Charlie and Beckett flank the girls. All four staring at me. Sympathetically. Charlie, more so pityingly. I’ve had every teenager, every kid in the family, make me promise that I wouldn’t die on them. These four are the ones that see me less like Captain America and more like an imperfect human. I need them in my world. I can admit that. “I’m alive,” I say with a sharp breath. “Sadly,” Charlie quips. “Charlie,” they all chastise. A pretentiously coy grin plays at his lips. “Only joking.”
