“He would have told his wife.”

“And I missed the mark on that.”

“Conveniently.”

“No. I missed the mark on that because I’m not Decker. I’m nowhere near as good as Decker. I’ll never try to claim that I am. But I will claim that I tried to do the best that I could. I tried to minimize the damage. Maybe it didn’t work, but I will never say that I didn’t try.”

I look at Brian, who at this point is wiping away tears. He doesn’t need a tissue, though. He needs my mercy.

“All set, miss,” my tattoo artist says.

I look down at the inside of my wrist. Where there was once a dime-sized, script letter D, there’s now a quarter-sized blue rose.

“I love it,” I say.

“Does it hurt?” Brian asks from a patio table at Alfred’s.

“Nah, but in a day or two it’ll be a bit itchy, if I remember the healing process correctly.”

“I have an ointment for that if you need it. So, is it my turn now?” he asks.

“To get a tattoo?”

“To ask some questions.”

I knew that’s what he was getting at, but I was trying to pump the brakes a bit.

“Sure.”

“Everything’s out in the open now. All the numbers add up, you have your cash, you have the data, you have the explanation. You finally have it all. Even a solid reason to never talk to Debbie or me ever again. Isn’t that what you wanted? Doesn’t that make everything much simpler?”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, for starters, you don’t owe Debbie anything anymore. You can do with the urn what you want.”

“I’ve already given it to her. Permanently, actually. What else you got for me?”

“What has been going on between us? You kissed me in my apartment. You’re not going to tell me that was a mistake, are you?”

There have only been a few times in my life that it felt like the air was being sucked out of the very space I was in and this is one of them.

Like I said before, it’s been a while since someone considered: What does Charlotte need? What is Charlotte missing? But it’s been even longer since the someone doing the considering was me. And right now, I’m zeroed in on what I need—moreover, who I need—right now in my life.

I thought my forced PTO would only be about finding a spot for Decker after his death. Turns out, it was also about finding a spot for Brian in my life. As complicated and messy as that sounds, it’s no more of an impossible feat than rehoming the urn, which I managed to do in an instant based off of a gut feeling. And if I just take a minute to ask myself what I need and what I am missing, the answer is pretty clear: Brian Jackson.

“No, it wasn’t a mistake,” I say. “I was just making sure I feel the way I do about you.”