by Sage Rae
Suppose it really wasn’t Peter and Manu behind it? Suppose that, when she arrived, she would see only another set of bleary-eyed businessmen, who would flirt with her blandly before sending her home for an early night?
Charlotte used company money to hail a taxi that would take her all the way out to Versailles’ nearby warehouse. She’d dressed herself in her elegant, dark emerald gown, pressed red lipstick on her lips, and wrapped and unwrapped her fingers on her lap. The taxi yanked her left to right, making her hair whip across her shoulders. The driver spoke to her in lulling French, which she couldn’t quite make out. It was clear that he was from the south of France, like her parents, as he spoke with a gentleness that, thankfully, calmed her nerves for a few moments.
“Wherever you’re going, you’re going to impress whoever you see,” he told her, when he halted the car just steps from the entrance of the warehouse. “Nobody can tell you any different.”
Charlotte pressed her heel onto the concrete outside, snapped the taxi door closed behind her and walked toward the door. From outside, she could hear the small roar of people within: people laughing, chuckling, telling stories she would never hear. At the entrance, she peered inside at the warehouse’s interior: three stories of emptiness, which her architectural brain had constructed into a kind of fantasy land. The place was decorated like a treehouse, with different tiers that stretched into the sky, and walkways in the style of the Swiss Family Robinson. She watched, like a kid outside the toy store, as people scampered from fake tree to fake tree—their drinks in-hand. Each person seemed joyful, brimming at the spectacle of it all.
One of the caterers opened the door for her, sliding a tray forward. It was filled with some of her favorite food—All-American in every way, like tiny cheeseburgers, baby burritos, and even chicken nuggets (just like the ones she, Peter, and Manu had grown up on back in Greenwich). She chuckled to herself, taking one and chewing it slowly. Sure: it was higher-grade chicken than the kind they’d grown up on. But it was still simmering with that nostalgic flavor.
Charlotte took another chicken nugget and walked through the crowd, making a tiny path for herself toward the center. Along the far wall, a long banner had been stretched. On it, the words: “CONGRATULATIONS,” had been written. But she was given no other clue. She reached a platter of champagne glasses, took one, and tried to suppress a smile. She recognized no one from the party, but not for lack of trying. She made eye contact with women and men, trying to place them back in the time when Manu and Peter had been “up and coming” together. But truth be told, she hadn’t been a figment in that life. They were just ghosts to her, regardless.
Charlotte waited in the center of the crowd, marveling at the weight of her beating heart. She felt that any moment, something big was going to happen. She just couldn’t possibly know what.
She felt like she was twelve years old, scampering after Manu and Peter—trying to figure out what it was they were doing, what the “cool kids” were into. And, for the first time, it was the most pleasant, most comfortable feeling in the world. She leaned into it.
Best Life
Peter leaped out from behind the back-stage dressing room, centering his tie on his neck. His massive hands found Manu’s shoulders, gripped them and shook him back and forth, so that his blonde curls quaked. Manu gave him an anxious smile, cutting his teeth over his lips. It had been years since the two of them had appeared in public. And now, after nearly two months of constant communication, intense business meetings, nights at bars with Peter spewing ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE REALLY READY THIS TIME at Manu, over and over again, they’d finally come to the big reveal:
This, what they’d been up to since they’d rekindled their friendship down in Montpellier. They’d been rejuvenating their company, putting all efforts toward their social media company, entitled “Reconnect.” And already, numbers were bursting, with investors coming out of the woodwork to toss money at them. “Another Peter Bramwell and Manu Montague project, eh?” someone had written Peter recently. “Consider my money well spent. I would follow you two boys wherever you want to go. That Manu, he’s got brains.”
Nobody seemed to question where Manu had been the previous few years, nor why they were rekindling their business brains for a new company. They were good-looking, brash, and backed by Peter’s billions. They didn’t have anything to question. It was clear to the world that Peter and Manu would be successful.
This party was the secret announcement of their business. The moment the clock struck midnight, the social media service would be enabled, and millions of people across the world would be able to rekindle their past relationships: finding old flings, old loves, old best friends, and telling them the one, single thing that they regretted never telling them. This was the way they got into the platform.
It had come to Manu and Peter during that first week they’d met again, when Manu had hung around at the French villa, wondering if Charlotte would ever find her way back to them. Gradually, he and Peter continued a similar dialogue that they had begun on the first night—both telling each other just how much they’d missed one another when they’d been apart. “Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of service for this?” Manu had said once, peeling his thumb through a sticky orange. “Some kind of online platform which forces you to say the things you never said. I think it would save a lot of people in the long run, from their regrets.”
And from that, a business had been born. Peter had dialed Tyler immediately, scheduling him and Manu a selection of business meetings. They’d traveled around the world together, back to New York, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Tokyo, to India… And as they’d traveled, Manu had grown amazingly more comfortable with himself. He’d begun to wield the conversation in the business meetings, even arguing when he didn’t like what their clients were trying to do. “I think they’re trying to cheat us,” Manu told Peter several times. And often, he was right. He had a savvy business mind, despite being out of the game so long.
And Peter was terribly grateful to have him by his side again. He no longer felt that aching loneliness of his mid-twenties. He had someone to speak to all the time, someone who’d known him since he was just a kid. Someone who saw all the way through him.
Of course, there was still the issue of Charlotte. But it was an issue that Manu had attempted to rectify, as well. A few weeks before, when they’d been attempting to decide when to open their social media platform, Manu had learned that Charlotte was a high-up architect and designer at a Parisian company. He’d proposed that she be the one to orchestrate their opening party, at a warehouse in Paris. “That way, she’s involved, and she doesn’t even know it,” he said.
It was a sneaky move. Peter appreciated the fire behind it. He joked that she would never forgive them for putting so much pressure on her. He knew, from the push-back at the office, that Charlotte hadn't had much time to draw up the plans and get them to the construction site. “Why do you require it to be Charlotte, as designer?” the office manager had demanded. “She’s slammed this week. We could have any of the other designers…”
“No. It has to be her,” Peter had returned. “We’ll up the price. Pay double if we have to. It has to be her.”
“But why?” the office manager had asked.
“She’s the most brilliant artist we know,” Peter had offered. “And we can’t imagine anyone else.”
The gala event had kicked off remarkably: some of the richest and most fabulous Parisians, Romans, New Yorkers, and Japanese style icons had gathered in the Versailles warehouse and were now nibbling on Peter and Manu’s favorite childhood snacks and sipping cocktails.
Manu shifted Peter’s tie to the side, then back again, even after Peter had spent the previous ten minutes trying to push it in the perfect location. He smirked as Peter strained to fix it again. “We don’t have long!” Peter cried.
“I didn’t think you’d be so nervous. In front of all those people,” Manu said, wagging his eyebrows.
“You know it’s not the people,” Peter sighed. He stretched his fingers across his cheeks. “It’s her. It’s always been her.”
Charlotte. From Peter’s stance on the second floor, he could see her, walking slowly through the crowd. She nibbled at a little burrito, a coy smile on her face. She wore a remarkable, emerald dress, which cut up at her toes, all the way to her knees. Peter had the strange, pure desire to drop to his knees and kiss her thighs. He wanted to rip her dress up to her waist, to tear her panties down her legs and inhale the darkness beneath.
Since he’d last seen her, he hadn’t slept with a single woman. He hadn’t had it in him to “cheat” on her, despite knowing that Charlotte might never want to see him again. He still felt that he had a chance, in his belly. He would fight for it. Fight to be the kind of man who stuck by her side. The kind of man who could handle her fiery personality, her anger, and the depth of her love for him.
For if there was anything certain about the world, there was this: he loved Charlotte, and Charlotte loved him. He just hoped that they could fight to be together, in a world that seemed so apt to keep them apart.
Peter and Manu prepared at the entrance of the warehouse’s stage, where they’d planned to make a speech. The French event planner signaled the DJ to play the music, their “coming out” music. And then, Peter and Manu looked at each other a final time, took a deep inhale, and bolted open the door. Upon their entrance, the entire warehouse exploded in applause, their eyes alight.
They were back. The handsome, millionaire boys. They were back.
Peter reached for the microphone, but didn’t grip it before Manu did. As Manu huffed into the microphone, Peter shot his hands into his pocket and gazed directly into the eyes of Charlotte. They welled with tears. But her face was stoic, certain: like she’d seen them coming from a mile away. Of course she had, he thought. She was the smartest person they knew.
“Greetings!” Manu cried. His voice echoed from wall to wall in the warehouse, quieting the applause. “Tonight, I want to welcome you to our very first evening for ‘Reconnected,’ the brand-new social media platform brought to you by Peter Bramwell and myself, Manu Montague.”
Charlotte’s lips stretched into a smile. She pressed her hand over it, trying to hide her glee. But Peter caught her and shared the smile. Time was a bizarre, horrendous thing, and it could pass you by if you didn’t hold onto it and keep it close. That’s what he was trying to do.
“Anyway, this is my best friend. My best friend, Peter Bramwell. And we almost lost one another, a long time ago, because of greed and arrogance and laziness. All the things you can attribute to your early twenties, right?”
The crowd grumbled their agreement. Charlotte’s smile grew wider. She dropped her hand to her side, no longer willing to conceal herself. She began to giggle, even as it seemed the people around her were annoyed with her. Why was this crazy woman acting up? Peter imagined they thought. What the hell was she thinking?
Peter reached for the microphone, cutting Manu off. Manu cackled at him, patting his back. Peter shrugged, shaking his head toward the mic. “I’m sorry, Manu. I just. I’ll let you talk in a minute. I just have some shit I need to get off my chest.”
“He does,” Manu said, nodding quickly. The crowd nodded back, eating up his cartoonish appeal.
“Charlotte.” Peter said her name, feeling it across his tongue like ice cream or frosting. Charlotte’s face had grown serious. But her eyes continued to blare into him, seemingly seeing into his very soul. “Charlotte, I have missed you every single day we’ve been apart,” he continued.
The crowd “oo-ed” at this, making eyes at their significant others. Several of them gripped hands, sighing in the relief that they already had love. They already had one another.
“I don’t want to be apart from you, Charlotte,” Peter continued. He stepped down from the stage, forcing the crowd to part, like the Red Sea. He walked, heel to toe, marching slowly, until he reached her. They were only a foot apart. He could almost taste her lips, could feel the weight of her hand on his chest. But still, they remained apart.
But then, she spoke. She spoke in a whisper, ensuring that nobody else in the entire crowd could hear her. She brought her head closer to him, saying the words that would echo between his ears for the next ten years of his life. “I love you. And I always have.”
It was all he needed to hear. Peter dropped the mic—literally dropped the mic—onto the ground, making it bounce. And he wrapped his arms around his little emerald dream, bringing his lips to her perfect, bright red lips. His eyes closed, as did hers. And they shared in this moment, their tongues slipping against one another, her tits pressed tight against his chest, as the crowd roared around them.
Peter lifted Charlotte into him, after that: drawing her legs high, so that he could carry her out the door. Her emerald dress trailed behind them. At the entrance of the warehouse, he paused, so that their eyes met for the first time, post-kiss. Her lips glittered with his spit. She bit her lower lip, breathing so hard that her chest rose and fell too quickly.
“I bought this dress for nothing, didn’t I?” was what she chose to say, making him nearly drop her with laughter.
“I can’t wait to tear it off you,” Peter responded. “I don’t know what I’m going to kiss first. I am so hungry for you.”
“Can you put me down for a minute?” Charlotte asked, her eyes lost and welling with tears. “I just want to say something. Something away from the rest of the crowd.”
Peter did as he was told. She slid her hands along her torso, along her thighs. She huffed, allowing a single tear to fall. “I just don’t want you to hurt me the way you hurt both of us, before. Both me and Manu.”
“I can’t,” Peter said, almost stuttering. “I wouldn’t. Because, in hurting both of you, I hurt myself more than I can possibly say. I was alone, in every sense, until I found you again.”
Charlotte nodded. She draped her hands along his chest, twirling one of the coarse black hairs around and around so that it grew tense and taut. Her eyes still burned into him. And then, once more, they kissed, with Peter’s arm flailing through the air, grabbing one of the passing cabs. This life, with Charlotte. This business world, with Manu. Both began, now.
And Peter couldn’t have imagined a better life.
Vacation
It was finally time for vacation. Charlotte felt the ache in her bones as she marched the final few steps to the penthouse apartment in Paris, stretching the black fabric of her dress down over her thighs. Once at the door, she nearly collapsed against it. She’d spent the previous five days half in a daze, straining herself to draw up the designs for the new Berlin museum, to be constructed the following year. They’d given her the task as the youngest architect to ever design such a massive place.
And on top of that, she’d just finished finalizing the plans for the French villa down south—where she, Manu, and Peter were planning on vacationing the next three weeks. It had been a trying time, ensuring that the French villa upheld old aesthetics, upheld her and Peter’s current style, all while being one of the glossiest, beautiful places in all of France (and even Europe). Peter had told her that he longed to have vibrant parties there, inviting all of their friends from miles around. In fact, he longed to have their wedding there.
And already, that wedding date was planned for the following year. Once Charlotte worked off the baby weight, that is.
It had been over a year since she and Peter had rekindled their love. Over a year since Peter had moved to Paris for good, with Manu taking up residence in both Paris and New York (“the only two cities in the world, anyway,” according to Manu himself). But it had been only a few weeks since Charlotte had taken the pregnancy test, which alerted her to the truth:
She and Peter weren’t just going to be fiancé and fiancée. They weren’t just going to be man and wife. They were going to be father and mother. But she had had yet to tell Peter this, as he’d been bu
sy, himself. The launch of the social media app had virtually changed his life, pushing him from billionaire to multi-billionaire status. He’d begun operating in politics, trying to make an active change in the world. And beyond that, he didn’t neglect his relationship with Charlotte. They spent nearly every Saturday and Sunday latched in one another’s arms, telling each other stories and giggling until dawn.
As if he knew, as if he always knew, Peter whipped open the door, standing shirtless, in a pair of black boxers. He was broad and tan, his smile white and broad. He never looked at anyone else that way, the way he did to Charlotte. He looked at her like she was the biggest treasure he could have ever found.
“Hi,” Charlotte whispered, biting her lip.
But Peter didn’t answer. He pressed forward, kissing her hard, fast. She felt it like a punch in her heart. He sucked at her bottom lip, tracing his hands around her nipples (she wore no bra), down her flat stomach, to her pussy. He gripped it through her clothes, murmuring, “I’ve ben wanting you so bad all fucking day.”
Charlotte moaned, dropping her stuff at the doorway and cutting the door closed behind her. She wrapped her arms around Peter’s neck and leaped into him, so that he staggered back, toward their bedroom. Their penthouse in Paris overlooked Luxembourg Park, one of the places Ernest Hemingway had walked, hungry and tired and simmering with creativity. Charlotte liked to think that his ghost was down there, hungry and tired and filled with earnest passion. She liked to think that their passion was like his.
Within seconds, Peter stripped her bare, flashing her clothes against the floor. Charlotte dropped to her knees, wrapping her lips around his cock. It was thick and hot and red, rock-hard. One hand cupped the softness of his ballsack, while her tongue traced the veins of his cock. She pushed herself so far forward, she could feel his cock deep in the back of her throat. She wanted to taste all of him.