She turns on her side too and kisses him, letting their lips rest against each other for a moment after it ends, an echo of earlier.
When they part at last, he looks into her eyes. “When you said...” Charlie hesitates, then starts over. “When you said that ‘back in DC’ you pretended to talk to the dead for money...” He pauses. “Does that mean...”
“Yes. That I’m not pretending here. I can actually talk to Everett. See him too.” She realizes by his reaction that she’s really downplaying the absolute bonkersness of what she is saying. “It’s all, um, really fucking weird, actually. Please do not take my nonchalance at face value. It’s just the only way I know how to deal with it.”
He’s quiet again for a long time. “So you admit that your career as a spirit medium is completely based on lies, and that you conned countless people before that. But you’re still telling me that Everett, the curse—that those things are real?”
“Yes,” Gretchen answers, ensuring she doesn’t turn away from his gaze despite how uncomfortable it is to have him searching her eyes this intensely.He thinks I’m still lying to him. I told him everything and he still thinks I’m lying.Panic rises up in her throat. “I know it’s hard to believe—”
“It is. It is hard to believe. But...” He releases her and brings his palm to his forehead. “But you haven’t given me much choice, have you?”
“Charlie...”
She watches him retreat into deep thought. After a few moments, he says, “You have no reason to tell me all of those things—to give me enough information to absolutely destroy your life if I wanted—and then lie to me about this. So I... I guess I have to believe you? That there’s a ghost. And you talk to him. And I...” His eyes go wide. “I have to live here for the rest of my life? I can never leave Gilded Creek?”
There’s a distinct tinge of panic in his voice as it all fully hits him at last. It’s heartbreaking, really. Even after everything, Gretchen’s instinct is to say something untrue that will make him feel better. But he’s not one of her clients. That’s not what he wants from her. “I know it’s a lot,” she says instead.
“Uh, yeah, it’s a lot. It’s... it’s a lot.”
She sits up and reaches for his hand. “I want to help you with this. However I can.”
“Thanks,” he says, but his mind is obviously miles away. “Um. I need to...” He moves his hand away abruptly. “I’m sorry. I need to be alone for a while. To think about what this all means.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah. Go... go do that. I’ll be here if you need me.”
Charlie stands and pulls on his discarded sweatpants. It’s strange to go from having him completely surrounding her,insideher, to this distance—both physical and emotional. He’s silent as he leaves her room. She tries not to let it get to her, to tell herself it’s natural for him to need space to process this bizarre, life-altering reality. But even if it’s for a perfectly legitimate reason, it still feels like another abandonment in a long line of abandonments.
She unknots the sweater from the headboard (more challenging than she expects, probably thanks to Charlie’s sailing experience) and slips it back over her head. It’s tempting to tell herself she simply doesn’t want to be cold, because that lets what happened between them be purely sexual. But the real reason is because it’s the closest she assumes she’ll get to sleeping in his arms tonight.
Except later, when her room is pitch-black thanks to the new moon, she’s awoken by warm fingers brushing over her shoulder, followed by hot lips that soon find hers in the dark. “You said you’re here if I need you?” He whispers it into her ear.
“Yeah?”
“I need you.”
She answers with soft kisses wherever her lips can reach, her fingers threaded through his silky hair.
This time they move slowly, gently together, Charlie’s mouth only leaving hers long enough to whisper thoughts that vacillate wildly between dirty, grateful, remorseful, and scared. Their kisses turn salty, and she isn’t sure whose tears they are, but she licks them from his lips and mutters reassurances that she’ll figure out how to help him. She isn’t sure she can guarantee that, of course. But god, she’s going to try.
30
In the morning, Gretchen wakes up alone, the space beside her in the bed cool to the touch. She (mostly successfully) resists the urge to panic. There were a lot of emotions flowing last night, but even though everything between them has changed, it doesn’t mean they’ve changed that way. It would have been nice if he stayed, sure, on a physical level. But it’s not like she expected him to. Gretchen isn’t about to start doing something as stupid asexpecting thingsfrom someone just because he’s hot and good in bed and vulnerable with her in a way she finds both a little terrifying and a lot attractive.
She grabs her phone from the nightstand, hoping its clock will tell her she can linger here for a while before having to get up and get ready for the farmers market. Instead, she finds a text from Charlie:Grandpa fell early this morning. I’m with him at the hospital. Can you handle market solo today?
No problem, she responds, both because she feels even more strongly about showing up for Charlie than she did before andbecause the idea of Gilded Creek missing out on a couple hundred dollars in this crucial penultimate week of her stay makes her feel itchy. Then she asks:How is he?
Broken wrist, keeps forgetting how it happened but otherwise in good spirits. Resting now.
And how are you?she asks next.
She doesn’t receive an answer for several minutes. But then:I’m ok. And another minute later:Thank you. Which may be a “thank you for asking,” or a “thank you for taking care of the market,” or a “thank you for last night.” Whichever it is, it sends warmth into Gretchen’s chest that, in the light of day, she tells herself is a close cousin of the gotcha euphoria, nothing more.
Charlie proceeds to send the address of the parking lot where the market is held, the location of the spare set of keys for the ancient station wagon she’s to drive there, and a bunch of instructions for how to pack up and transport the cheese and soap. She, of course, already knows all about the cheese and soap, having helped out with the market the previous two Sundays. But she figures he’s trying to distract himself. So in that spirit, she asks him questions about other things she already knows, smiling when he texts back entire paragraphs about cheese flavor profiles and soap ingredients with only a briefI thought you already knew this but...to acknowledge that he sees what she’s doing.
He always sees what she’s doing. And seems to like her all the better for it.
Once she’s dressed and ready to go, she opens her door to find Everett hover-sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hallway.
