YOU’D THINK that Charlie had won an Olympic medal.
Rusty can’t stop shouting. Hank Rogers pulls Charlie up to a podium — an honest-to-god winner’s podium — and presents her with a golden duck statue. There’s a medal. The mayor shakes her hand. Hank shakes her hand. She has to hold up the winning duck for a photo for the newspaper. The owner of La Dolce Vita gives a quick speech relating duck races to Italian food, and then he presents her with a $200 gift certificate to his restaurant.
Naturally, during all this, my brothers appear.
“She should use her platform to call for the end of the duck regatta,” Levi says as they walk up.
“Congrats on your fiancée,” Seth tells me, ignoring Levi. “She need a date to the restaurant?”
I shoot him a glare. He grins, because he’s an asshole sometimes.
“Instead of complaining about the ducks, you could go on the duck hunt tomorrow morning,” Caleb says to Levi.
The duck hunt is for stray rubber ducks, not actual ducks, but Levi harrumphs anyway.
“I’m going,” cajoles Caleb. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Come on, Levi,” says Eli, who of course is also there, just because. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
“Money’s filthy,” Levi says.
“It’s just an expression,” says Caleb.
“He knows that, he’s just being difficult,” says Eli.
“You’re one to talk,” mutters Levi.
“I heard June is going,” I say.
I didn’t hear that. I just want to see what Levi does, because I’m enjoying not having all the attention on me.
Levi arranges his face. I swear I can see his features moving one by one, until they’re all in the most neutral possible position, like he’s studied it.
“Oh?” he says, staring off into the middle distance.
“Who’s June?” asks Caleb.
“Silas’s little sister,” I say. “She was in my class in high school.”
“I remember her,” volunteers Seth. “She was cute. She single?”
Levi acts as if he’s turned to stone. Thank God for Rusty, who comes charging back, still breathless with excitement over Charlie’s win.
“DAD,” she shouts. “THEY WANT A PICTURE WITH YOU.”
“You don’t need to scream,” I tell her, but she’s already grabbed my hand and is dragging me toward the podium.
“I got him!” she shouts, depositing me next to Charlie
“Thank you,” says the photographer. “Very helpful.”
She’s middle-aged, a streak of gray in her pulled-back brown hair, and amused at Rusty’s antics in a no-nonsense sort of way. I should probably know her name, but I can’t think of it. My mom probably knows. Seth probably knows. They’re both good at stuff like that.
“All right, smile and hold up the duck, please,” she says, lifting the camera to her face again. “Turn? Chin up. Duck lower. Get closer.”
I’ve never liked having my picture taken — it makes me feel like an ant under a magnifying glass, in danger of getting burned — but I smile and turn my face and hold my arm around Charlie’s waist anyway as she holds up her winning duck.
That part, at least, is pretty nice.
After the first set, Rusty gets in the picture. Charlie lets her hold the duck. Rusty’s inability to stand still makes this set take twice as long, but finally, the photographer lowers her camera.
“All right,” she says. “If you don’t mind, can I also get a few for the engagement announcement?”
“There’s an engagement announcement?” Charlie asks, her back muscles tightening under my arm.
“Of course,” the photographer says. “You’re engaged, aren’t you?”
“Did you send that in?” Charlie asks me.
“Seriously?” I ask, and Charlie laughs.
“It was probably my mom,” she says. “Knowing her, it’ll be on the front page tomorrow.”
“All right put down the duck and get closer,” the photographer says. “This is gonna be a tighter shot so it’s not too obvious that you’re both wearing the same clothes in the regatta picture and the engagement picture.”
We both press in. My right side is against her left, and even though there are thirty things going on at once — the photographer instructing us, my brothers in the crowd talking amongst themselves, Charlie’s arm around my back, Rusty tossing the winning duck up and down in the air — it still sends a sizzle through me, an instant hit of longing, of nerves, of the wish that none of these other things were happening right now.
The shutter clicks a few times, and then she frowns. Rusty drops the duck and it bounces between the photographer and us. Just as I’m about to ask her to stop, Eli materializes to one side.
“Rusty,” he says. “Want to pet a goat?”
“A goat?!” she yells, excitedly, the duck already half-forgotten. Eli takes her hand, flashes me a thumbs-up, and heads off. I take a deep breath.
“You two switch,” the photographer orders, looking down at the camera, then frowning up at the sky. “I want to get the ring in the shot.”
There’s more direction, and Charlie and I probably look like robots trying to act like they’re filled with human emotion, because having your picture taken is hard and having your picture taken while you’re trying to look blissfully in love with your best friend who’s pretending to be your fiancée is harder.
Finally, we’re face to face, arms around each other, her left hand perched just-so on my shoulder as I gaze down at her and she gazes up at me. We’re so close that her irises don’t look hazel anymore, but like a kaleidoscope of green and brown and gold around her pupil, and I feel a little like I’m falling in.
The shutter clicks.
“Smile,” the photographer says.
We smile.
“Not like that,” she says.
I smile… less? Charlie’s trying her best not to laugh, her eyes dancing beneath black lashes, her freckles twitching with the effort of holding it back.
“Closer,” the photographer orders.
We pull closer, the heat of the warm day combining with our body heat, my fingers on her back aimlessly playing with the bow I tied earlier today.
“Don’t undo my dress,” Charlie murmurs to me. “Inappropriate, Daniel.”
Her eyes are still laughing.
Her bra and panties match, I think, then banish that thought as thoroughly as I can.
“The bow’s decorative,” I point out.
“Doesn’t mean you should undo it,” she says.
I tug on it the tiniest bit and think about everything and anything besides undressing Charlie.
“Dammit,” she hisses, and pokes me in the ribs.
“Please don’t move,” the photographer says, clicking away.
I tug again, just hard enough that Charlie can feel me doing it.
“Yeah, Charlie, don’t move,” I tease, keeping my voice low so the photographer can’t hear me.
“If it comes out and she has to re-pose us, it’ll be your fault,” she says.
“Accidents happen,” I say, and give another tiny tug. Charlie’s freckles collide as she tries not to laugh, and the photographer lowers her camera, flipping through her photos.
“All right, these’ll do, almost done,” she says then lifts it back to her face. “Just a few of you kissing and we’re good.”
There’s a sudden shift in everything: the air, the light, the timbre of the background noise, the way Charlie’s standing.
The camera clicks. There are fifty sets of eyes on me, on us.
Suddenly I have no idea how to kiss.
I lower my face toward hers anyway. Charlie’s on her tiptoes, eyes wide and slightly alarmed, and the last thing I think is we should have practiced this.
Then our noses collide.
“Ow,” Charlie whispers, and I tilt my head to one side and now our mouths are half-together, hers partially in my beard, mine a little on her cheek. I move again but so does she and now we’ve got the opposite problem and somehow her mouth is slightly open, my lip against her teeth, the photographer clicking away.
“All right,” she says. “Tilt the other way?”
We do. Our noses mash. We recover a little, manage to get our mouths together, but then the photographer is telling Charlie to close her eyes and telling me to lean in and the shutter is just clicking away.
I open my hand against her back. I force myself to ignore everything except Charlie.
Suddenly, there it is: the spark, the fire, the reason I’ve been thinking about this since we kissed in the driveway on Wednesday. Charlie relaxes too, moves closer, her mouth suddenly soft and warm and—
“Okay, that’ll do,” the photographer says, and we both pull away. “I think I got something useable.”
Useable. Great. High praise for my modeling abilities.
“Thanks,” Charlie says. I take her hand in mine again. “When’s it running?”
The photographer slips her camera into its bag and slings it around herself carefully.
“The regatta’s running tomorrow,” she says. “The announcement, probably Monday, unless they decide to do a story.”
“A story?” Charlie echoes, and the photographer just nods.
“That’s up to the section editor, though,” she says, and checks her watch. “Congrats on the win and the engagement!”
Then she’s gone, before we can ask any more questions like what kind of story or why is this a story at all?
“Okay,” Charlie says, mostly to me, after she’s gone. “Sure. A story.”
“There’s no way they’re going to do a story,” I tell her, trying to sound reassuring. “A story about what?”
“Are there any abandoned buildings we could burn down?” she asks.
I raise one eyebrow at her and wait.
“So the paper runs that and not a fluff piece about us,” Charlie explains.
I still don’t say anything.
“I did specify abandoned,” she says, a little defensively.
“True,” I drawl.
“Sometimes you need to be creative,” she says, sighs, and leans her head against my shoulder again. “Should we go find Rusty?”
“Probably,” I say, but I don’t move.
This is all turning out to be infinitely more complicated than I thought it would be — I thought Charlie would wear a ring to a hearing, and now here we are, kissing awkwardly for photographers and hoping that the newspaper doesn’t run a story about us.
But I don’t hate it. I don’t like lying to people and I don’t like the spotlight, but moments like this — Charlie’s hand in mine, her head against my shoulder, the two of us sharing a secret — make it almost fun.
We should probably practice kissing, though, I think. My heartbeat picks up for a split second.
“All right, what do we think Eli did with my kid?” I ask.
“Probably juggling knives,” Charlie says, and I sigh, scanning the crowd. Caleb, Levi, and Seth are still standing where I left them.
Caleb and Levi are talking about something, but Seth is just watching Charlie and me, looking contemplative.
I don’t like it.
“All right let’s go rescue him,” I say, and we walk off to find Rusty.
