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“Shit, I’m sorry, Char,” Ted sighed, tightening the grip on his phone. Her silence from the other side encouraged him to make a desperate attempt at regaining his dignity. “I could have sworn I made those reservations, I could call-”
“No, don’t.” Her voice was frail and thin. Just hearing it sound that way made Ted’s chest tighten.
The two of them were already on a slippery slope; Sam had been around more than usual lately - most likely dumped by his latest fling - and his presence alone always put Charlotte on edge. It seemed the more she was around him, the more the scumbag convinced her that they were happy together.
Ted wished more than anything that she would realize, someday, that a man who has to convince you of your own happiness is a man who has none of his own.
“I-It was silly, anyway, Teddy, we really should have thought about the consequences… Imagine someone seeing us together like that.”
The nickname calmed his nerves a little.
Charlotte was right, of course. He had thought about that, if only for a few seconds, but didn’t dare bring it up to her, fearing she would cancel. Now, because of an unknown force somewhere out in the universe, they were reservation-less and on two separate sides of a traffic jam.
“You said that… that he would be out tonight?”
Smart as she was, Charlotte always picked up on Ted’s stubbornness when it came to saying Sam’s name out loud. After a moment of crackling silence on the phone, she replied.
“Yes… late… late night at the precinct.”
They both knew that was a lie. It was almost comforting how well they connected truths and lies together. Ted supposed it was because everything around them was always a lie, made up by them or by someone they’d never met before.
“You have wine at your place?”
“Oh, Teddy, I’d rather we not be here, I just cleaned-”
Ted interrupted her with a small smile dancing across his face. “No, you bring the wine with you. And…” - he checked the back seat - “And some glasses.”
“A-alright, Ted. I’ll put them in the car-”
“I’m picking you up. I’m stuck in a jam right now, but I can be there in 10 minutes, tops.” It was a dangerous game, interrupting Charlotte, but adrenaline had replaced any ounce of common sense Ted had left. The last logical thought that passed through his mind that night was his realization that he still had that patchy old blanket underneath his seat, the one he bought when Charlotte started talking about getting a cat that she ended up never getting.
“...Ted?” Softly.
“Yeah?” Loudly.
“Thanks,” Charlotte whispered, and then his phone buzzed as she hung up.
***
The car ride there was silent and stiff. Charlotte refused to look anywhere but out the window at the city, then the trees, then the hills. The radio was playing some garbage neither of them had heard of, but they were both aware of how much the other hated silence, so they never turned it off.
True to her word, a fresh wine bottle and two matching glasses lay in Charlotte’s lap. The most she moved was to prevent them from falling.
Even when Ted parked the car in an empty lot off the road and led Charlotte up a steep hill with blanket and beverage in hand, neither of them spoke a word. The quietness of night had settled upon both of them - around this time, they would either be wrapped in each other, tending to their passions, or asleep in separate beds, both very far away.
“Didn’t think it’d be this dark,” Ted muttered. Charlotte stood by the trunk of a tree warily, holding her hands underneath her sweater for warmth.
Swallowing thickly, Ted laid out the blanket to the best of his ability and helped his coworker sit in the least rocky place he could find.
The stupidity of this idea hit Ted like a bus as he sat next to her. It was cold and dark, and there were barely any stars in the sky. Charlotte was shaking more than she usually did, the wine was off-brand, they both had work in the morning-
Charlotte handed Ted his glass, brushing her knuckles against his slowly. Immediately, he reached for her free hand and they slowly entwined their fingers. Because of the hush-hush nature of their arrangement, they had to have signals - and Charlotte had just given him one of his favorites.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Ted said, his breath coming out in thick clouds.
“It’s alright.” Her head was on his shoulder now. A bubble of warmth began to grow between them.
Ted could barely see his own nose, let alone the woman next to him, but he did his best to move a lock of her hair behind her ear as a gesture of tenderness. In return, she slowly fiddled with his tie until it became less wrinkled. Both were forces of habit.
“Thank you, Teddy. I… I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
“It’s nothing, Lottie.”
They both knew that was a lie. One of many. Ted kept most truths inside, unspoken, and he did the same now.
As they grew closer underneath the dark sky, against a tree, on a hill in the cold countryside of Hatchetfield, Ted swallowed wine as well as three words that were undeniably the truth -
Love you, Lottie.