by Kira Blakely
“Not really,” Maggie said. “He tends to take a while with these big clients. They like to wine and dine, all that.”
“It’s only two in the afternoon,” Charlotte offered, arguing once more.
“Well. You know the rock star life,” Maggie insisted, turning away from Charlotte. The tension between them grew. “Anyway, I have to get back to this. Please, head back to your desk.”
Charlotte tossed her long brunette curls and trudged back to her intern office, angry. If she was about to be fired, she wished someone would just tell her. If she was going to be ignored for the next several months, as intern of a man she could have loved, she wished someone would just tell her.
If she was going to go up in flames; if the love she’d begun to harbor was about to collapse around her, then she damn well wanted to know.
Ultimately, she didn’t have a good feeling.
Returning to her desk, Randy leaned toward her, whispering into her ear, “Hey. Drinks tonight? I can tell you need some TLC.”
Charlotte nodded slowly, robotically, taking solace in this stranger. “I would kill for about three bottles of wine right now,” she murmured.
“That’s the spirit,” Randy said back.
Chapter 18
Quentin continued to shove meetings back, telling Maggie he wouldn’t be in the office till at least the following day. Her insistent text messages, all declaring, “WE PRINT IN A WEEK, YOU IDIOT!” went ignored. He was tucked away in Morgan’s hospital room, nibbling at kid cereal and watching modern-day cartoons, which were, in his opinion, complete drivel. But Morgan seemed to dig them.
Kate came in and out, knowing that Morgan was most comfortable with just her father. She brought teddy bears and other toys, along with a card signed by all the members in Morgan’s class, including her arch-nemesis, the other pianist, Monica.
“Ugh. She’s happy I’m not there,” Morgan said, tossing the card to the side.
Quentin couldn’t handle it. He laughed outrageously, overblown with emotions. His daughter was going to be safe. And best of all, her spunk was electric.
“The hospital food sucks,” Morgan said, when they finally allowed her to eat dinner, late that night. “I want macaroni and cheese. I would KILL for it!”
“Ha. Don’t say kill,” Quentin said, chuckling. He lifted his phone, eyeing the sad-looking toast on her plate. “Do you think they’ll kick me out if I order you macaroni and cheese?”
Morgan shrugged, tossing the toast to the side. “I don’t know. You’re the adult.”
It was true. And he’d already poisoned her with that Chinese food. But he dialed the local BBQ place, which sold impeccable cheesy macaroni and ordered them a large vat of the stuff, knowing they didn’t sell anything shellfish-related. He even asked, mid-conversation, “You definitely don’t have shellfish in the kitchen? Or in the vicinity? You, sir, haven’t eaten shellfish lately, have you?”
And the man on the phone laughed heartily, saying no.
The macaroni was delivered to the hospital at around eight-thirty, a few hours before visiting hours were over. Kate pounced on them immediately when she entered, viewing her ex-husband and her tiny daughter stuffing macaroni down their throats with plastic forks.
“Jesus, Q. I can’t trust you at all.”
“She wasn’t eating. She needs to get her strength back,” Quentin said, gesturing toward their daughter, who’d begun to refill her bowl. “She’s got the appetite of a lion.”
“No. A tiger,” Morgan insisted.
“Right. That’s what I meant,” Quentin said, giving Kate a knowing look.
“Whatever,” Kate said, stuffing herself in the chair across from him. She still looked fatigued, but she’d obviously applied makeup at some point. She no longer looked so skeletal, so sad. “What cartoon is this?”
Quentin tucked his daughter in that night, drawing the sheets up to her chin. Kate kissed Morgan on the lips precisely once before excusing herself and heading home with Jason, squeezing Quentin’s elbow a final time before departing.
“Aren’t you leaving, Daddy?” Morgan asked, her eyes big as saucers, like a rodent hidden in a tunnel.
“No way,” Quentin said, extending his legs out in the small, plastic chair. “I’m camping here with you. What if you wake up and you get scared again?”
“Dad. I’m big now,” Morgan insisted, rolling her eyes. But her voice wavered, telling a different tale.
“Yeah, I know you’re big,” Quentin said. “But I also know the only job I really care about in this world is being your father. And I’m going to do that really, really well. Understand?”
His daughter drifted off in the next twenty minutes, exhaustion folding through her and causing her to sleep dreamlessly, without her normal kicking and fighting to unspeakable demons. She was safe. She would sleep through the night.
Nothing like this would ever happen again. Not if he had anything to say about it.
As she slept, Quentin’s thoughts turned to the office. He lifted his phone, typing quickly and rescheduling a meeting with the band Thick Soled for the following late afternoon. He apologized to Maggie, telling her “something very important came up,” not wanting to mix his two worlds: his family life and his magazine life. Although he, personally, didn’t own the magazine, the numbers had shown nothing but growth for the past two years, since he’d become editor. He didn’t imagine he’d lose his position any time soon.
Maggie typed back quickly, her words coming a bit sloppily, perhaps showing she was drunk.
“Don’t leave me hanging like that again,” she said. “I had everyone coming at me, asking me where you were. The interns were manic. All the girls are dressing slutty to attract you, I think. It’s disgusting.”
Quentin’s mouth down-turned, then, as Charlotte came back to his mind. He typed back to Maggie, hating himself.
Good thing there’s that no-fraternization clause in place, then. Otherwise—I might be tempted! he said.
“Ha, ha,” Maggie said back, reinstating their friendship. She couldn’t stay mad at him for long. She continued, “That little pretty one, Charlotte, asked when you’d be in. She was pretty insistent. I’d watch out for her, if I were you. She’s a smart one. Smarter than even you, maybe.”
Quentin shoved his phone into his pants, shivering. As his daughter slept, he cranked up onto his feet and entered the hallway, his mind a blur. Hadn’t kicking her out of his bed been enough of a message? There was no possible way she could know what had happened with Morgan. She probably assumed he’d kicked her out, and then proceeded to avoid her all day. This was for the best. Wasn’t it?
He seemed like a major dick. But he had to uphold the no-fraternization rule. He had to force things back on the rails. He had to keep his life stable. And that meant no Charlotte.
But even as he thought about her, his cock pressed firmly against his pants, seeming insistent. This was the longest he’d gone without seeing Charlotte since he’d met her. His fingers seemed to simmer with desire to touch her, to grasp her thin waist, and to separate the silky lips of her pussy, allowing his tongue to dive between.
Would he ever have that kind of pleasure again?
As he paced through the hallway, a tiny redheaded nurse walked past him, shuffling her ass from side to side. She had a tight, taut waist, a small, bird-like neck, and lithe feet, which pulsed across the linoleum at the speed of light. She wasn’t like these other hulk-like nurses. She was different. During his rock star days, he would have branded her as fuckable and shoved her into a closet, stripping her panties to the floor.
But Quentin felt nothing. The only person who seemed to ignite this lion-like fervor within him was Charlotte. He halted himself, thrusting his palms against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart. The blood had rushed into the tip of his cock full-force now. He needed release. But deep in the labyrinth-like hallways of his daughter’s hospital, he would have nothing.
He’d be pent-up. He’d be force
d to linger through dozens of dreams of Charlotte’s naked quivering body until morning.
Quentin slept fitfully on the side bench in Morgan’s room, waking periodically to check that his daughter was breathing all right. He remembered when she was a baby, taking her home with him for the first time, anxious that he didn’t have Kate by his side any longer. He’d forced himself to stay awake, wide-eyed, without any drugs besides coffee, just to ensure she was all right. She’d slept like a log, yet Quentin had felt they were continually on the brink of disaster.
Kate arrived at around eight in the morning, when the doctor was planning to do his final analysis and then let Morgan go. She brought a change of clothes, along with some bagels, and the three of them chewed companionably, with Morgan sitting upright in bed, her legs crossed before her.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you eat carbs in years,” Quentin told Kate. “Perhaps ever.”
Kate rolled her eyes, taking a delicate bite. “Do you see me growing fatter in front of your eyes?”
“You’d be beautiful either way, Mom,” Morgan said, sounding annoyed.
“The kid’s right,” Quentin said firmly.
Kate gave him a glowing smile.
“Listen,” Quentin said, addressing both of them. “I do have to go into the office today. I have a big interview with an up-and-coming band, and I need to check in on the writers. We’re printing next week. Stressful time.”
“You should go,” Kate said, her eyebrows high. “Morg’s about to get released, and then we’ll just chill out at home the rest of the day.”
“I have to practice anyway,” Morgan said stiffly.
“Why not take another day off?” Quentin asked.
“You’re not,” Morgan said pointedly.
“Fair,” Quentin said, rising. He kissed his daughter on the forehead, already feeling regretful to leave. “Well, promise that the moment you feel weak, you’ll head back to bed. Okay?”
Quentin fled the hospital and hailed a taxi immediately, rushing back to his apartment building to shower and change. He felt the weight fall from his shoulders, knowing that Charlotte wasn’t currently in the apartment building, having already trudged to work. He scrubbed himself clean, kicking his nails into his back and feeling at his spine. As he left the apartment building, he yanked the trash from the trashcan, remembering that the Chinese residue was leftover there—something he wanted far, far away from his sanitary house.
When Quentin had been his dominant rock star self, he’d avoided women constantly after sleeping with them, turning a blind eye and almost taking pleasure in the pain that danced across their faces. He’d hurt hundreds of women, probably, with his ravenous, sexual addiction and his assurance that no one girl was “the one.”
He would do the same to Charlotte. For the good of them both.
Taking the elevator up to the MMM offices, he prepped himself, internally, for the meeting with Thick Soled. While his writers took over most of the features, he liked to write at least one big one every magazine, positioning himself as the top-tier writer at the magazine. He wasn’t just in charge, he was fucking good, an artist. And his articles were most often read on the Internet, anyway.
Thick Soled had been an up-and-comer for at least a year, playing dark, dive bars in Brooklyn and Chicago before finally signing a label and releasing their first record. Their sound was grungy, raspy, howling—not unlike Orpheus Arise had been, ten years before. Their plan, to meet at his office at one-thirty and then trudge to whatever bar would have them, was Quentin’s saving grace for the day. Ignoring Charlotte’s brilliant form would be easier from far away.
But the moment the elevator doors opened, Quentin took his first step into the office and found himself in tense, impenetrable eye contact with Charlotte herself, who stood speaking with Maggie near the entrance to his office. After several seconds of heart-racing, gut-wrenching uncertainty—during which he wanted to blast Charlotte against the wall and rip at her business clothes—he finally lurched his eyes away, all-out ignoring her. He eyed Maggie and nodded toward his office. “Maggie. I’d like to see you in my office.”
“Q. Good to see you back,” Maggie said.
Quentin felt Charlotte’s brooding eyes upon him, dancing from Maggie to Quentin and back. Her lips parted soundlessly. Through the corner of Quentin’s eyes, he thought he could see a tiny tear trickle from the corner of hers. But he didn’t dare look closer, just to be sure.
This was just how he’d handled the broads ten years before. And it would be how he would handle it now. Charlotte was nothing—a bug to be squashed. And now, she could return to her intern-lifestyle, allowing him to return to his editor-in-chief status. The no-fraternization policy would remain.
He had to behave himself. He was a father. An editor-in-chief.
He had to play by the rules.
Chapter 19
Charlotte retreated to the bathroom, sliding down the side wall of the stall and weeping, fully, into her palms. After the night they’d had, just two days before, he’d ignored her completely. He hadn’t even allowed his eyes to grace her face. The normal, sexual tension had existed, certainly. But perhaps that only existed in Charlotte’s own mind? She couldn’t be sure.
Perhaps he’d used her up and planned to spit her out, like a dog toy.
His sexual deviance, thought to have been left in the past, ten years before, had just followed them both into this future. And now, it had destroyed Charlotte’s very sense of self. She quaked with sadness, feeling her stomach lurch.
As it was nearly lunch, she excused herself early and fled the office, sensing Randy’s eyes upon her, curious. Slipping her sunglasses from her face, she bounded down the street, feeling her blood rush through her veins. The world was crashing around her. Somehow, she felt electric, incredibly aware. This was what heartbreak felt like.
She wasn’t sure she’d felt it before.
The side corner, several blocks down, held a large, shaded bar, in which several winos drank in the bright light of the early afternoon. She joined them, tossing her purse to the ground beneath the bar and smacking her palm on the counter, eyeing the bartender, her sunglasses still plastered across her face.
“I’m going to need a Manhattan,” she said, her voice trying to find certainty.
“Darling, we don’t make that shit here,” the bartender said, his voice gruff, yet kind. “Better order something hard. Or wine or beer.”
Charlotte nodded, recognizing she was inexperienced. A Manhattan? She didn’t even really know what that was. “Right. I’ll have a wine, please. Better make it white. Don’t want to stain my lips, for work.”
“Right,” the bartender said, half-rolling his eyes and stomping toward the back refrigerator, finding a new bottle of white, unopened. “Don’t think I’ve had anyone drink white in here for a few months. Not that kind of establishment, you know. The kind that draws in white wine drinkers.”
Embarrassed, Charlotte slipped the sunglasses from her nose and blinked rapidly at him, sensing tears begin to build behind her lashes. “It’s just—I want to feel—”
“You want to take the edge off. And this is your poison. I get it,” the bartender said. His bald head gleamed beneath the orange lamplight. It seemed that the springtime sunshine didn’t seep far in through the windows, leaving them both in shadow at the bar top. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
He couldn’t have been younger than sixty. Charlotte felt oddly safe with him, unquestioning his purpose in asking her questions. He seemed like a lonely old man, behind a bar all day, watching the rest of the world go by.
“It’s Charlotte,” she murmured, sipping the white wine. It tasted tart against her tongue, unlike the nice wine her aunt had tucked away in her cabinet. But it would do.
“Charlotte. That’s not a name you hear very often anymore,” he said. “I’ve always liked it. Reminds me of the early century. Of Europe, even. Hell, I don’t know.”
Charlotte laughed appreciativel
y, already feeling the wine dance around in her head. She hadn’t yet eaten and had even foregone breakfast. She shivered. “I was the only Charlotte I knew growing up, that’s for sure,” she said, grinning. “In a group of Stephanies and Carries and Laurens.”
“Lauren. That’s my granddaughter’s name,” the bartender said, revealing a small sliver of his life. “Never liked the name, but love the girl. When I get down to Tennessee to see her.”
“Wow. So far,” Charlotte breathed. “My family all live in Ohio. Not far.”
“Nope. Although, after living in New York, I’m ruined for anything else. I don’t know where else you could possibly live. My daughter didn’t feel the same, hence this granddaughter I have a million states away.” He chortled. “You’re just a bit younger than her. Than my daughter, I mean. What are you? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three,” Charlotte murmured, sounding miserable. “But I feel four years old right now. Trouble at work. And I worked damn hard to get this job! It’s the only one I want on the planet. I definitely don’t want to leave. But something horrible happened…” She trailed off, sipping the wine down. The bartender refilled it, gesturing, as if to say it was free. Charlotte sure hoped it was.
“Well, then, you can’t give up on it. No matter what happened,” the bartender told her, his voice firm. “My daughter used to give up on everything, even if she liked it. She didn’t want to fail at it. She gave up on sports, dance, music. On everything. She even gave up on me, at least for a while. And it hasn’t gotten her anything but an early divorce and a custody battle.” He paused, recognizing he’d gone too far. “Of course, that’s nothing like you. And that’s my problem. Not yours.”
“Shit,” Charlotte murmured, diving back into her wine. “No, but you’re right. I shouldn’t allow myself any kind of quitting. Quentin was rock bottom, before. He was a rock star with every kind of addiction, and he had to fight to be in the position he’s in. And who knows what kind of uncomfortable positions he was in, before this. Not that I want to know…” She trailed off, biting her tongue, thinking about his sexual deviance, his addictions. “Anyway, if he can rise from the ashes, I can certainly rise up from this. It’s been, what, just a few days?”