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In the dining room, I sat next to Douglas and Kimberly sat across from me. When her husband reached for the seat next to me, I lost hope of sitting next to Charlie. Shaking off the unexpected disappointment, I watched as Charlie and her grandma brought in food that smelled amazing. Charlie started cutting into a lasagne and like an idiot I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Had she cooked? I waited to see if she’d look at me, but it didn’t happen. Not even once.
The table was set beautifully, the conversation flowed and in a few minutes almost everybody had a plate full of food in front of them, but Charlie still didn’t look like herself at all. No easy smiles. No stolen glances my way. No intriguing conversation as she at last served herself. Somehow it was as if I was watching a watered-down version of the Charlie I’d come to know again these last few weeks and it bothered me enormously. It bothered me to the point that I could barely stop looking at her because I was trying to catch her gaze so badly.
‘Charlie.’ Her dad called her attention as she was about to sit down with her plate. ‘Isn’t that a little too much for you? Get some of the green bean salad instead maybe?’
Confused I glanced between Charlie and Douglas. Charlie froze in place. Then without saying a single word, she cut almost half of her lasagne and put it back in the casserole dish and sat down in her seat. Not having a good feeling about what had just happened, I shifted in my seat and tried not to frown too hard, but I couldn’t help it. We made small talk as we started eating, but I still couldn’t help but steal glances at Charlie.
If someone asked something, she answered with a distracted smile, but she wasn’t exactly in the conversation somehow.
‘William?’ Kimberly called, and I stopped trying to catch Charlie’s gaze and focused on her sister whom I hadn’t had time to have many conversations with at the office with the workload we had. ‘I have to admit, I already knew about you before you came to our firm, but I didn’t expect you to handle the Michael Ashton electric car case as well as you did. I heard you helped the marketing team as well. Their new ads are really catching the eye of…’
‘Kimberly,’ Douglas interrupted. ‘Let’s skip work talk for tonight.’
‘Of course, Dad.’
I smiled at Kimberly. ‘I’ll say this much. The team Douglas picked out for me was perfect. It was definitely a team effort, we all worked on it day and night.’ I glanced at Charlie and saw the corner of her mouth quirk up. Such a small gesture, but it put a smile on my face and I tried to relax. ‘We make a good team,’ I added. Nothing was wrong. Maybe she just had been surprised to see me in her family’s home.
I turned to Charlie’s grandma, who was sitting at the head of the table opposite Douglas. ‘The lasagne is really good, Susan. Thank you for having me over for dinner.’
She was taking a sip of her wine and gestured towards Charlie. ‘Oh, it’s all Charlie. We were supposed to have salmon, but I was craving Charlie’s lasagne so I asked her to leave work early so she could come and cook. For some reason I can never get it right.’
So that’s why she had disappeared from the office. I was looking at Charlie as Susan spoke and was just about to make a comment when Douglas got there first.
‘Isn’t it a little watery this time, Charlie?’ he asked. ‘Maybe the ragu?’
I glanced between Douglas and Charlie and then down to my plate as I frowned. Had he fucking lost his mind? It wasn’t watery in any shape or form. It was the best lasagne I had ever tasted.
‘Watery or not, Douglas,’ Susan chimed in, ‘it still tastes okay.’
I watched as Charlie swallowed her food. ‘It needed some time to rest, Dad. When you cut into it too early sometimes it doesn’t stay in shape. Is the salt okay this time?’
‘Maybe a little less would’ve been better.’
My frown deepened. The lasagne tasted perfect. What the hell were they talking about? Before I could cut in and tell Charlie how incredible it tasted, Douglas spoke up again.
‘I know I’ve just said no work talk for the night, but William, how is working with Charlie going?’
I looked at Charlie in case she wanted to be the one to answer, but she was still silent and barely eating anything that was on her plate. ‘She is great. As I said, I’m really happy with the whole team.’
Kimberly nodded at me. ‘I wanted to have Charlie with me, but she doesn’t do that well in teams. I’m glad to hear it worked out for you.’
