The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes, #3)

by Brittany Cavallaro

You should want better for them. I do. I’ll take them and leave, I will—I’ll take Lottie, at least—don’t you see she’s skin and bones? Don’t you care? I had never supposed my mother liked me this much.

I felt it. Felt everything. I knew I wanted to erase myself from the top down, like a drawing, and that still I wanted someone to touch my edges and tell me that they loved me despite them. I tried again. I failed. I was crying, and marveling at the idea of myself crying (crying!), when Quentin found me.

Reading took me away from myself, so I tried to be reading all the time.

And fine. Fine. If it came to that—I missed her. God, I missed her. Especially now.

There was a case to be solved. God help me, I was excited.

There were so many things I could have felt in that moment, but the only one I could muster was relief. I grinned at her. “Hi,” I said. “Hi,”

Holmes nodded to the window. I clambered up onto the sink, then pulled her up next to me, and for a moment, she was flush against me, warm, her hair just under my nose, and I bent to make a cradle with my hands to hoist her up, the way I did when we first met, when I was helping her climb into Dobson’s dorm room.

“No,” Holmes said, edging back toward the door. “No, absolutely not,” and for a hysterical moment I thought she was talking about his man bun.

I’d been holding out hard against the urge to touch her, but she turned to me now in a rush, buried her face against my neck. My arms went up and around her almost of their own accord. “I hate this.” She wiped at her face with an angry hand. “All week I’ve been crying, and why? Over you? Over Lucien Moriarty?”

“You think it’s kind of hot, actually.”

and then she kissed me, quickly, like an impulse, like an accident. “Hey,” I said softly, pulling back. She tugged at my collar. I felt her hand trace its way down, and she undid the top button, slowly, sliding it between her fingers. It was like this with her. Fits and starts. Nothing I could ever see coming. I’d never thought we’d be here again. “Holmes,” I said, reaching up to touch her hands, to fold them in mine.

Holmes wasn’t a myth, or a king. She was a person. And to have a relationship with a person, you had to treat them like one.

“Can I forgive you a little now?” I asked. “And then a little more tomorrow, and the next day? If there is a next day?” “Yes,” she said, quickly, like it was more than she had asked for. Like I might take it back. “Provided you don’t blow anything up, of course.” “Yes.” “Or try to look in my ears again while I’m sleeping—” “Yes,” she said, laughing. That look on her face, always, like she was surprised to be laughing, like it was something involuntary and slightly shameful, like a sneeze. I couldn’t take it. “I missed you,” I said, gripping her shoulders. She was here. She was here, and I could touch her and God, how could I be so lucky? I said it again, like a compulsion: “I missed you, I missed you—”

I miss you too. I miss you like breathing. Have I already said that? I do, though. I miss you like naan pizza and builder’s tea. Like you’re the home I never knew I had.