by Amy Star
Of the many things Charlie had been expecting, she hadn’t been expecting to need to valiantly hold in a burst of laughter. Richard had a pad of gauze taped over one eye, and there were stitches in his ear on the same side. It was rather apparent that not all of his ear could be saved, though, as it still looked rather mangled, even though stitched back together.
Zeke’s mother, evidently taking Charlie’s staring as curiosity rather than poorly controlled hilarity, explained pleasantly, “Poor thing was on the wrong end of a carjacker on his way out of the city yesterday. Honestly, can you believe the state of the world today?”
Zeke nudged Charlie with his elbow as he pulled her chair out, and she cleared her throat as she jerked back into motion and sat down. “Well, that sounds scary,” she settled on, smoothing her hands over her skirt just for something to do to keep her hands busy as Zeke sat down beside her. “How did he get away? Or did he knock out the carjacker?” she wondered, sliding a glance towards Richard.
His visible eye narrowed sharply, and Charlie felt her heart rate pick up and she couldn’t help but wonder if she was reaching too far. She calmed when she remembered that they were in the middle of a restaurant, surrounded by people. Two of those people were his aunt and uncle. One of them had chased him off twice already in a rather short time span. So, if she really wanted to, she could probably afford to throw caution to the wind for a little while.
It’s not like he could become more homicidal.
Zeke’s mother laughed lightly and set a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Richie chased him off well enough, though not unscathed, as you’ve no doubt noticed.”
Uh huh. Right. Richie chased him off. Charlie tried very hard not to roll her eyes and she succeeded just by the skin of her teeth. She was almost proud of herself.
Clearing her throat quietly, she said, “Well, hopefully whoever it was learned a lesson and won’t bother anyone else like that anymore.”
Zeke’s mother laughed again, more earnestly that time. “Well, I certainly hope so, but you know what young people are like in this world. Not you, of course, Miss Charlemagne, but in general.”
Pasting a beaming smile into place, Charlie assured her, “Just Charlie is fine, Mrs. Croasdell.”
“Oh, come on, now, dear,” Zeke’s mother scoffed. “You can call me Carol.”
“Carol,” Charlie corrected. “Got it.”
Dinner was getting off to a… reasonably harmless start, if nothing else. It was better than everything immediately devolving into an unmitigated disaster. Though Richard was still trying to bore a hole in her head with the power of his glare alone, which was more than a little uncomfortable.
If either of Zeke’s parents noticed, they said nothing about it, but Charlie couldn’t really say she was surprised about that.
*
“You know, the ring used to be my grandmother’s,” Carol informed Charlie pleasantly. She had taken Charlie’s hand hostage to admire the way the ring looked on her finger. It would have been nice if she asked permission, but Charlie had rather resigned herself to never being treated as much more than a particularly precocious poodle by most people who had actual money. “I’m glad it fits you so well.”
Charlie’s smile felt no less pasted on than it had at the beginning of the evening. “It’s beautiful,” she assured Carol, carefully extricating her hand from Carol’s hold. “I’m honored to wear it.”
“Have you thought about what sort of dress you’ll wear?” Carol wondered, letting Charlie take her hand back.
No, in fact, she hadn’t really put much thought into that yet. She had been sort of distracted by other matters, but she wasn’t going to say that. Explaining to someone that a member of her family was a murderous monster in the middle of a restaurant was not really something on Charlie’s to-do list. Her smile grew slightly more strained.
“I’d prefer not to wear white,” she replied, which was honest enough. “Nothing crazy—I don’t plan on walking down the aisle in hot pink or neon green or something like that—but I would prefer… I don’t know, off white or champagne or something like that. Maybe with sleeves.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I know more about what I want the flowers to be like than… pretty much any other aspect.”
Carol reached over to pat her hand. “I understand. I got overwhelmed thinking about it all, too.”
And for a moment, Charlie was… actually a bit sad. Because Zeke’s mother hadn’t actually wanted to get married, just based on what Zeke had said about the topic. She had been rather candid about that, just based on how much Zeke knew about the subject.
There wasn’t long to dwell on the topic, though, as Carol had a gleam in her eye like she was planning something.
“It’s awfully loud in here, don’t you think?” she wondered, glancing around for a moment before she settled her gaze on Charlie once again. “I think I need to head outside for a moment. Would you care to join me, Miss Charlie?”
Suddenly, Charlie had a very bad feeling about whatever was coming. Despite that, she kept her practiced smile in place and nodded once before she pulled her napkin from her lap and stood up. She smoothed her skirt down and fell into step behind Carol, following her towards the front of the restaurant and out the door. They took a few steps down the sidewalk so they weren’t in the way of the door or the people going in and out.
As they came to a halt beside the next building over, neither of them spoke for a moment. Just as Charlie was gathering up her courage to ask what was going on, Carol asked plainly, “So, what are your intentions towards Ezekiel?”
She didn’t sound malicious, or at least not quite. She sounded more like she had been around that block too many times to assume something actually was the way it was being presented. And, in a sense, she wasn’t wrong.
“Now, or from the beginning?” Charlie asked, with a low, slow sigh.
“Whichever you think is more relevant,” Carol returned, folding her arms over her chest and shrugging. Her expression was expectant.
Charlie fought back the urge to run a hand through her hair. All she would do was mess her hair up, and she didn’t want to go back into the restaurant looking like she lost a fight with a bee’s nest.
“I needed money at first,” Charlie answered simply, shrugging one shoulder. She folded her arms over her chest, hands curled protectively around her upper arms. “He needed to be married. It worked out pretty well.”
Carol eyed her dubiously. “And you were just… alright with that?”
“I mean, I thought he was sort of crazy at first, considering some of the, uh… family lore he explained to me.” Charlie snorted out a laugh despite herself. “But other than that, yeah. I was alright with it. I mean, I liked him basically from the get go. It’s not like I was looking at it as some sort of heartache to be with him.”
“You said you needed money at first,” Carol pointed out. “What about now?”
“I still need money,” Charlie conceded, shrugging loosely. “But beyond that, your son is very good at getting people to fall for him.”
Finally, Carol’s expression softened slightly. “That he is,” she agreed. “So, you really don’t mean any harm?”
Charlie scoffed before she could help it. “I don’t know what sort of harm you think I could do, but no. I’m pretty thoroughly attached to him by now.”
“You would be amazed what sort of things people can do, even if they think they’re harmless,” Carol cautioned, her voice mild. Whether it was a threat or a warning or merely an observation, Charlie couldn’t tell. She didn’t get much of a chance to parse it before Carol sighed and decided, “Well, it’s about time we head back inside, don’t you think? If we leave the boys to keep each other busy for too long, we’ll head back in and find the restaurant in pieces.”
Charlie was pretty sure that was an exaggeration, but it wasn’t something she wanted to risk. She fell into step behind Carol, following her back inside and back to the table. It felt like they had been outs
ide for hours at that point, though it hadn’t even been ten minutes.
Zeke glanced up curiously as they returned to the table, and his father blustered in irritation as Zeke began promptly ignoring him.
“Everything alright?” Zeke wondered as Charlie took her seat again.
“It’s fine,” Charlie assured him. “Just needed a bit of fresh air, is all.”
“Mmhm.” Zeke didn’t sound like he believed her. He didn’t look like he believed her, either. But he did look like he was going to drop the topic, at least, and for that, Charlie was grateful. It wasn’t something she wanted to explain with the rest of Zeke’s family right there.
“I think it’s time for dessert,” Carol decided, and as pleasant as her tone was, it brooked no argument. Without waiting for anyone to agree or disagree, she lifted a hand to flag their waiter over once again.
It could have been a worse evening, all things considered, Charlie supposed. If nothing else, Zeke’s mom didn’t hate her and she was going to get a really good chocolate torte.
That was better than she had expected things to go, if she was honest, and quite frankly, she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It was after they left the restaurant, as Zeke and Charlie were walking back to Zeke’s car, that Charlie decided, “I think I’m ready to move in.”
Zeke stared at her for a moment, quiet surprise written across his features. And then he nodded slowly and agreed, “Okay. If that’s what you want to do.”
While it was true that she hadn’t left the house that evening planning on saying that, it was. It was what she wanted to do.
CHAPTER NINE
When it came to moving, it was a pretty painless process. Charlie didn’t need to bring any of her furniture. Zeke’s penthouse was already fully equipped and even if he decided he needed something in the future, it was definitely going to involve him buying something a bit higher quality than Charlie’s thrift store chic furnishings. She was content to sell some of it, let her coworkers and Sam pick what they wanted from the rest, and donate whatever remained to a charity shop.
Really, all she needed to pack was her clothing and a few pictures and knick-knacks that she couldn’t part with. With Sam agreeing to help—because Zeke’s convertible was not large, to say the least—it only took one trip to get all of Charlie’s stuff to Zeke’s penthouse.
Even so, Charlie was tired afterwards. It seemed… enormous, letting go of the duplex. Like she had shrugged off a weight she hadn’t even realized she was carrying around.
It left her drained, albeit in a sort of pleasant way. After apologizing to Sam for not being particularly fun, Charlie excused herself to the bedroom to take an unexpected nap. She could unpack her stuff and find places for all of it later.
*
Despite her assertion that she was going to take a nap, sleep did not come easily to Charlie that afternoon. Instead, she lay on the bed, curled up beneath the blanket and staring at the sliver of light that spilled in from the main room where the bedroom door was open just a crack.
She wanted to sleep. She was tired. But her head was too busy, as if it had no chance of slowing down no matter how she tried to calm it.
So instead she listened to the conversation taking place in the main room. It occurred to her rather belatedly that Sam had never properly met Zeke before that day. She had never had a chance to talk to him. And it sounded, from where Charlie was listening, as if she intended on very thoroughly sussing Zeke out while she had the chance.
If nothing else, that gave Charlie an excuse not to let them know she wasn’t actually asleep yet. She wanted to hear how the conversation was going to go.
“You’re thirty, right?” Sam sounded more serious than Charlie had heard her for a long time.
“Yes…?” Zeke, by contrast, mostly sounded sort of bewildered.
“Thirty. Well off. And… interested in a twenty-three-year-old girl,” Sam continued, and Charlie couldn’t help but to roll her eyes. Honestly, she was a grown ass woman. She had stopped being a girl the instant she decided to leave home on her own and not look back.
To Zeke’s credit, he seemed perfectly aware of that. “Are you implying she’s a kid, still?”
“What—? No, of course not,” Sam returned hastily, flustered.
“Because you sound like you think she isn’t old enough to make her own decisions,” Zeke carried on blandly.
“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Sam snapped, and Charlie could hear the sound of her tapping one foot against the floor.
“Then maybe actually put some thought into the words coming out of your mouth,” Zeke suggested flatly. “I’m an adult, but so is Charlie. She’s perfectly capable of making her own choices.”
“I just—” Sam sighed out a blustering breath. “I want to make sure she’s alright. That’s all. She’s been through a lot.”
“I love her,” Zeke stated simply, and Charlie covered her mouth to keep herself from giggling like a love-struck girl. “If anyone wants to hurt her, they’ll need to go through me.”
There was silence from the other room for a moment and Charlie smothered the urge to creep closer to the door to peer through the crack. She had never been particularly stealthy and she had no doubt that they would notice her in an instant.
Finally, Sam sighed, softer that time. “Alright,” she offered quietly. “But if anything happens to her, I’m coming after you.”
“I have no doubts about that,” Zeke assured her. “But it’s not something you need to worry about.”
Sam snorted. “Of course, it is. It’s always something I need to worry about.”
Zeke huffed out a quiet laugh. “Fair enough.”
Maybe, Charlie mused to herself, she should drag Sam out for lunch at some point. It had been a while since they got to sit down, just the two of them, without one of them needing to rush off a moment later. And Sam deserved good things.
*
Getting accustomed to living in the penthouse was surprisingly easy, and the days bled together, one into the next. Charlie was… unexpectedly content, all things considered. Not that she had expected to be miserable. She had just expected to need an adjustment period. Instead, she just… fell into life in the penthouse as easily as if she had always lived there.
Zeke did actually have a job that took him out of the apartment on a daily basis. Charlie quizzed him playfully on it, and it turned out that he wasn’t so much hiding it from her, as it was just that real estate was not particularly exciting to anyone who wasn’t involved in it. Either way, even in an apartment that wasn’t enormous, they didn’t need to worry about living out of each other’s pockets or driving each other crazy.
In an unexpected turn of events, Charlie started to work less. She didn’t quit her job at the restaurant—she liked her coworkers and her boss and a sizeable amount of the regulars too much for that, and she knew she would go crazy if she just decided to lounge around the penthouse all day long—but she did rather drastically decrease the number of hours she was working each week.
It was just… Zeke was perfectly willing to pay for just about anything she needed, and now that she was living in his space, none of the bills were really hers. Suddenly, she had nothing but disposable income. Suddenly, she had as much time as she could ever really want to paint and not feel like she was wasting time, because her time was hers to waste as she wanted.
The balcony rather quickly became her space. It was easy to set up a chair out there and drag her easel out so she could work, and if it started to rain, then there was a door just a few steps away to pull her easel back inside.
When she wasn’t working, that was where she was, with a paintbrush in hand and the city spread out in front of her. It seemed natural, then, that the cityscape was the first thing she painted. She was a bit out of practice, after all. She needed to start with something relatively simple to get herself back up to where she knew her skills could be.
It came together in bit
s and pieces, starting with the basic sketch. She didn’t know if it was good—she always chased Zeke away from it, not wanting to get discouraged by anything he might say about it when it was only half-finished—but she knew it was coming along.
She had been living in the apartment for nearly three weeks when at last it was finished. Indeed, it was the cityscape that spread out ahead of her. Or… something like it, at any rate. The sky was a shocking burst of violet, with clouds in an almost electric shade of silver. The buildings were dark, almost featureless monoliths, save for the countless maws that their windows had become, all in flaming, hellish shades of red and orange. Littered across the rooftops were silhouettes of people, each one a shocking, almost blinding burst of stark white.
