I’m going to be twenty by the time you guys finish lighting candles. Oh! Sorry!” Zoey said as she quickly backed out, hitting her shoulder on the doorjamb in the process, having caught Charlotte and Mac leaning in so close now that their faces were only a whisper apart. “Sorrysorrysorry.”
Mac held her eyes for a few seconds longer, not moving, making her wonder if he was going to lean in those last few inches. But then he pulled back. “Okay. Pie first,” he said.
Charlotte shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. She looked around for something to do. She grabbed the pie plates and forks. “Right,” she said. “Pie.”
“Charlotte?”
She turned to him.
“Just to be clear: I’m going to kiss you later.”
That made her smile as she walked to the patio, leaving him to light the rest of the candles. When he emerged, they sang “Happy Birthday” as Mac set the pie in front of Zoey. The spray of light illuminated her young, beautiful face like the pale moon in the sky as she closed her eyes, forming a wish.
The possibilities of what was to come for all of them made it hard for Charlotte to catch her breath as she watched Zoey.
This is what being full feels like.
