“I already read you two,” I tell her, ruffling her curls gently. “It’s past your bedtime.”
“One,” she says, and holds up one finger as if she was unclear. “Please?”
“Sorry, kiddo,” I say. “You’ll have to wait for tomorrow night to see if Ophelia gets hired.”
She sighs dramatically, but accepts this and scootches down into her bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin. These sheets are jungle themed, and she’s wearing robot pajamas. Seems like the robots might rust in the jungle, but these are the sorts of questions you don’t ask a seven-year-old before bed.
“Night, chickpea,” I say, leaning over and kissing the top of her head.
“Night, Dad,” she says, already sounding half-asleep.
I head out, flipping the light switch by the door. Her light goes off and the stars on the ceiling start glowing as I close the door gently. Thankfully, Rusty’s always been a pretty good sleeper — every now and then she’ll make an appearance an hour after her bedtime requesting water or something, but overall once she’s down, she’s down for the night.
I stand at the top of the stairs. Laughter floats up, and I close my eyes, rubbing my temples with both hands.
The laughter is the reason that Rusty got two chapters tonight instead of the usual one: both of my older brothers showed up, unannounced, along with Eli’s girlfriend, Violet. I managed to get them not to say anything in front of Rusty, but the second I go downstairs, they’re going to have a lot of questions and I don’t really have any answers.
At least my mom is at the telescope tonight, so I don’t also have to deal with her questions.
I can’t even be mad at Charlie for refusing to do this. She’s right. It’s completely insane to pretend we’re engaged to everyone we know, it would never work, and when we got found out it would only make everything worse than if I just stopped this farce right now.
There’s more laughter. I wonder, briefly, if I could somehow escape out of my bedroom window and just sit outside in the flower bed until they leave, though I’m sure that sooner or later, they’ll search for me.
Since I have no other real option, I go downstairs. The three of them are on two couches, Eli sitting with his arm around Violet, Levi across from them, one ankle perched on a knee.
“There’s the man of the hour,” he says, watching me descend the last few steps.
Eli and Violet both turn.
“Shit, I wasn’t ready,” Violet says, and pops up, darting into the kitchen.
I take a deep breath and shove my hands into my pockets.
“Congratulations,” Eli says smoothly.
“Indeed,” adds in Levi.
I glance after Violet, who’s got the fridge open.
“What’s she doing?” I ask, jerking a thumb in Violet’s direction.
“She brought a bottle of champagne,” Eli says, levelly. “So that we can celebrate your engagement to Charlie in style. Since you’re engaged. To Charlie.”
I glance from Eli to Levi and back.
Neither looks remotely convinced.
Time to start the damage control, I guess.
“There was a misunderstanding,” I say.
Expectant silence from the brothers. I steel myself and forge ahead with the bad excuse I made up, even though I can feel a light sweat breaking out on my palms.
At least I’m getting my toughest audience over with first, I think.
“Was there?” Levi prompts.
“I said that Charlie was an important female role model in Rusty’s life,” I go on. “I guess that someone in the room misinterpreted that as Charlie and me being—”
“Ta-da!” Violet says, coming back into the room. In one hand she’s got a bottle of champagne, and in the other, she’s got four wine glasses.
“I couldn’t find the champagne glasses,” she says.
“I doubt that there are any,” Levi says. “We’re rarely champagne people.”
“Daniel was just explaining that he and Charlie aren’t actually engaged, it’s all just a big misunderstanding because she’s a role model for Rusty,” Eli says, getting off the couch.
“It was very believable,” adds Levi.
Eli takes the wine glasses from Violet, sets them on a side table, and holds out a hand for the champagne.
“No,” I say, shoving one hand through my hair, looking at the champagne. “We’re not engaged, nothing happened, save the champagne for something real. It’s all a big misunderstanding. Charlie and I aren’t together, we’ve never been together, we’re not going to be together —"
Levi makes a noise that I don’t appreciate.
“What,” I say, starting to get annoyed.
“I didn’t say anything,” Levi goes on, in that we both know perfectly well what that noise meant and I’m not going to say it out loud tone that older siblings always seem to have.
“We are not. Together,” I say, punctuating it so that maybe he can understand me a little better. “There was a misunderstanding, and—”
There’s a loud bang, and I jump. Violet’s holding the uncorked champagne, wispy fog streaming from the top of the bottle.