Chasing Charlie

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: FIRST DATE

  “Daddy?”

  Vince turned from his bedroom mirror as he straightened a classic red necktie, preparing for his last Valentine’s Day date. “Yup?”

  “What do you do on a date?”

  “Usually go out to eat, talk…it’s a time for two people to spend some time alone.”

  “How come you’re dressing up?”

  “Because we’re going to a nice restaurant where you have to dress up. Plus, I’d like to look nice for Angela. It’s been a while since I’ve had a reason to wear a suit.”

  “What’s Angela gonna wear?”

  Vince grinned at the incessant questioning. “I don’t know, I’ll have to wait and see, won’t I?”

  “I miss her.”

  “We just saw her Sunday,” Vince said, not willing to admit that Angela’s late stay at the office the night before had disappointed him as well.

  “Can I come with you if I dress up really nice?” Charlie pinched his pajama shirt, looking down at it. “I can wear my black and white sweater.”

  “Sorry, big guy. Not tonight. In fact…” Vince checked his watch. “It looks like it’s your bedtime. Did you brush your teeth already?”

  “Yup. Can I have a cookie?”

  “Last time you had cookies right before bed, I ended up at the laundry-mat the next day. Plus, you just brushed your teeth. Can you guess my answer?”

  Charlie scowled. “You say no to everything.”

  “I say no to questions you ask that you know are already a no. How about you ask me a question you think I’ll say yes to?”

  Charlie thought. “Can we read?”

  “We certainly can.” Vince followed Charlie to his bedroom.

  “How come your beard’s less fluffy now?”

  “Fluffy?” Vince grinned. “Because I cleaned it up a little to go out tonight.”

  “But Angela always says she really likes it.”

  “I know, but I like to look a little more clean-shaven when I go somewhere nice. Okay, I’ve got ten minutes. Go ahead and pick out a book.”

  —

  “Well, don’t you look nice,” Jenna said when she let herself into the apartment. “New suit?”

  Vince shook his head. “Nope, just had my best one taken in.”

  “Well, they did a nice job. So, are you guys doing gifts?” she asked, getting out of her shoes and coat.

  “We agreed not to, but I did get this,” Vince said, walking into the living room and pulling a blanket off of a mahogany portable fireplace.

  “Does that just…plug in?”

  “Yeah, and the flames almost look realistic, even. Makes noise, too,” he said in slight wonderment. He covered the fireplace up and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “How did Charlie take the news?” Jenna asked.

  “The only thing that could have made him happier would have been an engagement announcement at the same time.”

  “I see. Is that in the works, do you think?”

  Vince shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.” He and Jenna waited in strained silence. “That would be Angela,” he said, thankful for a knock that finally sounded.

  —

  “I know there’s really no reason for me to feel this way, and I know I’ve dealt with far scarier things, but I’m kind of…intimidated by Jenna,” Angela admitted when Vince let them out into the bitter winter night. “Maybe because she was here first, you know?”

  “She likes what she knows of you so far, so I wouldn’t worry. I’m sorry if it was awkward.”

  “Oh, it’s okay, it wasn’t awkward. She was perfectly nice. I’m just insecure.”

  “New coat?” Vince asked, not recognizing the tweed pea coat Angela wore.

  “Yeah, Sophie and I hit up some sales after work. Let’s take my car, it’s still warm.”

  Vince took Angela’s keys from her. “I’m still driving. You can’t know where we’re going until we get there.” He held open the passenger door with a warm smile on his face. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Angela said shyly, not used to any sort of gentlemanly comments that came without an ulterior motive. For a second she wondered if maybe there was something to Vince’s relationship plan after all. Everything he was doing tonight, he was doing simply because he wanted to. No expectations. It was refreshing to say the least.

  While Vince adjusted the seat and mirrors, Angela pulled something out of her glove box. “Okay, so, this isn’t really a present, because it’s kind of for me, too. So you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.” She enjoyed the mildly worried look on Vince’s face when she handed him a red paper gift bag.

  “I can honestly say I’ve never worn a flat cap,” Vince said, turning on the dome light and inspecting the charcoal grey, stiff-brimmed hat before putting it on. “Do I look like a newsboy? Or do I just look like I’m trying too hard?”

  She laughed. “Are you kidding? Neither. It looks even better than I thought it would.”

  “Yeah?” Vince asked, angling the rear view mirror toward him. “I’ve never been a hat guy, but I think I could do this,” he said. Admittedly, he felt foolish upon sight of himself, but the gift covered the bald head that he still found unsettlingly large at times, and it already warmed it a bit. “Thank you.”

  “If you don’t like it, please be honest. You won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.”

  “Angela.” Vince quieted her with a kiss. “I know how to be honest with you. Would you like a demonstration?”

  “Sure,” she said, though she was anything but.

  “You have lipstick on your front tooth.”

  Angela rolled her eyes and rubbed her teeth clean. “You know, it’s not fair that it hasn’t gotten above double digits all week and we don’t even get fresh snow as a consolation.”

  “Way to change the subject. And you hate snow.”

  “I don’t hate it. If I hated it, this is one of the last places I’d live, trust me. I don’t love it either, but if it’s going to be so cold and dreary, I wouldn’t mind some to cover up the dirty snow we already have, you know?”

  “We were supposed to have a storm tonight. We’ll see. I wouldn’t mind a good storm.”

  “Me neither, I suppose. So, how was your day? Get anything done?”

  “Stocked up on groceries again, made a few meals ahead of time because as much as you want to, you can’t guarantee you’ll be around to cook every night…and I may have taken a nap, but it was more out of boredom than actual exhaustion, I think. How about you? How were things at work?”

  “Fine. Exactly how much pleasure are you getting out of not telling me where we’re eating?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Lots of good stuff around here,” Angela said once Vince slowed down the car fifteen minutes later, indicating that they were near their destination in picturesque snowy downtown Minneapolis. “Hmm, The Winchester is over here…so is The Fuse…going to tell me yet?”

  “Nope.” Vince started the hunt for a parking space, but none was to be found.

  “Ooh, it’s starting to snow,” Angela said elatedly. “Might want to park in a garage anyway, then, so we don’t have to dig up the car later.”

  “I’ll just use valet.”

  “No, no, I want to walk,” Angela insisted.

  “In those shoes?” Vince questioned.

  “A walk in the snow would be nice. I’ll complain about my feet later, but it’ll be worth it.”

  “If you insist.” By the time they found a parking spot in a garage and got back outside, the snow was falling in curtains of large, fluffy flakes that danced their way through the beams cast by the streetlights.

  “I still haven’t even seen what you’re wearing,” Vince noted as they took their long walk at a leisurely pace and arm-in-arm.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m wearing when you tell me where we’re eating.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.”


  The witty banter ceased; it was replaced by silent reflections of how simultaneously lovely and strange it was to be out alone together, promenading the snow-dusted sidewalks full of couples who were in much more of a hurry, who had much more time ahead of them. As far as the others figured, they would get more walks in the snow, more greeting card holidays, more romantic evenings, more overpriced meals. They had no reason to slow down.

  But Vince and Angela did. If there was ever a perfect moment, it was this one, and they both knew it, but one was more willing to go for it than the other. Fresh in Vince’s mind was his recent confession to Angela that he wished she and Charlie could move on after his passing as if none of this had ever happened. The thought that their relationship was only ten days old had nothing to do with his hesitation to tell Angela the thing he most wanted to tell her. It was an unreasonable, futile attempt at keeping her from getting too attached that prevented him from speaking his mind.

  “Can we stop?” Angela asked after a deep breath, fearing none of the things Vince did right now. For one blissful moment, she wasn’t scared of a single thing, not even rejection.

  “Sure,” Vince said, stopping and taking a step back, centering them under the lamp glow. “Feet hurt already?” he asked.

  “Mm-mm,” Angela said, shaking her head lightly. The gentlest motion sent a pile of snowflakes tumbling off the top of her head and down to her shoulders. “Did you…clean up your beard a little?” she asked as she stepped closer to him.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was starting to feel a little like Sasquatch.”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining. I still love it. You have…a snowflake…” Angela reached up to Vince’s face. “…on your eyelashes. How was that not driving you crazy?”

  Vince laughed and pressed his lips against hers. “You really stopped me to ask me about my beard and pick snow off my eyelashes?”

  “Not exactly,” Angela said, linking her hands behind his neck. Vince framed her waist in response and waited patiently and completely obliviously. “I know I shouldn’t preface this, but I’m going to anyway,” Angela started. “I just want you to know that you don’t have to say it back. I’m only telling you so you know.” Vince’s cheeks were warmed against the nippy air as he realized why Angela had interrupted their stroll. He saw her swallow, saw her prepare herself with another breath, which she let out in a quick whoosh before wetting her lips. Her words were so quiet they barely registered. “Vince, I love you. I have for…I don’t even know how long.”

  Before Vince could return the proclamation, Angela had him locked in a kiss that told him she was serious—at least for now—about not caring whether she heard it back. He felt like a fool for thinking they should go even another day without one of them telling the other. For the most part, they already knew just how deep the other’s feelings ran. But hearing the actual words issuing from her lips had a fear-melting, uplifting power that made him wish he’d been able to say it first, for her. And days ago.

  Vince pulled out of the kiss before long, unable to hold it in any longer. “I am allowed to say it, right? Even though I don’t have to?”

  Angela’s heart was still going a mile a minute from her own half of things, which meant her words came out mostly garbled. “I would not object.” She laughed at her own bumbling and kissed him again, hoping he would remember that second instead.

  “Good. Because I love you, too. And I would love to list all the reasons why, but we’d be late for dinner.”

  “I would just turn it into a contest,” Angela said, laughing mutedly. “And I’d win, by the way.”

  Vince met Angela nose-to-nose, feeling sorry for everyone who walked around them, too busy to stop and share a moment so utterly romantic yet pure. “Your nose is frozen, I think.”

  “Should we get a move on?” Angela asked, relaxing her hold on him.

  Vince shook his arm until his wristwatch showed. “Yeah. I know how disappointed you’d be if you missed a reservation here again.” He flashed Angela a smile and offered his arm. She took it while she tried to make sense of his remark.

  “What do you mean, again? Oh…Oh! The Winchester, seriously?”

  Vince nodded and wore a self-satisfied smile.

  “Sophie and I were going to go there for my birthday last year and we got called out on a case the morning of. Oh my goodness, I don’t think anyone ever heard the end of that at the office, did they?” she said, laughing pathetically.

  “I actually didn’t think of your history with it first. Maria—my chemo nurse—her husband is head chef there. She just happened to mention it. It wasn’t until I heard the name of the restaurant that I remembered what happened with you on your birthday.”

  “It’s still sweet that you remembered. I’ve been wanting to try again for so long, but I know my luck, so I never did. This place costs an arm and a leg, though. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” Vince said as the dark brick building came into focus behind the flurries.