No lie, I’m so close to combusting with these thoughts and feelings, and then a high-pitched squeal swerves our heads, our attention.
A girl recognizes Charlie.
Oscar taps into a vigilant state. He touches my shoulder in that we’ll talk in a second way before he leaves my side. I watch him speak German again, and after a couple minutes, the girl nods, snaps a quick photo of Charlie—who’s still just lying on the ground—and then she exits through another door.
Oscar returns to my side like he silently promised.
“You can speak fluent German,” I say to him, brows raised. “Really well, I might add.” I flash a smile. “It’s impressive. So that’s English, French, German, and Portuguese. Any other secrets up your sleeve?” I actually reach for his sleeve and pretend like I’m searching for something. It’s just an excuse really to touch him.
Not that I need an excuse, I guess. He is my husband.
He’s smiling, and he clasps my hand firmly. “Don’t forget Spanish, Arizona.”
Arizona. I shake my head with a wider smile. I confess, I never loved my middle name until this second. Hearing Oscar say it.
Like the entire state belongs to me.
I process, “So you’re fluent in Spanish too.”
“Yeah. Other languages, I can get by, like Italian, but I’m most fluent in those five. But Highland”—he sweeps me over for a long beat—“it’s just as impressive that you can speak Tagalog. You and your brother grew up speaking it to each other?”
I nod and explain how our Lola doesn’t know English, so we’d always speak in Tagalog around her, and Jesse and I just naturally started playfully speaking the language more to each other. Like it was a bond between us that transcended place and time. No matter if we were separated by miles or years.
When I finish, I ask, “When did you learn to speak French, German, and Spanish?”
“Spanish, I learned in high school. French, I learned when I was twenty-four and joined security. I started out on Ben Cobalt’s detail, and all security guys on the Cobalts are recommended to know some French phrases. My try-hard ass decided I’d just learn it all.”
I let out a laugh. “And you call me the overachiever?”
He grins. “That title still belongs to you, Long Beach. I wasn’t overachieving. I just like doing my job well.” His gaze refocuses on Charlie at those words, but he’s still speaking to me. “German, I never planned to become fluent in. But when Charlie turned eighteen, he decided that he wanted to see every palace and museum in Austria.” His lips lift. “Let’s just say that year was a crash course in immersion.”
Honestly, I’m realizing it feels better having this information. Like a checkmark in the Oscar & Jack’s Marriage: Not Too Soon column. His eyes wash over me, breaking away from Charlie for a second.
I take the opportunity to hold up my camera. “Can you translate something?”
He nods, and I tap a few buttons to rewind an earlier clip.
Oscar leans into my shoulder. The weight of his body pressed up against me is this comforting relief that I can’t quite fully explain.
On the footage, Charlie’s gazing up at the ceiling, and my voice can be heard off-screen. “What do you like about it?” I ask him.
Charlie’s response is in French, and my eyes are on Oscar. He slowly smiles.
“He said ‘what’s not to love?’ And that is a prime example of a non-answer from our man Charlie Keating Cobalt.” His fondness of Charlie is clear. Maybe I’m a little bit clouded by the fact that Charlie did set me up with Oscar, but I’ve grown to feel the same.
Just as I think it, Charlie is up on his feet.
“And we’re on the move,” Oscar tells me, patting a hand to my chest. I train my camera back on Charlie. A part of me considers turning it off. He’s high.
But the producer in me keeps rolling. He has final say in what makes air, anyway.
And instead of traipsing all over Vienna, Charlie wants to return to the hotel. When I hear those words, my smile explodes. Hotel equals privacy. Which means Oscar and I can finally talk about our marriage.
Passing swiftly through a ritzy lobby, vaulted ceilings and mammoth chandeliers overhead, we reach a gold-paneled elevator.
Should I be nervous or excited that the talk is almost about to happen? My body hums in this middle-ground stage of jitters.
Elevator doors glide closed, shutting us inside.
Not even ten-seconds in and Bad Timing spits in my face