Play It Again, Charlie (8 page)

“Can I help?” Will wondered quietly, like he knew just what Charlie's dilemma was, and Charlie's beer slipped in his hand. Will's fingers instantly slid over his, hot, curling around the bottle, and Charlie felt himself staring and not saying a thing when Will took the bottle from him.

It was at his lips a moment later, and Charlie opened his mouth, then shut it when Will's throat moved. Will swallowed once more before he pulled the bottle away, licked at the edges of his mouth.

Charlie had to swallow with him, too much spit in his mouth even if it felt dry. He forced his eyes down the moment he realized what he was doing, dragged his gaze over Will's body before he returned it Will's face.

Not that he was seeing anything but that body, close to perfect, not really covered by that black shirt, not when he'd seen the skin underneath it before. Will had skin that looked smooth and had felt so warm, pressed close to him.

“I... ,” Charlie started, his voice strained, and he frowned at himself without moving. Will's mouth quirked up, but he didn't return the bottle. His fingers played over the wet glass, and the gesture was as obvious as all his innuendo, but Charlie's body responded anyway, throbbed. He curled his hands in his lap before they could go anywhere, swallowed again. He made himself breathe before he looked up.

He should get up before he made this so much worse for himself. Naked wasn't nearly as embarrassing as admitting that it had been more than a year since he'd even attempted a date, or that he might come after one accidental touch.

That possibility was painfully real, and he smoothed his hands over his pants, got them down to the seat of the chair.

“I
really
liked what you did for me.” Will was still talking. Charlie gripped the metal of the chair and glared at the sparkly shirt, then into Will's face, at his earnest expression.

“When I pushed you against the wall?” He hadn't pushed Will anywhere, but the picture was behind his eyes now, and maybe that was the reason the words also came out too soft. Will grinning in the dark until Charlie had pressed him back, and then his head had come up, his breath coming faster. For once he'd been quiet, his hands weak at Charlie's chest. “I didn't do it for you,” Charlie insisted a moment later, struggling to remain calm, to stay in the moment.

“Are you trying to hurt my feelings, Charlie?” Will pouted, drawing Charlie's eyes back to his shining mouth. It was deliberate, Charlie's brain finally realized, caught up at last with all the heat building in his lap, and he opened his mouth, his face and neck getting hot too.

Will wanted him, he thought with disbelief, inhaling sharply, wanting oxygen and only getting sweat and more heat, a trace of perfume from whatever Will used in his hair, then aftershave, the beer on his lips. Charlie was breathing in Will until his mind was spinning, and went still when Will bent over to put the bottle on the table behind him.

“You— ” he began, pushing out empty air at the sight of Will's exposed throat and then Will's face, inches from his. He turned to follow Will's movements and felt those eyes steady on him.

Oh God. His pulse pounded in his ears, all the way though his tight, tense body. Charlie was aroused. Obviously aroused, and he shivered when one hand brushed against his leg, made a small, quiet noise when Will's voice dropped to a whisper.

“I still haven't thanked you.” Charlie could almost
taste
the grin and lifted his head to see it, feel it against his mouth. Will was so close it hurt to focus, his eyes nearly all pupil, black with a ring of green, and his breath hitched when he saw how Charlie was staring, a low, pleased sound of his own slipping out.

At the noise Charlie blinked, heard something else, everything Will had just said working slowly through his mind even while he thought that he would do anything to hear that sound again.

“What?” He shuddered at his own breath fluttering back to him. Will was so close, so hot he could have been dreaming. “Thanked me?” He winced to hear that out loud once more and tossed his head until Will had to lift his. Charlie's entire body ached, and he tried to focus on anything other than Will right there in front of him, offering everything, bright and too damn beautiful and probably knowing just how long it had been for him.

He grabbed harder at the metal sides of his chair. His voice was still quiet, still rough. “Is that what this is?”

But he already knew and shook for it. What else would this kid have been doing with him? Either this was honestly how the kid showed his gratitude, or worse, last night he had seen just how desperate Charlie was, had taken one look at his out-of-date suits and his limp and had come here today out of pity.

There was no denying that Will was used to a world a lot more casual about this kind of thing than Charlie had ever been. That's that what this was, meaningless, just a transaction.

Staying in Grayson's apartment, and whatever Will had done to earn that privilege, was probably nothing to him. Charlie worked his jaw, looked away from that alluring face. Of course he'd offer the same thing to make it up to poor, lonely Charlie.

At least if it was casual, it meant this wasn't some sort of offer for a pity fuck.

Will pulled back. Charlie could finally breathe in real air.

“Charlie?” The uncertainty in Will's voice brought his gaze back up, only for a moment, because there was a line between Will's eyes that was only getting sharper.

Will stood up, and Charlie couldn't help another look, a glance at the warm, fit body so close to him, low jeans and a tight shirt, glowing skin. So fucking
beautiful

“If you really want to thank me,” he started, then he had to wet his mouth, clear his throat. He glanced around again, up, and his body gave another throb to see the way Will swallowed, how dark his eyes still were. “Then you can replant those flowers that you and your
darling
friend helped destroy.”

Maybe he was supposed to be grateful that a creature like Will would offer to blow him, which was something humiliating to think about. Charlie had almost kissed him, had almost been that stupid again. After everything, he should have known better.

If Charlie had been anyone else, he could have, would have kissed Will, put his hands at his hips, over those jeans to draw him closer, and not given a crap about what it meant. His body hummed at the thought, burned to imagine Will groaning into his mouth, settling eagerly into his lap.

“What?” Disbelief colored Will's tone, and Charlie looked back at him, into his stunned, wide-open face. “But you— ?” He'd probably never been rejected before, especially not by someone like Charlie, and Charlie frowned, his gut tight. But it wasn't as though this meant anything; Will would get over it quickly. “You're serious?”

Charlie's palms slipped on the metal, and he brought them up to his lap, barely keeping back his gasp when his fingers brushed his erection.

Not everything was funny.

“I'm always serious.” The words burst out of him, too honest, too loud, and Will flinched and fell back. The air felt cold. Charlie could hear his breathing, rapid and shallow, the sound of the water on the stove, boiling for the pasta he wasn't going to eat. He lowered his voice, looking up.

“I'm fine.” Will didn't comment on the strangled quality in his voice, but Charlie could hear it and cleared his throat. “Thank you for the offer, but... .” He stopped himself there. Jeanine was right, he was too old-fashioned.

Will frowned at him, and Charlie couldn't call it back. There was a trace of hurt in Will's wide eyes that made Charlie put out a hand. Will waved it away and cut him off.

“You're kicking me out?” he asked, his voice uneven and oddly blank, and then everything in his face vanished, too, except whatever made his eyes glitter.

There was lingering pink at Will's cheekbones, but he lifted his chin and tossed out that charming smile. There was no sign of the man who had been worried that a cat might not like him, who had teased him about bondage and Bette Davis. He was exactly what Charlie had thought he was at that first meeting, except that now he was silent.

Charlie's stomach twisted. He opened his mouth, but Will waved his hand, the gesture limp-wristed and careless.

“Well, I guess I should go,” he said, smooth again, as though it was nothing to him to leave after all, and even being proved right, that it hadn't meant anything, Charlie curled his fingers into his palms, left his fists in his lap.

“Fine. You know where the door is.” It isn't as though he hadn't been telling Will to leave the whole time. He'd had a long day, and he needed to eat and go to bed.

Will nodded, then shrugged and smiled. “Good night, Charlie.” He looked away before Charlie could, and Charlie dropped his eyes to his lap as Will closed the door quietly behind him.

Quietly, the exact opposite of what a pissed-off twink should have done. Charlie raised his eyes, felt his face burn with something new, his forehead tighten to match the knot in his stomach.

He got up to deal with the water. His hand shook as he did, because he was lying. It would have meant something, it always did, but only to him.

He sighed and took the pot of water off the stove, turning that off before going to the refrigerator and grabbing a new beer. Even if he went to bed, he wouldn't be sleeping.

Charlie had spent hours in the school gym and couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so pulled in all directions. By the time he got home, the sky was almost completely dark.

That, at least, he could blame on Jeanine, who had insisted on working out with him despite his hints that he hadn't been in the mood for company.

“When are you ever?” had been the total of her response to that before she'd patted his shoulder in a way he'd assumed was to take the edge off that statement, and then she'd proceeded to the women's locker room. Her time in there had been his only moments for silence until he'd finished working out an hour later and disappeared into the showers.

Despite her date ending well, the guy hadn't called her, and she was in a bad mood. Of course, even Jeanine in a good mood still meant a Jeanine who enjoyed giving Charlie a hard time.

He'd started out listening but had completely stopped, zoned out from exhaustion by the time he'd gotten on the weight machine. He'd made himself focus on his legs, on the burn of the repetitive motion and the pain that came from leaving too long a time in between workouts.

Now his hip was nothing but flaring heat, the rest of his muscles like rubber. He'd lingered under the shower's spray, hoping it would ease the ache, but he was sure now that he'd overdone it, that tomorrow that heat would be all pain.

Jeanine could scold him for that too, he supposed, since she'd had no problem in snapping at him the second she'd realized that he hadn't been listening. Charlie had stared at her. What had he been supposed to say, he wondered as he extricated himself from his car and pocketed his keys. He wasn't exactly an expert on getting a man to call back.

He took his time getting onto the curb, checking the messages on his phone he'd missed while working out. Ann was getting increasingly annoyed that he hadn't responded to her online dating suggestion. Missy had called because Ann had called her to complain that Charlie was ignoring her. Katia had left a message too, demanding to know why he'd started online dating and hadn't told her yesterday, which meant she'd talked to Ann or Missy or both.

Charlie felt his mouth draw into a tight line and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

He pushed out a long breath right as a streetlight came on, stepping through the gate and into the courtyard. It was so quiet inside his first footsteps echoed, no quieter than it had always been, even if it seemed that way now.

The motion-sensitive security lights were on timers, set to what they'd been before daylight savings, so they had started coming on before it got dark, which was a problem he would have to take care of soon. Some of them were already on in a few places, as though people had come and gone. Charlie needed to reset those too, not that he could climb any stairs today.

His gaze followed the light anyway, going to the empty stairwell and then the second-floor corner balcony. It was just as empty, along with the apartment itself. He couldn't see any lights on inside, disconcerting after weeks of coming home to an audience.

“You can come back here again. You know that, right, Charlie? You don't have to do a month of exercises in one go,” Jeanine had remarked after jumping into Charlie's line of sight and forcing him to stop. A second before she'd been accusing him of not being a good listener, and the change had made him lift his head to frown at her. He wasn't a cop anymore, but he couldn't shake his old paranoia. They weren't alone in the gym, after all, and there was a big difference between people knowing and people seeing and hearing.

“A guy not calling,” he'd answered finally, breathing hard. “What's surprising about that?” He'd pushed back the weights without waiting for her response and tried not to see the sudden, sympathetic expression on her face. It hadn't lasted long, not with Jeanine.

“An uncommunicative male,” she'd mused pointedly as he'd stood up and moved around her, and the weakness that had shot through his back and down his leg had not been a good sign. Jeanine had put one hand out to steady him, then pulled it back when he'd turned. “Sound familiar, Charlie?”

She had flounced off before he'd been able to say anything to that, and he knew he'd be getting his own coffee tomorrow, no matter how sore he was going to be, and he was predicting very sore at this point.

The two college kids who shared an apartment in the back on the third floor walked down the far stairs as he reached the center, and he nodded back when they nodded vaguely at him, heard them notice that someone had destroyed the “gay ass” flowers right as he reached his door. He frowned and turned around, but they were gone.

He wasn't even going to think about that, or this weekend. He was on borrowed time as it was, and once he was inside he went to the cat food first.