Page 89 of Sex Positive
“Charlie!” Emilia throws her arms around her. A black beanie covers her blonde hair, which is draped over one shoulder in an elegant fishtail braid. “Come in! Wes didn’t say we were expecting you.”
Before she can respond, Emilia pulls her inside, and with a start, she sees that Wes’s sister is not the only unexpected presence in the room.
“Oh, hello!” Rebecca stands from where she perches on one of the kitchen barstools, greeting Charlie with a peck on her cheek. “What a pleasant surprise!”
Charlie forces a smile, scanning the room. Gabriel, dressed in a gray suit, sits on the couch watching a basketball game on the TV, nursing a tumbler of amber liquid. Wes stands in the doorway of his bedroom, a devastatingly well-cut black sweater stretched across his torso. Charlie registers a moment of surprise on his face before he rearranges his features, giving a polite nod and averting his gaze.
Her stomach twists as she returns her attention to his mother. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Quinn.”
“Please, dear, call me Rebecca.”
“I don’t mean to intrude. I probably should have texted first.” Placing her bag on the counter, she rifles through it and pulls out the book. “I found this in my apartment and wanted to drop it off for Wes.” His gaze snaps to it when she sets it on the counter. “You must have forgotten it after our last tutoring session,” she adds.
Wes’s eyes widen, and only at the last second does she realize her slip.
From his spot on the couch, Gabriel looks at her for the first time since she arrived. “Tutoring?You’retutoring Wes?”
The disbelief in his voice is a little offensive, but she nods. “Yes.”
His brows rise. She looks at Wes, hoping he can provide some kind of guidance on how to navigate this situation, but he simply regards her with an unreadable expression before crossing the room and tugging his peacoat off the hook on the back of the door.
“We should head out or we’ll be late,” he says.
Rebecca squeezes her forearm. “Charlie, you should join us.”
“For what?”
“Wes’s birthday dinner,” Emilia says, pulling on her own black peacoat.
Charlie stares at him. “It’s your birthday?”
Wes shrugs, focusing on buttoning his coat. “It’s not a big deal.”
With a start, she realizes she did know his birthday. She packed the information away in the back of her mind months ago when he visited the clinic for testing. Yet she forgot, too preoccupied with navigating all the items on her to-do list and trying to remain aloof and distanced and separated from her insuppressible feelings.
“Wes has a thing about birthdays,” Rebecca adds with a fond smile at her son. She pulls on her black heeled boots. “Doesn’t like the attention.”
He leans against the wall, appearing more like a put-out child than a twenty-two-year-old man. “They’re not a big deal to me.”
“You should come to dinner so he’ll be in a better mood.” Emilia winks.
“Emilia.” Wes glares at his sister. “I’m sure Rogers has much better things to do than sit through dinner with our family after a long day.”
A tense pause follows this declaration, during which Wes glances at Charlie before directing his irritation at the ceiling as if it has personally wronged him. Emilia shifts her gaze back and forth between the two of them with too much curiosity, while a smug smile plays on her lips.
A hand rests on her shoulder, and she jumps.
“We’d love to have you,” Rebecca says.
“I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.” She gestures to her white sneakers, leggings, and gray Archwood hoodie.
“Oh, come now. You’re beautiful, as always.” Emilia grins gleefully. “Right, Wesley?”
Wes’s expression turns murderous.
Charlie’s pulse ratchets skyward, feeling like she’s suddenly been thrust under a microscope. Rebecca and Emilia beam, Gabriel eyes her curiously, and Wes seems miserable.
She looks at him, and he finally looks back at her. Something passes between them as if they can each hear what the other is thinking.
