The Best Next Thing

“You sure you’re safe alone for a bit?” Stuart asked. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“George will be here shortly. I’ll lock up after you leave, and nobody can gain access to the center without being buzzed in. And even if, despite the security measures, some bad guy still manages to get in here, rest assured I can kick his butt.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, we know what a badass you are.” He directed his next comment at his visibly drooping wife. “Come on, love. She’s fine. Let’s get our kid and go to bed.”

Faith didn’t protest. And after they exchanged a few hugs, with Faith exacting a promise from Charity to call after she got home, they left. Charity made a huge show of locking up behind them, and they waved at her through the glass door before wandering out of the center, hand in hand.

Finally, alone with her thoughts for the first time in hours, Charity slumped down onto the comfortable waiting room sofa and buried her face in her hands for a moment.

She was happy. She was. Sink or swim, this practice was everything she had ever dreamed of, and she was proud of getting this far.

Her evening, surrounded by friends and family, had shown her that she was not alone, that people loved her.

So why was she so damned melancholy?

Something was missing, and it didn’t take genius to figure out what.

She sighed despondently and dragged out her phone for the first time since her earlier conversation with Faith.

No new messages, no missed calls, not even any junk mail.

“Where are you?”

The door buzzer to the center’s front door sounded, the sound strident and unexpected in the eerie silence of the building, and Charity jumped nearly all the way out of her skin. Reception was equipped with an intercom but not a screen to display street view camera images. It was an additional security measure which she was scheduled to receive early on in the new year, when the installation company reopened for business.

She depressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

“It’s me.” George’s jolly voice drifted through the speaker. Charity smiled and buzzed him in. She hastily unlocked the front door before turning away to gather her purse and one of the three platters of leftover food. If the canapés remained unrefrigerated overnight, they would go bad. Frankly, she was shocked there was any food left, it was so good. But Libby had provided generous portions.

The door opened behind her.

“George, would you mind grabbing these two trays? I can’t believe Libby made so much food. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the rest of it. Feel free to take a tray home to snack on. I know you liked the—” She turned to face the driver, and the rest of what she had been about to say died in her throat.

“You’re not George,” she uttered blankly. Not sure if exhaustion was playing tricks on her eyes. Maybe she was hallucinating. Seeing what she so dearly wanted to see. Why else would Miles Henry Hollingsworth be standing in the middle of her reception area?

“I’m not George,” he confirmed gravely. He looked tired. No, more than that; bone weary. Pale, untidy, and a little haggard.

And so utterly gorgeous it hurt her to look at him.

“You’re here. How? Why?” She couldn’t quite organize her thoughts. She wasn’t even sure if she was speaking to an actual person right now or a fabrication created by her exhausted mind.

“I’m here. I think how is fairly self-evident. It’s the why that’s tricky.”

“Why would you think it’s self-evident?” she asked, her voice teeming with resentment.

“Fine. If you need the boring details…” He shook his head in exasperation. “Car, plane, car. Can we get back to the why now?”

“Why did you stop messaging me?” Her words held a festering undertone of resentment.

“Turns out, even a semi-retired chairman of the board can’t just up and leave his company twice in one year for extended ‘personal reasons’.” He used air quotes on those two words. “I had urgent business to take care of before I could free up the time to come here. Besides, I didn’t think our text messages were filled to the brim with urgent, unmissable content.”

Ouch.

She plucked at the hem of her blouse and twisted her mouth as she stared at him for a long silent moment.

“The cat memes were funny,” she offered timidly, and his lips twitched.

“Not much you can say about a cat meme. They don’t exactly open up avenues of conversation, and I wanted to talk with you.”

“We were talking.” Okay, that came out sounding defensive. Perhaps because it confirmed everything Faith had said earlier.

“We were not talking. We were doing some strange dance, and I didn’t know half of the steps.”

She stared at him wonderingly, still not entirely sure he was real.

“Charity! Are you listening to me?” Aah, that impatient tone was unmistakably Miles.