The Infinite Moment of Us (17 page)

and going off with Project Unity?”

“
What?
” Wren said. “Mom, I applied to Project Unity

before I even really knew Charlie.” She frowned. “Why

would you think that?”

“Not going to Emory might keep you two on more of a

level playing field,” her mom said.

Wren stared at her, not comprehending. Charlie
was

going to college in the fall. He was going to Georgia Tech,

which was an excellent school. So what was her mom

really alluding to? The fact that Charlie was a foster kid?

That Pamela and Chris didn’t have fancy jobs?

“I’m not even touching that, Mom,” she said. “Charlie

supports me. I wish you and Dad could believe in me the

way he does.”

Her mom had gotten teary. “I just feel like we’ve lost

you already.”

Agh
, it was all so complicated.

But Tessa’s question. Which bugged her parents more,

Charlie or Guatemala?

“I’d say it’s a tie,” Wren finally said to Tessa. “I’d say it’s officially a lose-lose situation.”

“Hmm,” Tessa said. “But you went on the pill for Char-

lie. Not Guatemala.”

“Tessa? That makes no sense.”

“I’m just saying,” Tessa said smugly.

Wren gestured for the lemonade and finished it off.

Later, Tessa showered, and Wren lay on Tessa’s bed, missing

Charlie. From the bathroom, Tessa’s voice rang out loud

and pure. She was belting out a country song, al rolling

notes and rollicking guitar chords and a chorus that went,

“Girl, you make me smi-i-ile!”

Charlie made Wren smile, and she wanted to see him.

She and Tessa hadn’t decided what they were going to do

that night yet, but if they went out, she wanted Charlie

to meet up with them. And at some point, she wanted to

sneak off to be with him. Alone.

Wren pointed her toes. Flexed them. She let her fin-

gers trail up and down her body. Tessa was still in the

shower—Wren would hear the water turn off when Tessa

was done—and Wren was still a little tipsy. She closed her

eyes and touched her breasts. She pulled down the collar

of her shirt and grazed at the swell of them. She touched

herself beneath her bra. Her nipples hardened. She thought

of Charlie, and she crossed her feet at her ankles and rolled

onto her side.

God, she wanted him.

She groaned, embarrassed and aroused, and pushed

herself to a sitting position. Oh, Charlie.

She felt for her phone, remembered she’d taken it out

of her pocket, but forgot where she’d put it after doing

so. Wow, she was more than tipsy. She rubbed her eyes

and glanced around Tessa’s room. Oh, right. She’d left it

with the big teddy bear that lived on Tessa’s floor, propped

against the wal and smiling blandly. The teddy bear was

almost as big as Tessa, and at one point, Tessa had dubbed it

her boyfriend. He had a name . . . what was it?

Lorenzo. Yes. And Lorenzo was holding Wren’s phone

in his paw.

Wren made her way across the bed on her tummy and

inchwormed onto the floor. Hello, carpet. She crawled

over to Lorenzo, reclaimed her phone, and tapped Char-

lie’s name from her favorites list. She leaned sideways

against Lorenzo, desperate for Charlie to pick up.

Pick up, pick up, pick up, Charlie. Char-lie. Pick up,

Charlie-Charlie.

“Baby, hey,” Charlie said, and the warmth in his voice

sent shivers up and down Wren’s body.

“Hi,” she said. “I miss you like crazy.” Her eyes widened,

because as a rule she didn’t say things like that. She felt

them, and she wanted to say them, but the words often got

stuck in her mind. It was harder than she liked to say what

she was feeling.

She clutched the phone. “Sorry,” she said.

“Sorry for what?” Charlie said. “For missing me?”

“No! I guess I’m just embarrassed.”

“Don’t ever say you’re sorry for missing me. And, Wren,

I miss you, too. I miss you whenever I’m not with you. I

miss you all the time.”

“You do?” she whispered. “Do you . . . think about me?

Like, about kissing me? Because I wish I could kiss you

right now. Is that bad?”

“Is that bad? Why would that be bad? How could that

ever be bad?”

“Oh. Um, good?”

“Wren, I want to spend my whole life kissing you. Don’t

you know that?”

She did, but it was glorious to hear. She had a feeling

she was smiling foolishly.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“At Tessa’s. You?”

“The shop. Gotta finish this one order, though for safe-

ty’s sake I’d better take a short break.”

“Safety’s sake? Me no understand.”

“Power tools. Not good to use when you’re . . . dis-

tracted.”

Distracted. By her. She drew her knees to her chest.

“In that case, you have to take a break,” she said. “I don’t

want you ending up in the hospital.”

“The hospital’s not so bad,” Charlie said. “I’ve met some

awesome people at the hospital.”

“You have?”

“And sexy.”

“Sexy?”

“The sexiest.”

Wren’s toes curled. She had never—ever—experi-

enced anything like this. Talking like this. Feeling like this.

“But I’m not at the hospital. So if you went now, would you

still get an awesome, sexy person? To fix you up?”

“Not a chance, which is why I’m being careful.”

“Good. You are a very,
very
good boy, Charlie Parker.”

Charlie laughed, and it was beautiful. It was a laugh that

said
I like you, Wren. So much. And it’s great, isn’t it? This. Us.

“Yes,” Wren said aloud.

“Yes?” Charlie repeated. “Yes, what?”

A wildness swirled through her. “Yes, I want to . . . have

sex. With you. Or make love to you. With you. Whatever.”

He was quiet for a moment, leaving her hanging, and

she thought, Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap.
I want to have sex
with you.
Did she really say those words? Maybe she didn’t.

Maybe she just thought she . . . ?

“I want that, too,” he said.

She held still. “You do?”

“Are you kidding?” His voice. God. It was deeper now

than before, and she’d done that. Hearing his desire height-

ened her own.

From the bathroom, Tessa’s voice floated over the sound

of pounding water. But Charlie was close, even though he

was miles away. A private bubble, just the two of them, his

voice in her ear and her body yearning toward him.

“I wish I were with you,” she said. “I wish I were with

you right now.”

“Baby, I wish that, too.”

She was heady with love, and drunk, and wild. She

thought of something Tessa told her she did, for P.G. She

could do that for Charlie. She would do anything for Char-

lie. “Do you . . . want me to send you a picture?”

She heard Charlie inhale. He stumbled over his words.

“You mean of . . . of you?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. She unbuttoned her light sum-

mer blouse. Blue, like periwinkles. “Can your ghetto phone

receive pictures?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

She glanced at the door that led to the bathroom. It was

closed, and the shower was still on. Tessa loved long show-

ers. Still, Wren’s heart beat faster.

“Okay, hold on,” Wren said. Charlie said something in

reply, but she’d moved the phone from her ear, and she

didn’t catch it. She felt flushed all over, because of Charlie.

Charlie did that to her.

She wedged her phone between her knees and multi-

tasked over to the camera. She toggled to the front-facing

camera lens, and there she was on the phone’s screen. Oh

my God, oh my God. She heard Charlie saying more things,

but no, not yet. First this, before she lost her nerve.

She let her blouse fall open. Her bra was one of her

prettier ones, and she looked good just as she was. Or, she

thought she did. Hoped she did. The fabric was sheer, and

her nipples—still hard—were clearly visible. But that was

okay . . . wasn’t it?

Although maybe . . .

She pulled down the cup of her bra on one side. She

cupped her breast with her hand, lifting it higher, and—

quick, do it now, or you never will—used her other hand

to tap the shutter button on her phone.

There. Done. Charlie’s voice was urgent on the other

end, and she laughed. She liked his urgency. He wanted

her back, and she liked it. “One sec,” she said, and she hit

send, texting him the picture before common sense could

return.

“Um, I did it,” she said, putting the phone back to her

ear. She was beaming. Her pulse raced as she fumbled with

her buttons. “Did you get it?”

“—so incredibly sorry, but I’ll call as soon as I can, all

right?”

His words didn’t make sense. “What?”

“It’s Pamela. She’s saying something about Dev, so bye,

baby,” he said, fast and agitated. “Call you soon.”

“Charlie?” she said. “Charlie?!” She jiggled her phone,

then held it out and looked at it. No more Charlie. He’d

hung up. The phone had gone back to its home screen,

which showed a picture of Wren and Charlie laughing,

their faces pressed together.

She felt lost. Then she felt numb. Then she felt hot, but

not
in a good way. She’d taken a naked picture of herself (naked enough) and sent it to Charlie, thinking he’d be

thrilled. Wanting him to be thrilled. And he . . . hung up?

Bye, baby. Call you soon?

Mortified, she deleted the picture. She deleted it from

her photo folder; she deleted it from the transcript of her

texts with Charlie.

The shower turned off, but Tessa kept singing. She saun-

tered into her bedroom, one towel around her hair and

another around her body. Wren shoved her phone under

her leg.

“I am revived and fresh as a daisy,” Tessa declared. “In

fact, I feel like we should go somewhere fun and finish that

lemonade. You in?”

“Yes,” Wren said. “Please.” She wanted anything that

would give her a shot at oblivion. “But we finished the lem-

onade already.”

“Not a problem,” Tessa said. “We’ll make more.”

c h a p t e r t w e lv e

“What’s the emergency?” Charlie said as soon as

Starrla opened the door. She wore sweats and an oversize

T-shirt, which meant she was truly despondent. Starrla

only wore unflattering clothes when she didn’t give a damn

about life, or didn’t think life was worth giving a damn for.

But all Charlie gave a damn about was figuring out who’d

died or where the fire was. He was only here because his

need to protect ran so deep. He wanted to do what he had

to do and get back to Wren.

“Thanks for coming,” Starrla said sourly. She wasn’t

using her “I’s so bad” way of talking, another indication of

her mood. “Where were you? With Wren?”

“No, I was at the shop,” Charlie said, looking around.

“What’s going on?”

“Was she there, too?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

Charlie almost put his hand on her shoulder. “Starrla.

You said—”

She narrowed her eyes. “Did you have table sex, or is she

too afraid to get dirty?”

Ah, shit. His hand fell to his side. Starrla hated Wren.

Starrla didn’t know Wren, but she hated her. And, yes,

Charlie and
Starrla
had had table sex—or a table fuck; with Starrla it was always “fucking”—in Chris’s shop one Saturday afternoon long, long ago. Starrla had been on top.

Charlie had gotten a splinter.

Starrla swiped at her eyes, which were smeared with

circles of mascara. She gestured into her mom’s apart-

ment. “Well, come in if you’re going to.”

He did, because he didn’t know how not to. Starrla’s

mom was a waitress, and she didn’t have time to clean,

cook, go grocery shopping, or take care of her eighteen-

year-old daughter. “I wish you were never born,” Starrla’s

mom had said to Starrla in front of Charlie, to which Star-

rla had replied, “You and me both, bitch.”

Starrla dropped down onto the ratty sofa in the TV

room. The cushions had lost their plumpness long ago, so

Starrla had shoved towels inside the lining to make them

hold their shape. Charlie sat down beside her. They’d had

sex on this sofa, too. More than once.

“So have you?” Starrla said in a surly tone.

“Have I what?” Charlie said.

“Banged her yet. Your pretty, perfect girlfriend.”

Hopelessness stabbed Charlie deep in his gut. Starrla

wasn’t allowed to talk about Wren like that, and she knew

it, just as she knew Charlie wouldn’t dignify her question

with a response. But Charlie couldn’t help feeling bad for

Starrla.

And he was here, dammit. If someone was in pain, and

he could possibly help, he had no choice but to try. Even if

it was Starrla. Even if, again and again, he told himself he

was done.

At the same time, being here with Starrla made him

miss Wren. Wren had taught Charlie what love was, what

love truly was. It was nothing like the twisted back-and-

forth of need Charlie had shared with Starrla.

Also, Wren wanted to have sex with him. “Make love”