Without Scars (10 page)

Chuck suddenly flipped them both over. Sami and I gasped.

She bit her lip.

Charlie cleared his throat.

If not for the scene fading to black I never would’ve realized I was holding my breath. And then probably died. Thankfully, the cast and crew were chatting when the screen lit up again. My entire body felt like it had been wrenched, but at least the hot pulse between my thighs was slowly fizzling out.

I met guys all the time, but I tried not to hop into bed with anyone who couldn’t accept my demons. That left me with more dry spells than wet spots. So right now, PG-rated TV fooling around was too much for me.
I had a Friend With Benefits recently, a guy I’d met last year through the
Dating for Alcoholics
website. It wasn’t
bad
sex but very predictable: missionary on Mondays, doggy on Fridays, and reverse cowgirl when
I
talked him into it. Blah. Life was too damn short to suffer through bland sex. So, I sat him down and broke it to him gently. I didn’t just want the two of us to come; I wanted us to have the hair pulling, knee quaking, insides melting, fucked until we couldn’t see straight prelude, too. And I had ideas—“So…let’s go to a hotel bar and pretend we’re strangers,” “You should definitely put
that there
while you’re doing
that,
”
and “It’s okay! I don’t mind getting rug burn!” I still ended up being way more creative and better at making my eyes roll back with my cordless Body Wand. I was tired of using it.

Okay, that wasn’t true but I missed the real thing.

Charlie shifted and we bumped knees. I jumped. Thanks to gravity I didn’t smack my head on the ceiling. “So…did you like it? What did you think?” Oh God. I would never be one of those people who could critique an underlying message when someone was about to clutch a headboard or cling to the sheets for dear life. “That scene must’ve had close to ten takes before we finally nailed it because one of us kept laughing,” he said.

For my next trick, I’d pretend to be mature. “Is it weird doing sex scenes with Samira?”

“Uh huh. When we roomed together I saw her in her underwear maybe once. Samira’s hot. Objectively, I can see that, but she’s like Ahsha and Priyanka to me…which is gross as fuck when you see what all we do this season.”

I laughed. “My brother told me you guys are getting sexier.”

“We are. I have some bare ass scenes and a full frontal.”

“Full frontal?” I repeated, my voice cracking a little. He was grinning without a hint of insecurity. “As in…just pulling it out and…” I made a sideways fist and rotated my wrist. “Wooo…”

“Wooo?”

“Yeah, you know…” I repeated the motion. “Wooo.”

“You think we stand around swinging our dicks? You think we just helicopter all the time?” Charlie blew air between his lips to make the sound of propellers spinning.

“So there’s a term for it? Clearly that means you
do
...
helicopter
. And I would if I had one…”

“Well, hypothetically speaking…I’d helicopter about six…or
twenty
inches farther out than that, you’d need both hands, and…” He grabbed my arms and moved them in an arc shape. “You’d have to put more forearm into it.”

“You’re disgusting.” I swatted at him.

“Hey! You’re the one waving our dicks around!” Charlie caught my wrists and we struggled until I was pinned to the couch.

“You
wish
I’d wave your dick around!”

“Yeah! Maybe!” He shrugged and smiled. Charlie pushed up to a sitting position and pulled me up with him. Well, now, I was curious. He (
probably
) wasn’t Elephant Man but…the temptation to look was overwhelming. There was a split second where my gaze drifted down to the front of his sweatpants. I strained my eyes to follow the length of the bulge against his thigh. Warmth flooded my cheeks.

Wow.
Friendship was hard
.

Charlie brought his feet up onto the couch and laid his head on my lap. “By the way, Samira agreed to three topless scenes, so I figured why
not
show my dick.”

“And you’re just going to flash it…to millions.” Not that
one
of me wasn’t interested.

“
Thousands
but yeah…and how many tits have you seen in a movie in your lifetime? How              much female nudity in general? Actresses do it all the time.”

I ran my fingertips over the top of his head. “That’s still pretty cool of you, Charlie Dara.” I felt him shrug. On screen, he yelled, “Action,” and the story picked up again. Thankfully, the sexy stuff died down. Chuck told Sami he thought she deserved better than a late night fuck when her emotions were running so high. She wanted that fuck, though. Samira played that up well.

The rest of the episode was compelling, too. I was still staring at the screen when it faded to black for good. Charlie was asleep, and his hand was on top of mine on his stomach. It was silly of me to make a big deal out of it. I had only put it there because it was the most comfortable position and, Jesus, my entire leg was numb, but it was worth this moment of intimacy. I didn’t realize until now how much I was starving for it.

“How was today with Tyler?” Charlie murmured when I flexed my thigh under his head.

“It was…good. I think. Go-karts were fun when we were actually on the track. Then we went out to lunch and I did most of the talking. He was texting every time there was a lull in our conversation. There were a lot of lulls. We haven’t hung out a lot the past two years, so I was disappointed, but he’s young, and his friends and girls are his life right now.” I sighed. “I just don’t know whether to push a relationship or pull back and let him decide to be in my life. I keep thinking if I can convince him that I’m so much better, we’ll be like before. Maybe I’m delusional…” Whoa. I bit my lip and locked eyes with Charlie; his were squinted in concern.

I had word-vomited to a question I could’ve just answered with a single-syllabled response. I hadn’t even really processed any of my feelings from today internally, and here I was just dumping them onto Charlie.

He squeezed my hand. “I’m really sorry. I was hoping things had gone better. But
I’m
glad you’re here. At least I got to see you a lot last week. I missed you this week. Just talking on the phone and texting was not cutting it.” My heart fluttered. I liked being missed. “I haven’t felt this calm in days. Definitely haven’t been able to sleep at all, which I feel bad for now.” Yawning, he sat up then dropped his head on my shoulder.

His hand landed on my left inner thigh near my knee. Every nerve in my body lit up, like infernos that wiped out entire forests. I clenched a few times. I was way too horny for this. “It’s okay. Between your writing and your day job, your schedule has been crazy. Hasn’t Hillington paid you? I thought you were going to quit your job?”

“Can’t bring myself to give the two weeks notice. Got an attachment still I guess. I spent all my lunch breaks working on the blueprint for
How to Fuck up a Friendship.
” He reached for the remote. The fingers on my thigh slid across my skin. I sucked in air. Charlie was going to kill me slowly: death by arousal. “So, Sundance has been showing
1,001 Movies to See Before You Die,
and I’ve DVR’ed all the ones you haven’t seen. Took up almost all the space. Would you like to start your lesson on Hitchcock now?”

No, I need to get out of this dark room with you.
His cell buzzed in my silence and he switched on the light. Charlie walked across the room, rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes, and stared wide-eyed at his iPhone. “Oh, shit! Yes!” he said with excitement. Suddenly, he pulled his shirt off.

Because the universe hated me.

He’d told me he thought he looked doughy last season on the show, so he hired a personal trainer at his gym in preparation for this one. Charlie admitting he had body hang-ups endeared me to him more. Now there wasn’t a corner of him that wasn’t ripped with muscle. I dug my teeth into my lip.

Damn, friendship was really hard.

“Let’s go out.” He walked to the hallway leading to the bedrooms, where the stacked washer and dryer were. Interrupting the drying cycle, he took a shirt out. “I have the coolest thing to show you.”

What I was staring at right now was pretty damn cool. “But you’re tired,” I said, not meaning it as he yanked his head through a Polo shirt. He walked straight up to me and pulled me to my feet by the waist, his sculpted biceps flexing. A bolt of desire cut straight through me. With those arms, Charlie could’ve picked me up if he wanted to. He could’ve picked me up and put me against a wall or on his dining room table or just carried me into his bedroom…

“No way you wore
that
to sit in here all night.” He looked at me with exactly the same stare as before, when I was walking to the couch. He was just a little ravenous under all that friendship.

I was in a short violet dress with spaghetti straps that crisscrossed in the back. I hadn’t necessarily worn it to go out…but I did put it on hoping he would notice. Under all this friendship, I wanted to be sexy, too.

I sighed, gripping his thick forearms. “Okay. Okay! Let’s go. Can I just freshen up in your bathroom first?” I had a makeup arsenal in my bag as usual. But Charlie blocked the way with his body, panic freezing his face.

“Uh…do you mind using Deacon’s?” he asked quickly, directing me toward his roommate’s master bedroom. As frightened as I was to see what lay behind Deacon’s door—probably used condoms and a girl or two from last night—I nodded and went the way he told me. “Sorry. Mine is a lot like your feet.”

“Brutal, Dara,” I said. But I was smiling.

And I had been doing that since I got here.

****

When we left his place, Charlie didn’t drive for very long, but I was disoriented because he made so many turns once we were off the highway. We ended up in Little Havana, cruising past the vibrant murals and locked up storefronts. Eventually he slowed on a dark block of homes, save for the one luminescent house bleeding loud conversation. 

“You still think you know the best Cuban place in Miami?” Charlie asked with a confident smile. He cocked his head over my shoulder at the lit residence. “What if I proved you wrong?” We continued past the house. There was nowhere to park on the street. He settled into a space around the corner and dropped his arm over the back of my seat. His fingers skated over my right shoulder.

I turned toward him slightly. Shivered. His gaze worked wonders on my nerve endings. Being in the car with him was no different than his place—the close proximity, the darkness, and the urge to be the good kind of nasty. “I’d never eat at Libre again.”

When we got out of the car, he rushed around to the passenger side and hugged me from behind. “This is so fucking perfect.” Charlie kissed my cheek. “Just be glad you have friends like me who care that you eat in shitty places. I’m about to change your life.”

“Oh…okay, Dara,” I said sarcastically. We walked back to the house. I smelled the
sofrito
right away. My mother had cooked with it my entire life. If you cut me right now I’d bleed it. Someone lived here, obviously, but it hardly had the touches of a
home
—no pictures or magazines or books. Celia Cruz was playing on low volume. There was no A/C, just a few fans and open windows. It was packed with people. Just under the voices I heard the sizzle of something frying and smelled barbeque.

Smiles and cheerful greetings were tossed Charlie’s way as he led me around to say hello. He was so effortlessly charming with everyone he stopped to talk to. My hand was in his and my eyes were like orbs I bet, because the fifteen-year-old in me was freaking out. He didn’t let it go until we cut the self-service food line right where Deacon and Brody were. I asked what this was exactly, and Brody explained. From behind me, Charlie wrapped his arms around my middle and put his chin in the curve of my neck. His stubble bit into my skin as he chimed in with other details. Show me a woman who can properly concentrate on
anything
when a man’s facial hair brushed anywhere across her body; I’ll show you someone who should win an Academy Award for her acting. I managed to pick up two facts while heat was digging into every part of me: 1) Julian lived here and 2) he cooked all the food.

Brody passed plates to Charlie and me when we finally reached the serving table. There was pork and chicken and baked fish. Beef stew. Rice. Beans. Flan. My God, there was enough food here to feed each of us for days. Just from smell alone I knew Charlie was right about this place.

There was a large jar of money at the end of the line. Some people were shoving in tens and fives. As Charlie stuffed three twenties in, I acted as a spotter for his plate, which was starting to bend under the weight of the food. “It’s a donation. He can’t charge us because then it’s a sale, and he doesn’t have a license to sell food.
Technicalities
.” He shrugged. Then we squeezed into our saved spots on the couch, between Brody and Deacon. The guys eventually moved to the floor when three girls wandered in and had no place to sit. People were literally on every durable surface.