Old Money

3. Eleanor

MIA

"What you're telling me is you're leaving work with a strange older man you met tonight?" Lucy asks from the other end of the phone.

"Well, I don't thinking I'm leaving with him, necessarily. He just said he has something he wants to show me." I look myself over in the mirror of the staff bathroom and run a finger over my lipstick.

"That doesn't sound ominous or anything. You text me every few minutes so I know you're not being kidnapped, got it?"

"Yes, mother." I roll my eyes and pull the phone from my ear to check the time. "I've got to go, I just wanted to let you know you don't have to meet me when you leave the party."

"Be careful. You're all I've got in this world." I can hear the smile in her voice as she says the same thing she always does when we are spending our evenings apart. We say our goodbyes and I exit the bathroom to make my way across the club and back to the bar where Charles has taken up residence once more

"You want anything to drink?" I ask him as I pour myself a glass of water.

"Same as you would be fine." I pour a second glass and slide it across the bar to him. He pulls out a cigar and lights it before exhaling a puff of smoke. "Don't worry about me. Tend to the others, I'll let you know if I need something." He flashes me a wink and those same butterflies from before make themselves known in the pit of my stomach.

•••

As the crowd winds down and Jonathan starts closing up the bar, I turn to see if there's anything else he needs from me. Some part of me hopes he needs help, because I'm afraid of what's to come with Charles who has moved to the sidewalk outside the club as everyone else started to leave. I watch him speaking to someone on his cell phone as I talk to my boss.

"No, Mia. You can go, I've got this." I hesitate for a moment before accepting his answer and reaching for my purse. My stomach does a flip flop as I second guess the man waiting for me outside but I think over my options.

I could go home to an empty apartment, watch a movie and go to sleep and have nothing eventful happen. Or, I could take a chance and something extraordinary could happen. Something new and exciting that I've never experienced before. Without allowing myself another second to overthink, I push my way out the front door onto the street. Charles turns his attention to me and mumbles a few words before hanging up the phone. His movements are swift as he walks over to me.

"Ready?" Charles asks as he sticks one of his hands in his pockets.

"If you are." He takes a second to look me over.

"Cold?" He motions towards the suit jacket draped over one arm he never put back on after we left the coffee shop. "It's a little bit of a walk." The late summer breeze ruffles my hair and I relish the feeling.

"I'm okay, thank you though." I follow his lead as we walk down the New York City streets. The conversation is light and flows much better than it had at the coffee shop. I've relaxed some around him now that we've spent almost the entire night together.

"Any siblings?" We've been asking each other different questions as we walk, bouncing back and forth between the two of us and it's nice. It's Charles's turn for a question.

"One, a sister, Olivia." I tell him as my mind drifts to a different place where I'm back in my childhood home curled up in the twin sized bed opposite my sisters. I can see it like it was yesterday, the way we would lay in bed and whisper to each other when the lights were off.