She has four missed calls from her mother, and Cooper has eight from his. Neither of them gives a good goddamn. They're sprawled naked on the bed of an expensive hotel suite, bodies sticky with sweat and champagne, strawberry juice and flecks of chocolate. The sheets are shot, she's sure. She's broken the no alcohol rule she's had in place since the rape (she and Amelia have made a pact not to drink between NA meetings, something about it just seems wrong), just for the night, and now she's tipsy and giddy, and languid.
"Married sex is the best," she murmurs, turning her head to grin at him. She's gotta stop smiling at some point, she thinks. Her cheeks are achin'.
"You've missed it?" he teases, and she scowls at him even thought he's clearly joking.
She summons up the energy to move, rolls on top of him and pins him to the mattress. "Married sex with you is the best," she corrects. "You…" She plops a kiss on his brow. "Are the best sex…" The tip of his nose. "I've ever…" Just under his ear. "Had." She takes his mouth again, deep and heated, and his hands are on her hips, sliding up her ribs. Before long they're back into it, wet mouths travelling over hot skin, fingers searching and stroking and – the phone rings again. His, this time. Shrill and jarring, and Charlotte lets out a frustrated breath.
"For God's sake, what do they think is gonna be accomplished by callin'?"
"Ignore it," he tells her, all of his attention still on the breasts right in front of his face.
"Mmkay…" He's just done something deliciously distracting, and the last thought she can keep in her head long enough to get out of her mouth is, "We're gonna catch so much hell tomorrow."
"It'll be worth it," he assures, and then, "Shh!"
Charlotte snickers and does as she's told, for once.
Forty-five minutes later, she can think clearly again, and her voicemail light is blinking insistently from the nighttable. She looks at it, debates checking them, and decides that no, this night's been too perfect to ruin it with drama. Still, she turns to Cooper and says, "I know we made the right choice. But the polite Southern girl in me is feelin' a little bad about makin' people come all that way for nothin'. I'm in for a verbal spankin' when I finally call Momma."
"I'm gonna get Jewish mother guilt. You've got nothing on me," he assures, rolling onto his side next to her, and tracing patterns over her sweat-slicked belly. Charlotte let's out a little chuckle, and shrugs.
"Maybe. I just wish…"
"You wish what?"
She takes a deep breath, and risks putting a damper on the evening to voice her truth, "Did you tell your parents I was raped?"
He frowns a little bit, stills his hand and lets it rest gently over her navel. "You asked me not to."
"Yeah, but you tell 'em everything."
"Not that," he assures her. "I won't betray your trust with this. I've been very careful in what I say to them about what happened to you."
"So they don't know."
"No."
"And my Momma doesn't know – I stuck with the whole mugging lie with her." She shifts a little, sighs heavily. "Maybe we should tell 'em. I think maybe, if they knew what we've already been through, if they knew how hard we've had to work to stay together, and how good we are now despite all of it. Maybe they'd feel different about us bein' married."
Cooper leans in closer, and presses a kiss to her forehead. "That's up to you. I don't want you to tell them that because you feel like you have to. But if you really want to, if you think it'll help, we can tell them."
"I think I want to think about it some more," she tells him, not quite sure if she wants to give up that little piece of privacy just yet.
"Okay." He kisses her temple. "Whatever you want, Mrs. Freedman."
Charlotte snickers a little, and wrinkles her nose. "Mrs. Freedman is your mother. I am Doctor Charlotte King."
"Want to examine me, Dr. King?" Cooper teases, and Charlotte can't help it. She laughs again, her hand sliding down between them.
"Oh, most definitely," she murmurs heatedly, and then they're at it again.
