I open my mouth, but Charlie speaks up first. “My grandma fractured her hip a few years ago,” he tells Nan. “Slipped in the snow. How did you manage it?”
“I wore the wrong shoes to dance class. My foot went right out from under me doing kicks to some silly old song.”
“It was ‘Dancing Queen,’ ” I say, sharing a look with Charlie that says,We’re not allowed to laugh at this.
“Apparently not,” Nan huffs.
Charlie’s eyes widen.But it’s so funny, they say.
“Why don’t we all go inside,” he offers, holding back a grin. “Alice needs to get out of the sun, and I wouldn’t mind a comfortable chair.”
Nan peers at me over her glasses. “She does look rather crisp, doesn’t she?”
We get her inside, Charlie moving a floor lamp closer to the wall to make more room for her walker. I head to the kitchen to put the kettle on, almost gasping at the photo of teenage Charlie on the fridge. I pull it down and hide it under a stack of paper napkins in a cupboard. What a day.
“I grew up on the lake, but I live in Toronto now,” Charlie is telling Nan when I return to the living room.
“What neighborhood? Alice is in the Junction.”
“I have a condo in Yorkville.”
Nan is in her armchair, with her pressed shirt and her pearls. Charlie is on the sofa, shirtless and barefoot. The contrast is just too good. I fetch my camera out of my bag.
Click.
Nan is used to my shooting and pays no attention, but Charlie’s head whips around, a questioning look on his face.
I offer no explanation. “I’ll find you something to wear.”
One of the drawers in my bedroom dresser is full of cozy socks and faded T-shirts. I dig out the largest one for Charlie and change into a pair of yellow linen shorts and a sleeveless white blouse, then lasso my curls into a bun at the nape of my neck.
“Very impressive,” Nan is saying to Charlie when I return. She’s not easily impressed, nor is she one to needlessly flatter. Somehow, in the span of a few minutes, Charlie has managed to win my grandmother over.
Her praise makes him glow. He’s shining like the sun, cheeks slightly flushed. He looks younger. He looks like the boy in my photo. “Thanks,” he says. “I’ve worked hard.”
I hand him the shirt, and he pulls it over his head. It’s sky blue withBarry’s Baywritten across the chest beneath a loon, and it’s obscenely tight through the shoulders and arms. Does he fight fires for a living? Does he fight crime? I glance at Nan, and we share a conspiratorial look.
“Tea will be ready in a few minutes,” I say, taking a seat on the sofa next to him.
“Charlie was just telling me that he works on Bay Street as a trader.”
I look at Charlie, picturing him in a suit and tie. Post-work cocktail parties. Hot women.
“That makes sense.”
Charlie tilts his head. “Meaning?”
“You fit the bill.” Cavalier. Confident. I bet he’s competitive.
“That feels like an insult,” Charlie says.
“You’ll survive.” I reach over and pat his leg but am not prepared for the heat of his skin beneath my fingers, or the way they want to explore his thigh, find out whether he’s hot everywhere. I don’t think Charlie is prepared, either, because as soon as I touch him, his gaze rockets to my hand. I snatch it back just as fast.
“I doubt anyone survives you,” he says, lifting his eyes to me. They truly are magnificent, changeable in the light. A deeper bottle green than they were in the sun.
Nan sizes us up like we’re dessert. “Oh, this is too good. Charlie, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone ruffle Alice’s feathers the way you did with the letter. It was a riot.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.”
