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“What about your dad? Can’t he help?”
Shaking her head, she said with a grimace, “It’ll just be like you said, taking another handout.”
Rick scoffed. “Forget what I said! If you have that option, then take it. We’re trying to put this fire out as much as possible, right?”
She insisted on forgetting the idea. Out of angles, he huffed a breath.
“I can try talking to her. Make a case for myself. For us.” He lowered his face until the tip of their noses connected. “I don’t want another repeat of my parents, Charlie. I don’t want the bad blood, the guilt. The resentment. They’re killers. Literally.”
She shook her head. “There’s not going to be a repeat because I’mnotyour mother. I don’t know what it’s going to take for you to accept it, but if you’re going to be with me, then you have to. Stop anticipating failures because you’ve seen it happen once. It’s not fair to me, or you.”
“You’re right.” He shut his eyes, hating that he had no useful ideas to make everything right. His first instinct was always, always to find solutions for problems. Right when it surfaced, he acted fast. It became a reflex.
When his father lost his medical insurance, Rick filed for appeals and searched for pro bono lawyers to fight thedecision. When Alex stood to lose a scholarship because of bus schedule conflicts to attend his advanced courses, Rick paid and arranged someone to drive him while Rick was at work. When the rent was past due, Rick worked extra hours to compensate.
None of it was easy, and it damn near killed him mentally. The sacrifices hit him hard, but he knew his priorities and didn’t regret any of it. Charlie claimed to want to handle everything on her own, but it was against his nature to sit around like a deadbeat.
“I don’t want you to worry about me, please,” she said against his shoulders. “It’s my war. This isn’t a situation where I’m expecting you to come to my aid like a white knight. It’s political with my family, Rick. That’s how we run. I’m just an amateur in the game getting my start on claiming my reign.”
She pulled away to look him in the eyes, but stayed in his arms. “I appreciate your concern. And it only confirms my decision to pick you.” Leaning forward, she dragged her mouth over his and gave him a crushing kiss. He inhaled it like much needed water.
“I love you, Charlie,” he whispered between her lips. “I don’t want you to regret it later down the line.”
“What are you imagining?” she asked, a single brow raised over a sparkling eye. “That you’ll get sick like your dad? And in my inability to handle that, I’ll run back to my mommy and leave you in the lurch?”
Tongue-tied, Rick didn’t respond immediately. It would be silly to admit thatyes, that was his fear. An exact duplication of his parents’ downfall was improbable, but he couldn’t help the paranoia.
His lack of speech told Charlie everything. She rolled her eyes. “How incapable do you think I am? That without my family’s wealth, I’m as reliable as a toddler? I am thirty-two with a bank account with money Iearnedon my own. I have a good standing with my audience and outstanding connections. I’ll be fine. I can survive.”
“What are you going to do?” Rick believed that she’llbe fine financially, but the pain point was Charlie took her relationships deep into the heart. The people she kept around meant a lot to her, and losing any of them would devastate her. Severing a relationship with anyone was hard enough, but a family member wasn’t a small deal.
Her eyes flew upward, and he could see her curled lashes as she pretended to think.
“Hmm, well I think I have a few options.” She tapped her chin with the shiny, manicure nail of her index finger. “I was thinking something along the lines of… you.”
“Me?” He wasn’t following.
Nodding, she said, “Yes, you. Maybe this is a sign that I should try something new, or maybe I could take a break. If you accept the job opportunity and move to England, then I think I could really join you.”
Shit, she really was serious about this. “What are you going to do in England?” he asked.
“I’ll think of something. Who knows, maybe I can come with you to one of your wildlife gigs. When I look at the photos on your walls, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go to a world most people haven’t gone to before. I’ve swum in so many island resorts but I’ve never stood a few feet next to a hundred plus year old tortoise.”
“You can go to the zoo.”
She slapped his arm gently. “Maybe I need an adventure. Swing with the monkeys in the jungle, dance naked with indigenous members of a tribe.”
Rick stared at her, mind floundering. “You know I’ve never… doneanyof that in my travels, right?”
A beautiful laugh flew out of her lips before she brought him down for a hard kiss. When they broke off, he gave her an apprehensive look.
“How are you going to survive in a jungle with five-inch pumps?” he half joked, pride swelling that he knewwhat pumps were. This did well to make her laugh harder and earned him points when they moved their rendezvous to the bedroom, where she pushed him on the bed and got down on her knees.
They spent the night on each other, next to each other, and reassuring each other’s worth with words and touches. In those moments, things didn’t feel that bad.
Thirty-Two
Aera winced,understandably confused and upset about the news Charlie had just delivered. Charlie dreaded the conversation, knowing that Aera was a little draconian about reliability.
