Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (17 page)

Charlotte was thrilled to see Ava and I was thrilled that they seemed so close. Ava told a smooth white lie about flying in to surprise us before we left Paris. We ate dinner out, and the next morning, she and Charlotte went out to do “girl stuff,” while I went out to local markets and bakeries for the picnic supplies. 

Self-doubt is the destroyer of joy. I second-guessed my plan within an inch of its life as I shopped. I bought rich cheese, bread, fruit, sparkling water, and little chocolate truffles at a local market, and the basket seemed so light in my hand. This proposal wasn’t a grand gesture. It was just…lunch.

“Help me, Aves,” I begged after Charlotte had gone to rehearsal and my sister and I set out on our own. “I need a knockout ring so my little picnic idea doesn’t seem so goddamn plain.”

“What? You were so excited about it yesterday. What changed?”

“It doesn’t seem like enough. What I feel for Charlotte…I feel like I need fucking fireworks or a laser show. Or fireworks
and
a laser show. And one of those planes that drag messages on a banner across the sky…”

Ava laughed. “Oh my god, you are panicking. Relax. Charlotte doesn’t need or want any of that.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you
not
know?” Ava tucked her hand over mine on her arm. “Charlotte is crazy in love with you. She doesn’t want fanfare, trust me.”

“She’s romantic. I want to do something big for her. Something she’ll remember forever. A grand gesture…”

“Noah, you walked across Europe blind for her. I think that qualifies.”

I made a noncommittal sound.

“Listen,” Ava continued. “Charlotte is a romantic, yes. So what she wants is something
meaningful
. Not big. She’ll be swept off her feet if you just…tell her what’s burning in your heart for her. You don’t need to paint it in the sky.”

“I know,” I said. “I know you’re right. But after all she’s done for me…”

“And what about what
you
have done for her?” Ava stopped walking. “Hey. Your picnic idea is perfect, because it’s perfect for both of you. You’re asking her to marry you, to spend the rest of
your
life with her. Make it something you’ll remember forever too.”

I grinned. “Why, Aves. I never took
you
for a romantic.”

“I’m not,” she said, laughing, as we resumed walking. “I just like telling people what to do.”

Ava and I walked along the Place de Pont Neuf, to a jewelry shop that sold both modern and antiques pieces.

“Do you have any idea what Charlotte would like?” Ava asked as she perused the jewelry under the glass for me.

“Something small. Light. Light enough that it won’t get in her way as she plays, but not some dinky shit, either.”

“No dinky shit. Got it,” Ava said. “Old or new?”

I thought of Charlotte’s two-hundred-year-old Cuypers violin, of the music she made with it, and her endearing love of master composers long dead.

“Old. Something with history in it.”

“Atta boy.”

We perused the glass-bound displays—or, Ava did. She was just as fluent as I was in French, and she and a saleswoman described to me various rings. It quickly became apparent to me how futile it was; I couldn’t get a grasp of the rings’ styles, and the ones the sales clerk dropped into my hands felt wrong, somehow.

“Try a mental visualization,” Ava said, noting my frustration. “Close your eyes.”

“That’s not necessary,” I said with a smirk.

“Ha! I almost forgot,” she said, and I don’t think she realized what a huge compliment that was. “Envision Charlotte’s hand, palm up. Do you see it?”

I nodded.

“Now imagine she turns her hand over, and what ring is there on her finger?”

“Round. Small, but brilliant. More than one diamond, but not heavy or clunky.”

Ava told the clerk what I’d said and she pulled several options, none of them feeling right to me or to Ava.

“Wait, Noah,” Ava said after the tenth ring was rejected. She clutched my arm. “That one.”

“Ah, yes. This one is quite lovely,” said the clerk. “Designed in 1909, it is 14K gold with a cluster of quarter-carat diamonds surrounding a half-carat center, like a flower. Eight diamonds in all, quite brilliant.”

She put the ring in my hand and I felt its contours and shape. It was light, but it seemed I could feel its age in my hand. In my mind, the diamonds were starbursts against the old gold. I imagined it on Charlotte’s finger—I imagined
putting
it on her finger, sliding it over her soft skin and asking her to be my wife.

“This one,” I said, and had to clear my damn throat. “This is the one.”

That night, I lay in bed in boxers and a t-shirt, mentally preparing my proposal. I had the ring. Just the fact that it existed in my universe—a step toward my future with Charlotte—made me ridiculously happy.

Charlotte breezed around the hotel room, while she unpacked the bags from her shopping trip with Ava earlier that morning.

“I love your sister so much. She is one of the best people, ever,” Charlotte said. “So tough and sharp, but super sweet too, just under the surface. And I’m so happy you got to spend the day with her. What did you do?”

“Nothing much. Hung out.”

“Oh yeah? Well, we did girl stuff. Which means mostly shopping. I bought a new dress for tomorrow night’s show. Want to see it?”

“Sure.”

I rose from the bed and waited while she slipped it on, and then she stood before me so I could look. I began my investigation, my hands lingering longest on her breasts under the silk.

“Getting all that?” she giggled.

“Just being thorough,” I said with a grin. My hands roamed all over and then I found the zipper on the back. “It’s nice,” I said, tugging it down. “But naked is better.”

She laughed lightly and danced out of my touch. “Wait, I have one more thing to show you. Go. Sit. There’s a chair behind you. I’ll just be a minute.”

I heaved a breath to cool my blood that was already stirring, and waited with herculean patience for her to change so she could show me whatever cute outfit she felt she needed me to see.

She emerged from the bathroom. “I’m ready.”

Her voice sounded different; breathy and tremulous. I sat up in the antique French chair that was probably older than Napoleon Bonaparte, and listened as she approached. Her perfume came first—something light, like lilacs over her own vanilla scent. Then her hands were on my knees, gliding up and down my thighs.

She leaned over me, brushed her lips over mine softly, then kissed me.

“Would you like to see what I’m wearing?”

I nodded, stricken mute. The blood had rushed out of my brain, due south, even before my hands found the lacy thong around her hips, or the garters and stockings over the smooth skin of her thighs. My breath caught as my hands went up, finding the silk of her naked back, and then a little nothing of a bra; her breasts were spilling out as she leaned over me.

“Color?” I managed.

“Pale pink,” she breathed, and carefully, gently, rested her knee on my aching groin, and rubbed. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” I growled, my hands all over those gorgeous breasts.

“Can you see it?”

I nodded, putting one lace-clad nipple in my mouth and sucking.

“Good,” she managed, her words coming out on breathy little exhales of want. “Because I want you to see me, wearing this for you, Noah. Remember it, while I’m riding you in this chair. Picture it, as you’re coming hard and deep inside me.”

Holy. Shit.

I did my best. I imagined my beautiful woman in that sexy lingerie as she straddled me and did exactly what she said she would, riding me with her hands clutched around my neck, and her cries resounding throughout the room. We put 18
^th
century French furniture craftsmanship to the test, as I don’t think I’d ever experienced sex like that in my life. Mind-blowing. Love and lust, in perfect, equal parts.

But I couldn’t admit to her that I didn’t think twice about what she wore. It didn’t even register. Charlotte would never know—as I couldn’t ever quite explain it—that when she and I made love, there was nothing else in my black world but the sensation of her.

The big day arrived. Ava couldn’t miss too much work so she flew back to London. She said goodbye to me with a hug, a kiss, and a whispered “good luck,” and then it was nearly time.

“I’m going to miss her,” Charlotte sighed, as we took a cab back to our hotel. “So. What should we do? I have all day before the show.”

I told her I’d planned a picnic on the grassy expanse below the Eiffel Tower, and she was delighted. But she made a lamenting sound when we stepped out of the hotel.

“It’s cloudy,” she said “Looks like rain.”

My heart sank, and I hefted the basket hanging off my right arm. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad. Oh, there’s a patch of blue! We should be okay.”

I nodded. Jesus, had I ever been this nervous in my entire life? I doubted it. Not even the first time I base-jumped were my guts this twisted into knots. I was glad for my sunglasses, hid behind them, as we took a taxi to the Eiffel Tower.

There, we set up our picnic, and Charlotte described to me the immense tower over us, and the heavy sky beyond. Then she played right into my nervous, twitching hands.

“This reminds me of our first picnic in Central Park. Do you remember? It was the day after that really bad migraine.” She sidled up close to me on the blanket. “You kissed me that night. Our first kiss. That’s when I knew I was falling madly in love with you. That kiss…”

She laid her lips to mine, and my jangling nerved calmed down. This was Charlotte, after all. And the love I had for her soothed my anxiety away.

“I fell for you that night, too,” I told her. “You were the only thing sweet and good in my miserable world.”

“And you were bringing my music back to life, Noah. Little by little.” She smiled against my lips. “But then on that picnic, you told me you couldn’t kiss me again.”

“Yes, I had a fabulous habit of saying the exact opposite of what I really felt.”

“Oh yeah? You wanted to kiss me then too?” Her voice was soft and warm, and so full of love.

“Yeah, baby. I wanted to kiss you with the warm sunlight on my face, and the fresh air that I’d been locked away from, and kiss you. And never stop.” I turned toward her, one hand reaching around behind me to my jacket where the little velvet box lay. “I don’t ever want to stop kissing you, Charlotte. Every day, every hour of my life, I want to be with you.”

The first drops of rain began to fall, but I hardly felt them.

She took off my sunglass and ran the tips of her fingers down my cheeks. “Kiss me now,” she whispered, and I did, utterly swept away by her. Her mouth, her lips, the velvet of her little tongue…

And then a
boom
shook the air so loudly I felt it in my chest. The sky broke open and the rain came down in sheets, as if a dam had burst.

Charlotte shrieked in real fear, and I couldn’t blame her. Lightning was probably crackling over the sky and we were sitting under the world’s biggest lightning rod.