Play It Again, Charlie (10 page)

Not that Charlie would be apologizing, or attempting to apologize to anyone after two in the morning. There was no guarantee Will would be home.

He felt artificially hot even with the night air circulating through the open windows. He pulled at his shirt, sighing when he could barely feel the touch of the fabric, just more heat wherever his hand went.

He was never taking two pills at once again, he decided, angling his head up toward the faint breeze that reached the kitchen. The courtyard was silent, everyone but the college kids and possibly Will in bed.

He padded the few steps to the door and cracked it open. The slightly wet chill made him shut his eyes. The fog wouldn't reach this far inland for much longer, not as the weather got warmer, so he opened the door more and stared into the darkness before pushing past the roses.

He wasn't worried about Sam slipping out the door. If that cat had ever intended to leave, he would have done it a long time ago. He was probably still in bed, where Charlie would be returning as soon as he'd cooled off and banished the thoughts keeping him awake.

At the end of the path, he stopped to let his eyes adjust, aware that he wouldn't have to go much further to trigger the motion sensitive security lights, and looked over at Grayson's balcony. There was a faint, flickering light coming from the apartment itself, as though someone was watching TV or had fallen asleep with it on.

Charlie took another step. His face still felt warm, even if the rest of him was cold enough, but he swung his gaze around the courtyard, looking behind shadows for a moment until he was sure everything was okay. It was so still that the hushed sound of a sliding-glass door opening made him turn to stare at the outline of Will stepping outside.

Will was dressed, like he'd just gotten in. He was silent as he stopped at the far corner of the balcony and absorbed what moonlight there was. Between that and the TV light behind him, Charlie could see that Will was leaning against the ledge and that he was facing the other direction.

On his own, Will was quiet, not even the faintest tinkling sound coming from his phone. His posture didn't seem sad, and it was probably only the fog making Charlie think that Will must be, to be sitting out alone on a chilly night.

If Will was alone, it was because he had chosen to be. So he wouldn't want Charlie to interrupt his moment of peace by bringing up the scene in his kitchen. But if Charlie was going to offer up an apology for something that Will had probably already forgotten, then he should do it now.

He took his eyes from Will to peer at the edge of the path at his feet, making one small, careful step out, then stopping at the sound of the sliding-glass door. His chest tightened as he looked up to see two forms merging on the balcony.

There wasn't one second's pause before the larger figure slid behind Will and pinned him against the ledge. Charlie was the one frozen once again, completely motionless in the early morning cold as Will leaned back.

They weren't kissing, but Charlie could hear the soft, pleased noises slipping out of Will's mouth. He didn't think he imagined them, though he had never once thought Will would be quiet, not even in his dreams. He swallowed at the sounds drifting to him, sweet and low, as though everything about Will was like sugar.

He couldn't make out much about the other man, but he knew his mouth was at Will's throat, and that Will's hands had not fluttered against his chest as he'd approached. Charlie finally looked away, awake and aware that he should go back inside.

His blood was loud in his ears, but not enough to drown out the occasional gasp. He moved, biting back a noise of his own when his bare feet hit dirt and the shock of stepping off the path jarred his leg.

He stared at the ground. The night air had done its job; he couldn't feel the heat under his skin anymore. But the same breeze carried him snatches of a question, enough to bring the heat back to his face and a quiver of humiliation to his stomach.

“Another round?”

Charlie didn't hear the answer. He felt too tall, too obvious, and lifted his head in sudden alarm at the idea of moving in any direction and possibly triggering one of the lights around him.

Will finally brought his hands off the balcony. Charlie watched one go to the back of the other man's head, move up slowly like Will was running his fingers through the short hair at the man's neck. Charlie couldn't see his other hand.

“Spare you the obvious response to that.” There was laughter in Will's voice, though it ended abruptly when the man did something to him that he liked. Will made a rough noise and pushed back, only to laugh again a moment later when the man kissing him clearly didn't know how to respond. “You know, whether or not you're up for it.” Will snorted at his own joke, didn't seem to notice that guy either didn't get it or didn't care.

Will brought his arms up, letting the other man peel his shirt away, slide it up and off his shoulders before he tossed it somewhere on the balcony around them. He stood out in the moonlight, bare-chested and smooth, and then there were hands on him, urging him against the ledge, in his corner, before they dropped too low for Charlie to track them. Will's voice was barely audible.

“So you'll spend the night?”

Charlie closed his eyes, then opened them. Will was light and hesitant, like the tinkling of a spoon in a glass of iced tea, stirring up undissolved crystals.

Charlie moved, had to take the pressure off, felt the shocks down his back at the cold cement beneath him again. He wondered vaguely how hot he was. The goose bumps at his neck, down his arms, hardly seemed to be there at all. He shivered and curled his hands tight at his sides. When Will spoke again, he stood as still as he could, his heartbeat so loud they should have heard it.

Will angled his head back. His body arched with him, his bare skin curved into the rough cement ledge, and Charlie sucked in a fast, dry breath.

“The moonlight, the shadows... . Somewhere, someone ought to be playing ‘Isn't It Romantic?’ and we ought to have a bottle of champagne and two glasses.”

Charlie could see Will imagining himself in black and white, Will swaying to music that wasn't there. His lips parted.

“Of course, ‘I hate champagne, but I love what it does to me',” Will announced to the sky with the faintest accent, his voice rising just enough for Charlie to know he was smiling. He pictured him sipping something bubbly and expensive, then shook his head. Will probably hadn't had any champagne, but he
was
drunk, or tipsy, which meant his skin would be flushed and hot too, like it had been in Charlie's kitchen, his lips scented with alcohol.

“We didn't have champagne,” the other man pulled away to slowly point out, pressing in as Will's arms fell back to earth.

“It's more the romance of the thing,” Will started to explain, then he tossed his head and pushed away from the corner. “Never mind.”

“How about you do something with that mouth besides talk?” the man grunted. Will twisted his head to the side, shrugging again, and Charlie narrowed his eyes, because no amount of shrugs was going to make that guy any less of an asshole.

He stepped down all at once on the path, stumbling at the slice of pain he deserved for doing something so stupid but recovering by moving forward and extending his arms.

The light switching on and hitting him full in the face made him wince. He turned away too late, way too late, because when he looked up and tried to see around the blinding light, he saw Will's head up. Charlie got the barest sense of the other man with him: dark hair, light skin, a collared shirt, broad shoulders.

It was the halos at the edge of Charlie's vision that made it look like Will's mouth was moving, or open at all, frozen in a soft, startled version of his name.

Charlie pulled himself up and pointed at the idiot who still hadn't seemed to notice that Will was no longer responding to him.

“Take that inside,” he ordered loud enough to be heard. He didn't think he was blushing, but stayed keyed up when the silence stretched beyond that first shocked moment. Will wasn't laughing, though Charlie had let himself be caught staring like some kind of voyeur.

“Who is that?” The man was turning around, but Will put a hand to his cheek, turned him back. Charlie's stomach knotted as he involuntarily counted the seconds until Will pulled away. He could feel the strain of standing still.

“That's Linus Larrabee,” Will said, telling Charlie something in a voice that was just loud enough, and the name tugged at something Charlie hadn't thought about in years, like everything else about Will. Will wasn't looking at him, kept his gaze and his hands on his guest. “This is his building, and he likes to kick people out of it, so we'd better go inside.”

“Will.” The name itself stuck in his throat. He wasn't sure Will heard it, but couldn't add anything else when Will bent down, whispering something in the other man's ear before jerking his head in the direction of the glass door.

“Whatever you say, Sergeant Howard.” Only after he had made sure of the other man did Will finally speak to him, and the quiet words had an unfamiliar edge that made Charlie blink. Will probably couldn't see it. He only spared a moment to look at Charlie and then he moved before Charlie could open his mouth.

“Come on,” Will murmured, leading the other man to the glass door without any effort at all.

Charlie watched until the door shut with a hard click, until the blue light disappeared and he couldn't see anything else, and then he breathed in. The other light switched off as he turned back, but he barely slowed, scraping his feet as he found dirt and then cement again, his clothes catching on thorns before he was back inside his apartment.

He shoved his shoulder against the door to close it and slammed one lock into place but stopped there. He barely stayed up for the two steps to the sink. He leaned against it and grabbed his water glass, held it without moving. He didn't bring the glass to his lips, though his mouth was dry and there was water left in the bottom. He could feel it through the glass, cold without any clinking ice. He tightened his fingers and then let go.

The glass was too thick to break, but the noise made him flinch, like the water that splashed onto his hands. But there wasn't anyone to hear.

Will had kissed that man, had curled his fingers into the back of his neck and drawn him closer and pressed open lips against his mouth, and Charlie didn't know what scent would have been on his breath, but he remembered citrus, sharp and warm.

He was still hot, trembling against his counter, but knowing the image he made didn't stop him from opening his eyes, staring at the plain wall above the sink without seeing it. Will had done that on purpose, his moves turning deliberate in a way they hadn't been when he hadn't known Charlie was watching, his words getting biting and anything but sweetly wistful.

“Stay the night?” Will had asked, almost childishly longing after whispering nonsense about faded movie stars and constructed romances.

Charlie was too old for this almost teenage jealousy, too tired to be standing in his kitchen and getting hard when he had only to walk to his bedroom, reach into the drawer in his nightstand for something to help take the edge off. His hands were wet, but his skin felt rough and dry.

Charlie hadn't been able to see their hands, not for more than seconds at a time, but he took one of his hands from the counter's edge and imagined letting Will's fingers curl into the hair at back of his neck, making him gasp in that same quietly hungry way and talking classic film in that excited voice.

He had water on his hands. His fist was tight, but it wasn't anything like what Will's mouth would be, what his body would feel like, clenched around him. His own breath was noisy, his pulse fast and alone in his ears, and this wasn't going to be enough, he already knew it.

Charlie lowered his head, heard his breath rasping, felt his face burning despite the breeze that had left his apartment so cold. His voice shocked him, the words that slipped out, that he could hear himself grunting into the curve of Will's ear, because he had ordered, again, in this fantasy, and Will had obeyed him.

“Will,” he said, and his fist still felt rough around his dick, then slick with the cold water puddled at the sink's edge when he wet it again. His mouth was dry too, but he shook his head, shook hard but stayed on his feet with his body heavy against the counter.

He pictured Will saying his name, Will forgetting his voices and accents, that black and white even existed, when Charlie pushed inside him, and they gasped together, sticky, loud, clear over the sound of skin on skin and heavy breathing. Charlie could feel the orgasm, close, bigger and sharper than anything he'd felt in a long time, opened his eyes to nothing as he came, nothing but his own hand and the mess he'd made.

“What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Charlie?” Jeanine huffed. She was right next to him, with his arm draped over her shoulders, trying to help him get to his car.

Charlie muttered under his breath before he stumbled a step away to lean against his car. He'd given in and taken ibuprofen a half an hour ago, and it wasn't doing a damn thing.

He'd woken up stiff and sore. Now there was a red-hot pain flaring out down his left side whenever he moved, and his right side from his toes to his shoulders was tense and shaking from how he'd been trying to compensate.

He'd gotten through three classes before Jeanine and an assistant professor had cornered him in his office and told him he was leaving early whether he liked it or not. As though there was anything waiting for him at home to make it better.

He put a hand to his side and rubbed a circle with the heel of his hand, though it wasn't doing any good. He could still feel the edge of the counter digging into his skin, cold though the rest of him was a sweating mess. He shifted, his face warm with the strain of trying to walk, the early afternoon sun beaming down on him, and felt his right leg start to give.

“I'm fine,” he told Jeanine without looking over at her, without thinking about what exactly he
had
been doing to himself. “I just need some sleep.”