Page 50 of Live Like There's No Tomorrow
Ben knew without turning around that Charlotte must have come to stand behind him. The look on Angel’s face said it all. He felt bad for her, but it was better this way. Now there could be no doubt that he was back with Charlotte.
“Hi, you must be Angel. I’ve heard so much about you.” Ben turned in surprise and Charlotte made her way past him, down the steps to shake Angel’s hand.
“It’s nice to meet you. You must be Charlotte.”
She nodded. “Sorry, I can’t stop. I’ll leave you to it.”
Ben was stunned to see Charlotte carry on down the steps. She turned at the bottom and gave him a little wave. “Bye.” He stared after her as she made her way across the square and back to her car.
Angel watched too. Once Charlotte had pulled away, Angel turned to look back at Ben. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t think.”
Ben rubbed his hands over his face. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. “That’s okay. What did you need?”
“Nothing. I feel so stupid. I should just go.” She turned and ran back down the steps, then across to her car. Ben was still standing there staring as she, too, pulled away.
“Scaring two of them away in less than five minutes, that’s some going, even for you.”
Ben looked down to see Joe leaning against the wall out the back of the restaurant. “How long have you been standing there? Actually, don’t answer that. You don’t need to. Long enough, apparently.”
Joe nodded and pushed away from the wall to make his way to the steps. He stopped at the bottom. “You got any coffee on the go yet?”
“No, but I need some. I take it you’re inviting yourself in?”
“Looks like it,” said Joe with a grim smile as he started up the steps.
Once Ben had made the coffee, they took a seat outside on the balcony.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” asked Joe.
“I would, if I knew myself.”
“Well, the fact that Charlie was here at this time in the morning tells me something’s going on, right?”
“Not what you’d think.”
“You’re not going to tell me she didn’t stay the night?”
“I’m not. But like I said it’s not what you think. Last night we finally got a chance to talk about everything that happened between us, and she stayed.” He met Joe’s gaze. “Just so we could be together, so we could be close. Last night was about the past. Not about the future or even the present. It was about us finally sharing our pain.”
“And now it’s morning. Now you’re back in the present, and Angel came?”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t even know what she was doing here. I don’t know what she wanted. And I don’t know why Charlie left. I didn’t want her to. In fact,” Ben took a gulp of his coffee, “I think I’m going to go after her.”
Joe took a sip of his coffee and nodded slowly. “What’s she like now? I haven’t seen her yet.”
“She wanted to see you. Her first morning here, she came over to the Boathouse hoping to find you drinking your coffee like you used to.”
Joe smiled. “Yeah, there was many a morning she used to come drink coffee with me, when you started work early.”
“I remember. She used to love it. I know she wants to see you.”
“But what’s she like now? Has she changed much?”
Ben sighed. “She has, and in a good way. She keeps joking that she’s grown up and it’s true, she has.”
“Running away like that, when she saw Angel, didn’t seem too grown-up to me.”
“You’d be surprised. She wasn’t running away because she was upset that Angel was here.”
