Well, then. They'd figured it out.

  But what about her? She'd hoped one day they'd come back to the States, and she'd have family here. Family that would likely be aging and need her to be very involved with their basic care, but...

  No one needed her. Not really.

  "Well, good for them," she said. Eli nudged her knee with his softy, imperceptibly.

  He knew what she was thinking. Of course, he did.

  Mark didn't. Or, at least, he was pretending that he didn't because what solution would he have anyway?

  His thoughts drifted that direction, though, given his next statement.

  "So, Christmas," he said. "Eli said you're thinking about going to visit your mom."

  It had been years. It was time. She hadn't sent the text yet, asking if it would be okay, fearing the response, the unspoken words, the spoken words...

  "I am," she said. "Now that I'm not going to be spending the holiday with Tyler."

  That had been one of her plans, of course. A Christmas wedding and all.

  So much for plans.

  "Charlotte," Mark said, pointing his drink at her thoughtfully, "I'm glad it all went down like this. Because Tyler? He's one of those guys that can spend a whole lifetime on the mission field, single and totally focused. He doesn't need a wife. Probably doesn't really even want one, honestly."

  Ouch. But this resonated with her.

  It was likely true.

  "He's like you, then?" she asked, thinking that this made good sense, that she'd found herself wanting a man just exactly like Uncle Mark, who she'd always adored. (When she wasn't tempted to kill him, that is. Like when he told her she was heavy and that she was flashing all of her God-given business at everyone.)

  "Heck, no, Tyler's not like me," Mark said, shaking his head. "I'm not single by choice. It's by horrible, awful circumstance. I go from country to country in a region of the world where I can't talk to women at all. Can't even look at them hardly, because they're all covered up. Even their faces. I'll get a glimpse of an ankle every once in a while, which is almost too much excitement to take, quite honestly."

  "Scandalous," Eli murmured.

  "Yeah," Mark nodded. "The only single, uncovered woman I saw on a regular basis with my job ran off to some tiny country in Africa and fell in love with a guy there. While on the job, mind you. Not that Kait was a good match for me, because her theology is way more liberal than mine --"

  "He's too conservative," Charlotte muttered to Eli.

  "But," Mark continued on, ignoring her, "desperate times and desperate measures. But no more. No women for me. Not by choice, though."

  "No wonder she didn't go for you," Charlotte murmured, frowning. "Especially if you used the word 'desperate' in regards to her."

  "I'm just saying," Mark said. "Tyler isn't like me. God knows I'd get married in a heartbeat if I could find the right woman. Seriously, He knows, because I've told him a time or two. And He knows everything, even the stuff I'm not so eager to tell Him."

  Good theology, that.

  "You want to get married?" Charlotte asked, never once considering this possibility. Mark was just... Mark.

  What kind of weird woman would be able to keep up with him?

  "Yeah," Mark said, smiling at her confusion, "because I'm guessing life would be a whole lot more exciting if I had a woman to come home to who would help me unpack my luggage, so to speak --"

  "So to speak," Eli repeated, grinning and laughing like a fourteen year old boy.

  "That wasn't a euphemism, you pervert," Charlotte scowled at him.

  Mark raised his eyebrows. "Or was it, Charlotte? I believe it was."

  "Eww," she said.

  "Eli knows what I'm talking about. And speaking of, what's wrong with a guy like Eli?" Mark asked, gesturing to him. "You two clearly get along. And he's hot. In a hillbilly kind of way."

  "Thanks, man," Eli answered.

  And Charlotte looked over at her friend as he looked over at her. Sitting close together on the couch, a shared pizza on the table in front of them, just like they did all the time, actually.

  It would make sense, but...

  "Yeah, Eli and me together is about as likely as you finding a woman to unpack your luggage," she said.

  "Pity that," Mark murmured.

  "Besides, he has a girlfriend," she said, looking over at Eli. "Which, you know, he should have mentioned the minute you suggested he hook up with me --"

  "We're not exclusive," Eli corrected. "Just hanging out. And she doesn't unpack my luggage. So to speak."

  "Good on you," Mark said. "You save that joy for a better woman. Like Lottie. She's a better woman."

  Eli shook his head, standing and gathering up the pizza boxes.

  "Let me help," she said, moving to stand up as well.

  "You're good," he said. "Not enough here for leftovers, so I should probably get my shoes on and go get dinner."

  "It's too early, though. We just finished eating lunch," she said.

  "Charlotte," he said, grinning at her, "it's nearly seven o'clock. We've been eating lunch all day, sitting here playing video games and losing track of time."

  She looked at her watch, then glanced back up at him with surprise in her eyes. "Oh."

  "She's not a better woman, Mark," Eli said. "She's like a teenage boy."

  "Hey, now --"

  "Kidding, Lottie," he said, taking the boxes into the kitchen.

  "We don't need dinner," she called after him. "Especially if we've been eating all day like you say we have been."

  "I was going to Lloyd's," he said, sticking the leftover pizza in the fridge.

  "It'll be too crowded," she said. "Line out the door. It's Friday night."

  "I called and ordered in when I put Mark's bags up," he said, coming back into the living room, where he sat on the couch and began to put on a pair of old running shoes.

  "The twenty taco pack?" she asked hopefully.

  "The twenty taco sampler," he corrected. "Extra sour cream, guac, and atomic sauce."

  "Ugh," Mark managed.

  But Charlotte wasn't watching him. She was simply smiling at Eli.

  "Thank you," she said.

  He grinned back at her with a dismissive nod of his head, his attention back on his shoes.

  And as Charlotte looked back up to tell Uncle Mark why the atomic sauce was a must, she noted the way he watched the two of them knowingly, smiling all the while.

  Eli

  Crazy, weird dreams.

  Eli was having some crazy, weird dreams.

  Well, just one.

  It was likely because of the atomic sauce in those tacos.

  They'd bid Charlotte a good night the night before, and Eli had watched her walk over to her side of the duplex, watched her get inside, and waited long enough for her to lock the door.

  He did this every night, refraining from walking her over there himself, but still making sure she got in safe.

  He'd turned to find Mark watching him knowingly.

  Knowing what? Well, who even knew. Uncle Mark was a weird one. Plus, he was jet lagged and had now proclaimed himself "super gassy" after the atomic sauce.

  Not long after that, they'd both made their separate ways to bed, where Eli had the weirdest dream of his life.

  He'd been in a big city, just like the one Mark had told them about as they'd eaten dinner, describing it all with such precision that Eli could very nearly imagine it, even before he fell asleep.

  It made the dream seem even more real once he closed his eyes for sleep.

  The landmarks in the dream were the exact same ones that Mark had seen and experienced on his last assignment, and Eli could very nearly feel the street beneath his feet as he slept, smell the food in the crowded alleyways, touch the heat in the air with the tips of his fingers as they brushed the hand of the woman next to him.

  Charlotte.

  Of course.

  Charlotte, looking like she always did, being who she'd always been.

  That wasn't all that weird.

  No, the weird part had been that he was immensely interested in getting a good look at her ankles.

  She kept evading him in the dream, pointing out different spots along their walk, telling him stories from her grandparents' support letters, and staying just far enough away that he couldn't see her ankles.

  He'd finally reached out and gently pulled her into his arms, telling her, "The taxes, Lottie. They're a mess. I need you to do my taxes."

  And she'd given him a knowing, seductive look that he swore he'd never seen on her face before and murmured, "Oh, I'll do your taxes, Herbert."

  What would have happened if Mark hadn't knocked on the door at that exact moment?

  And why was he holding his pillow so tenderly in his arms?

  He sat up abruptly, completely weirded out by all of it.

  "Hey, man," Mark said, his head in the doorway, "sorry to wake you up, but you've got a visitor."

  And at this, Mark looked at the way he was holding his pillow and frowned.

  "Uh, okay," Eli managed, swallowing, throwing the pillow aside, blushing as he thought about how he'd held Lottie in his arms...

  "Are you really okay?" Mark had asked doubtfully.

  No. Not really.

  "Yeah, yeah," Eli said, waving him off. "A visitor. Got it. I'm up. I'm up. I'll need a few minutes, but..."

  Mark nodded with a grin. "You take all the time you need, man. I'll entertain Alicia as best as I can. But she's already heard all of my camel anecdotes, and I don't think she's amused."

  "Alicia?" Eli asked, rubbing the back of his neck, wondering why she was here, why she didn't take a longer trip --

  He should have been glad to see her, though, right?

  "Give me two minutes," he said, getting out of bed and looking for something to throw on over his boxers, willing his mind to get back to reality.

  Away from Lottie and her ankles...

  He came out a few minutes later to find Alicia, perfectly coiffed and made up, all dressed up and watching Mark with an appalled expression on her face.

  The conversation soon explained that.

  "I had to go. I mean, like, seriously go. Big middle of Beirut in the blazing hot sun, and the raw kibbeh I managed to eat at that national pastor's home was doing a number on my digestive tract, right? And the nearest restroom was in this opulent hotel called the Phoenician, which is no Motel 6, believe you me. So, I went on in because I'm a Westerner who obviously has business there, no pun intended, and out come all these men in traditional Saudi clothing, along with all of these cameramen and bodyguards. I had no idea what had happened until I got back to my hotel, turned on Al Jazeera and saw the same men on video. OPEC. They were the leaders of OPEC. And there I was, doing a potty dance in the corner of every shot those cameramen got."

  Oh, boy. No wonder Alicia was looking like that.

  "Well, bless your heart," she managed.

  "And bless the makers of Immodium," Mark added. "The kibbeh was a grand gesture of international benevolence, but it gave me more than my host likely intended. Kinda like those atomic tacos last night, huh, Eli?"

  Alicia opened her mouth, at a loss as to what could possibly turn this back into a genteel conversation, obviously, when she saw Eli. Relief spread across her face as she caught his eye and stood to come to him.

  "Eli," she said. "Happy Thanksgiving."

  "To you, too," he said as she embraced him. "A couple of days late, but still."

  "I tried calling you," she said. "The calls wouldn't go through."

  "I was back home," he sighed, thinking of how he hadn't checked his phone even once as he and Charlotte had spent the entire day eating with his family, setting up Christmas with his family, playing dominoes with his family...

  "The reception out there in the boonies is ghastly. So sorry you had to go back there," she said, dismissing his hometown and his family just like that.

  "Ghastly," Mark said, grinning.

  "I met your uncle, Mark," Alicia said, smiling tightly at the older man, then turning to Eli with a disbelieving look. "I didn't know you had an uncle named Mark."

  "He's not my uncle," Eli said. "I mean, I call him Uncle Mark --"

  "Which is what I told Alicia," he said. "Call me Uncle Mark. That's what I told her."

  "If he's not your uncle, then who is he?" Alicia said, ignoring Mark completely.

  "He's Charlotte's uncle," Eli said, readying himself for the look that Charlotte's name always brought to Alicia's face.

  There it was.

  "Why is Charlotte's uncle staying with you?" she asked, confused and irritated, all at once.

  "That's what I said," Mark told her. "You think she'd have some room for her favorite uncle and all, but she told me I had to stay with Eli because I'd keep her up all night talking. Which I totally would have. And speaking of, I should go next door and steal those spices I was telling you about, Eli. I know she keeps za'atar. If she doesn't, I'm going to officially disown her. We'll have manakish by noon." He looked at Alicia. "You wanna join us? It's not like the kibbeh, so don't let that keep you from being adventurous."

  Alicia looked as though she didn't know what part of all of this to process first as Mark began making his way to the door. "No, I have somewhere to be," she said, looking back to Eli.

  "Well, see you later, then," Mark said, leaving at last.

  Alicia turned to Eli. "Next door? Why is Charlotte next door?"

  Oh, wow. Well, he'd known this conversation was coming.

  "Why are you here?" he asked, stalling... then wondering at his own stupidity approximately half a second later. So totally not the question to ask.

  "I came home early," she said, narrowing her eyes at him, "because I wanted to see you."

  "You said that you had big plans, though." Again, what was he thinking with these questions?

  "I did," she said. "But Aimee had a conniption about halfway through the first day because Bridget had gotten the wrong color ribbon for the favors we were making up, and Presley told her she was being cheap to do it herself because the wedding coordinator Meredith practically gifted her with was totally capable of doing more professional looking ones, and --"

  Eli refrained from letting his eyes roll back into his head. Just barely.

  "Anyway," Alicia heaved a great sigh, "I just thought to myself, Alicia, why are you here with these spoiled biddies when you have a man at home who wants to be with you?"

  Eli was about to ask how her father was doing when he realized, a moment too late perhaps, that she was talking about him.

  "Well, of course," he offered.

  "Now," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Charlotte. Next door. What in the world, Eli?"

  "She's been having a really awful week," he said, running his hand through his hair, thinking of how to best explain how my friend is having a hard time could logically turn into so I'm renting half of the duplex to her for next to nothing without it sounding like something it wasn't.

  It was innocent, right?

  "How so?" Alicia asked, clearly not caring.

  "Just personal stuff," he said, thinking about Charlotte curled up into herself on his lawn, leaning into him, holding him by the waist as she cried on his shoulder. Not giving Alicia details had nothing to do with guilt or wanting to protect himself. It was about Charlotte, wanting to protect her dignity, wanting to shelter her from anyone else knowing about how hurt she'd been... wanting to keep the knowledge of this vulnerable, soft side of her to himself.

  That was... odd...

  "Personal stuff," Alicia said flatly.

  "Yeah," Eli continued on, knowing that this was going to get worse before it got better. Much, much worse, likely. "And there's a problem with her apartment. I mean, she's still got the lease until the new year, but it's just a bad place for her now, so I told her I'd rent her the second half of the duplex. You and I talked about that, right? About how I needed a tenant so I could make some money off my investment?"

  Appealing to this side of Alicia's sensibilities would certainly help. Maybe.

  Not so much.

  "Well, yes," she said, agitation in the two words. "But I meant some guy, Eli. Not your personal assistant --"