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I shook my head. “I’m okay. Just wanted you to know why I might be a little standoffish.”
“We can work with that.”
“Let’s go, then.” I got out, Charles doing the same, and we walked together to the group.
“Welcome to the club!” Jasper said with a smile.
“What?” I asked.
“Ignore him. He’s an idiot,” Sutton said.
“Hey, I’ve always been a member of the club,” Charles said, making the pieces click into place. “I run that shit.”
Emerson rolled his eyes.
My pulse sped up.
Charles’s hand settled at the base of my spine, which I hadn’t known I needed.
“What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?” Sam asked.
“Frostbite!” Charles called out.
Sam groaned. “Em…control your friend. He’s not supposed to ruin my jokes.”
Everyone laughed, no one feeling any of the pressure that sat on my chest. How did they do that? Why were things so hard for me? Not all the time, which was what made it more difficult sometimes. It was like my brain just went off on its own and I had no control over what I felt and when.
“Stop ruining my husband’s jokes, Charles.” Emerson crossed his arms.
“Aw, you’re no fun, except it is cute to see you so shmoopy over your husband,” Charles teased his friend.
“That’s not a word,” Emerson tossed back, the five of them all talking and joking while I tried to sort through why I suddenly wasn’t sure I could breathe. This was my nephew and his boyfriend. Charles’s best friend and his husband. My hands shouldn’t be shaking. My heart shouldn’t be going crazy.
“I’m gonna go over there and have a cigarette.” I nodded toward one of the far trees.
Charles frowned. “All right…want me to go with you?”
His question just made me feel guilty, even though I appreciated that he’d asked. “I’m good. Just want a smoke.”
I stood beneath the tree where Charles had spoken to me for the first time and lit up a cigarette. Somehow, inhaling the first drag into my lungs helped. I watched as the five of them stood around laughing and joking. Every once in a while, Charles’s gaze would dart to me. He’d give me a small smile, which I returned, but he kept his distance. I knew he was doing that for me, because I was important to him. He wanted me to have my space, but also to know I wasn’t alone.
It was that thought that made me head back to them. The only way to move forward, to be able to laugh and talk with them the way I longed to do, was for me to fight to do that exact thing. That didn’t mean my gut wasn’t twisted up; it was, my heart beating too fast and too hard.
I felt Charles’s smile before I saw it, and the knowledge that it was because of me was something I still struggled to make sense of.
“Your boyfriend is annoying,” Emerson told me.
“He doesn’t mean that. He loves me,” Charles teased.
“I think he’s pretty special,” I added, knowing Emerson had been joking but needing to give a truthful answer.
“You hear that? I’m special.” Charles wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, nuzzling my throat, and I let myself relax into him. It was where I wanted to be anyway. Feeling Charles breathe had a way of relaxing me.
“Y’all are so cute. They’re cute, Em, so you gotta be nice. This mean you’re stayin’ in Ryland?” Sam asked.
The question made my muscles spasm.
“It does,” Charles said, his answer an electrical shock to my heart.
I pulled away and looked at him. “You decided that for sure?” We always just said we would figure it out. The news wasn’t something I’d let myself truly hope for so I wouldn’t be let down.
Charles frowned. “Where else would I be? I need to talk to my family, but they’ll understand. I’d like to keep my apartment. I really love it, and we’d have somewhere to stay any time we wanted to visit. I quit my job before I came here.”
“You did?” Emerson asked, clearly shocked about Charles leaving his career.
“Oops. Did I forget to tell you that?”
“You loved practicing law.”
“I did, and I’ll always be grateful for it, but my time was over. I was just tired of it all. I knew I was done, and if I couldn’t give it my all, I had no business doing it, so I stopped. Plus, I was already the best. It was time I gave others a chance.”
Everyone chuckled at Charles and his antics. I loved how comfortable he was in any room, with any kind of person, in any situation. Sometimes I wished I could absorb some of that, but then, maybe we fit because we were so different. Maybe that made us work because Charles didn’t change me, but he brought things out in me that I wanted for myself.
