Selling the Drama

by Theresa Smith

  She spoke to him from behind the closed door of the bathroom where she was unfortunately taking off that bikini. "Why aren't you staying downstairs in your old room?"

  "Because Iris said that was set up for Jenna," Toby called out to her.

  "What's wrong with the guest room?" She opened the door, stalking out past him only to come to a stop in the middle of the room, her eyes drifting down to the pile of bags sitting on the floor at the end of the bed.

  "She told me that was for guests and that I'm not a guest."

  "Why can't Jenna use the guest room and you use your room?" Charlotte argued.

  "Because Jenna isn't a guest either."

  Charlotte turned to face him then, a look of irritation fixed upon her face. "What are you really doing here? Having a quick pit stop before embarking on your brilliant career?"

  He shook his head, ignoring her sarcastic tone. "I'm moving in. I've taken a position here in Cairns and I start in two weeks. I have all of our stuff outside in a trailer I rented. I broke the lease on the flat."

  Charlotte swallowed deeply, seemingly at a loss for words for a few moments. "Well," she eventually said, "all of that is very out of character for you. I think your plan just buckled under the strain of all those changes." She looked down then, her gaze trained to a spot on the carpet she began working at with her toe.

  "I threw the plan out. The plan sucked."

  "That's very dramatic. So is breaking the lease on the flat actually. You forfeited the bond?"

  "Every cent."

  "Idiot." She looked back up at him then, a smirk playing at her lips.

  "You've pegged me there. The biggest idiot of all time." Toby approached her cautiously, his hands coming to rest either side of her belly. "I'm sorry. It's not enough, but I am, and it needs to be said. I'm worse than an idiot. Worse even than that." He leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers, their eyes connecting. "I can't live without you, Charlotte." He swallowed deeply, overcome by all that he was feeling combined with the weight of his remorse. "I don't want to live without you."

  She stared at him as he slid his hands over her belly, yet she made no move to step away. She seemed to be expecting something more, and as he felt a shifting, a bump and what seemed like a roll, he knew then that she was not waiting for more from him. She had been waiting for this. She must have known the baby would move beneath his hands. Giving into the tears that had filled his eyes, he fell back onto the end of the bed, drawing Charlotte towards him. He pressed his lips to her belly, resting them there, as though he might be able to kiss their child through the layers of fabric and skin. Charlotte allowed him to weep against her, standing in front of him wordlessly, her hand trailing gently through his hair. Sometimes, there aren't words to convey all of the emotion contained within one moment. Sometimes, it's better to just let things lie. Sometimes, you just need to break the plan, accept the changes, and breathe together.

  Eventually, Charlotte leaned down in front of him, cupping his face within her hands. "I love you."

  He laughed through his tears at her. "Thanks for that."

  "You're welcome." She brushed the tears off his cheeks with the palms of her hands. "Don't make me say it again." She smiled then, a real smile. It had been so long since he had last seen it. "By the way, you're on the couch until further notice."

  "Of course I am." He would sleep on the floor if he had to. He would do anything she wanted, anything at all she asked. Anything to avoid a separation like the one they had just endured. Reaching out once more, he placed his hand onto her belly, seeking what he had almost lost, knowing instinctively that he still had a long way to go before everything would once again be right, yet understanding that he had just taken a very big step in the right direction.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jenna and Chad arrived to stay for Christmas on the twenty third of December, loaded with presents, enough luggage for six months, a boiled fruit cake, and a chicken. A live one.

  "I am not plucking that," Toby announced, backing away with his hands up as soon as he saw it in her arms.

  Jenna looked deeply offended. "This is not to eat! This is my pet. Daphne."

  Toby nodded. "Of course it is. My mistake."

  Chad laughed and held out his hand to Toby. "Good to see you."

  Toby accepted his hand graciously. "Likewise. It'll be nice to actually get to know each other this time," Toby remarked. The two of them had not seen each other since that day Toby had turned up at Jenna's to beg Charlotte's return. Chad grinned at him and then turned to greet Charlotte, wrapping her up in a bear hug that lifted her right off her feet.

  "You look skinny! I thought you were pregnant!" Chad teased.

  Charlotte laughed at that, shaking her head at him. "Sure, sure. I'm like a baby whale and you know it!"

  Jenna cast Toby a glance of suspicion. "Are you behaving yourself?"

  "It would appear so. But feel free to examine my every move while you're here and give me a report at the end."

  "Well, you can't be doing everything right because you're still sleeping on the couch," she remarked loftily.

  Toby winced at that. "And once again, you know way too much."

  Jenna winked at him, the chicken fluttering about in her arms. "I know everything." She leaned up then so she could give him a kiss on the cheek. "But the couch aside, you're doing alright."

  He nodded then and stepped back from her, not too partial to being quite this close to a live chicken and its beak. Iris finally put in an appearance, standing at the top of the steps and looking down at them from the doorway.

  "Good heavens, Jenna! A chicken? Really?"

  Jenna turned up to look at Iris. "This is not just a chicken. This is Daphne."

  "I don't care who she is. She's not coming inside."

  Jenna looked offended once again. "We'll see about that," she muttered in a low voice that only Toby could hear. "Of course not Iris," she sang out loudly, rolling her eyes in Toby's direction.

  A good old fashioned family Christmas. Toby was unsure if he should be excited or frightened.

  Charlotte felt Toby lean in against her back, his mouth close to her ear. "The chicken is in the shower in the main bathroom." Charlotte giggled at that. "There's shit in there now."

  "This is one of those times you pretend you haven't seen anything and you go upstairs each time you need to use the bathroom even though it's miles out of the way." She spun around, bumping her belly against him. Looking up into his smiling face, Charlotte was gripped by an urge to kiss him. She was getting that urge more and more, and not acting on it was becoming increasingly difficult. That feeling, the sorrow mixed with anger that she been nursing, was slowly dimming and becoming harder and harder to tap into. Or maybe, she was just not inclined to try so hard at locating it anymore. Toby leaned down a little closer to her.

  Jenna bounced up then, throwing an arm around each of them, yanking their faces up against hers. "Aww, were you two kids about to kiss?" She gave each of them an exaggerated kiss on their cheeks, attacking Toby with particular vigour until he broke away from her grasp. "Two words, peeps. Christmas karaoke."

  Charlotte shook her head, a feeling of alarm stealing through her. "One word. No."

  "Iris!" Jenna called out loudly. "Charlotte won't play with me! She's being mean."

  "Charlotte, play with your aunt before I kill her over all of this chicken shit!" Iris bellowed from the bathroom down the hall.

  "Ooops." Jenna pulled a face at Charlotte as Toby snorted with barely concealed mirth from behind her. "Now might be a really good time to head out for that karaoke."

  Charlotte shook her head once again. "Karaoke is bad enough, but Christmas themed? Do you know how many groups of drunk people are going to get up and pretend that they're Band-Aid? Please, don't do this to me. Spare my unborn baby's ears." She looked over at Toby with a pleading expression. "Help me out here."

  He shrugged. "I don't know, I've always been partial to a little John Lennon a
nd Yoko at Christmas."

  "Where is Chad? Surely he doesn't want to do this," Charlotte moaned.

  "Chad does everything I tell him to. He's waiting in the car." Jenna yanked on Charlotte's arm, pulling her along out of the kitchen. "Bye Iris! Are you sure you don't want to come?"

  "Why does she get a choice?" Charlotte whined.

  "Because she's cleaning up my chicken shit."

  "I hate karaoke!" Iris called out from the bathroom.

  Leaning his elbows onto the table, Toby nodded toward Chad's drink. "Charlotte can drive, she won't drink while she's pregnant. Why don't you have a drink? Other than water."

  Chad gave his head a light tap. "No alcohol. And I'm never driver, with or without it."

  Toby looked at him with sympathy. Charlotte had of course told him about Chad having a brain injury, but he had not given it much thought after finding out about it. "No alcohol, ever?"

  "It's not a good idea. I prefer to roll around on the ground foaming at the mouth at home, if possible." Chad grinned at Toby, despite the image his words conveyed.

  "How old were you when it happened?"

  "Twenty."

  "Shit." Toby felt bad for the guy then. He'd had his whole entire life ripped away from him. Just like that. "What did you do before it happened? For work?"

  "I was at uni in my final year of an Electrical Engineering degree. I had no hope of finishing after and when I tried later on down the track I couldn't do it anymore. I can't remember anything when I need to and the concentration required tends to bring on a seizure." He delivered all this in a very matter of fact tone, not a hint of bitterness evident.

  Toby could not imagine being so at ease with such a situation if it were him in Chad's place. The lack of control, the loss of your identity essentially. He took a large mouthful of his drink before looking back over at Chad.

  Chad was regarding him carefully. "I know what you're thinking. But I've been like this for twelve years now. I'm used to it. I wasn't always so accepting."

  Toby shook his head at that. "What changed for you? To help you accept?"

  Chad merely shrugged at Toby's question, taking a mouthful of his bottled water before answering. "You get sick of being angry. And you realise that no matter how long you wait, it isn't gonna get better. And then you meet a terrific woman who isn't freaked out when you have a seizure in her bed on the first night you sleep with her and you realise that maybe there's something to look forward to after all."

  Toby looked over at Jenna who was shrieking with laughter at the poor shmuck up on stage trying to do an impression of Michael Buble and saw in her in a slightly different light. There was probably a depth to Jenna that he had never really given her any credit as having and he felt a little rotten for that in this moment. It was all too easy to roll your eyes and dismiss her, but loyalty had always been one of her strongest points and it seemed a shame to think that everyone was able to overlook it so easily on account of her scattiness. She rose from her seat then and raced up to the stage, her turn at the microphone coming up when the Buble wannabe finally decided to cut loose and get the hell off the stage.

  Charlotte leaned over to him, her lips touching his ear. "You have to race up there and pull her down the minute any item of clothing looks as though it's about to be removed."

  Toby laughed at that. "Sure thing."

  The music for Jenna's chosen song blasted out through the speakers, and Charlotte groaned, her forehead hitting Toby's bicep repeatedly. "She is such a Wham tragic." As Jenna crooned away to 'Last Christmas', Toby inched his hand down below the table to rest it on top of Charlotte's bare leg. He trailed it upward, dipping under her skirt but she reached below the table and hit his hand away.

  "Nice try," she said, sardonically. "But I haven't had nearly enough of these," she held up her bottle of water, "to be swayed into letting you off the couch."

  "Who said anything about getting off the couch? Maybe I'm trying to get you onto it with me," he teased.

  "Good luck with that."

  Toby grinned at her. He was a lot closer to getting off the couch than he had ever been before. Charlotte had been much more responsive to him these last couple of weeks, ever since he had attended a doctor's appointment with her where he had been given the opportunity to listen to the baby's heartbeat, and had subsequently bawled like a baby himself right in the doctor's office. It seemed as though the more he disgraced himself, the more inclined she was to give him a little bit of herself back. Toby stared up at Jenna, almost at the end of her song, with an idea forming in his mind. He downed the last of his drink as he contemplated whether he had the guts or not. Chad kicked him against the side of his foot.

  "Do it. I dare you." Chad's smile was wide as he indicated to the stage with a nod of his head.

  Toby raised his eyebrows in question, Chad giving him another nod.

  "Go on, it'll be a crack."

  Toby got to his feet, Charlotte looking up at him curiously. "Are you going to get another drink? Can I have an orange juice?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet. I have to make a detour on the way to the bar."

  "What?"

  He gave her no answer though, heading out of their booth and straight up to the stage. Jenna's face took on a delirious expression as he gestured to her for the microphone, climbing the steps up to the stage. This was either going to get him laid or laid out; but if she smiled even just once during the whole thing, then it will have been totally worth it.

  "What is he doing?" Charlotte looked up at Toby taking the microphone from Jenna, with alarm. "Chad! What is he doing?"

  Chad grinned at her, a lively look on his face. Leaning forwards, he tapped her hand with affection. "My best guess, is that he's about to make a grand gesture."

  The music started and Charlotte dropped her face into her hands. "He's not serious." The beat of 'All I Want for Christmas' blared out of the speakers as Charlotte groaned, shaking her head in her hands. "No, no, no!"

  "Oh, yes!" Chad tugged at Charlotte's arms. "Come on, you're missing it."

  Jenna appeared at the table, tugging at Charlotte as well. "Get up. Come on, this is brilliant."

  Charlotte looked up as Jenna whistled loudly, cheering Toby on. Chad just grinned at her, nodding his head in the direction of the stage, where Toby was now at the chorus, doing a fairly embarrassing dance to go along with his cheesy song. He seemed to have decided that if he was going to do that thing up there, whatever that thing actually was, then he was going to go all the way with it. And possibly then some. Charlotte blushed furiously, failing to suppress a wide grin when he pointed her out, as though he had been watching and waiting for a reaction from her. Of course everyone sitting around them had to turn and seek her out then, beginning to clap like idiots at the impending excitement of seeing another person embarrassed beyond belief in public. Charlotte was seriously contemplating dropping to her knees and crawling under the table when Toby jumped off the front of the stage in an attempt at rock star glory, but he slipped, probably on someone's spilt drink, and went down hard, flat on his back.

  Jenna burst out laughing, pressing her hands to her mouth to stifle the worst of it. Charlotte pushed past her and headed to where he was lying, the music still playing 'All I Want for Christmas' with most of the crowd singing along with it. Dropping to her knees beside him, her heart was pounding with worry at what he might have done to himself.

  "Are you hurt?" She looked at him, surveying for any obvious damage.

  "I think I'm okay. My back hurts, but I'm sure I'll live." He winced as he sat up.

  "What were you thinking?!" Charlotte checked him over, shaking her head all the while. "You could have seriously hurt yourself! We could be calling an ambulance right now! That was such a stupid thing to do."

  "But funny, right?"

  Charlotte looked at him, about to let loose again, but she stopped when she saw the hopeful expression on his face. Biting her lip hard to prevent herself from smiling at him, she sa
id, "Well, you've given me no choice but to let you sleep in the bed tonight because there's no way I can leave you on the couch with a sore back."

  His smile deepened. "You should kiss me now, while everyone's watching. Then they'll cheer and it'll be just like all the grand gestures in the movies."

  Charlotte stood, reaching down to help him up. "Dream on." Once he was on his feet, she whirled around to walk back to the table. He caught her though, his arm snaking around her waist as he pulled her against him, his other hand cupping the back of her head as he tipped her, kissing her hard, right in the middle of the dance floor.

  And as what usually happens in a bar filled with people drunk on both alcohol and Christmas cheer, there was a loud round of applause with a resounding echo of whistling that made Charlotte wish the ground would open up and swallow her whole. Yet a part of her, a very small part mind, was secretly thrilled at the gesture.

  Morning crashed in with a dull ache throughout his back and a grogginess that seemed impossible to shake off. Toby pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, trying to rid himself of whatever it was causing him to feel as though he was hung-over without the compulsory drinking session the night before.

  "He lives. We can all breathe easy now," Charlotte said from beside him.

  Toby turned his head to the side, his eyes settling onto hers. He smiled widely, a self-satisfied grin, as he took in his surrounds. "I'm not on the couch."

  Charlotte smirked at that statement. "You just realised that? You really did get knocked out then by Chad's pills."

  Toby frowned, alarm pressing into him. "You gave me some of Chad's seizure pills?" He reached up to his own throat, pressing his fingers to his pulse, panic invading him.

  "Don't be stupid," Charlotte replied dismissively, pulling his hand down. "I gave you some of the pills he uses when he gets bad headaches. You were in agony, moaning and rolling about. I couldn't get a wink of sleep. They worked a treat too, you were out like a light within twenty minutes. How do you feel now?"