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“Shall I get you another vanilla latte?” Mike asked, nodding at Charlotte’s empty mug.
“Actually, I think I’ll have a regular coffee now, thank you.” She smiled at him. “Be quick so I can return to kicking your ass.”
Mike suspected she’d do exactly that.
He chuckled as he got up from their cozy booth and went to the front of the boardgame café. It was called Checkers, and Charlotte had told him she’d wanted to go here for a while.
They’d started with Connect Four, mainly for nostalgic reasons. They’d played it quite a bit when they were kids. Specifically, the summer after grade three, they’d played it nearly every time he visited her. They’d kept a tally of all their games: she’d won a hundred and twenty-seven, and he’d won sixty-two.
He still remembered the exact numbers; he remembered a lot of things that had to do with Charlotte.
As adults, so far he’d won one game of Connect Four, and she’d won five.
They were now playing Innovation. One of the game experts at the café had explained the rules, then showed them the best YouTube video to watch. At first, Mike had thought he and Charlotte were doing about equally, but now she kept repeating a particularly evil dogma that had nearly depleted his score pile, and she was one achievement away from winning.
Ah, well.
Charlotte had always been more competitive than he was.
He got his decaf latte and her coffee and headed back to their booth. He was feeling rather jittery today, so the last thing he needed was more caffeine, and he enjoyed the look of horror on Charlotte’s face when he got something decaf.
“Here you go.” He set her mug to her right, away from the cards. “One decaf coffee.”
The look she gave him could probably kill little bunny rabbits.
Still, he thought her outraged expression was kind of cute.
“Of course it has caffeine,” he said. “I don’t have a death wish. Mine is decaf, however.”
“Mike Guo, I’m disappointed in you.” But her tone suggested she found him rather adorable, too.
He smiled before they resumed their game, but he continued to feel jittery and uneasy.
Back in the day, he’d always felt on edge, ready for the next disparaging comment or cruel action from his parents. That had simply been life, the inner turmoil he’d hidden with a smile.
But he wasn’t accustomed to feeling like this anymore.
“Come on, pay up,” Charlotte said. “Another card from your score pile.”
He sighed and handed over the last card in his score pile. “You’re gonna have to find something else to do now.”
“You mean like winning?” When he didn’t laugh, she leaned forward. “Is everything okay? Am I too competitive? I can tone it down.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really.”
“What is it?”
“I saw my father’s doppelgänger in the subway yesterday.” It sounded even more ridiculous now. “It reminded me of a whole bunch of shit. Like the time he said I could get a dog—this was after we moved to Etobicoke—and he took me to a shelter to pick one. I promised to do all the work, and I chose a dog named Wilbur.”
“Like the pig in Charlotte’s Web.”
“Yeah, that’s what I immediately thought of, too. I was all excited about bringing this dog home, and then my dad laughed and said it had all been a joke, did I seriously think he would ever let me get a dog?”
“Mike! What a shitty thing to do.”
Charlotte came to sit on his side of the booth as it all flooded back to him. That story and so many others. But her hand on his shoulder...it did help.
“Would you want a dog now?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “Though I’m gone all day for work—”
“You know who’s home all day, though? Me.”
“Are you suggesting we move in together?”
She looked a little startled. “Right. We shouldn’t move in together now, of course, but it’s a possibility for the future. I’d like to have a dog, too.” She returned to her side of the booth and picked up her cards. “My turn, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Your turn.”
* * *
It was a very, very hot August afternoon. By the time they got back to Charlotte’s place, they were both sweating profusely after the short walk from the subway station.
It didn’t surprise Mike that Charlotte had won their first game of Innovation, but he’d managed to sneak out a surprise victory in their second game.
They were arguing about strategy when they stepped into her apartment. It was slightly cooler than outside, but not much; however, she immediately turned on the air conditioner and a large fan, and it wasn’t too bad.
“I got something for you,” she said. “Sit at the table and I’ll bring it to you.”
A minute later, she set a cold bottle in front of him. He looked at the label, expecting beer or cider, but it was something else. “Root beer?”
“Why not?” she said. “You like root beer. Or, at least, you used to.”
“I haven’t had root beer in a long time.”
“Well, I hope this is good. It’s some kind of artisanal root beer. It probably still tastes like toothpaste, though.” Charlotte had never liked root beer.
“You know what I haven’t had in a really long time?” he said. “A root beer float.”
“I expected this, you know.”
She returned a moment later with a box of Chapman’s vanilla ice cream, as well as two pint glasses.
She’d said “I love you” when he let her have the rest of the coffee the other day, but now he was tempted to say the same words to her. Just because she’d gotten him root beer and vanilla ice cream on a hot summer’s day. He wasn’t used to people doing thoughtful things for him.
Because I don’t deserve it.
He squashed that thought. There was no reason he didn’t deserve a root beer float right now. He didn’t need to be a paragon of virtue to deserve such a thing, and he definitely didn’t deserve to be treated like crap.
Yeah, he was going to enjoy the shit out of this float.
He grabbed Charlotte’s hand and kissed her on the lips. He would have kissed her for hours, but the ice cream would melt.
Later. He’d kiss her more later.
“You got two glasses.” He gestured toward them. “Are you having a root beer float, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I got the good stuff for me.”
She returned to the kitchen and came back with a small bottle of Dr. Pepper, an ice cream scoop, and two long spoons.
“That’s the good stuff?” He took a quick look at the label on his root beer. “Is that handcrafted with natural spring water? Does it have a sepia-toned photo of an old white dude with a beard? Nah, I didn’t think so.”
She didn’t deign to reply, but her lips twitched.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “Come here and have your sub-standard float with me.”
This time, she rolled her eyes as she sat down.
She added a generous scoop of ice cream to each of their glasses, then slowly poured Dr. Pepper into hers as he poured root beer into his.
So foamy and delicious. The perfect treat for a hot day.
It reminded him of going next door to Charlotte’s house in the summer. Occasionally, her mother would let them have freezies or ice cream. Sometimes floats.
He couldn’t stop grinning.
* * *
As Charlotte stood at the front of the church, her childhood dream seemed closer than ever before.
Amy and Victor hadn’t cared where their wedding was held, but their parents had wanted them to get married in a church, so here they were.
Charlotte had walked down the aisle a minute ago, in a blue dress and the tiniest of heels. Amy was making her entrance now, on her father’s arm, and Charlotte was happy for her friend, who’d somehow managed to move to Toronto, find love, and get married, all in just over a year.
At the last wedding Charlotte had attended, she’d been rather sad, feeling like it was an impossible dream for her.
It didn’t feel that way now.
She could imagine herself walking down the aisle in a wedding dress. Just as she’d imagined when she was a child.
She’d always found it weird that she wanted a wedding, given she didn’t particularly like being the center of attention. But she’d have a small wedding, and no dances that everyone watched—God, no. No vows that she’d written herself.
But she’d have Mike.
Yes, the groom was clear in her mind now. It would be him.
She glanced at Mike, sitting in one of the pews near the back, and smiled.
After the ceremony, she met up with him outside the church. He was wearing a gray suit today and a pale pink tie, and he looked impossibly handsome. She couldn’t help tilting her head up to kiss him.
“Your lipstick,” he murmured.
“Whatever. I’ll fix it later.”
It was just a quick kiss on the lips, but she was still amazed by how much a quick kiss with him could make her feel.
“You’ve turned me into such a sap,” she muttered.
“I’ve turned you into a sap? I think—”
“Don’t tell me it could possibly be the other way. This is me, after all.”
“You got me handcrafted root beer made with natural spring water.”
“Oh, right. How could I forget, the fucking natural spring water and the old dude on the label? How romantic.”
“I found it romantic,” he said quietly.
The fabric of her dress felt even more uncomfortable now.
“I can’t wait to get out of this dress,” she said. “Purely for non-sexual reasons, of course.”
He laughed as he caught her hand in his. “Sure, sure.”
“Alright, you lovebirds,” Sierra said. “Time for pictures.”
Amy and Victor’s close family, as well as the wedding party, were going to Edwards Gardens for pictures. Mike came with them, since he had nothing else to do, and after the pictures with the bridesmaids were finished, they walked around the gardens together.
He’d probably be alarmed if he knew she was thinking about their wedding.
Dinner was at a Chinese banquet hall in North York, and fortunately, there was no head table for the bridal party. Amy and Victor sat at a table with their parents, and Charlotte sat with her other friends, Mike by her side.
It was the first time he’d properly met her friends, and while she likely would have done a piss-poor job if their roles were reversed, he seemed at ease.
“Tell us what Charlotte was like as a child,” Nicole said.
“Oh, she was very sweet and made flower crowns out of dandelions,” Mike said with a smile.
Nicole snorted.
“Nah,” he said, “though she did do some intricate drawings of butterflies. We used to draw a lot together. And play boardgames, which she usually won.”
Mike teased Charlotte with such fondness, stroking her bare arm as he did so.
And sometime between the first two courses—roast suckling pig and deep-fried crab claws—he tilted his head to look at her...and she felt an embarrassing whoosh in her stomach and realized she loved him.
Those feelings only intensified with the scallops, then the bird’s nest soup. She was pretty sure the aphrodisiac properties of bird’s nest were bullshit, but still.
She’d only been in love once before, and in retrospect, it had been foolish of her to love Brad when he’d never understood and fully accepted who she was. Everything she’d felt for him had disappeared when he’d made her worst nightmare come true.
But this time, she knew it was different. Knew Mike wouldn’t do something stupid that would make it all go away. Knew he cared for the person she truly was, and she cared for him in the same way.
The multi-course Chinese banquet took a long time, and it was late by the time the dancing started. Amy and Victor had their first dance together, and as soon as that was over, “Wannabe” started playing. Charlotte rolled her eyes at the Spice Girls song, which she was sure Amy had asked the DJ to play.
Her friends jumped up to dance with the bride, and Mike danced with them, too. Jumping around and moving his hips and making her laugh. He held out his hands and beckoned her toward him, but when she shook her head and stayed seated, he didn’t try to drag her up.
Watching him dance was better than actually dancing.
A little later, there was a slow song, and he came back to her and held out a hand, and she was so full of love that she actually stood up to dance. She didn’t recognize the song, but she was barely aware of it anyway. He didn’t try any fancy moves, just put his hands on her waist as she put hers around his neck and they swayed together.
“You good?” he murmured, pushing back a lock of hair that had escaped her updo.
“Yes, except my feet are killing me. I’m not used to wearing shoes like this. I know the heel is small, but—”
He wrapped his arms securely around her and lifted her up so her toes were an inch off the ground. She laughed.
“Better?” he asked.
She nearly said it to him, and not about coffee this time. I love you.
But it was too soon, wasn’t it? She’d keep it to herself.
For now.
* * *
Mike had been to many weddings over the years, but never with a date.
Today, he was at a wedding of people he’d never met before, but he’d come with Charlotte, and it was great. And overwhelming.
He kept thinking about their wedding.
At first, it was the little details. Like, would they have bird’s nest soup?
They wouldn’t have shark’s fin soup, of course—that practice was horrible. Bird’s nest soup was a common alternative, but it was expensive, and it didn’t seem like good financial sense to spend lots of money on a soup made of hardened bird saliva, especially when he’d never been overly impressed by it. There were probably issues with harvesting those nests, too.
He’d asked Charlotte what she thought of bird’s nest soup, and she shrugged and said it was okay, and he filed that away in his mental cabinet of everything he knew about her.
He also found himself wondering if she’d want a first dance together. Probably not.
That was fine.
On one hand, thinking of marrying Charlotte was the easiest thing in the world.
On the other hand...
How could he do this?
Victor had lots of family here, but Mike wouldn’t have much family. Just his sister and Bailey, and maybe his aunt, uncle, and two cousins.
Shame washed over him. There would be only one set of parents at the wedding, but it wasn’t his fault. It was his parents’ fault for being terrible people, and he had no intention of being part of their lives again.
For one, he would never want to subject Charlotte to them.
This woman, whom he’d wanted when he was a gangly boy...as he held her in his arms, he couldn’t help thinking she was too good for him, as he’d thought all those years ago.
In some ways, it was damn hard to imagine marrying her.
Because it seemed too amazing to be true.