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“I feel you bristling,” Charlie says gently.
“For a minute, when the four of us came together, it felt perfect. Like that’s the way it should be. I could feel our potential, and it’s so fucking big. And then it all crashed down. Those guys in the future, they’re so broken, Chaz. And you and me, we’re fucked up. I know we’ll heal, but we’ll never be right again. We’ll always be less than we could be. Like when I lost mum.”
Charlie sighs and looks out at the bright vista in front of us. “I don’t have all the answers, bean. I wish I did. I wish I could promise that it’ll be enough, just the two of us. If we both give a little more. Or that we’ll find what we’re missing again with someone else. What I do know is it’s not a decision we have to make right now. Or even should make right now. Your buddy Lords got it right. You should take some time. We both should. Let shite settle. Give them time to figure out what they want, too. Maybe what they really want is each other. They should have a chance to figure it out.”
I nod against his shoulder despite how both the logic of it and the loss of the two parts of our whole shreds my insides. I’ve been hanging on to my righteous anger to fuel me through my exam. I couldn’t let myself feel anything else because I couldn’t afford the distraction. Now that the crisis is past, more than anger is flooding me. I miss Gabe all to hell. And I’m worried about him. Other than his very un-pushy texts, he hasn’t tried to contact me since I walked away from him. Is he really okay? If he’s crying when he asks Charlie about me, is he hurting as much as we are?
And, if I’m honest, I’m worried about Darwin. There’s something that doesn’t sit right with all of it, now that I’m getting beyond the initial maelstrom. Why does he want me to blame him and him alone if he didn’t glamor Gabe? Is it guilt over taking Gabe away from me and Charlie, or is it something else? And now that he’s finally, finally learned to apologize, even if it is half-arsed, what will happen if I don’t forgive him? If I keep slapping away the hand he’s holding out to me, will there be a day he stops offering it? As much as I wonder if there’ll be a morning I wake up and don’t reach for Gabe, will there be a day when Darwin never reaches for anyone again?
I can’t live with that.
“We weren’t going to talk about this today,” I say. “We were going to forget about everything for a few hours and look at trees.”
“Yeah, that prolly wasn’t ever gonna happen,” Charlie admits. “But I’m glad we talked it out. This is part of me steppin’ up, innit? Honesty don’t mean nothin’ if we never talk about the shite that matters.”
“True. What else matters that we haven’t talked about?”
“What we’re having for tea. I vote Mexican.”
I laugh. The world could, literally, be falling apart and Charlie Miller would still be thinking with his stomach.
Chapter15
An Unexpected Party, Without Dwarves
When we get back to our suite in Ouroboros, waddling up the stairs because we’re both so full of Mexican food, there’s a package and a bouquet of flowers sitting in front of our door.
This isn’t the first “gift” Darwin’s sent me. In the days after I got back, the orders my crew got for stones doubled and then tripled. I know my market well enough to know that doesn’t just happen. Darwin got his family to start buying from my lot in England as well as at Bevvy. I had Rose send him a thank you through the front he was using. But this is the first time he’s sent something to our door.
“Flowers are clearly for me,” Charlie says. “Prezzie is for you.”
“Leaves do match your eyes.” I scoop up both while he opens our door and bypasses our wards.
I’m not really a flowers kind of girl, so we don’t have vases or nowt. I separate the bouquet into two bunches, cut the stems short, and put them in pint glasses. The card says the flowers are from both boys, but the selection is all Gabe. Carnations, tiny daisies, and fragrant jasmine, in the reds and purples Gabe knows I like.
Charlie unwraps the present while I’m sorting out the flowers. He puts four lumpy bundles of gray wool on the kitchen counter. His shoulders shake with silent laughter while he reads the card. He hands it to me once I return from putting one glass of flowers in our bedroom.
“Dear Teddy and Charlie,” it says in Gabe’s messy, boy handwriting. “It’s getting cold, and I didn’t know if you had mittens, so Hog and I knitted you some. Hope they fit. Love, Gabe.”
Darwin has signed the card, too, but there’s no question whose idea this was.
Charlie picks up one gray bundle and squeezes his thick hand into it. There’s a knot of wool between the thumb and first finger that I don’t think is supposed to be there, and a long ravel from pinkie to wrist. From the soft smile on Charlie’s face, I know he’s going to wear them all winter no matter their imperfections. Or maybe because of them.
None of us are perfect. I’ve made mistakes. Charlie’s made mistakes. Gabe’s made mistakes. And Darwin’s made a fuck-load of mistakes. None of us are blameless.
I feel the pricking of my eyes before hot wetness rolls down my cheek.
Charlie folds me into his arms and kisses the side of my head. “Sap.”
I poke him in the ribs while burying my face in his firm, warm chest.
“These are the ugliest fucking gloves in the entire world.”
“I know.” I sniffle.
“You’re crying because they’re anging.”
I poke him harder. “That’s exactly why.”
