Play It Again, Charlie (20 page)

“Hot.” The chopsticks were apparently now an extension of Will's fingers. He used them to point to Charlie's food. “Can I ask if you, um, grew up with spicy food?”

“Because I'm part Mexican?” Charlie stopped eating too. He wasn't mad, not exactly, but when he set his shoulders and waited for more, Will licked at the corner of his mouth.

“No. Well, are you? Speaking Spanish could mean a lot of things. It doesn't have to be Mexican. Though one time, I knew this guy who— ”

“My grandmother is from Mexico, but my grandfather was white and American.” Charlie really didn't want to hear about a guy Will had known one time. Of course, he didn't want to talk about his mother and father either. “My mother married a man named Howard. I just like hot food. Now eat your tuna.”

“But you speak it,” Will protested, but to Charlie's surprise obediently popped part of a roll into his mouth, then mumbled something. “Well, I suppose some like it hot.” At least Charlie got the reference this time; it would have been hard not to.

“I don't speak it, not really. I just understand it.” People never seemed to get that. But he hadn't grown up with it in the house on an everyday basis. “My abuelita— my grandmother, speaks it, and it's smart to know what she's talking about.”

“But your n— ” Will stopped himself with another piece of what looked more like eel than tuna and chewed for a minute. “Do I get to meet your, um, abuelita?”

“Absolutely not.” The reflexive response was so blunt that he froze until he realized that Will was kidding him again. The thought of introducing Will to his Nana was enough to make him pause to catch his breath. He knew exactly what she'd do.

“Ever?” Will asked with another pout, and Charlie shook his head.

“She's traditional, and
you
can't stop with the innuendo.” It was a silly argument when that meeting wasn't likely to ever happen, but Will was enjoying himself, judging from the variety of pouty looks he had perfected and was now employing in between bits of his dragon roll. He was going to get sick eating that quickly, but his hunger must have caught up with him.

“I can tone it down,” Will insisted when he finished chewing. Charlie supposed it would be pointless to remind Will of his conversation with Mrs. Brown earlier. But Will was indicating his hair, or maybe his clothes, with another gesture. Charlie stopped eating and leaned back. Nana would have a lot to say about Will's clothes, actually, and most of it in Spanish, and most of it accusing Charlie of being shallow. But the clothes weren't even close to being the big issue.

“I'd like to see you try,” he said first, expecting Will to stick out his tongue at him or something similar, but Will's smile stayed in place, set and sort of cool.

“Oh I can play the good boy for the family, Charlie,” he said boldly, then he wrinkled his nose. “If I have to.”

“It doesn't matter how ‘good’ you act.” Charlie cleared his throat. “She only likes men who work with their hands,” he informed him, pretending sadness on Will's behalf. It made Will lift one eyebrow in either amusement or doubt.

“Oh.” He seemed taken aback for a few minutes, then recovered. “Hey, I
garden
now.” Will took a drink and was quiet for a few more moments. He was thinking, and Charlie watched with sudden renewed tension. But the question he chose was a mild one, by Will's standards. “So your grandmother knows about you?” Apparently three twirls with a chopstick equaled “queer” in Will sign language. “She's not
that
traditional, then.”

Charlie opened his mouth, but nodded. Will's mouth curved up at just one corner.

“That must be nice.” He said that as though he believed that, looking down, then he flicked a look back up. “So what about your parents?”

“My mother died when I was fourteen. We went to live with my grandmother.” Charlie set his chopsticks down and looked out over the restaurant. The party at the back was getting ready for a round of sake bombs. It was about to get loud. He looked back. Will was watching him. But because he enjoyed surprising Charlie so much, he didn't add anything else, didn't ask about his father. He did twist his head at the burst of shouting that meant a successful sake bombing.

“Not too late. I'll buy,” he teased softly, and Charlie tried not to be too obviously grateful for the subject change. He actually thought his grandmother might like Will, once she got over her initial surprise at the idea of Charlie bringing anybody home, much less someone so... Will-like. At this point she'd probably like
anybody
he brought home, but in any case it wasn't likely to happen. He straightened and picked up his chopsticks again.

“It's not something we talk about,” he said shortly, by way of an explanation, and he saw from the way Will bit his lip that he was trying not to ask. It made Charlie consider trying to explain, just once, but “Dad took off,” was all he'd managed as a teenager, and he'd never seen the need to say more. They'd had other things on their minds then, anyway.

“I've noticed there's a lot of that with you,” Will observed at last, but he arranged his expression into innocence when Charlie focused on him. “Who is ‘we'? Your sister and all those pictures of kids on your fridge? They looked nice. Wait— ” Will stopped with food halfway to his mouth. “Are any of those kids yours?”

“Sister
s
,” Charlie corrected him. “Melissa, Ann, and Kate— Katia. And no,” he tried to reassure him, since Will seemed startled, “I don't have any children.” He was quiet and calm and had no clue why Will took so long to finally get the last bit of his roll to his mouth.

“So, Charlie,” he started, and Charlie coughed.

“How about you?” He turned the tables and didn't care how obvious it was. Will clearly had issues of his own, and Charlie had talked enough. He drank the last of his soda in two gulps and blinked when Bobby appeared from nowhere to refill it and leave a new plate in front of Will.

Will finished chewing and set down his chopsticks. “Subtle, Charlie,” he remarked. “Is this usual for these, or just a Charlie thing?” he pressed on when Charlie stared. “It
is
more than I usually hear, don't get me wrong. It's just when I'm about to know everything there is to know about you— ”

“You were not about to know everything there is to know about me,” Charlie protested and wasn't surprised when Will ignored him. He snorted a laugh and kept right on talking.

“You go and get all
Sergeant Howard
on me.” Will scooted the new plate with the new roll on it to the center of the table. “Don't know why I'm surprised,” he addressed the table or himself, Charlie wasn't sure. “I mean, I thought that was the point of this whole thing, but I suppose... . Here, have some.” He pushed the plate again and glanced up. Charlie gave a small shake of his head.

“You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to,” he began but trailed off at Will's wide grin.

“Oh my God, I'm not serious. I don't mind if you really want to hear about it. But seriously, have some of this, it's good.” Will pushed at the plate again until Charlie took a piece, though he just set it down without eating it. Will sat up and lifted his chin as though he was about to do a scene. A moment later, he ruined the pose with a shrug.

“My family is my sister. Now, I know what you're wondering, was I found in a cabbage patch at the end of a rainbow? But sadly, Charlie, no, I have actual parents.” Will picked up the chopsticks again, but only to rub them together and then tap them against his glass. His attention was up, on Charlie. Charlie doubted Will even noticed what his hands were doing. “My dad is, in your words, traditional, and not very happy with me. Like you've never heard that before, I know, right?” Will went on and gave another small smile at Charlie's growing frown. “It's all very TV movie. Come out at seventeen, Dad blames Mom, I get kicked out, all that. Boring.”

Three rolls of his chopsticks apparently also meant that Will didn't want to go into details, not that that was something Charlie didn't understand. Charlie tried to speak, but Will wouldn't let him. “I wander around until I get picked up by this very cranky cop in a squad car who won't arrest me but won't let me go until he knows I have somewhere to go. Are you all like that, by the way?”

Charlie had wondered what his parents would have done if they'd been around when he'd come out. He'd had been terrified enough bringing up the subject to his grandmother, and he'd been in his twenties then, on patrol and juggling getting Katia to stay in class and helping Ann find an apartment near her school. He'd thought she'd be angry, or that she'd call him everything he'd ever heard Rosa or his cousins say, but never once had he thought she would throw him out.

“All?” he managed, breathing hard, and Will nodded.

“Cops,” he said, wide-eyed. “Because then I got what I realized later was really stupid and
demanded
that he arrest me.”

“Possession?” Charlie guessed. Depending on what Will had had on him, what trouble he'd been into, that could have been a slap-on-the-wrist sentence. Probation, community service. Will flashed him a sassy look.

“Public disturbance.” Will looked almost proud for a second. It was another light charge, but still an arrest and time in county. Will waved breezily with his chopsticks to dismiss Charlie's concern. There was a line in Charlie's forehead, he was frowning so hard, he knew that, but he couldn't stop. “Which forced me to call somebody, that sly fox, but I ended up calling my sister.” Will poked at a piece of fish, then picked it up. “She was in school out here, but she came and got me.” He shrugged again and popped the fish into his mouth.

And now he lived near his sister to have her couch handy. Charlie wanted a beer. But he settled for the sugar as he stared at Will, who was now concentrating on his food a little too much. Charlie breathed in, then set down his glass. He put his other hand out on the table, then pulled it back without touching Will. He cleared his throat instead, trying to think of something amusing.

“So ever since then you've had daddy issues and a thing for nice cops?” he remarked as breezily as he could manage, which wasn't much. His tone got Will's gaze back on him, so Charlie tried to only appear thoughtful. “It all makes sense now.”

“
Actually
, for the record, that cop wasn't very nice. Nor was he cute. He was old and had a paunch and he called me ‘princess'.” Will was getting snippy. Charlie felt a small tug of guilt but pushed it away. Will glared at him, but he wasn't fiddling with his beer or looking so serious anymore. “In fact, he didn't want any part of my fabulous if plump teenaged self.” Will sniffed, and Charlie felt some of the imaginary pressure ease. Maybe it was the idea of a young Will throwing himself on some officer's shoulder for a cry and getting an embarrassed shove in return. Maybe it was the idea of a plump Will, though he was pretty certain Will was teasing him with that one. Either way, it was hardly the kind of memory that would make Will fixate on cops the way some people did.

“And by plump of course I mean I had a
slight
remnant of my baby fat. And by not very nice, I guess the guy was professional,” Will admitted, and Charlie could almost completely relax again, or at least as much as he had been coming in here with Will, though Will was clearly still bothered by the memory. He jabbed the air with one chopstick. “He made it very clear he'd had enough of stupid kids doing stupid things and gave me a long lecture that I didn't listen to.”

That was familiar. Charlie pursed his lips, not that he thought Will saw. Will sat back too and dropped his chopsticks on his plate again. He crossed his arms, scowled, and then for the first time seemed to notice Charlie studying him. His hair was mostly dry now, all loose flyaways and frizz, just as he'd predicted.

“Are you all like that?” he demanded again, and Charlie had no problem imagining Will at seventeen, a flaming, angry, teary-eyed mess terrorizing some tired, long-time officer. He wondered if it had been a small town, or small enough where the cop had probably known damn well who Will was and where he lived, what the real problem was. Will was actually lucky that he hadn't been left on the streets or arrested on a more serious charge, even if it would have been fabricated.

He wasn't sure what Will meant by the question: possibly interfering, overprotective, rude, helpful. It could have been any of those. Maybe sensitive. Hopefully the men and women he was teaching would be, but Charlie thought of Mark, then a few others. Then he shook that thought away too. He didn't want to think about that right now.

“Yes,” he answered finally, his face blank. “We all drive around looking for troubled, pretty boys to rescue.”

Will stopped, then gave him an odd look.

“I meant grouchy,” he said slowly, and he seemed stunned when Charlie looked away, then back, eyebrows up innocently. “But you knew that, and you said that anyway. Charlie, are you
teasing
me?” Will was breathless but then suddenly smiling, bright and electric. “I tell you a painful, if cliched, personal story and you tease me?” he asked, his tone cranky but his mouth turning up. “To cheer me up? Oh, I like this, Charlie.”

“Like what?” Charlie wanted to ask, but he didn't get a chance. He only had time to blink and then stare until his eyes were burning when Will shifted and twisted around to look for Bobby. He was so restless that Charlie glanced around too, thinking maybe he'd gone too far and Will was angry. Will, however, leaned forward when Charlie attempted to take it back and touched his fingers to the back of Charlie's hand.

“You're all sly foxes, aren't you?” he whispered, and Charlie realized he was incredibly happy about what had only been a small joke. He tried to focus, but Will's fingertips left streaks of heat behind when Will sat back and laid his hands flat on the table. “You dry, droll, sexy bitch, you,” he breathed heavily, then he grinned and leaned back in his seat and waved a hand. “I'm going to call this one successful, at least so far.” Will could have been talking to himself again. “As far as I know it was. It was, wasn't it, Charlie? A good one. Unless there's more to it?”