Home

I forced myself to stay calm, to set the phone on my dresser, to go to the closet and get some clothes for the day. His words raced through my head as I pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, and I had to stop myself from dissolving in a fit of tears right there on my bedroom floor.

I was just brushing my hair into a ponytail when Lisa came into the room to get her suitcase. It was almost nine o’clock, and they had to get to the airport.

“You okay?” she said when she saw my tear-stained face.

“Not really,” I said, setting the brush down and turning to her. “I just talked to Orlando, and it doesn’t look good.”

“Give him time,” she said, hugging me. “He’ll come around.”

“He sounded so detached, so cold,” I said, resting my chin on her shoulder. “I don’t know what he’s going to decide to do.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears that were threatening again. “And the worst part is, I brought this on myself.”

“I don’t think you did, sweetheart,” she said, leading me to the bed and sitting me down. “I think you’ve gone through a really hard time the last few days, and it’s perfectly understandable that you’re upset he wasn’t here for it. I’d be pissed if Jeremy did that, and we haven’t been together nearly as long as you two.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t want to get into this again,” I said, forcing a tired smile to my face. “At least, not until I’ve hashed it all out with Orlando. I can’t keep going through the same thing over and over.”

“That’s okay with me,” she said, grabbing her suitcase from the other side of the bed. “Nick and I have to get to the airport right now, but if you need me, don’t hesitate to call, okay?”

“I won’t,” I said, standing to hug her again. “Thank you for coming, Lisa. I really do appreciate it.” I chuckled half-heartedly. “Even if I haven’t been much fun.”

“You’d do the same for me,” she said, patting my arm gently.

I followed her downstairs and said good-bye to Nick. Adam and I stood in the doorway and watched as Nick guided their rented car out of the driveway, and only came back inside when the car disappeared around a corner.

“Now what?” Adam asked as he shut the door. “What do you still need to do?”

“Uh, there’s the will-reading this afternoon,” I said, going into the living room. “So Aunt Tess and Deanna will be here around one o’clock. And I have some papers to sign with the lawyer to authorize the sale of the house. It’s all pretty official, actually.”

“What can I do to help?” His blue-green eyes looked at me hopefully, and I wanted to hug him to me and never let him go. I shook it off.

“I have some boxes to bring down from the attic,” I said, shutting off the TV that was still on from earlier. “I can’t carry some of them. Could you help me with that?”

“Of course,” he said, nodding.

We stood there in an awkward silence, not really looking at each other, more staring at the beige carpet under our feet. It was dawning on us that we’d be alone together in the house for a few days, with no one else to break the tension. A jolt of nervous energy quivered through me and I had to move. I went into the kitchen and started randomly pulling food out of the cupboard.

“Are you hungry?” I called, grabbing eggs from the fridge. “I can whip us up some breakfast.”

“Charlie,” he said, coming into the room. I felt him come up behind me and put his hands on the counter on either side of me, trapping me there, forcing me to stand still. I could feel the heat from his body radiating against my back, even though he wasn’t touching me.

“Um, are eggs okay?” I said, my voice coming out high and squeaky. “If not, I can make something else.”

“Why are you so nervous?” Adam said, right near my ear. “It’s just me, Charlie. It’s not like we haven’t spent time together before.”

“You’re too close,” I said, barely able to hear my own voice.

“I’m just trying to make you stay still for a minute,” he said, not moving. “You can relax with me, honey. You know you can.”

I turned in his arms so I was facing him. “Things are really weird right now, Adam,” I said, not sure what to do with my hands. I wanted to put them on his chest, to run my fingers over the muscles his blue t-shirt was hiding, but I didn’t dare. I was vulnerable, emotionally unstable, and I knew that if I pursued the lust that was burning through me, I’d regret it forever.

“They don’t have to be,” he said, his arms closing a bit, coming ever closer to touching me. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”

“I know,” I said. “But honestly, being around you makes my body respond, and that’ll be like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m hoping Orlando will rethink this break-up thing, and we’ll get back together. If that happens, I don’t want to have made the same mistake this time that I made last time.”

Adam tensed a bit. “You think being with me was a mistake?”

“At the time, no,” I said, staring at a spot just over his right shoulder. “But the problems it has caused since make me think otherwise. I know you want to be here for me, and I’m grateful for that, however, we need to step back and breathe a bit before we do anything dumb.”

“I’m not trying to take advantage of you, Charlie,” he said, though he didn’t move away from me. “I want to be here in whatever capacity you need. That’s all.”

“Then why are you so close to me?” I said, wanting to shove him back, but knowing that as soon as I touched him, my resolve would go out the window. “Why haven’t you stepped back?”

“Because you need to be comfortable with me,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I am.”

He chuckled. “No, honey, you’re not,” he said. “You haven’t stopped squirming since I came near you. You don’t trust me.”

“I do,” I insisted. “I just don’t trust myself. I can’t think when you’re that close, and it makes me nervous.”

He stepped back. “Okay,” he said, leaning on the counter beside me, not touching me. “Fair enough.” He cleared his throat and started breaking eggs into the bowl I’d set on the counter. “Let’s eat, then we’ll get the boxes from the attic, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I said, relieved that he wasn’t going to push me anymore. Lord knows he wouldn’t have needed to push very hard.

By the time Aunt Tess and Deanna arrived around one o’clock, we’d eaten and finished bringing everything down from the attic. Dad’s lawyer, John, showed up shortly after, while we were settling ourselves in the living room. The atmosphere was tense and awkward.

“Okay, Charlie,” John said, spreading his files out over the coffee table. “We’ve got a bit of business to cover here before we get to signing forms. I’ll read what your father has written, and we’ll decide how to carry out Paul’s wishes.”

“Sounds good,” I said, trying to focus on what he was saying. The idea that we were going to distribute all of Dad’s worldly possessions made me feel sick, and I had to fight the urge to kick everyone out and stay locked in the house forever. Adam reached over and took my hand.

“Looking at Paul’s assets,” John began, shifting through his papers, “He has this house, his car, and a summer cottage in Muskoka willed to you, Charlie. There are some investments and the cash in his bank accounts as well that will go to you. There is a trust fund established for Deanna, in the amount of seventy thousand dollars, to be released at such time as she begins University or college. The funds are to pay her tuition and living expenses.” I heard Aunt Tess gasp. John looked up from the papers and straight at me. “Charlie, we’re dealing with some serious money here,” he said.

I glanced at Aunt Tess, who looked as confused as I felt. “What kind of money?” I asked.

“The investments and cash total in at just over one and a half million dollars.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.

“Your dad was very good with his money, Charlie,” John said. “He’s been saving since before your mother passed away, and it looks like most of the insurance money that came from her death has been invested very wisely.”

“Does that mean Charlie’s a millionaire?” Deanna whispered, her eyes going wide. I could just imagine the shopping ideas that were rushing through her head.

John smiled at her. “Yes,” he said, nodding. He handed me the paper so I could see for myself. “I believe it does.”

I glanced at the numbers on the page, but none of them made sense to me. There was the account I’d been contributing to, but it had way more in it than I’d sent Dad, and there was also a stock portfolio that I really didn’t understand, and three other bank accounts that had large sums in them. My head was spinning, and I didn’t know what to think.

“Charlie?” Aunt Tess said, reaching over to touch my hand. She snapped me out of the fog I was in.

“It’ll take a bit to sink in,” John said, taking the page back. “After capital gains taxes, you’ll get just over a million.”

He went on to talk about how the sale of the house would be handled, if that was still what I wanted to do, and he explained what I would need to sign to get access to the money. Aunt Tess was to be the executor of Deanna’s trust fund until her 19^th birthday, so she had to sign some stuff as well. By the time all was said and done, I felt like I’d been ambushed.

After John left, Adam, Aunt Tess, Deanna and I sat around the dining room table with coffee and tea, trying to digest what had happened.

“Did you know he had that kind of money?” I asked Aunt Tess as she stirred her coffee.

She shook her head. “I knew he wasn’t poor,” she said, setting her spoon on a napkin beside her mug. “But I had no idea he’d set up a trust for Dee, or that he had that much in investments.”

“You know, with that kind of money at my disposal, I wouldn’t have to sell the house,” I said thoughtfully. “I could have someone come in to clean it and take care of the yard, and when I come home, I could stay here.”

“Is that something you really want to do?” Adam asked, his knee rubbing ever-so-slightly against mine under the table. “I thought it was too hard for you to be here.”

“It is,” I said, shrugging. “But it’ll be even harder for me to imagine strangers living in my mom’s dream house, you know? It just doesn’t seem right to sell it.”

“You know, Deanna and I move in and take care of the place for you,” Aunt Tess said slowly. “It’s bigger than what we’ve got now, and that way you won’t have to pay anyone to take care of it.”

“But what about your house?”

“I’ll just get out of my lease,” she said, excitement edging around her eyes. “I never did buy the damned thing, so it won’t be hard to move.”

“Let me think about it, okay?” I said, starting to feel overwhelmed. “I want to let this sink in before I decide anything.”

We had a small dinner of pizza and salad, and Aunt Tess and Deanna went home. Adam went upstairs to call his sons, and I settled myself in the living room with the papers John had left. None of it really made sense, but the bottom line certainly did. I was just reading over the list of investments again when my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Charlie, it’s me,” Orlando said softly.

“I didn’t think you’d call me,” I said, my stomach leaping at the sound of his voice.

“I said I would.”

I didn’t want to point out that his word hadn’t been worth much lately, so I just stayed quiet.

“We need to talk about this,” he said, his voice gentle. “I’ve had some sleep, I’ve got some time free, I want to clear all of this up.”

“How do you know I’m not in the middle of something?” I couldn’t help but ask. It seemed presumptuous of him to think that because he had time, I did too.

“Are you?”

“Yes, actually,” I said, glancing down at the papers beside me. “But it’s fine, I suppose.”

“Don’t be like that with me,” Orlando said, an edge creeping into his voice. “I just want to figure out where we stand while we’ve got some time to breathe.”

“Okay, so where do we stand?” I wasn’t trying to be snippy with him, but I know that’s how it came out. The truth was, I wanted to forget being angry, to forget being disappointed, to forget being hurt, and just be with him again. Somehow, though, I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he started, and it sounded like the words were difficult for him to say. My stomach clenched wildly as I braced myself for what was coming.

“And what conclusions did you come to?” I dared to ask.

“I love you, Charlie, you know I do,” he said. “And I wanted to be there for you these past few days, but there was no way I could. I hate the fact that you’re angry with me over that, and I hate what you said to me even more.”

“I’ve already taken that back,” I jumped in.

“I know,” he said. “You said it out of anger and hurt, and I understand that. I don’t want to lose you over something like this, but I need to know that you understand where I’m coming from.”

“You’re under contract,” I said, leaning forward, with my elbows on my knees as I talked to him. “The studio wouldn’t let you leave. I get that.”

“It’s more than that, love,” he said. “This is my job, like I said before. I love what I do, and promotion is one of the most exciting parts. Yes, I’m contractually obligated to do what the studio wants, but at the same time, I’m enjoying it.”

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t have come even if the studio had let you?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

He paused briefly before answering. “I would have flown in for the funeral and left the same day,” he said finally.

“At least that’s something,” I sighed.

“If that makes me a jerk, then so be it,” he said, though he wasn’t harsh. “I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time, and if I could take it all away, I would. But I don’t think we should break up when you’re in such an emotional state.”

“Oh, so you want to wait until I’m stable?” I snapped, unable to stop the words before they came out.

“I want to wait and see how we feel when the dust settles,” he said. “It’s not the time to be making that kind of decision.”

“So you really didn’t decide anything, did you?” I said, jumping up to pace the room. “You’re basically saying you want to put this off until a better time. And by ‘better time’ you mean for you.” I took a deep breath. “What if I don’t want to wait?”

“I just don’t think we can make the best decisions right now,” he said softly, trying to stay calm. “We may do or say something we’ll regret, and then the damage will be done. Let’s give it a few days, until you go back to New York, and then we’ll sit down, face-to-face, and really figure this out.”

“And for the time being?”

“Well, call me selfish, but I’d still like to think you’re my girlfriend,” he said, and I couldn’t help but grin a bit.

“Oh really?” I teased, feeling much lighter, like a weight had been lifted. We hadn’t solved our problems, but at least he didn’t want to end our relationship.

“You have no idea how much I just wanted to curl up with you this afternoon,” he said, sounding relieved. “No matter what we decide, I think that will always be something I’ll want.”

“Me too,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself, a fuzzy feeling spreading over me. “I miss you so much.”

“Do you still want me to fly out on Wednesday?” he asked. “I have an interview Wednesday morning, and then nothing until Friday afternoon.”

“If you want to,” I said carefully. “I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“Charlie, I want to,” he whispered, and shivers raced down my spine.

“Then I want you to.”

We talked for a little while longer, then hung up. I went upstairs and knocked on Adam’s door, to see if he was still on the phone. When he opened the door, it was obvious he wasn’t.