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Grace’s brows raised. “I see.”
Arms crossed, Charlie leaned back against her seat in a manner she knew would irk her mother.
“Sit straight, Charlotte,” Grace reprimanded. “You’re slouching.”
Instead, she reached for the basket of bread and roughly chewed on it with her mouth open, staying put in her slovenly position. Charles looked amused at the interaction.
“You know, my friends in school call me Charlie, too,” he said. “Sounds like it’ll get confusing for us.”
The man laughed while Charlie observed him. He wasn’t hideous. A slighter build than Rick, but he seemed to be taller. Wide eyes with a nose too big in between, his mouth’s naturally friendly tilt made up his best feature. Besides being dressed cleanly, this man didn’t care about his own superficiality. His confidence in himself was enough.
“Charles here went to Harvard for his undergraduate and Oxford for his masters,” Grace said. “Graduated before he turned twenty-two.”
“Whatever,” Charlie muttered. It was the typical drivel. Her mother loved highlighting the most inconsequential items on her checklist.
Grace caught her remark and glared.
“To be fair, my uncle knew the chancellor at Oxford, so it wasn’t entirely because of merit,” Charles said. “In fact, it was all nepotism, if you think about it.”
“But you made it in and successfully completed the programs!” Grace defended.
Charlie rolled her eyes. Why doesn’t her mother just adopt the man?
“Which university did you attend, Rick?” Charles asked. The server then came with their appetizers of roasted asparagus and creamed corn.
Her attention went to Rick, and that was when she noticed the minute faltering in his face.
“I went to a junior college for about two years before dropping out,” Rick said.
In the corner of her eye, Charlie could see Grace’s dismay.
“Oh, what happened?” Grace asked, scooping food and placing it on Charles’s plate like a doting mother.
“My father had health problems that amassed medical bills and my brother was heading to medical school, so that added up, too,” Rick answered. “I couldn’t keep up with the courses because I was working two jobs to pay for them.”
Heart falling out of its place, Charlie stifled a gasp. Her chest pinched in tenderness. She knew only that Rick worked a lot to keep his family afloat, but didn’t know he’d given up on his own education for it. Alex only mentioned that Rick didn’t have a college degree, but didn’t disclose the reason. Although it would’ve been easy to guess. Rick wasn’t the type to brag about his sacrifices, but looking at it now, he may have seen it as a negative rather than something he should be proud of.
Charlie couldn’t be more enraged by Grace’s look of disapproval.
“You didn’t have any family to help?” Charles asked.
This time, Charlie grimaced. It was a sensitive subject to bring up, and for good reasons.
“No.”
Grace and Charles waited for an elaboration, but Rick was done.
“He doesn’t have relatives around,” Charlie said.
“That’s too bad,” Grace said. “Maybe Charles could help you get in touch with someone if you want to pursue an education again.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. That chapter of my life has passed, and I’m happy with where I’m at,” Rick said.
As the server came by to pour them glasses of red wine, Charles took his glass before asking, “What do you do for work?”
Grace wasn’t going to like the answer, Charlie could already guess.
“Photography. Specifically wildlife,” Rickreplied. As predicted, her mother didn’t react, and instead hid her face behind her glass.
