“Charlie, he proposed to you?!” Stassi was shocked. Demi had years on Charlie. She had never expected their affair to lead to all this. “He’s damn near ten years older than you. You just turned 26! Are you even ready to be somebody’s wife? Is his divorce even final?”
“Don’t do that, Stass.” Charlie’s tone was a warning. “Just be happy for me. We’re having a dinner tonight to announce it to our family and friends. I need you there. It’s basically all his family and his friends.”
“You didn’t invite Daddy?” Stassi asked.
Charlie shrugged. “It’s not like he would have come anyway.” The complicated dynamics were a road that neither wanted to travel down. “But I do need you there. You’re my sister. You’ve always been in my corner. I need you to show up for me.”
Stassi sighed. Charlie was just another person needing more than she had to give, but somehow, someway, she dug deep and gave what little she had left away.
“Okay.” She sighed as she shook her head. “I’ll come. Just give me a minute to take a blow dryer to these wet toes and get dressed.”
“Take all the time you need. The chef hasn’t even arrived yet. I’m going to head home and finish getting everything together. I’ll see you tonight,” Charlie said. She walked back to the door and stopped before walking out. “I’m really happy, Stassi. He makes me feel chosen.”
Stassi forced a smile that she didn’t truly feel on the inside. “As long as you’re happy,” Stassi answered.
Stassi wasn’t sure what filled the silence that followed. Charlie’s uncertainty, Stassi’s unreasonable resentment; it was an unacknowledged tension, one they would sweep under the rug of family secrets and unaddressed shame.
“I’ll be there,” Stassi reassured. “I’ll never not be there, Charlie, you know that.”
Charlie nodded. “I know.”
The smell of weed permeated through the air as soon as Charlie made it home. Music was a permanent fixture in their home. Whether it was Charlie humming all day long or Demi playing undiscovered artists, there was always a soundtrack playing to their lives. Yin and Yang. They should have never found one another, let alone be attempting a life together, but she was the balance to his maniacally clean life. She made a mess of all his plans, and Charlie enjoyed the unconventional love they manifested. She ventured further into the house, following the commotion she heard to the kitchen where Demi stood in a circle of men she recognized from Demi’s music label. Bails, their English Bulldog, laid obediently at Demi’s feet. Charlie remembered when her dog used to meet her at the door. Nowadays, Bails was Demi’s companion. She took in the guests, recognizing only a few. These associates of Demi’s were strangers to her, but she knew they had been vetted and were trusted if they had made it into their home.
It never mattered who stood next to Demi; he was always the most attractive man in the room to Charlie. It was the arrogance in him that made Charlie swoon. The ruggedness of his disposition. From the teardrop tattooed on the corner of his eye to the way he licked his shadow-tinted lips and his lazy eyes from the weed smoke that filled the air, he screamed power.
“Bird, baby, come over here.”
Charlie sometimes questioned her choice to be with him, wondering if she had made the right choice because she tended to make the wrong choices when it came to men. She sometimes felt the walls closing in on the isolation of theirlove. It had started as an affair, so the intimacy of their bond had remained long after their relationship had come to light. Every single insecurity she felt about her decision melted away when she fell into his arms. This time was no different.
“Say, man,” Demi said, immediately shifting his focus as Charlie walked between his circle to get to him.
“Hey, everybody.” She said the words, but her eyes were on him.
His aura left no room to share her attention. The salutations were nothing more than formalities; her only interest was him.
She stood in front of him, but she didn’t touch him. She had just come home. Her hands weren’t clean and clean was necessary when laying hands on Demi.
“It’s you for me, Bird,” he whispered in her ear.
Her honey hue turned amber as the compliment warmed her from her head to her toes. Demi never missed an opportunity to tell her she was the one for him. It was one of the many reasons she had fallen in love with Demitrius Sky.
He pinched her chin and tilted her face upward. “You good? You square shit away with your sister?” He asked.
She nodded. “She’ll be here. I’ve got to get dressed. I didn’t think people would show up on time. Now I have to rush.”
“You ain’t got to rush shit,” Demi replied. “Take your time.”
Charlie left Demi to entertain and hurried up the stairs to their bedroom. It was spotless. Their home was so orderly it felt like a museum. It barely seemed lived in at all. She shimmied out of her jeans, leaving them in the middle of the floor before tying up her blonde locs. Flashbacks of the escapades that had taken place in this room flashed through her mind as she stepped under the stream of water. She and Demi had christened this shower more times than she could count. They had been through a lot. When she had met Demi, he had finessed her at hello. The mysterious man that chance had brought her way, insidethe little hole-in-the-wall bar where she sang on weekends, had swept her off her feet. She couldn’t have predicted the ways he would change her life. There had been highs and there had been lows, but she understood that the universe had to ebb and flow in order to get her to this exact moment. His wife and kid hadn’t even been able to stop their runaway love. She felt remorse for that some days. Her happiness had come at the expense of another woman, and Charlie often wondered what price she would pay for that energy exchange. That had been the first sacrifice she had made to be with Demi. She didn’t believe in dating married men. Demi had forced an exception on her by hiding that he was married in the first place. Still, the offense had occurred, and her creed of womanhood was put aside to allow herself to love him. She prayed no more exceptions had to be made. She didn’t want to end up one of those women who had sacrificed who she was for a man. She didn’t want to look up one day and not recognize herself in the mirror.
She washed her body, knowing exactly what would happen in the next few moments of her life. When she heard the bathroom door open, she smiled. Demi was a creature of habit. Whenever she showered, he wasn’t too far behind. He would sit on the toilet, talking to her as she washed her body. Sometimes, he would watch for a while; sometimes, Charlie would speed up the process by making him watch her play with her clit. Those times he would give in faster. But as soon as she was clean, he would step in that shower after her.
This time was no different.
“So just fuck our guests, huh?” She smiled, blushing, as she rolled her head to the side so he could plant a kiss on her shoulder. Demi shook his head as he pushed air from his lips. Appreciative. He was appreciative to witness her appreciation of herself. “Say, man.”
“Say, man,” she repeated. “I know life with me... Choosing me hasn’t been easy for you.”
Demi pulled his shirt over his head. The hair that trailed down the center of his toned body led her eyes all the way to his dick as it pressed against the denim that caged his beast. His hands were already undoing the belt. He stepped out of his jeans, picking up his clothes and folding them before placing them on the countertop. He turned to her, naked, dick full of lust as he gripped it like the barrel of a shotgun as he stood in front of her biting down on his bottom lip.
