“I like it better down,” I announced, picking up my newly delivered beer.
She ran her fingers through it, separating the waves and letting it fall over her shoulders and around her face. “You do?”
I nodded. “It suits you.”
“I liked that leather jacket,” she blurted. Then her cheeks turned scarlet.
A slow grin spread across my face. “Yeah?”
She nodded, giving all her attention to the beer and the piano man. I stripped off the suit jacket I was wearing and flung it over the back of the chair. Then I unbuttoned my sleeves and rolled them up past my elbows. I lost the tie hours ago. I hoped I never saw it again.
Charlotte’s eyes wandered back to me, peeking through honey-colored hair. For a lawyer, she didn’t have a very good poker face. Her desire was plain as day. How could a woman in a relationship be so hard-up for a good old-fashioned fuck?
“You never answered my question.” I reminded her.
“Your question?”
“Are you happy?”
“I’m happy I’ve accomplished almost everything I set out to do. I like to think my father would have been happy too.”
Oh shit. She had daddy issues. That explained a lot.
Ten to one, everything she did in life was to get the approval from some guy who didn’t care. But she tried anyway, thinking some day he would realize everything he was missing.
“I wanted to call him today, after I closed the deal,” she said softly, taking another sip of the beer. It was empty so I pushed another in front of her. “Sometimes I forget he’s gone.”
Gone as in died?
Well, shit.
“I’m sure wherever he is, Charlie, he’s proud.”
She glanced up when the nickname slipped out. I thought she might yell at me for calling her by a “boy name,” but she just took another pull on the beer.
“Do you think they can see us? You know, from heaven?” Her voice was so small I had to lean forward to hear it over the music. I knew this wasn’t a topic she brought up very often, and something in my chest expanded that she would trust me enough to talk to me.
She thinks you’re Max. I reminded myself. I barely heard it though because she was laying into me with the full affect of those eyes. I threaded our fingers together. “Yeah. I think they can.”
God, I hoped so. I thought of all the buddies we lost over in the sand that I wasn’t going to forget. I wanted them to know that even though I lived, I wasn’t going to take it for granted.
“Sometimes I wonder what my father would think of me, you know?” She leaned just a little bit closer and it was like everything else in the room ceased to exist. The piano, the bar noise, the drunk guy singing at the bar… it all went away. We were in our own little bubble, a bubble in which she completely captivated me and yet somehow made my heart beat just a little too fast.
“How long’s it been, again?” I asked casually.
“Seven years.” A faraway look entered her eyes. “I still remember the day of his heart attack like it was yesterday.”
I gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. She glanced up. “Did I ever tell you I was the one who found him?”
A hard knot formed in the pit of my stomach. “No.”
“He had come home in the middle of the day, maybe he left something in his office, and that’s when he had a heart attack. No one was there to help him.”
She paused for a moment and I gave her the time she needed.
“When I got home from school, he was there… lying in the living room, his hand just feet away from the phone. He was purple and so still.”
“Don’t,” I told her. I knew what it was like to relive the vision of a dead body. To stare down at someone who was once full but was now completely devoid of life. I knew people sometimes turned bloated and blotchy looking when they lay for too long without anyone knowing they were there.
I remembered the smell, the vacancy in eyes that no longer saw.
“Max?” her concern broke through the fog of memories seeping into my mind.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“You okay?”
“Of course.” I looked at the beer at my elbow and thought about picking it up. But then I realized if I did, I would have to remove one of my hands from hers.
I wasn’t that thirsty anyway.
“So…” I began, turning the conversation back to her. “Do they know what caused the heart attack?”
“Artery blockage. Stress. Lack of physical activity.”
I had a feeling that was why she got up every morning at the crack of dawn to work out.
Her hair was so long that some of the strands falling over her shoulder dangled onto the table as she leaned close to me. It looked like bottled sunshine, even in this darkened piano bar.
I picked up a strand that was lying near our hands and rolled it around my fingertips, letting the softness wrap around my skin.
The air between us was charged, so much so that it practically vibrated my skin.
I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to press myself as close her as I could get.
A bright light turned on us and caused the moment to break. Both of us squinted and looked around for where the hell it was coming from.
The guy at the piano was holding a spotlight on us. A freaking spotlight.
His voice boomed over the microphone that was attached to the piano. “You know it’s that time of the night for me to take a break and for someone out in the bar to entertain us all.”
Seriously?
“And I couldn’t help but notice the love birds sitting over there,” he said, flickering the light on us once more. “So how about it? We need some entertainment!”
I glanced at Charlotte. Her eyes looked like saucers and she was shaking her head adamantly. “Oh, no,” she said, and I could tell she was ready to bolt.
I wasn’t ready for her to leave.
I disengaged my hands from her and pushed back from the table. Everyone in the bar screamed and whooped.
Nothing like a bunch of drunk people to give a man confidence.
I heard Charlotte call my name and I shot her a grin, then walked toward the piano.
14
Charlotte
I was drinking beer.
In a piano bar.
On a weekday.
Not only that, but I was enjoying it. Like really enjoying it.
His presence was exciting, like being around him was somehow an adventure. And the way he looked at me… I’d never seen that look before. It was like I was a giant candy bar and he wanted to peel away the wrapper so he could inspect every inch of the chocolate.