“You’re okay to drive?” Wes asked Sloane.
“Deli’s driving,” she said as she buckled Charlotte inside, then looked up at Wes. He stood by the passenger door, his hands in his pockets. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but his eyes were all soft and gooey as he looked at Sloane. Brighton watched them stare at each other for a second, a million questions about their history spilling into her head before she scrambled into the first row, diagonal so she could keep an eye on Charlotte. Adele drove, Sloane slid in next to Brighton, and the rest of the quartet piled into the back row. Brighton watched Charlotte the entire drive back to Nina’s house, Wes and Sloane’s tender moment forgotten, concern and something else billowing in her chest.
Something soft but sore, like a day-old bruise.
Like the stars. The moon.
She shook off the happy swell she’d felt when Charlotte said she was pretty. She was just a bit romance starved, a bit discombobulated over this whole week and seeing Charlotte again.
And Charlotte was drunk.
She hadn’t meant what she’d said…or, at least, she never would have said it if she were sober.
The drive felt like an eternity, winding along mountain roads. Once they arrived, Brighton all but leaped from the car, rounding the front to get to Charlotte. When Brighton opened the door, Charlotte nearly tumbled out and into her arms, laughing as she did so.
“I feel funny,” she said.
Brighton held on to her shoulders. “I bet you do.”
Once inside, Brighton headed for the stairs with Charlotte. “Can I take her to your room to lie down?” she asked Sloane.
“Yeah, of course,” Sloane said. “I’ll bring up some water and Tylenol.”
“Perfect.”
“Oh dear,” Nina said, appearing from the kitchen and wiping her hands on a dish towel. Snickerdoodle rounded the corner as well, wagging his tail and sniffing at Charlotte. “Mistletoe Margaritas?”
“The one and only,” Adele said. “But in happier news, we won you this incredibly tacky lamp!” She grabbed the fishnet-clad leg from Manish and plopped it into her mother’s arms.
“Oh…wow,” Nina said. “Thank you?”
Their laughter faded behind them as Brighton hauled Charlotte up the stairs toward Sloane’s room. Snickerdoodle followed, but Brighton managed to keep him in the hall, even as she smiled at how much this dog seemed to adore Charlotte. As soon as shereleased Charlotte, just for a second to close Sloane’s door and turn on the light, Charlotte fell face-first onto the bed.
“Jesus,” Brighton said, hurrying toward her.
But Charlotte was laughing as she turned slowly onto her back. She blinked at the ceiling, and Brighton started unlacing her boots for her.
“That looks like a boob,” Charlotte said, pointing at the light fixture, a glass sphere with a brass-plated nickel border and center lock.
Brighton glanced at it. “It does.”
“Boobs,” Charlotte said, drawing out theo’s.
Brighton laughed. “Boobs.”
“They’re nice.”
“That, they are.”
Charlotte sighed. “I think I’m drunk.”
“Oh, I don’t know, seems to me like you’re behaving pretty normally.”
Charlotte smiled at that, her eyes now following Brighton’s movements as she tugged off Charlotte’s boots and unbuttoned her coat, then moved to the top of the bed and pulled down the covers.
“Get in,” Brighton said after she worked off Charlotte’s coat, then helped her under the duvet. It was quite a sight, Charlotte Donovan contorting her body into a complicated pretzel to achieve such a simple task, but Brighton let her figure it out. Soon she was situated in the bed, covers pulled up to her chin.
