#f12024

Reid had played it so incredibly cool ( see: jumping around Chris' kitchen after school squealing like a baby pig ) when Chris had shown him a picture of Charles with the phone case on in the paddock. There’s a certain softness that she feels watching his excitement over something so small, something that gets this kid so incredibly excited because he thinks Charles is so cool. There’s something soft, and there’s also something so incredibly terrifying about it. That she let Reid develop this relationship—even if oh-so-small—with Charles, because now if it goes wrong, if it sours… not only is it going to screw her up in the head royally, but now she’s going to have to explain it to Reid, too. To break his heart, too. She thinks Charles is completely clueless as to the amount of people he’s got completely wrapped around his finger. 

Reid, in all his pure and unadulterated joy, insists that Chris call him up so Reid can share in the joy with her boyfriend--because no matter how many times she attempts to explain it to the kid, he can’t fathom the idea of timezones. 

Chase has always been so good at navigating them, even though he has ever been only, at most, a few hours off the time at home. He’s never missed a bedtime story or a goodnight kiss if he could help it. They’ve always been so good at it, him and Hannah, that Reid is truly unable to conceptualize why someone away at a race can’t talk on the phone with him. 

“He’s sleeping, Reid,” Chris says, shaking her head, and taking her phone back from his grubby hands. “I’m not calling him in the middle of the night.”

“It’s not the middle of the night!” He protests, and he’s not wrong. “It’s just after school time.”

Chris sighs. “But he’s not here. He’s somewhere far away, remember? We talked about this before he left?”

“No! Facetime him!”

She rolls her eyes. They go back and forth for some time like that, her arguing with a five-year-old about time zones. It’s only becoming clearer that there are only two ways for this to end. Either Reid throws the fit of all fits until Hannah gets off work to come pick him up, or Chris calls Charles. If she hadn’t spent all day already keeping five-year-olds from throwing a tantrum, she might have had the strength to endure another grumpy kid. But, she had spent the day on eggshells, so she makes the call and hopes his phone is turned off so it doesn’t wake him up. 

Despite her hopes, he answers, even though it’s past midnight there. She’s apologizing before she can even make out the shape of his face on the dark screen. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. His voice is groggy and sleepy and he speaks through a yawn, shaking his head in a dismissal of her apology. “Es-tu…” he groans. “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” She quips. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Reid just wanted to say hello. I promise it won’t be more than a minute.” Momentarily, she considers shoving her nephew into the pantry where it’s dark. Where the bright light of Chris’ kitchen isn’t going to hurt Charles’ eyes in the dark of his room.  

“It’s okay,” he smiles, and God. God, he looks so sleepy and sweet and if she didn’t feel so horribly guilty for waking him up, she’d be thinking about how badly she wants to kiss him. He turns on a lamp and cringes at the brightness of it. Her wince is disguised as a smile. “Where is he?”

Here, she says, handing the phone off to Reid, a half-scold, half-warning leaving her lips in the form of be quick. He grabs her phone with the heel of both his palms, keeping his greasy snack fingers off her screen, setting it down with a light clatter onto the countertop, forehead peeking in at the bottom of the screen. “Hi, Chuck!” Reid greets. “Auntie Chris says you’re sleeping!” he giggles. 

“Auntie Chris was right,” Charles laughs softly, and now she just wants to kiss him. She doesn’t get to see him sleepy nearly as much as she’d like to, as much as other girlfriends get to see their boyfriends sleepy. 

She manages to swallow the guilt gnawing away at her bones, silence the already rehearsed apologies she’ll be uttering the next time they speak, and just listens fondly to Charles entertaining Reid. He's so patient. So kind in his efforts to get close with her family. He doesn’t have to do that—seriously. Most people wouldn’t talk to their girlfriend’s nephew on the phone in the middle of the night. Then again, most people wouldn’t fly a quarter of the way around the world for that same nephew’s fifth birthday party—or travel that same distance for a family wedding on a fifth date. In fact, most people would be so put off by the idea of having to do those things, they would never in a million years entertain the idea of dating someone who lives around the world. Most people wouldn’t, and yet. Charles would. Charles does. Each and every time, he does. 

— — —

“So, he comes up to me, right?” She laughs, “I’m trying to give a reading test, and he walks up, and I almost tell him to go sit back in his seat because he’s supposed to be silent reading,” She continues. It’s 12:03 am, at least that’s what her microwave clock tells her. It’s 12:03 am in Georgia and when they’d gotten on Facetime twenty-one minutes ago, he’d told her exactly two things. 

One—the car is shit. Two—I don’t want to talk about it. 

So, she didn’t ask any questions and instead launched into the story she’d been anxiously waiting to tell him all about since it had happened that morning at school.

“But before I can say anything,” she explains to her phone camera—to him, on the other side of the globe— “He says, ‘Um, Miss Elliott, um, my tooth falled out,’' She grins, and Charles matches her expression because even across continents it’s a contagious smile. It was the first time any of her students had lost a tooth in class, and the room proceeded to erupt into chaos, she would continue to tell him. “It was crazy,” she laughs. “I didn’t know what to do with him.”

“So what did you do?” Charles asks, laughing himself. 

“I took him and his tooth down to the office,” she says, half out of breath. “And I let them handle it. I was way out of my depth. The nurse brought him back like, ten minutes later with a plastic tooth necklace that held the tooth all day.”

— — —

Chris is cozied up on the couch with Bean, babysitting the dog for her parents while they traveled to Vegas for her brother’s race when Charles DNFs in Bahrain. 

Her heart sinks, through the couch and through the floor and deep into her non-existent basement. It might even go all the way through the world and into Australia to wait for Charles to get there in a few weeks. 

Once he’s out of the car and they show him on camera, he looks so annoyed. Defeated and annoyed in a way she isn’t sure she’s ever seen him, and like he could use a hug. A bear hug. She wants to stick her arms through the television and around him and hug him and kiss him and make him laugh and get that look off his face. She wants the car to turn into a person she can fight. To kiss him all over and run her finger through his helmet hair until he forgets about it for a little while. To tell him how she’s sorry. And how she. How she… how she likes him so much. 

How, maybe someday. Someday, in a vast and distant future, she loves him so much that it scares her to think about for more than a moment. How—again, maybe someday in a timeline she can't imagine yet—she thinks of him constantly. How he’s burrowed his way into her skin and how every time she sees the color red she doesn’t think of it as angry or harsh or mean, she just thinks of him. 

How she loves him, maybe, and it’s wholly terrifying. She hates that she loves him, maybe, because she knows it’s only a matter of time. She’d really, truly hoped he would come to his senses before it got to this point, this drowning slowly in his honey words and soft smile, hoped that he would have found her too much and too messy and not worth all the energy and time and money. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t, and now she loves him, maybe, and has nowhere to put all this fear. 

She waits for him to call her, and he does, hours later when it’s got to be the middle of the night there. She can’t keep the time difference straight and has googled it at least half a dozen times today alone. 

“Did you watch?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound defeated, not like he had during testing. He sounds… dejected, if anything but normal. 

“Yeah,” she says, even though there wasn’t much to watch. 

“They’re saying on Twitter I looked hot,” he chuckles, and it puts a soft smile on her face. She pulls her knees to her chest, picking at the lint on the knees of her leggings. “At least I have that going, huh?”

“You always look hot,” she says, her smile growing.

“True,” he says, and he follows it with a laugh. An honest to god laugh that makes her heart swell. 

“Besides the obvious,” she says, adjusting in her seat, “It was a good race.”

“It was definitely not a good race,” he chuckles. 

Chris continues to pick at her leggings. They’re covered in lint from her blanket and hair from the dog. “Well, I thought it was good. I know you didn’t finish, but… if you had,” she smiles gently. He was on track for a podium. If he had finished. 

“But I didn’t,” He sighs himself into a perfect frown. 

“Eh,” she waves it off with her hand. “Semantics, semantics. Rose and thorn.”

“Rose and thorn,” he nods, quirking a brow. “What is rose and thorn?”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “you know. Like… take the good with the bad? The rose and the thorn,” she explains. “You were having a good race—rose. You didn’t finish the race—thorn.”

“Ah,” he says, his head dropping down into a chuckle. “Rose and thorn, yes.”

— — —

One thing you learn when you’re the aunt of a five-year-old little leaguer is that every single team is actually just a major league baseball team rebranded for whatever city these elementary schoolers are playing in. Same names, same logos—sometimes they’ll change the color scheme, but sometimes they can get away with keeping it. In Reid’s case, they kept even the color scheme. 

Chris supposes this makes her outfit choice for his season opener significantly easier. It’s sunny and sixty-five degrees and Chris is wearing a Detroit Tigers sweatshirt—Navy blue with a white old English D embroidered on the front—and a pair of blue jeans. Reid’s tee-ball team is oh-so derivatively named the Dawsonville Tigers. 

It’s Reid’s third year playing baseball, his third year playing tee-ball. Next year, he’ll get to move up to the real little league, which will only give Chase and Hannah a million more practices and tournaments, and games to travel to. Reid is counting down the days until he gets to play with the bigger kids. Chase and Hannah… not so much. 

They, along with the rest of the family, have grown relatively attached to the comedy show of a bunch of preschoolers chasing baseballs around a bunch of gravel. Chase is an assistant coach, and he’s been swearing up and down in the family group chat that at least ten of the fifteen kids on the team know they’re supposed to run to first base after they hit a fair ball. At least ten of them, and the coaches are working hard to get the other five on track as soon as possible. 

Chris and Hannah sit in folding camping chairs behind the fencing catching up while they watch the show, sipping boxed wine from Hannah’s secret purse-stash in their matching YETI wine tumblers. 

The conversation starts with a rundown of the team this year—of the moms, more importantly. Which ones Hannah likes, and which ones look at her like she’s still a nineteen-year-old with a baby she doesn’t know what to do with. It’s a common thing for Hannah, even now that she’s got a settled career and a house and a whole life with Chase. It doesn’t matter, not to the bitter southern housewives with nothing better to do than spend their time hating other women. 

It starts there. And somehow, with the quick exclamation of Oh! You’ll never believe what Miss Julie told me about Kacie! The two girls are deep in gossip about someone from high school’s relationship. It always seems to go like this, when Hannah gets this endless well of gossip from work, from the hours spent waiting for bleach to process and colors to develop in the salon. 

“But wait, forget about that!” Hannah laughs. “How’s Charles!? Your dad said he had a shit race?”

Chris furrows her brows, swallowing a sip of wine. “My dad knows how his race went?” She asks, and Hanah shrugs. “I mean, yeah, he did,” she chuckles. “Power unit issues, even though they literally replaced the battery and the ECU that morning.  They have to replace the whole thing, so he’s going to have to take a penalty next race too,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “For the ECU that they just replaced.”

Hannah scowls. “That’s fucked,” she laughs, covering her mouth, doing a poor job at concealing her wine giggles. “He’s coming to visit in a couple weeks, right?”

“Mmhm,” Chris hums. “He’s like…” she laughs, “so geeked out about coming to one of these games. I told him they’re so boring, but. He’s adorable.”

“I’m sure he’s more geeked about other things,” Hannah teases, playfully shoving Chris’ shoulder. “Long distance fucking sucks for the sex life,” she giggles. Chris blushes bright red, holding her hands up in surrender before taking a long sip of wine and asking for a refill. 

Chandler shows up somewhere between the third wine tumbler and the fourth inning of the baseball game. She’s in her work clothes, complete with the kitten heels that sink into the muddy grass with every step she takes. She taps the opposite shoulder of Chris that she stands behind, and Chris falls for it, turning back the other way to see her, to smile genuinely because they haven’t had the chance to get annoyed with each other yet, haven’t had the chance to get annoyed with each other since they last saw the other at Chase and Hannah’s wedding.

“Are you still with that guy?” She asked, from her seat in Chris’ camping chair. She felt too bad watching her heels sink in and out of the mud, so now she leans against the fencing while Chandler sits. “The French one?”

Chris nods, her arms crossed over her chest. “Monegasque,” she corrects. “But yes. Still together.”

“Hmm,” Chandler hums curiously, picking at her cuticles. “Are you ever going out to see him?” She asks. 

“Uh,” Chris sighs, dragging her toe through the gravel, drawing harsh lines and kicking up dust. “I’m gonna fly out for spring break,” she says. “But he wants me away from Monaco.”

“He wants you to stay away?” Chandler asks, and Chris doesn’t miss the tone of voice, eyes darting to Hannah to confirm the condescending tone she already knows she heard. Hannah closes her eyes before she can roll them, and takes a sip of her wine, leaning back in her seat, crossing her legs. 

“Not like that, Chan, come on,” Chris sighs. “I don’t want to be there. We don’t want to be there. It’s too hard, everyone knows him there and we don’t want anyone to know me.”

“So, he’s hiding you?”

“No,” Chris shakes her head, pursing her lips together. “We’re being private. He’s trying to protect me.”

“Alright,” Chandler chuckles, putting her hands up in defense. “I’m just saying, I never would have hidden Lex.”

Chris’ head physically recoils, forcing a scoff out of her mouth. Hannah laughs, too. “You literally hid Lex for two years,” Hannah says. “Like, genuinely you hid her from all of us.”

“That’s different,” Chandler argues. “I wouldn’t have hidden her if she was a man.”

“And Charles wouldn’t be ‘hiding’ me,” She says, forced air quotes around the word she can’t come up with a synonym for. “If every woman he interacts with wasn’t crucified,” she defends. “Can’t you just give him the benefit of the doubt, Jesus.” Chandler rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone, answering texts or emails or whatever else is so pressing as a distraction from the current conversation. “Seriously?”

“What?” Chandler spits, rolling her eyes. “I’m just looking out for you, Chris. You don’t have the greatest track record with guys, so forgive me for being hesitant to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Chris bites her tongue, literally, and purses her lips. She nods, watching the dead serious look in her sister’s eyes with a glare of equal intensity. Finally, after what feels like an eternity of death stares, Chris puts a pretty smile on her face. “I’m really happy you came all this way, Chandler,” she grins, slipping her phone into her back pocket. “I’m sure Reid will be thrilled to see you,” she continues. “He missed you at his birthday party,” she adds, squeezing her sister’s shoulder as she passes, walking away and kicking up gravel when she does it. 

Saudi Arabia is no better. He has a great qualifying, but he also has that pesky grid penalty and a Ferrari that just doesn’t seem to have anything even close to race pace. The car just feels… so undriveable. So unpredictable. One corner it’s all oversteer, and the next it’s a completely different car, fully understeery. It’s just. It’s terrible, really, and he’s known it since the first time he got in the car. 

It doesn’t help that he spends the whole race stuck behind Carlos, who seems to have just as much pace as he does. He calls Chris that night, so fucking angry, and she gets an earful, one that he immediately apologizes for dumping on her after he’s gotten it all out. 

“It's okay,” she tells him. “I’m just glad that your bad days don’t line up with mine,” she joked, and he laughed because it’s impossible not to laugh at her jokes, even when he feels like shit. “Better days are coming,” she promised, and he wanted to believe her, but he also knew this car inside and out. 

“Not soon enough,” he told her, and she smiled. He can’t get enough of her smile. 

“Patience, grasshopper,” she teased, holding up both her hands in a meditative pose, humming out an ommm. 

“You are so dumb,” he giggles. 

“Oh, please,” she says, opening her eyes, relaxing again. “You love me.”

There’s a heavy beat of silence. So heavy that it can’t even be blamed on FaceTime lag. 

His brain is malfunctioning; heart racing, palms clammy, entire body sweating thinking she knows. Thinking he’s been entirely too obvious about it and not done nearly as good of a job as he thought. You should tell her. You should tell her. Yes. Yes, I do love you. I love you so much I don’t know how to tell you. I love you so much that I’m scared telling you is going to mess it all up. 

He can’t tell her like this, though. Not now, when he’s halfway around the whole and every nerve of his body is frustrated.  No, it needs to be when he’s with her. Not over the phone. He’s completely clueless as to when or where or what the right time is, but he knows this sure as hell isn’t it. 

So, he stays quiet. Because he’s sure if he speaks he’s going to just blurt it all out, and he hasn't kept his mouth shut this long just to say it like this. She’ll have to break the silence. It feels like it takes an eternity for her to do it. 

“So, uh, what time does your flight land here, again?” She asks, and his shoulders loosen just a bit. 

“Yeah,” he nods, wondering if she can hear his heartbeat through the phone. It seems like it’s the only thing he can hear. “Sorry, uh. Yeah. Let me look,” he says, grabbing his phone from its propped-up place on the hotel coffee table and scrolling through it to find his ticket to Georgia. “Five… ish.”

“What time do you leave?”

“Eight-something?” He says, still looking at the flight information. 

“What time is it now?” She asks. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. He’s been making a habit of losing track of time with her. “Late.”

“Go to sleep,” she says, her voice playing out of his phone speakers softly. He smiles at her voice, at her instructions, at the fact she cares enough to tell him to go to sleep. 

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then salutes her for good measure. 

“Merci,” she giggles in butchered French, and his ears perk up like a puppy, a grin painting itself onto his face. 

“Oh?” He laughs. ““Tu parles français maintenant, n'a pas? fille drôle, je pourrais te dire ce que je veux et tu ne sauras jamais mieux,” You speak french now, do you? Silly girl, I could say whatever I want to you and you wouldn’t know any better. 

“Goodnight,” she says, ignoring the French they both know she can’t even begin to translate in her mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” he nods. “Goodnight, baby.”

“Miss Elliott has to leave right after the bell today, friends,” Chris hums, leaning against the front of her classroom desk, holding a stack of school newsletters. “Do you think we can get our room nice and clean before the end of the day?” She asks, smiling and nodding at the spattering of little yeses and nods. “Okay,” she grins, pointing to the whiteboard. “All of our tasks are on the big board,” she explains, running through each table and their room assignments. 

The class stays about on task as a herd of twenty-something five-year-olds possibly can, with Chris reminding them to stay on task—and reminding them what their task is—from her seated spot on the group rug, cleaning up the class library with a couple of other students. 

“Where are you going to, Miss Elliott?” Quinn asks her, handing over a book. 

“I have to go to Atlanta,” Chris hums, putting the book on the correct shelf. “Do you know where Atlanta is?”

Quinn nods, handing over another book from the pile on the floor. “Far away.”

“It’s not soooo far,” Chris smiles.

“I just have a uncle there.”

“Oh yeah? That’s nice. Do you ever go visit him?” Chris asks. 

Quinn doesn’t answer the question. “Does you have an uncle in Atlanta?”

“Nope,” she shakes her head. “I have to pick someone up at the airport.”

“Your boyfriendddd?” Quinn giggles, dragging out the letter sounds teasingly. 

“A boyfriend?!” Chris grins, laughing. “You think I have a boyfriend? I spend all my time at school with you!”

“No!” She laughs. “Landry sayed you have a cute boyfriend!”

“What?” Chris giggles, snatching a book from Quinn playfully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, crazy girl.”

— — —

With the help of her students, Chris manages to get the room put together for the next morning in less than fifteen minutes after the end of the school day, checking Charles’ flight tracking one more time before setting off from the parking lot to the airport an hour away. 

He emerges from the sliding doors of his terminal with his bags and a bouquet of flowers. Chris is shaking her head, cheeks already half-pink and mind more than half-melted when she hastily parks against the curb, popping her trunk and hurrying around the back of the car to greet him properly. 

“Get in the car,” she giggles, “before they start honking at us!” she says, but Charles couldn’t care less about the angry airport goers behind him, leaving his suitcase on the curb, waiting with his arms already open and a tired, jet-lagged smile on his face. 

Chris resists the urge to just throw his entire body into the car and speed away from the terminal, instead hugging him tight, arms wrapping around his frame, slipping into the space between him and his backpack, the plastic casing from the flowers crinkling against her back when he hugs her just as tight. 

He kisses her hair hastily, “Hi,” he mumbles, watching her lips carefully. 

“Hi,” she smiles, giddy. “Eyes up here, brother,” she teases. 

Charles scowls, dropping his backpack off his shoulder and lifting it up into the trunk. “Do not call me brother.”

“Too incest-y?”

“I can get another plane,” he teases, pointing his thumb over his shoulder, and hoisting his suitcase off the curb with his other hand. 

“Go visit one of your other girls?” She asks, pressing the button on the top of the hatch to close the trunk. 

“See?” He laughs, parting from her just long enough for both of them to get into the car. “You get it,” he says, closing the car door and quickly reaching over the center console to pull Chris into a kiss, muttering something about you did not really think I was not going to kiss you?

It’s a familiar speech he’s given that morning, the same one she’d carefully handed out when he was here months ago. The be safe, don’t get eaten by a bear lecture. That’s not where it ends, though. Chris continues to go on and on and on about her Mom’s birthday party that evening—one of the many reasons he’d decided now was a perfect time for a quick visit—and how he was under no circumstances to go overboard on gift-buying, or even buy a gift at all for that matter. 

“I’m going to pick up a card on my way home from work,” she explains, standing at the end of the bed, work bag slung over her shoulder, travel coffee mug in her hand. “And I’m gonna sign both of our names,” she continues. Charles rolls his eyes from the bed. “What?” She laughs. 

“Your siblings’ partners…” he yawns. “They get her their own gift, yes?”

Chris hesitates, which makes Charles grin, which forces her to grin. “Yeah, but—”

“No but.”

“But,” she laughs softly. “They’ve been around longer than you.”

Charles scoffs, feigning offense. “Stupid reason.”

“But a reason, nonetheless.”

Charles shakes his head, smiling. Dramatically, he pulls the comforter back over his head. “Goodbye,” he mumbles. 

“Goodbye. I’ll see you later,” she replies, her shoes creaking against the floor as she moves through the hallway. “No gifts!”

“100 percent buying a gift, but okay!” he calls back, pulling the covers back down, listening just long enough to hear her car pull away from the driveway before turning the nightstand lamp off and putting himself back to sleep. 

— — —

When he wakes up again, much closer to an acceptable morning time, he’s already racking his brain for gift ideas. 

It’s an area of life he’s never considered himself particularly strong in. Sometime shortly after the appropriate period of making his Mum a homemade necklace from uncooked macaroni noodles and washable markers, he discovered he was particularly inapt at choosing gifts. 

It’s a shame, really, because he’s always felt like a good listener—especially when it came to people he cared for. And yet, every holiday and birthday and anniversary he’s struggling to come up with something besides an outrageously priced bouquet of flowers at the local florist. 

Which is why he sits on the sofa, legs kicked up on the ottoman, laptop on his legs as he searches What to get your girlfriend’s mum for her birthday? Birthday presents for Mum. Birthday gift ideas. Birthday gifts for Mums near me. What should you get your mother-in-law for her birthday?

Nothing is right. Everything is too silly or too impersonal or too cheap or too expensive for Chris to forgive him for buying. He’s scrolled through so many pages and so many articles hoping for an idea to spark that he’s starting to go crazy. 

Defeated, he closes the laptop, abandoning it on the couch cushion next to him, and dragging his feet all the way to the bedroom, planning on flopping face down on the bed. Instead, he comes face to face with the unmade mess, sighing. He haphazardly peels all of the layers off the bed, stripping the pillows of their cases, tossing them onto the pile of blankets on the floor. With two new pillowcases from the linen closet, he carefully remakes the bed. 

But now, there’s laundry. So he gathers up the pillowcases and the plastic purple hamper in the corner of the room and hauls it all to the laundry room. He tosses the entire hamper into the washing machine, and then stares at the shelf of containers. Three look dustier than the orange plastic container, so he picks up that tote and reads the instructions on the side of the box, following them carefully. When he closes the top of the washing machine, the start button glows green. He doesn’t dare adjust any of the settings, pressing the button and saying a soft prayer to the laundry gods. 

He pulls the dry clothes from the dryer, putting them back into the hamper—and they’re all white. Fuck. Was he supposed to do that with the pile of clothes he’d just dumped? Too late now. Another prayer to the laundry gods. He heads back to the bedroom, dumping the clean white clothes onto the freshly made bed, and folding away at them. He sorts them out by drawer, checking the continents of each drawer half a dozen times, and puts everything where he’s nearly certain it belongs—first in the closet, then in the dresser. 

Sitting atop the dresser are two loose rings and an unclasped necklace. He puts both the rings on the plate of her jewelry stand, and carefully clasps the necklace back together. It’s a thin gold chain with a row of several pearls in the middle. He hangs it gently with the other three pearl-styled necklaces that hang from the top pole of the rack. Pearls, pearls, pearls. She’s always wearing pearls. The next pole has half a dozen bracelets, most with pearls incorporated, and he can’t even begin to count the pairs of pearl earrings in the dish. It’s always pearls, because of what her Mom always says. Pearls make a lady. 

Pearls make a fucking lady. The answer to his question has been literally sitting in front of him this entire time. New Google search—re: Jewelers near me. 

— — — 

Charles is in the kitchen assessing the fridge for snack options when the front door is swinging open at a speed he can’t believe doesn’t result in a loud clattering of the house shaking. “Chuck!” A small voice calls out into the house, followed by another thud, presumably his backpack against the floor of the foyer. The noise continues, heavy little feet running down the hallway through the house, in his direction. Quieter, he can hear Chris, the metal jingling of her keys against the coated aluminum of her travel coffee cup, the click of her shoes down the hallway floor. His name is not Chuck, she hums behind the small boy. “And my name ain’t Reidy but you’s still call me that.”

“That’s different.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh,” Chris mocks. “I’m the boss,” she says, calling after the boy as he walks through the kitchen doorway. “I get to do whatever I want!” Chris calls out from another room in the house. 

Reid catches Charles’ eyes, squeezing between him and the fridge. He rolls his eyes, twirling his finger beside his head. “You are not the boss,” he insists, grabbing a juice box and a stick of mozzarella cheese. “You are like my stupid little boss.”

Finally, Chris appears in the doorway, shaking her head. Her eyes meet his and he feels himself grinning—an almost embarrassing amount. She looks so pretty, he thinks. So full of life and color. “I’m his stupid little boss,” she says, grinning. 

“Ah,” he nods, closing the fridge doors, moving to kiss her hello. “It’s like this, you know?”

“Do not tell me you haven’t gotten a gift yet!” Chris scolds her brother. First, he’s fifteen minutes late to pick up his kid, and then he has the gusto to ask her what she bought their mom for her birthday…. To give to her at the party in two hours. 

“Okay,” Chase laughs, “I won’t tell you.”

“Chase!”

“I have like, two hours,” he shrugs, looking at his watch. “Relax.”

“You’re ridiculous!” She insists, rolling her eyes. “Seriously. I got her a new Circuit because she’s always telling Dad how slow the one she has is running. And then I got her a bunch of scrapbooking stuff to go along with it.”

Chase nods, burying his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “And he’s just signing his name?” He asks, looking past her in the doorway to Charles, currently half-engaged in a Mario-Kart battle with Reid. Chris nods. 

“Actually—” Charles interrupts, eyes still focused on the game, hands moving with intentional precision over the controller buttons. “About that. I got her one of those….” he trails off, moving one hand to gesture around his neck. “You know. For your… here.”

“Your neck?” Chris questions. “You went out and bought a necklace?” She continues, thumbing at the gold chain around her neck. 

“Necklace!” He snaps his fingers, pointing in her direction before immediately flopping back into the sofa cushions, Reid laughing maniacally beside him at the sight of his rainbow road victory. “A pearl necklace,” he adds, holding his hand out to shake Reid’s. 

Chris smiles. A pearl necklace. A friggin’ pearl necklace. It’s so simple that it’s stupid, really. It’s dumb. It’s stupid and it’s dumb and it’s cliche, in all honesty—that he is the person to remember a one-off about pearls when he can’t remember anything else. 

“Oh, fuck you, that’s good,” Chase groans. “Hannah got her this, like… a cutting board with a recipe burnt into it or something.”

Chris shakes her head softly, still thumbing her necklace. “It’s Meemaw’s brownie recipe,” she says, her eyes glossed over, mind elsewhere. 

“On a cutting board? Because brownies famously need a cutting board.”

“Shut up,” she says softly, smacking his chest with the back of her hand. “It’s cute.”

“It’s expensive.”

Chris’s attention snaps back to her brother. “You won like, literally a million dollars a few months ago. But a cutting board for Mom is too expensive?” She questions, raising her brows, crossing her arms over her chest. “You better find something,” she warns.

Chase holds up his hands in defense. “I know. Worst case scenario, I’m a little bit late to dinner, okay?”

“Get out of my house,” Chris shuffles, gesturing to the open front door. 

“We’re going, we’re going,” Chase laughs, gathering Reid’s backpack from the floor, and helping the boy tie his shoes. 

Chris closes the door behind them, staring at Charles, her back pressed against the cool door. He looks back guiltily, gathering the controllers and putting them on the end table. “I’m sorry–”

“A pearl necklace?”

“Yes,” he nods. “Do you want to see it?”

She shakes her head, moving to join him on the couch, an almost painful smile pulling on her lips as she curls up against him. “I want it to be a surprise,” she hums softly. Charles adjusts underneath her slightly, wrapping an arm around her frame, pressing a kiss into the top of her head. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “I’m just happy you’re here,” she adds. 

Is it possible for love to be a pearl necklace?

It’s an easy routine they’ve found—early morning alarms and goodbye kisses and listening to her try to sneak around the creaky floors without waking him up. 

Today, he gets a guest pass to a local gym and works out in the corner following a workout plan Andrea had sent him—minus the neck training. That’s not happening alone in public. 

After the gym, he heads to a grocery store—the biggest one he’s ever seen. He spends more time trying to figure out where he is in the store than he does actually shopping. Like, how many different kinds of pudding could one person need? A whole wall of cereal? Of chicken? Of milk? Be serious. It’s insane. What was meant to be a quick trip to the store for dinner ingredients has turned into a whole ordeal. 

He was just trying to make things easier—for Chris, not for him. It was the middle of her work week and instead of planning a lazy night at home, she’d planned out a million and one things for them to do while he was in town. Charles can’t help but feel like she’s trying to keep him entertained, and it’s a feeling he hates. It’s not her job to keep him entertained. He’s not a toddler. 

So, in response to their full evening schedule of a little league baseball game for her nephew, the possibility of some type of family gathering to follow that could last any vast pan of time, he figured the least he could do is make dinner and have it waiting for her when she got home. They aren’t on Reid duty after school, so it will just be the two of them. It can’t be that hard. 

He’s in the kitchen, humming along to The Kooks—watching the chicken and pasta and stirring the white sauce when she walks through the front door. “Bonjour bébé,” she says, walking through the doorway into the kitchen. 

His head shoots up from the pot on the stove, a smile instantly falling across his lips. “Oh, c’est bien, mon ange,” he says, even though her pronunciation was so forced she’d be laughed out of Paris. She’s trying, and he loves it, and he loves her. So, it’s a good job. 

“Really?” She beams. “It was good?”

He can’t help but smile at a smile like hers. “Yeah, very good,” he nods, kissing her quickly. 

“What are you making?” She asks, hoisting herself up onto the countertop beside the stove, wafting the air in the direction of her face. “It smells good.”

“Chicken and pasta,” he says. “One day, we are going to make pasta from the beginning.”

“You know how to make pasta from scratch?” She asks. 

Charles raises his brows, giggling to himself softly. “To be honest, no. I was hoping you did.”

Chris laughs out loud. “Oh. Well, then. We’re screwed.”

“No,” he frowns. “We’re in serious trouble if I have to be the good cook.”

“I’m not a bad cook!’ She insists, feigning dramatic offense, clutching her pearls, literally. Charles cocks his head to the side, glancing over to her. He smiles a come-on, now smile when she raises her brows in defense, an ache-inducing smile on her face. She is so beautiful it hurts. She is so soft it hurts. She is so, he supposes. End of sentence. 

“Et je ne t'aime pas,” And I do not love you, he mutters, leaning over to press a quick kiss into her lips, lingering just long enough to feel her grin. 

“En Ingles, por favor, Señor?” She asks, quirking a brow. 

“Not a shot in hell.”

“Please?” She frowns, and he actually considers it. Just momentarily, but considered nonetheless. Because what a moment this is. What a time it would be to do it, to say it, to make it known.

Instead, he shakes his head. “Maybe later.”

— — — 

“You’re going to want a jacket,” Charles mutters, moving behind her in the bathroom, sizing up her outfit. They’re getting ready to head out to the baseball game, and she’s wearing leggings and a blue sweatshirt with an Old English D on it—one that apparently matches the color and logo of Reid’s team uniforms. He’s opted for jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue knit zip-up sweatshirt. It’s quite chilly out, and despite the sun peeking through the clouds, it’s windy. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says, running a brush through her hair. 

They remember to bring a backpack full of snacks, as well as two travel thermos mugs of drinks that are certainly not alcoholic. They forget their camping chairs, though, as well as the sweater Charles had planned on bringing for when Chris decided she did in fact want a jacket. And most importantly, they forget how to keep their mouths shut. 

It’s cold. It only gets colder as the sun sets, as the game continues. Neither their drinks nor the bottle of wine smuggled in by another one of the player’s mothers manage to keep the chill off. 

Chris stands against the fence that goes around the field with her mom, talking animatedly about who knows what. Charles steals Cindy’s empty seat beside Hannah. He watches as Chase and Reid walk up to them—Reid kicking up a trail of gravel dust with every excited skip. 

“Do you want kids?” Hannah blurts out from the seat next to him, and then before even a beat can pass, “Jesus, sorry,” she laughs. “Sorry. Ignore me.”

“No,” he smiles, as soon as he can regain his composure from the blindside of do you want kids. “It’s okay,” he reassures, adjusting in his seat, his eyes lingering on Chris for a moment longer than usual—just to make sure she isn’t hearing this conversation. 

“It’s really not,” she laughs, shaking her head, taking another sip of her definitely-not-wine. “It’s just that if Chase and I die, Chris gets Reid. And she’s… I mean. You see her. You know her,” she says. The sentence left unsaid is that anyone who has ever met Chris would know that if anyone was ever born to be a mother, it’s her. “And she really likes you. Like, a lot,” Hannah whispers. “And I like you, too—but I won’t ever like anyone enough to let her sacrifice something I know is so important to her—”

“I want children, Hannah,” he laughs, cutting her off. “Do not worry.”

“You do?”

“Three.”

“And you want to get married?”

He nods again, almost instinctively looking to his girlfriend, because, as he would argue if pressed about it—who else do you look at but your girlfriend when someone asks you about marriage? “Yes.”

Hannah notices his lingering glance, apparently, because the next words out of her mouth are: “To Chris?” Charles cocks his head back over to face Hannah, rolling his eyes when he does it. Hannah nods. “Sorry, fuck,” she laughs, covering her own mouth. “I know, what’s wrong with me?”

“It,” he starts, but then he’s stopping himself because he isn’t exactly sure what he planned to say. “There is nothing wrong with you. You’re just being a good friend—a good sister,” he pauses, looking back to Chris quickly, spinning his ring around his finger. “I don’t think it is the craziest thought, maybe,” he says, and he’s as surprised to say it as Hannah is to hear it. “But,” he holds up a finger and laughs. “Ask me in six months and I bet I can give you a proper answer.”

Hannah smiles, raising her brows, and takes another sip of her drink. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“Oh, I’m counting on that,” he says, and now he can stare without care. It’s normal, he tells himself, to think about it all after it’s talked about like that. It’s not his fault that he’s picturing it—his future, her future. Their future together. He thinks that maybe if he squints really hard and takes a step back he can see himself getting married. That maybe she’s there too, in some wedding dress that probably has pockets. 

“You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?” Hannah asks, and it pops into his mindless bubble of crazy. He laughs, shakes his head, and pulls his phone out without saying a word. “You totally are,” Hannah giggles, and he feels his cheeks flush. “Look at you blushing, oh my god!”

Charles rolls his eyes, a smile pulling on the corners of his lips. “Shut up,” he mumbles. 

He watches from his conversation with Hannah, watches as Chris stands at the chain-link fence, hugging her own arms and shifting her weight from one foot to the other like she needs to pee, trying and trying to warm herself up with the friction of her own arms. 

“Did she bring a coat?” Hannah asks. 

“No,” Charles replies. “But she’s half a minute from forcing her to put on mine.”

“She can take mine, if she wants,” Hannah offers, but Charles turns her down. 

“No, no,” he says. “I am warm, anyways,” he lies. It’s cold out, but his mother raised a gentleman. 

Chris shivers one more time and Charles has had enough of watching her stubbornness. He takes off his sweatshirt and walks up behind her, draping it over her shoulders in the middle of a sentence. 

“Hi?” Chris says sweetly, turning to look at him over her shoulder. 

“Hi,” he smiles, kissing her cheek. “You’re cold.”

She rolls her eyes but smiles and mutters a soft thank you. Charles hums his response and nods, moves to return to the empty camping chair beside Hannah. Chris reaches out to stop him, catching his hand, his fingers interlocking into hers with a casual ease. 

He stands behind her, adjacent to her conversation with her Mother, watching the game through the fence. He’s barely listening, his focus split between the game he doesn’t understand and toying with Chris’ fingers behind her back. “I’ve been learning French,” she tells her mom. Charles smiles. 

“Oh really? Where at?”

“Uh, just on my phone. I got this app that you can do lessons on every day.”

“And you chose French because of…” Cindy trails off. Chris nods, her grip on his hand tightening, which really pulls his attention. 

“I’m pretty bad but he likes to pretend I’m a pro,” she grins, leaning back into him. 

“Well,” Cindy laughs. Chris shivers, moving to put on the sweatshirt instead of just having it draped over her shoulders. “Charles, you shouldn’t be scared to put her in her place.”

“Oh,” he laughs. “No, she’s a quick learner, really.”

— — — 

Cindy excuses herself, says she’s going to go and get some hot chocolate to take the edge off of the chill, and asks if Chris or Charles want any. Charles says no, Chris says yes—offers to pay but is denied. 

Once she’s gone, Chris is spinning in the gravel to face her boyfriend. “Thank you for the sweatshirt,” she says. “And thank you for not saying you told me so.”

“Are you still cold?” He asks, putting the back of his hand on her forehead like he’s checking for a temperature. It’s chilly, but it's not bitter or wintery. 

“Yeah,” she says, swatting his hand from her forehead. “I’m fine, just can’t get warm.”

“C’mere,” He says, pulls her into a tight, warm hug, fully wrapping her up in his arms, running his hands up and down her back. She melts against his chest. “I think it’s Reid’s turn,” he points out, and Chris spins in his grip to face the same direction so he’s hugging her from behind. 

Chris whistles, “Let’s go, Reidy!” She calls out, and then quieter, just to Charles. “He’s nervous that you’re here.”

“Hmm?” he laughs. “Why?”

“He wants to impress you.”

They watch Reid’s at-bat, watch him swing and miss on the tee twice without laughing. Chris is talking to Charles about whatever she and Cindy were talking about before he came over, neither of them taking their eyes off the game. Charles kisses Chris’ covered shoulder while he listens to her talk, runs his hands up and down her arms to create some friction. 

Reid hits the ball off the tee on his third swing, and Chris actually jumps with excitement. He hits it right to the second baseman, hurries his little legs towards Chase on the first base. Chris cheers through a laugh, her body vibrating against Charles’ chest. 

In a pause in the conversation, he wonders if she’s ever been more her than she is right now. At home, with her family, a never-ending well of love and laughter and beauty. He almost wishes that he could just observe her and all that she is, admire the woman he gets to love. 

This is the moment. 

It has to be. Perfect moments don’t exist but this has to be as close as you can get. “Are you okay?” Chris asks over her shoulder, “Your heart is racing.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Um,” Fuck. Just say it, Charles. 

Chris laughs anxiously, turns around to face him, brows furrowed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I love you.”

Chris doesn’t miss a beat. “No, you don’t.”

“I do,” he nods. “I’m so in love with you.”

Her face softens, the concern melting away. “Really?” God, she says it so soft that it’s almost a squeak. It hurts him how much she clearly wants to believe him. How maybe, maybe she does. He nods. “I love you, too.”

Charles beams, cradles her face in his hands and kisses her. Kisses her like they’re in love. Because they are. They pull apart in a fit of giggles, his thumb dancing on her cheek, running over a tear. “Are you crying?”

“Shut up,” she says through a smile, turning around to lean against his chest again, wiping a tear from her cheek with a sniffle. It’s cute, he says. “Shhh.”

Through a peppering of kisses on her shoulder, her hair, her cheek, he repeats between each peck. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

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