SLACK MESSAGE FROM AUBREY PAGE TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 9:53 AM: r u really quitting?? R u crazy??
(Message unread.)
Just as she’d expected, Reece stood behind the catering table under the beech tree. Charlotte watched from a distance as he served hot dogs. He smiled at each person, trading small talk and asking questions. When an elderly alumna couldn’t hear him over the table, he leaned forward to speak directly in her ear. The lady patted him on the shoulder before moving on to a platter of breakfast sandwiches.
Charlotte felt pink. Eager to be next to him, nervous about what she had to say.
Reece loved her. He’d all but told her in the parking lot. There are so many people who love you, Charlie. We would do anything for you.
Even if he only meant it as a friend, she could work with that. It would be an honor to be Reece’s friend. She would show up for him every goddamn day if that was what it took to convince him to let her be more than that.
She would never walk out on him again.
You just have to ask us.
Charlotte wove through the picnic and circled the banquet table. She picked up a spare set of tongs and eased into the spot next to Reece. “Hi there,” she said.
Reece placed a hot dog on a plate outstretched in front of him. The alum who held it, midthirties if she had to guess, nodded in thanks and carried on.
“Hello,” Reece said to her, sotto voce. He glanced at her, but his face gave nothing away.
A little girl, someone’s daughter, stepped up next. “Can I have one?” she asked Charlotte, peering at the platter of breakfast sandwiches.
“Of course!” Charlotte exclaimed with as much fanfare as she could. She placed the sandwich onto the child’s plate, brandishing her tongs like a wizard.
“Thank you.” The little girl grinned and darted away.
Reece threw her a curious look. “You joining the alumni relations committee?”
“Exploring a career in catering,” she explained. At his raised eyebrow, she added, “I quit my job.”
That got his attention. He gawked at her, dropping the tongs on the hot dog platter. “Are you serious? Just now?”
Charlotte nodded. She didn’t want to get into it, the commencement address and the tweet and the internet salivating over the spectacle of it all. Besides, Reece understood the deeper consequences beneath all of that. The freedom and financial precariousness it brought back into her life. What exactly she was escaping.
“It’s a long story,” she said.
For a moment Reece just looked at her. Her exhausted, fragile heart rose to her throat as she waited for him to say something. She didn’t need him to be proud of her—her own pride was enough—but she wanted him to know that she had heard him. That she just needed to be ready to see it for herself, and to do something about it.
Then she saw it: not a smile, not a tear, but a single nod that said he got it. Before she could say anything else, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against this chest.
“Good for you,” he murmured. She felt him press a firm kiss to her hair, and she melted.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked when he finally let her go.
She hadn’t thought about it yet; there wasn’t time. The future stretched out ahead of her in a delicious blank expanse. It didn’t scare her because Reece was right: She didn’t need to face this chapter of her life with a plan. She could nanny again, or freelance, and ask Terry for her old job back if other opportunities didn’t arise. She wouldn’t mind moving back here for a while and tending bar.
She would have time to draw. Anything she wanted—not cartoons, but maybe abstract shapes. Flowers. Mossy eyes and honey lips.
She hadn’t asked herself what she wanted from her life for years. The prospect was strangely thrilling. She could run a marathon. She could learn how to do stick-and-poke tattoos. She could get super into Dungeons & Dragons.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But that’s okay.”
Reece nodded. “You have time to figure it out.”
Charlotte watched him serve another hot dog to a thirty-something alum. “Can I ask you for another favor?”
“Does this one involve a billionaire?” He clacked his tongs together menacingly.
She laughed. “No, definitely not.” Her thumb wanted to work its way to her mouth. Instead, she used her tongs to rearrange the breakfast sandwiches in neat lines. “On your way back to St. Louis…Could you drop me off in Brooklyn?”
Reece blinked. “I thought you were taking the train.”
She looked around them, wary of the alumni milling about the table and her own dishevelment. This was hardly a romantic moment to tell him how she felt. But Reece deserved to hear it. She needed to be honest with him. He’d been waiting five years to have this conversation.
Charlotte put the tongs down and nodded toward the tree behind them. Without needing clarification, Reece pulled the apron up over his head and handed it to an R&C kid. Then he followed her to the other side of the tree and into the shade.
Shoot, she didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know the words.
But she had to try.
“I don’t want to leave here without you,” she admitted. “I don’t know what comes after this. I don’t know what I want my life to be. Some days I’m not even sure who I am. But I know that you are a good person—the best person, really—and I want to start there.”
She couldn’t tell if that was enough or too much, and in the end it didn’t matter because it erupted out of her anyway. She couldn’t stop talking now that she’d started, even as the words stumbled across each other.
“This weekend, I have felt so many emotions—so much more than I have felt in years, and I— The best feelings were with you. About you. I care about you, and I know I could care so much more if we…I could fall in love with you so easily that I might have already done it.” She groaned and hid her face in her hands. “God, I’m so bad at this, I don’t know how to say it.”
Reece took her gently by the wrists and guided her hands away from her eyes. Thank goodness, he was smiling at her. He gave her the classic, just-for-Charlie megawatt special.
