Chasing Charlie

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: SPONTANEITY

  Vince had all but forgotten about his new appearance, but when he and Angela finally pulled apart and took one another in, he was quickly reminded. She met his gaze at first, but then her attention wandered higher, memorizing him afresh. He watched her scrutinize him for a moment, then cleared his throat.

  Angela’s eyes narrowed in an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m staring.”

  “It’s okay. It’s new.”

  “I really do like it, you know. I wasn’t just saying that,” Angela said, moistening her lips before laying a hand alongside Vince’s face, the heel covering his scruffy cheek and her fingertips touching his scalp.

  “I wonder what Charlie will think,” Vince pondered.

  “He’ll probably think you look pretty tough. Especially with the beard,” Angela said with a confident nod.

  “Is that your way of requesting I keep the beard?”

  Angela let out a warm laugh and a teeny shrug. “Maybe. If I get a vote.”

  “Your vote and his are the only ones that count, and he already told me he thinks the beard’s cool. So as long as the chemo doesn’t take it, I guess it stays.”

  Angela smiled awkwardly.

  “Are you okay?” Vince asked.

  “Hmm? Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I’m great, actually. Just…not really sure what comes next, to be honest.”

  Vince was happy that Angela had brought this up, because he hadn’t known how to do so himself. “Well, I think that given the limited time frame, I’d be okay with us setting our own pace, ignoring typical standards…”

  “You mean you want to sleep together already?” Angela asked, shocked.

  “No, that’s not what I mean at all,” Vince said in a hurry. “I want to do things right and save that for—anyway, all I’m saying is that maybe we should just take what we know about relationships and…forget it, not let things feel weird just because they’re not what we’re used to. This is going to be so much different from what either one of us has experienced. I don’t think we know just how different. It’s something we’ll probably just find out as we go along. But at least we both seem to be aware of that. We’re not just fooling around. Two people don’t jump into this kind of situation unless they’re serious.”

  “Then that part’s taken care of,” Angela reasoned, finding Vince’s hands at her knees and intertwining fingers with him. “We can openly agree that we’re both committed a hundred percent, so now we don’t have to tiptoe around that for three months, you know?”

  “Exactly. And we already know each other pretty well, which is a nice bonus.”

  With no warning, Angela hopped down from the counter and squeezed past Vince. Confused, he followed her over the racetrack he and Charlie had left intact. She was helping herself to a seat on the couch.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yeah. Just figured we could sit and watch some TV or something.”

  He chuckled. “Okay.”

  Angela found it hard to believe that not even half an hour ago, she had walked into the apartment with no claim on Vince whatsoever, simply worried that something was wrong because her phone call had gone unanswered. Now, he was sitting down next to her on the couch instead of taking the chair like he had for so many nights. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so alive and exultant.

  With her actions, she had given him her word that she would be with him until the very end—in what ways and how exactly it would end, she wasn’t sure, but she supposed she would find out as the top of the hourglass emptied all too fast. She had told him she loved him without words, for what woman in her right mind would offer her heart in this situation if she didn’t love the man who was taking it? They had taken a dozen giant steps when their lips had again met that evening. Like Vince had pointed out, this was already serious. The profoundness of it all made sitting down in front of the television sound absurd, but Angela couldn’t come up with a more appropriate alternative because nothing seemed appropriate at all.

  “Anything look good?” Vince asked, jerking Angela from her daze as he scrolled through a list of movies on the television.

  “I’m not picky. I didn’t come here to watch a movie,” she said, instantly feeling too forward. “I came here because I was worried…” She trailed off and sighed.

  “Are you like that with everyone? You don’t seem like it.”

  “That’s the thing, I’m not. Not to the same degree, anyway. I hope it doesn’t come off as me thinking you can’t take care of yourself. That’s not it at all.” She looked up at him to gauge whether she’d just made the first fumble in the relationship and saw that he had sneaked on his black hat while she wasn’t looking. Her worries about her worries dissipated. “You’re already covering it up?” she asked with a pitying smile.

  “My head’s cold. You’d be surprised at how warm your hair keeps your head.”

  “I could always find out for myself.”

  “Absolutely not. You’re not shaving your head.”

  Angela shrugged dismissively. “It’ll grow back. I’ve always kind of wondered what I’d look like bald. I’d do it for you.”

  “Do you have any idea how much you already support me by coming by all the time? You come over far more than anyone else, though I can’t blame the rest of them. It’s…depressing to visit a friend who’s getting ready to leave. They’re distancing themselves. I’d probably do the same.”

  And then it came: that moment Angela hadn’t realized she was waiting for, when she’d more thoroughly realize what it was that she was getting herself into, when she would remember that this wasn’t just the beginning of a relationship. It was the beginning of the end.

  “I guess I can’t blame them either,” she admitted. “But in their defense, I don’t think they’re intentionally avoiding you. They just have a lot going on, you know? Families, other obligations. They can’t stop by as often as I can. Lucky for me, and for you, I have very little in the way of that sort of thing. I have no life. My free time is usually my own.”

  “And I’m sucking it all up.”

  “Vince.” Angela gave him an impatient look. “I come here because I want to. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now.” She stopped herself before she ruined the moment by letting it slip just how much she cared for Vince. Maybe he was finding it romantic and moving, but she found it somewhat pathetic, even if they’d agreed that this was serious.

  “I’m glad,” Vince said. “But just so you know, I’m not very high maintenance. Just because we’re in this now doesn’t mean I demand more of your time.”

  “Please. I’ve had to stop myself from calling sometimes because I thought I was either bugging you or coming off as needy and without other friends. Now that we’ve started this…relationship, which seems like such a cheap word…I hope you won’t mind if I’m around more often.”

  Vince began a slow approach for another kiss. As Angela’s eyelids fluttered shut, she felt a coarse thumb brush her cheek, making sure that chills invaded every part of her body.

  “Why would I mind if you’re around more often?” Vince asked as he drew away, his eyes foggy.

  It took a moment for Angela to come back down to earth. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time alone with Charlie. It’s important.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about taking away from my time with him. I see him so much more than I ever have, and he’s crazy about you. Sometimes I don’t even tell him you’re coming over just so I don’t have to hear him ask me every five minutes when you’re going to get here.”

  She laughed. “Fair enough. Speaking of Charlie…Do you think you’ll tell him?”

  “About us?” When Angela nodded, Vince took a long time to think. “I don’t know. On one hand, I think he’d have no problem with me being romantically involved with someone. And I think he’d love that it’s you. But…” He sunk into the couch, tilting his head back, seeming to ask the ceiling for answers, already fo
rgetting from whom he’d gotten his answers before Angela had arrived.

  “But you don’t want to shake up his world even more,” Angela said, finishing Vince’s thought.

  “Right.” This conversation brought to the forefront of Vince’s mind several questions, one being how he could keep Charlie from losing yet another person. Vince couldn’t expect Angela to drop by every night after he passed away, just to see Charlie. Or could he? Even if they had skipped past some of the more careful, touch-and-go beginnings of a relationship, he still didn’t think they were anywhere near the point where he could ask her to take on a responsibility of that magnitude regarding a child that wasn’t hers. No matter how much she cared for Charlie and vice versa, Vince didn’t know if he would ever be able to ask that of her, let alone ask her right now.

  “I understand,” Angela said softly. “If we do go the more secretive route, though, we’ll just need to be careful.”

  “True.” That touched on another one of Vince’s questions, though it was more a question for himself than for anyone else. Would their entire relationship exist only in this apartment? Or could he justify taking time away from Charlie—even just one night every other week—to go out somewhere with Angela, to take her out on a few proper dates? He passed on making that decision, hoping that time –and now God, he remembered—would clarify this and a lot of other unknowns.

  “I mean…even this,” Angela said, sounding suddenly defeated. “If he wakes up in the middle of the night and he sees us sitting together like this, then you either have to lie through your teeth or come clean.”

  “Then maybe it’s just easier if I tell him,” Vince reasoned.

  “I don’t think you should make this decision right now, Vince. I think it’s tempting to want to have an answer right away, but this is too important to decide on in one sitting. I’m okay with it being in limbo for a bit. Are you?”

  Vince nodded, sitting up straight again. “Yeah.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes forcefully; Angela wondered if his head hurt, but didn’t ask. She knew there was only so much worrying and babying this man could take, even from her, and she’d probably done her fair share tonight just by showing up simply because of an unanswered phone call. “What about you?” he asked.

  “As in whether I’ll tell anyone?”

  “Yeah. The team, specifically, I guess I should say.”

  Angela puffed up her cheeks. “I don’t know. I know I was all high and mighty about not caring about what people think, but this is a lot different than I thought it would be, and in ways I can’t really explain. And it’s bigger. I don’t know if I can handle all the unsolicited advice I’d get if people knew about this. I mean, we’re doing this to be happy together, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then maybe I shouldn’t say anything. I can just picture Marshall coming after you with an assault rifle, or Sophie and Fitz getting worried about how I’ll be once this is all over. And if we didn’t know that this had an end so near in the future, then maybe I could put up with it. But we only have so long. I don’t want to waste any of that time being frustrated with them. I’ll already be frustrated enough by not being able to affect the outcome. I’d like to enjoy this as much as I can.”

  “What makes you so sure they’d be against it? Not that I think you’re wrong. I think Harry would be supportive, though. Maybe everyone else would surprise you,” Vince postulated.

  “I don’t know if I want to chance it.”

  Angela came off more testily than she had intended and Vince rushed to correct himself. “This isn’t my choice. You’re the one who still sees them every day. I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “It’s okay. If I sound frustrated, it’s not with you.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “Is there some way we can lighten this conversation?” Angela asked with a pathetic laugh.

  “I suppose we could try. Sorry it’s so complicated.”

  “I can’t complain. I knew it would be complicated going in. As for lightening the conversation, you have shaving cream on your shirt.”

  “This is a good shirt. You couldn’t have said something sooner?”

  Angela shrugged. “I was saving it.”

  “Care to be spontaneous?” Vince asked, focusing once again on picking a movie.

  “How spontaneous?”

  “I was thinking we could watch a movie we know nothing about.”

  “Are you just trying to cover for the fact that you haven’t seen a movie or a preview in some heinously long period of time?”

  Vince laughed. “Possibly.” He propped his feet up on the coffee table and stifled a yawn.

  “Are you tired? I can go.”

  “No, I’m fine. I have a couple hours in me.”

  “You seem like you’ve been doing better lately. Less tired, at least,” Angela noted.

  “I have been. And this week should be even better.”

  “Well, hopefully I’m in town for the more wakeful version of you. If we get called away on a case…”

  “Then you get called away on a case. Oh well. It happens. Just because I’ve never been the one ditched for a case doesn’t mean I can’t handle it.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Not knowing what to say to that, but knowing that if they kept talking about a movie, they’d never get around to watching one, Vince picked something at random. There were still things to talk about, things to decide, things to ponder, but Vince pushed them to the side in favor of the feeling of having Angela here with him, nestled comfortably under his arm.

  He was more tired than he’d thought, however, and found himself suppressing another few yawns an hour later. Angela gave his knee a quick squeeze and got up from the couch, not very interested in his movie choice anyway.

  “You’re tired,” she informed him.

  “I’m—” Vince couldn’t fight off another yawn, laughing afterwards. “I’m sorry.” He turned off the television and followed Angela to the front door, watching her put on her quickly discarded boots. “You didn’t even bring a coat, did you?”

  “I was in a hurry. It’s okay,” she said dismissively.

  “Here.” Vince took his nice overcoat off the rack, knowing he wouldn’t be using it anyway. “Sorry I tuckered out on you.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured him, indulging him and letting him slip the coat on for her. “I’m surprised you stayed up for as long as you did. The last few weeks have really done a number on you.”

  Vince nodded slowly and resignedly as Angela buttoned his coat over herself. He subtly wet his lips before a goodnight kiss that made him forget how tired he was, forget almost everything he knew for that moment in time. “Do you have plans tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Brunch with my mom. I think both of us have already postponed it at least three times. But maybe we can do something afterward?”

  “As long as you don’t mind a fifth wheel,” Vince said with a grin, gesturing down the hallway with a nod of his head.

  Angela searched Vince’s eyes for nothing in particular, then closed in for another kiss, then a deep, soothing hug. “I love fifth wheels, especially when they’re six and missing teeth. I’ll call you.”

  “Sounds good.” Vince found that his hand had wandered to Angela’s hair, his palm sneaking up the back of her head. Though her hair was lopsided from her nap, he still delighted in it.

  “Goodnight,” she said with a relaxed smile. A smile just like Angela’s crossed Vince’s face as he watched her depart, but it faded as soon as the door was closed and locked. He missed her already.

  As he pulled off his hat and reminded his hands of the new surface to explore, Vince wondered fleetingly what Charlie would think when he saw his father’s new look in the morning. But not even his wonderings about Charlie’s reaction or his jubilance over a blossoming romance could keep him awake once his head hit the pillow.