It was exactly what she needed, physically and mentally. She’s been telling herself all day that whatever that was between them when Charlie came back to her room in the middle of the night last night, that slow, gentle, tender...lovemaking... was an anomaly. Inno wayindicative of how things are between them now. When they first went up to Charlie’s bedroom tonight, she worried he might do something to make her doubt that. Soft kisses, sweet caresses, whispered confessions—those would all be like a big splatter of white paint launched onto the picture she’s created of the situation, interrupting the narrative she needs to show herself. So it was a relief, such a relief, when he closed the door behindthem and pressed her up against it. His first kiss was hard, rough, and Gretchen almost laughed at how comforting she found it.
Charlie sighs, flinging an arm over his head. “Guess that wasn’t very good.”
“What? Are you kidding me? That was amazing. I came so hard I almost bit your arm off.”
“Couldn’t have been that amazing since it didn’t get you to confess to any crimes.”
Gretchen turns her head to give him a look.
“I figured that’s the gold standard,” he says, trying to suppress a smile.
“First of all.” She props herself up on her elbow and gives him a light shove on the shoulder, which then turns into a light tracing of the mark she left there. “I haven’t technically confessed toanycrimes. Nothing I told you is strictly illegal. Just morally... iffy.”
He barks out a laugh. “Okay. Sure. What’s second of all?”
“Oh, right. And second of all.”I can’t tell you all of my secrets, because then you’ll know me better than anyone in the world. And what will I do without you then?“Do you really want a confession? You sure?”
He looks to be considering her question, and then his voice comes out quietly, like he expects his world to be upended again. “Yeah. Tell me something.”
There’s a moment where something strange almost slips out of Gretchen’s mouth, something horribly inappropriate and... not even true. Something like “Every moment here with you feels like the happiest of my life.” That’s so absurd she almost laughs at herself, then pivots to her real, much less revealing, and definitely more factually accurate confession. “One time, last summer, Yolanda came home early from work and caught me masturbating while watchingThere Will Be Blood.”
There’s a pause as he contemplates this. “Which scene?” he asks.
“What?”
“Which scene were you watching?”
“I don’t remember,” she says. But Gretchen definitely remembers.
Charlie urges her on with a small smile that questions if this is really how she wants to break her honesty streak.
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “The one where he’s slapping Paul Dano a bunch in the mud and oil.” She hurries to add, “I feel the need to say that I’m not... It wasn’t anything about the scene in particular that turned me on. I just happened to be turned on for unrelated, hormonal, biological reasons at the time I was watching it. I figured I would multitask. You know.”
“Hmm,” he says. “Did Everett really push you into that puddle the day you got here, or were you actually attempting to live out your unconventional sexual fantasies on my property?”
She gives him a playful nudge, and he grabs her hand and kisses it. The moment turns soft and warm, as if it’s wrapped in one of Grandma Ellen’s Magic Eye afghans. It’s too sweet for Gretchen to sit with, so she wrestles her hand away from his and lets it wander down his body.
He sucks in a breath through his teeth when she reaches his stomach. But then his fingers thread through hers, joining their hands again and delivering them to the spot over his heart as if saying,You won’t get away from this that easily.
His heartbeat is strong but slowing under her palm, and his breaths even out and become deeper. Along with his continued silence and closed eyes, Gretchen wonders if Charlie’s drifted off to sleep. She’s not far from dreamland herself. Should she stay, oruntangle their fingers and head back to her own bed? The latter, for sure. But then he says, “So... it’s just Everett, then?”
“Hmm?”
He turns over to face her. “He’s the only ghost here?”
“Oh. Yeah. Just him. Apparently, becoming a ghost is a super rare thing. Most people simply... go Up, according to him.”
“Oh.”
Gretchen knows the pensive look that takes over his face. It’s that of a person coming to terms with the fact that they’ll never speak to someone they’ve lost ever again. Usually, her job is to obliterate that look, turn it into shining, comfortable hope. But that isn’t what Charlie wants from her. It may not even be what she wants from herself anymore.
“Charlie...” She shifts, pulling the covers to her shoulders in hopes she might feel less exposed. “The crux of my business back in DC is saying the right thing, the thing the client’s loved one would want them to hear, at the right time. There were lies involved too, yes, but... that part, giving reassurance, never felt like lying to me.” Her fingers worry the sheet’s seam as she builds up her courage, the truth still a somewhat complicated thing for her to access after a lifetime of hiding and twisting it to better suit her needs. “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t consider it a lie when I told you Ellen is proud of you. I don’t need to be able to talk to her to know that that’s how she would feel.”
“How can you be so sure when I’ve basically destroyed her and Charles’s legacy?”
“You haven’t destroyed anything. In fact, it’s because of you that this farm has hung on for the last two years. You take care of everything and everyone around you, even the people like me who don’t deserve it, and you make a mean spaghetti with meatsauce. Of course Ellen is proud of you.I’mproud of you and I barely even know you.” She feels her face heat at this confession.
“That’s funny,” he says, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Because it feels like you might know me better than anyone.”
