Chapter 8Charlie was hurt and frustrated for about two minutes of the walk back up to the house, and then talked himself out of it. He had hoped, maybe stupidly, for some sort of…what? Fairytale kisses, being swept off his feet in a garden, Lionel overjoyed to hear the news?
Lionel was the sort of person who thought deeply and thoroughly about things. Who did not come up with eloquent words on the spot. And Charlie had interrupted him. Of course Lionel had been flustered.
Of course, because Charlie might’ve been fun for a night, might’ve been a person Lionel could rescue and care for in a fantasy, but that fantasy had initially come with an end date. Temporary. An enchanted idyll.
Everything he’d just said must’ve shaken Lionel’s entire world into pieces. Especially for someone used to
