Vivian fills in the blanks on what our friends have been up to. I missed weddings and babies and bachelorette parties. Peppered in are stories about her attending some of these events, but she never mentions seeing me there. I’m content listening to her, wondering if we can find the old groove we had of weekend brunches and drinking till we were tipsy.
“So, what’s your plan now?” she asks while I’m trying to catch the waiter's eye to get the check.
“What do you mean?” I ask, unsure of what she’s getting at. I turn back to her.
“Well, you said that you were doing freelance work before. Are you going to go back to that? Are you moving back into your apartment? What are you doing?”
I look at her, unable to come up with an answer. “I don’t really know. I’ve been so focused on my recovery. I broke my ankle, which has been a bitch to heal. If it was just one injury, it would be easier to figure out moving back to my apartment, but I messed up my knee and shoulder and wrist. The icing on the cake was, of course, amnesia. There have been so many doctors and evaluations to see about doing something about that, so I haven’t thought much about what I’m going to do next. I was working on commission, and the temp agency has filled my role, so I don’t really have anything to go back to. It’s both freeing and terrifying all at once.”
“What's the deal with you and Charlie, anyway? Jack’s been agonizing over it since Charlie whisked you off to Bora Bora.”
I’m sure she saw the photo of us kissing that I posted on Pictogram. Just thinking about us being together makes my insides melt and my cheeks flush. Did I dare imagine a real life with him? I glance over at where Charlie sits, chatting with someone at his table. It’s like he knows I’m looking because he turns his head and catches me watching him. He gives me a wink, letting me know that I’ve been seen, and that he’s still here, waiting for me. I feel my whole body grow tight, the thought of getting to go to bed with him every night.
Vivian snaps her fingers in my face. “Earth to Ellie,” she says, bringing me back to our conversation.
“We’re together,” I say tentatively and she doesn’t even fight the grin. “It kind of happened on our trip. The week before we left was Thanksgiving and I made us these ridiculous cornish hens since a turkey would have been too much food. I burned my hand and ruined dinner and proceeded to sob on the floor of his penthouse. He kissed me while consoling me and trying to figure out why I was crying. Neither one of us knew what to do about it, so we just pretended it never happened until we were in Bora Bora. I was living with him but sleeping in the guest room and now I sleep in his bed.”
She looks like she’s fighting laughter at the ridiculous story, and it really is just that, ridiculous. It was like an extreme ‘meet cute’ that nearly ended with me dying, but instead, I found this incredible man.
“God, he’s a fox, let me tell you,” Vivian says. A quiet lull falls between us and I get the feeling she’s working herself up to something. “Why didn’t you call when you woke up?”
I hate how small her voice sounds and that I’m the one that made her feel that way.
“I don’t have a good reason, really.” I look away from her, tugging at the napkin on my lap. If there is anyone in the world I can open up to, it’s Vivian. “I was too afraid of the reason why we weren’t talking anymore. That it was this terrible thing and you hated me and you wouldn’t take my call. But if I never tried to call you then I couldn’t get hurt, so I hid behind my accident, and little by little my heart healed. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have your number.”
Vivian’s hand flies out to grab mine where it was reaching for my water. She opens her mouth to say something, but her eyes dart behind me and she jumps out of her seat with the same enthusiasm she had when I showed up. I twist as she flings her arms around the newcomer before kissing him.
“I’ve missed you,” a deep male voice rumbles.
“It’s been like four hours, Jack,” she admonishes, but a sly grin is on her face. Vivian is elated to have this love and attention on her. I stand up and am dwarfed by him.
“This is my fiancé, Jack. Jack, this is Elia, Charlie’s mystery girl.”
I smile, offering my hand to him. The smile I receive never quite reaches his eyes, but he takes my hand, squeezing it with an unexpected strength. It seems with Jack I’m already starting behind the curve and am going to have to work hard to earn his approval. I try to squeeze his hand back, but it’s already too late. Jack pulls his hand back as Charlie approaches.
“Chuck, this is the girl you’ve been hiding from us?” The look between the two men is significant. I may have only known him for mere minutes, but it’s clear that Jack is not a fan of me. Vivian is putting on the performance of a lifetime trying to cover that up, trying to keep me from fleeing and Charlie looks downright pissed with the frosty reception I’m getting.
Charlie wraps an easy arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side. “Siren Hotel’s happy hour starts in ten, and I got us a table for four. You two ready to head over?” Charlie asks, his voice forceful. Jack slides his green eyes to me, then looks back at Charlie, a similarly fake smile plastered on his face.
“Absolutely,” Vivian says without hesitation. Jack, to his credit, smiles indulgently at my friend.
“What the lady says goes.” Jack doesn’t sound too happy about it.
Charlie helps me into my jacket, taking my hand in his as he leads the way out of the restaurant. When I whisper to Charlie about the check, he confesses to having taken care of it. Taryn waves goodbye to us all as we depart and begin our walk to another restaurant. Vivian links her arm with me as we walk behind the guys.
Jack is a little shorter than Charlie, but they have a similar slender frame. Something about how Jack holds himself made me feel so small beside him, when I’ve never felt anything like that from Charlie. I want to hear what the two of them are whispering about as we begin our trek over the nine blocks. Charlie’s hands are shoved deep into his pockets, their conversation only ceasing when Vivian and I catch up to them at a corner.
Vivian has always been great at filling silence. I let her chatter about wedding planning and her new job while I turn over the last two hours in my mind. Charlie’s deception weighs heavily on me, but confronting him about it now isn’t possible. I’ll have to ask him about it when we get home.
The Siren Hotel is a cute little seafood place with great happy hour deals on drinks and oysters.
The booth we are seated in is in the back. Already the place is packed with a line out the door. I’m glad Charlie got us a reservation, given the crowd. I slide into one side of the booth, Vivian across from me and Charlie right beside me, his hand resting on my knee as soon as we’re seated. It’s clear that this place is a regular spot for them because none of them look at the menu, ordering a round of appetizers, oysters, and drinks.
“So, my boy here hit you with his car?” Jack asks as if he hasn’t heard the story from Charlie.
I debate if I have the emotional wherewithal to give Jack the performance that is required to appease him. Whatever actually happened with Vivian and I taints what Jack thinks of me. I’m not sure I will ever be good enough for his best friend or his fiancée. I could choose to fight this battle, but it might mean fighting him tooth and nail every step of the way.
“I’m sure you know more than I do. I don’t actually have any memory of the accident.” I haven’t told Charlie yet, that I have a snippet of that night. A flash of a memory of his rain-soaked face hovering over me. I don’t know if it’s real or something my mind conjured for me, a mechanism meant to fill in the gaps that have appeared in my memory.