by Aly Martinez
She’d ask.
I’d answer.
She’d swallow hard.
I’d kiss her and change the subject to something ridiculous.
She’d laugh.
And then we’d go back to doing whatever the hell we’d been doing or talking about before that one question had crossed her mind.
“How’s Travis doing?” she finally asked.
I covered her hand, stilling her furiously circling fingers. “He’s doing better. I talked to Dr. Whitehall this morning, actually. She’s pleased with his progress. And I’m pleased that we haven’t had to go back to the hospital in over a month.”
“Good,” she whispered before taking a sip of her wine.
I dipped my lips to her knuckles, murmuring, “You know, we could always have one of the waitresses deliver to the couch in my office?”
Her shoulders sagged, and I could feel the anxiety ebbing from her body.
I fucking hated the toll such a simple question took on her.
Especially a simple question about the two people I loved most in the world.
Her face remained unreadable, but her eyes flickered with humor. “And cost another innocent Porterhouse employee her job?”
I laughed. “Come on. I didn’t fire anyone. No one has mentioned a word about overhearing us doing the deed. Besides, if they had, they’ve probably all spent the last two weeks building a class action sexual harassment case against me. At least let’s make it worth my while if I’m gonna lose my ass in a lawsuit.”
Her whole face lit as she smiled.
Back to my Charlotte.
I was so focused on her wide smile that I missed his approaching.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Tanner drawled as he stopped at the end of our booth, sporting his signature I’m-about-to-screw-with-you-Porter shit-eating grin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were out of town still?”
“I just got back. I swung by to pick up a bottle of champagne when Bethany told me you were back here with your girlfriend.”
“And I’ll remind you again, Tanner. Our bar does not double as your personal wine cellar. There’s a liquor store two blocks over.”
He ignored my comment and stared across from me. “You must be the infamous Charlotte Mills.”
Her voice was even as she greeted, “And you must be Sloth.”
Tanner twisted his lips in disbelief. “Sloth?”
Her face remained stoic and humorless in that way that I fucking adored as she said, “Yeah. Porter showed me a picture of you. I have to say, though, it must have been an old one, because you haven’t aged well.” She flipped her gaze to mine. “I was wrong before. You definitely got the looks in the family.”
Tanner’s jaw fell open in horror as I burst into laughter.
There was legitimately nothing sexier than watching Charlotte tap-dance on my brother’s inflated ego.
Giving her hand a tight squeeze, I teased, “Is it too soon to be falling in love with you?”
“Yes. Entirely,” she said dryly, but I knew my woman. And she was smiling on the inside.
I winked. “Okay. I’ll wait until tomorrow.”
A grin broke across her mouth, and Tanner blew out a hard breath, reminding us that he was still standing there.
“Oh, you were kidding,” he laughed and slid into the booth on my side, forcing me to scoot over.
“Do you mind?” I complained.
“Not particularly,” he replied. “So, Charlotte, do you have any idea how much my brother obsesses about you?”
“Seriously?” I grumbled.
She tipped her head to the side and slid her gaze to mine, her lips twitching almost imperceptibly. “You obsess about me?”
I shrugged. “No more than you obsess about me.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
It was at that point that I suspected she was so focused on my smile that she missed the bright, white one approaching the table.
“She’s lying. She’s completely obsessed with you,” Rita said, sliding into the booth beside her.
“Uhhh…” Charlotte drawled as she scooted over.
And then I quickly parroted her response when Tanner pushed up onto his elbows and leaned across the table, where Rita met him halfway for a quick peck on the lips.
Not even Charlotte’s natural mask of mystery could contain her surprise.
“Hey, babe,” Tanner said, reaching out to take Rita’s hand in an uncomfortably familiar way I never realized we shared until that moment.
“Hey. Sorry I’m late. I lost my car keys,” Rita replied, completely ignoring our palpable shock.
Tanner’s face warmed. “You should have called. I still have your spare. I would have swung by and given it to you.”
I literally could not form a single sentence as I flipped my gaze between the two of them, trying to make sense of the obvious.
Charlotte did not share this problem. “Are you two seeing each other?”
Rita’s thick, black lashes batted innocently over her green eyes as she spoke out of the side of her mouth. “You aren’t the only woman who landed a hot new man. We really need a wine night to catch up.”
“I saw you an hour ago!” Charlotte exclaimed. “And literally every day this week. Why do we need a wine night for you to tell me you’re dating Sloth?”
Tanner turned to me. “She’s kidding about the Sloth thing, right? I seriously can’t read her.”
I backhanded his shoulder. “Please, God, tell me you are not sleeping with Rita! Her husband is Travis’s doctor!”
Rita scoffed. “I am not married.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Tanner said. “I talked to my attorney today. He received the signed divorce papers back from Greg.”
I hit him again. “Your attorney is handling her divorce?”
Rita pursed her lips, stared dreamily at my womanizer brother, and clutched her imaginary pearls. “Thanks, honey. I really appreciate you taking care of that.” She then said to Charlotte in a sugary-sweet tone that couldn’t possibly be real—yet I somehow thought it was, “Do you guys mind if we do a little switch-a-roo on the seats so I can sit next to my guy?”
“Good idea,” Tanner said as he climbed out of the booth, presumably to let me out.
But neither Charlotte nor I budged.
We just sat there.
Blinking.
Staring.
Waiting for the punch line.
What in the utter fuck was going on?
Rita plastered her front to Tanner’s side.
He draped an arm around her and watched me expectantly. “You gonna get out of there or what?”
“Not until you tell—” The words died on my tongue when an idea struck me like a bolt of lightning. Sliding to my feet, I called, “Charlotte, can I have a word with you?”
She tore her accusing glare from Rita and asked, “Now?”
“Yes. In private.” I offered her a tight smile and flared my eyes in secret urgency.
She blinked but thankfully caught the hint and climbed out after me, leaving her purse on the bench.
“And bring your purse… I need…”—I glanced at Tanner as he sat down and pulled Rita down beside him—“ChapStick.”
“I don’t have any ChapStick,” she replied
“Oh, I do!” Rita exclaimed and then began digging through her bag.
Cupping Charlotte’s elbow, I moved close and chanted in a whisper, “Get your purse. Get your purse. Get your purse.”
Her back shot straight, but she followed my directions, mumbling, “You know what? I think I do have some.”
“We’ll be right back,” I told them, shuffling backward, bringing Charlotte with me.
“What are you doing?” she hissed as we hurried away.
“Give me your car keys.”
“What? Why? I thought you had to stay until closing.”
“Nope. An owne
r needs to be here until closing.” Peeking over my shoulder, I took one last glance to make sure Tanner wasn’t watching us before turning the corner toward the front door. “Sloth back there has his own set of keys to the restaurant, even if he does pretend that he doesn’t know how to use them.”
“We can’t leave now.” She threw on the brakes. “My best friend, who is on the rails after having her heart trampled on by one philandering man, just showed up with your famous brother, who I have to be honest, Porter, doesn’t look like Sloth at all. Like, not even a little bit, because I’m not completely convinced he’s a human being and not a Greek god. I mean, you’re sexy, Porter. But your brother—”
My mouth gaped open. “I’m standing right here!”
A slow smile curled her lips, and she winked. “I’m kidding. But seriously, he’s going to chew her up and spit her out.”
I cupped her face. “Probably. But all of that will still be the same tomorrow. If we can escape before Tanner realizes it, we can spend the next four hours doing whatever the hell we want. And, since we’ll be at your apartment and not my restaurant, clothing is not required.”
Her lips parted, and her eyes flashed dark. “Ohhhh.”
“Yeah. ‘Ohhhh.’ But we have to go now. I don’t have the energy to run a Ninja Warrior course against my brother to see which one of us is going to get laid tonight.”
She laughed. But only for a second, because a blink later, she grabbed my hand and took off at a dead sprint through the dining room and out the front doors.
When we got to her car, I banged my knees on the steering wheel as I folded in, but it was a small price to pay to hear Charlotte’s wild-child laugh as she jumped in on the other side.
“Go. Go. Go!” she yelled, pounding on the dashboard.
I peeled out of the parking spot, swiftly exiting the lot only to come to a screeching halt. A line of brake lights stretched out as far as I could see.
Welcome to Atlanta traffic.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” she deadpanned.
“Tell me about it.” Going nowhere fast, I sighed and turned the radio on and skipped through the stations until the sound of AC/DC filled the small car.
No sooner than I moved my hand from the radio, she turned it off.
“Hey!” I objected.
Her face was carefully blank as she said, “You can drive. You can even program the position of your seat into one of the memory thingies. But you are never allowed to play AC/DC in my car. Her engine would seize, the transmission would fall out, and her wheels would shoot off, ruining the lives of hundreds of innocent bystanders and sending her into an early grave at the junkyard.”
I held her stare. “Jesus. All that because of a little ‘Highway to Hell’?”
She shrugged and looked back at the windshield. “Betty White takes her music seriously.”
I bit my bottom lip, doing my best to stave a grin off. “Your car’s name is Betty White?”
She looked back and didn’t even crack a smile as she confirmed, “It was the obvious choice.”
I laughed, loud and long.
So long that Charlotte finally gave the straight face up and burst out laughing as well.
“Get over here,” I said, cupping the back of her neck and dragging her over the center console to plant a kiss on her sexy, sarcastic mouth.
Giggling, she pushed against my shoulder. “Porter, go. You’re holding up traffic.”
I kept her mouth against mine and blindly allowed the car to roll forward a few inches. “There. All caught up.”
She continued to laugh, and I continued to drink it in.
God. I loved being with her. It didn’t matter that we were sitting in standstill traffic, wasting precious minutes of the few hours we had alone. Toss my kids in the backseat and I’d have sat in that car with her for the rest of my life.
Releasing her, I righted myself in the driver’s seat and tried to ignore the heavy weight settling in my chest.
Would I ever have that?
This free-spirited version of my broken woman, smiling and laughing with Travis and Hannah, who were as much a part of me as my heart and my lungs?
It had only been a few weeks. I was probably putting the cart before the horse. Even if she adored kids, I wouldn’t have introduced them to her yet. Or, more accurately, her to them. It wasn’t like I was divorced and dating again. My kids didn’t have a mother. I could only imagine the hearts in Hannah’s eyes if there was suddenly a woman in her life, doing all the things a mother should do with her daughter. The last thing I needed was them getting attached to a woman and then us falling apart.
Though, if the way my body hummed each time she aimed one of those secret smiles my way was any indication, I was getting pretty damn attached myself.
We hadn’t gotten a full mile from the restaurant before my phone started ringing. I glanced down, fully expecting it to be Tanner ready to cuss me out for taking off.
But it wasn’t, and my body jolted.
“Mom?” I answered before the phone had the chance to ring again. “Everything okay?”
“Hey, baby. Bad news.”
My stomach dropped as Travis’s face flashed through my mind. “What’s wrong?”
“Relax. He’s fine,” she said, reading my anxiety.
I blew out a hard breath and shifted the phone to my other ear so I could anchor my hand on Charlotte’s thigh.
Her palm quickly covered my hand, her fingers tangling with mine.
“It’s Hannah, actually. She woke up with a fever earlier, so I gave her some Tylenol. But she’s coughing so badly she made herself throw up.”
“Shit,” I breathed, dropping my head back against the headrest.
“Don’t worry. I sent Travis to his room and disinfected everything she could have possibly touched in the last twenty-four hours. I’m sure it’s just a little bug, honey. But maybe she should come back to my house for a couple of nights.”
It should be noted that my mother was a saint.
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“Okay. I’ll get her bags packed. And I know you’re at work, but she asked if we could call you.”
Flashing my eyes to Charlotte, I found her studying me carefully.
And then I realized our biggest problem.
It was next to impossible to keep two such integral and important facets of my life separate at all times.
No matter how hard I tried, there would always be a crossover. Moments when the kids would be talking or fighting in the background while she and I were on the phone, forcing me to hurry into my room so she wouldn’t have to hear it. Or, now, while she sat silently at my side, my daughter wanting to talk to me because she didn’t feel well.
Those things were out of my control.
I didn’t want to hurt Charlotte.
But, at the end of the day, I would always be a father who had to do what was best for his children.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to her.
She tipped her head in question, her eyebrows knitting together.
I squeezed her thigh as I said into the phone, “Yeah. Put Hannah on.”
Charlotte’s body turned solid, and it fucking killed me, but I forged ahead when my baby girl’s voice came through the line.
“I threw up.”
Keeping my eyes on the car inching forward in front of me, I replied, “I heard. You feeling any better, sweet girl?”
“No,” she groaned and then broke into tears. “Now, I can’t have a Popsicle.”
“What?” I laughed at the randomness of the statement.
“Grandma said I could have a Popsicle after dinner. But, when I threw up last time, you told me not to eat it because it would make my belly hurt.”
I grinned. “But Grandma said you only threw up because you were coughing. So I don’t think an ice pop is going to hurt anything. Tell Grandma I said you could have one.” I paused before amending, “Just don’t make it a red one on the off chance
I’m wrong and you do throw it up.”
“What about yellow?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. A yellow sounds perfect.” And easy to clean.
She sniffled. “When are you coming home?”
I sighed and slid my gaze to Charlotte, who was chewing on her thumbnail like she had a personal vendetta against it, her eyes aimed out the window.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I was desperate for time with her.
But my baby needed me more.
“Soon,” I whispered.
Her voice perked up. “Can I sleep in your bed until you get home?”
“Of course.”
“Yay! Daddy said…” Her voice trailed off into the distance.
I rolled forward another few feet and put my blinker on so I could take the next turn back to the restaurant.
“Porter? You still there?” my mom asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I need to go before she beats down the door to get to Travis. But I’ll see you when you get off tonight.”
I stepped on the brakes as traffic once again became a standstill and closed my eyes. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too,” she replied, and then, just before she hung up, I heard her yell, “Hannah Ashley Reese, do not open that door!”
I put the phone in my lap and twisted to Charlotte. “I have to go home. Hannah’s sick.”
She didn’t give me her eyes. “It’s okay. I understand.”
“Charlotte, I’m sorry about that.”
Suddenly, she turned and her empty eyes leveled me. “Don’t do that,” she whispered. “No apologies. Not in the darkness, but especially not in the light.”
My eyebrows shot up. “We’re in the light?”
She blinked, and tears sparkled in her eyes. “I’m wherever you are, Porter. And, for you, the darkness didn’t even exist when you were on that phone.”
“Sweetheart,” I breathed, my heart breaking even as it swelled.
“I’m trying,” she whispered.
I pulled her toward me and kissed her forehead. “I know you are.”