cough. “He and Rosie eloped a few weeks ago. They’ll make the announcement next week, I think.”
“I see. Who got married first? Us or them?”
“Them. It’s part of where I got the idea from.”
“I see.”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” they both blurted out at the same time.
He nodded his head. “Go ahead.”
She shook hers. “You go.”
“I need to tell you about something.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped together.
Minnie simply waited.
“I’m part of the online TriluniMunity,” he told her without looking up. “I have been for years. I usually try to stay under the radar on both of my usernames, though I do post stories under one of them. Only one other person knows I have two usernames, but she doesn’t know who I am.”
Minnie didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, there’s this person I’ve been messaging with for years. We’ve become friends, though I don’t know her real name and don’t know much about her personal life, except I think her mother passed away and she’s an only child. She doesn’t know who I am, at least I don’t think she does.”
Still nothing.
“I messaged with her a couple of weeks ago. The conversation took a serious turn. Nothing inappropriate or anything, and you can see the chat logs if you’d like, but it felt different than when things turned serious before. I’ve kept an eye out for her since then, but I haven’t seen her.”
This time he didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “And I realized that I shouldn’t look forward to talking to some woman as much as I look forward to talking to her without being completely honest with you about it and making sure you know it’s totally above board and invite you to be a part of the conversations if you’d like to be. Not just give you access to the logs, but make sure this woman knows that, too.”
“You’re RealJ1955.”
The lack of surprise in her voice made Joss look up. “Yes.”
“When I used the desktop to look up the information about the Trilunium writing contest, I went to the message boards and noticed you were still logged in.” It was her turn to stare at her hands. “I’m NotCharlotte95.”
Joss’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“It’s me. You’ve been talking to me for years. We’ve been talking for years.”
He leaned back in his seat as the information swirled in his mind. “You’re NotCharlotte95?” he confirmed again.
“Yes.”
“Wow. That’s not what I was expecting to hear.” He blew out a breath. “I gotta say it’s a bit of a relief, though.”
“Why is that?”
“Because then you know I haven’t been having any kind of inappropriate conversations with some other woman. Not just because it’s you, but because you were a part of those conversations and know what they consisted of.”
He looked straight into her eyes. “It sounds ridiculous to say, but in a lot of ways, NotCharlotte95 is my best friend. It relieves and amazes me that she’s you.”
She blinked back the tears shining in her eyes, though he couldn’t be certain what kind of tears they were. “RealJ1955 is my best friend in a lot of ways, too. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to tell you, but then I’ve been alone so long...”
Her fingers wiped tears off her cheeks. “Going so long without any real human contact is driving me mad. Literally. All sorts of scenarios have run through my head, and not just because I’m secretly a writer in the Trilunium fandom, and that’s part of how writers’ brains work.”
Joss moved to the couch next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
She leaned her head against him. “In the dark, when I stare at the ceiling and the thoughts crowd and invade, I know most of them don’t make sense, but that doesn’t matter. I wonder if you’d rather be with NotCharlotte because you clearly don’t really want to be with me. And I know the arrangement we have, and I’m not trying to change that, but in those moments...”
Minnie leaned against him even more, her head turning into his shoulder. “In those moments, the thoughts go places they wouldn’t normally go. I know I’m NotChar, but my mind goes places where you want to be with who you always thought NotChar was, not who she really is. Just me. The woman who tricked you into getting her pregnant then lost your baby.”
Joss pulled her closer and wrapped his other arm around her. “Aw, Min.