Page 139 of Business Casual
“I think it’s just enough, actually.” I press another lingering kiss against his lips.
Beckett is grumbling somewhere behind me about public displays of affection. Stella is still sniffling. Caleb is back to rummaging through my fridge for snacks, and Luka is snoring on the floor. I hold Charlie’s face to mine and hope he sees it. The friends and the family and the home. The love that’s offered without strings or conditions.
“What do you want?” he asks, searching my face.
“I want you to stay,” I tell him. His eyes light up like cloudsclearing after a storm. A smile lifts the corners of his mouth. I want to be the cause of this exact look every single day. I want to be the reason he believes he deserves this sort of love. I trace my thumb over his clean-shaven jaw. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been telling you, Nova. I want to give you whatever you want,” he says quietly. “For a long fucking time.”
I laugh. “That’s a good answer.”
“I thought you’d think so.”
I tip my head closer to his. “Do you think you could be happy here, Charlie?” I whisper.
“I am happy here.” His eyes dart over my shoulder at the buffoons in my living room. There’s a conversation happening about Hot Pockets or taquitos. I don’t know and I don’t care. Especially when Charlie slips his gaze back to me, his eyes tracing my face like I’m something precious. Like I’m something he can’t believe he gets to keep. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life, Nova girl.”
He says it in a whisper. Like a secret.
I drop my mouth to his and make it a promise.
“Me too.”
EPILOGUE
NOVA
Three Years Later
“You have awalk-in.”
I glance up from the weathered binder open in the middle of my desk, Jeremy standing with his head and shoulders hanging in my office, his hand gripping the frame of the door. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this version of Jeremy, his hair neatly combed back, his faded badger sweatshirt swapped for a button-down tucked into a pressed pair of navy-blue slacks. Charlie organized a wholePrincess Diariesmakeover intervention the last time Jeremy came home for spring break wearing Birkenstocks and white tube socks. The two of them have been swapping pattern recommendations and tailor information ever since.
“Can you schedule them for later in the week? Whatever open slot there is.”
Jeremy shakes his head.
“You can’t schedule them?” I ask.
“No.”
I blink. “Why not? Did you forget how to use a pen and paper at NYU?”
He only works at the tattoo shop sparingly, whenever he’s in town to visit his parents. I don’t need the help with the rotating receptionists we have on staff and the other artists in the shop, but he says he likes spending time here when he can, and I like the company.
He’s also still angling for that free tattoo. Apparently, there’s a girl in his Italian language class he’s been trying to impress.
“They said they need to be seen tonight.”
“That’s nice, but they don’t make the rules.” I’m supposed to meet Charlie at Matty’s in twenty minutes. If I’m late, he starts making complicated maps of the town using parmesan shakers and toothpicks.
And I hate making him wait. He’s done enough of that.
“They said it was an emergency.”
“Who did?”
“Your walk-in.”
