The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

Rita sighed softly and shifted her chair away from the table. “I’ll go speak to her.”

“Why don’t you three stay and talk?” Miles suggested quietly. “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

“Oh but—” Rita began to protest, and Miles offered the clearly torn woman, a sympathetic smile.

“It’s fine. You stay. Charity, is that alright with you?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He squeezed her shoulders and dropped a quick kiss on her head, appearances be damned. And then went in search of Faith.

He found her outside, leaning against the wall of the building, and struggling to light a cigarette. Her hands were shaking too badly, and the matches kept flickering out in the breeze.

“Allow me,” he offered. He removed the restaurant matchbook from her shaky grasp and expertly lit the cigarette, cupping his free hand around the flame to protect it from the wind.

“Thanks,” she said, after a long drag. She exhaled, turning her head to direct the stream of smoke away from them. But Miles still caught the fragrant hint of tobacco floating back on the breeze. “I bummed it off one of the waiters. I haven’t touched one of these fucking things since before Gracie was born.”

She furiously wiped her damp cheeks with the heel of her hand and huddled against the wall, seeking shelter from the cold wind. She had left her coat inside, and Miles shrugged out of his jacket to slide it over her shoulders.

“I wish he were still alive, so that I could slice off his balls and force feed them to him down a tube.”

Miles sighed and plucked the cigarette from her fingers to take a drag as well, before handing it back. He had quit smoking ten years ago, and it wasn’t a habit he was ever tempted to resume. But he figured he’d step off the wagon with her for a brief moment of solidarity.

He held the nicotine in his lungs for a beat, but the burn reminded him that this was not the best treatment of his newly healed lungs and he exhaled on a cough.

“I said something similar when she first told me. But I think we’d have to get in line behind Charity. She’s strong, feisty and while I didn’t know her before this happened to her…I can tell you that I’m in awe of the woman she is now.”

“We should have known. Should have seen. She was so quiet. So fucking perfect all the time. And that wasn’t my sister. My sister was loud and messy and crazy and boisterous.”

“Don’t,” he muttered grimly. “Don’t do this to yourself. To her. Self-recriminations won’t help anyone right now. She may not quite be the same loud, messy, crazy woman you knew before. But she’s your sister and she loves you all so much. She needs you to accept the woman she is now. Needs you to move forward with her.”

“Who are you?” Faith asked, but the question wasn’t hostile or angry. It was genuinely curious. “You show up here, Charity’s boss, and yet clearly on intimate terms with her. How does that even work? How do we know you’re not taking advantage of her?”

It was a fair question, and Miles shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, starting to feel the cold now.

“I get that, after what you’ve just learned about her marriage, it may be easy to assume that I’m just another arsehole taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. A woman with a history of being manipulated by arseholes. But in making that assumption, you’re underestimating your sister and the woman she is now. I love her.” It staggered him how easily those words drifted out of his mouth. They lingered on the breeze and—much like the nicotine in the drifting smoke—Miles loved the buzz they gave him. “And I’m here to offer her any emotional support she needs.”

“She can get that from us now.”

“I know.” He kept his tone conciliatory. Wanting her to understand that he wasn’t here to tread on toes or run interference between Charity and her family. “Charity and I are very aware that our relationship will end after I leave. We’ll both go home to our families and our lives will continue on without each other. And we’ll be the better for having had this beautiful thing between us.”

“I’m so angry with her,” Faith unexpectedly admitted, from between clenched teeth, taking another drag before tossing the cigarette to the ground and crushing it beneath her heel. “And I feel like I can’t tell her that because she’s already been through so much.”

“You’re her older sister. I reckon you’re entitled to speak your mind.”

“How can I?”

“Trust me, Charity is not a fragile flower. Fuck…despite everything she survived with that bastard—no, likely because of it—she’s one of the strongest people I know.”

“I feel like I don’t even know her anymore. Three years she was in that marriage, and then another three years after that, hiding out there in the middle of nowhere. And she never told us. We never had an inkling. Meanwhile we ate with those horrid people, cried with them, laughed with them. We fucking loved them and they broke our girl.”

She covered her face with her hands, sobs shuddering through her slender frame and Miles, after a brief hesitation, enfolded her in his arms. She was similar in height to Charity, but softer, rounder.

He preferred Charity’s leaner, sleekly muscled body. A fact which constantly surprised him, since he had always enjoyed soft, rounded curves before.

“They didn’t break her. She’s in that restaurant, fiercely unbroken, and ready to share her war stories with you. It may have taken longer than you feel it should have…but it’s happening right now. And I think you should be in there. To hear what she has to say.”

“God.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. “Your family must find you insufferable. You’re such a fucking know it all.”