Play It Again, Charlie (42 page)

“Charlie has
degrees
, you know,” he volunteered at Buffalo, and he ignored both Charlie and Buffalo's attempts to call him back.

“Will... .”

“Well, I have to go get that drink!” Will sang, patting Charlie's knee as though Charlie was the one freaking out. Then he slipped away.

Charlie tracked Will's progress back to the other end of the bar. It took Will a while to get there; he stopped to talk with a few people, flashing smiles when his name was called out. With others he seemed relaxed and easy. Charlie wondered if he really was, if Charlie was the only one who made him so tense and unsure.

He kept his eyes on Will, trying to see if Will really was fine. He didn't think so, not with the way Will's eyes kept swinging back to him.

“I think we're supposed to talk about books,” Charlie announced. He wasn't sure, of course, but he had the feeling they'd been almost ordered to and that he was supposed to impress Buffalo. He also had the feeling that Will had had this in mind from the moment he'd suggested coming to the bar. Possibly from the moment he had proposed taking the train so they wouldn't have to drive, the clever little tart.

“Let's talk about Will instead,” he said, reversing his earlier announcement, and heard Buffalo give a soft snort. “How much of this do you think he planned?” He wasn't going to ask why— at least, he wasn't going to ask
Buffalo
why.

“Most of it.” The man didn't pretend to misunderstand. Charlie wondered what he thought of Charlie, staring after Will like a mother hen. He could just hear his grandmother telling him to either get up and go get his man or stop staring.

He coughed. He wasn't going to make a scene. But he shifted, striving to stay in his seat when Will shot the two of them another careful look.

Charlie shook his head, and Will's expression went innocent. “Thinks he's so clever,” he muttered, turning away, then he paused when Buffalo shrugged.

“Does he?” The man took another drink from his glass, which had been replaced with a full one sometime in the last few minutes, though he hadn't ordered another. There was a new, full glass of beer by Charlie too. He considered the bartender, then Buffalo again when the other man continued speaking. “Did you know, according to William, he barely made it out of school?”

Charlie froze, startled and embarrassed at not knowing that, though distantly he knew it fit with what Will had told him of his teenage years. Of course high school wouldn't have been easy. What had Will said, when Mark had mentioned Charlie's degrees? Almost nothing, he'd just gone still.

“Stupid,” Charlie blurted and knew Buffalo misunderstood from the line between his eyes. He didn't really care. Was this supposed to show him that Will had smart friends, or was Charlie supposed to have intellectual discussions with Buffalo and then fuck Will at home? Or was
this
some sort of date?

He tightened his mouth and raised his head. He drank his beer without really noticing the taste and watched Will take a shot. Will's eyes met his over the glass. Charlie didn't exactly know what he was doing, but something in his face made Will blink, and then he was darting back toward Charlie as though Charlie had called him over.

Maybe he had.

He was already dizzy from drinking so much, so quickly, and felt so warm he itched under his jacket.

“Charlie, what?” Will was in front of him, smart enough to read a look, not smart enough to see... . Charlie shook his head, and Will touched his leg, then withdrew his hand. “What's that face? I don't know that one either. I thought— ” Will looked uncertainly between them. “I thought you two would get along.”

“We did,” Charlie butted in, buzzed enough to be that rude. Will's attention came back to him, no doubt noticing his flushed cheeks. He seemed momentarily mesmerized. “But you didn't finish telling me about Tippi.”

“I didn't?” Will's head went to one side. He blinked back a frown, then stepped closer. “I thought I was a geek?”

“Yeah.” It left Charlie in a sigh. Will's breath caught noisily, and the sound was familiar enough that Charlie felt his heart start to pound faster. But he nodded, just to be clear. “Yeah, you are. Total nerd.” He inclined his head to regard Will seriously.

“You really want to hear about that?” He wondered if Will had noticed that he'd stepped closer again. Charlie had. He thought Buffalo had as well. The man snorted again, then said, “Nerd” to himself, as if amused. Luckily, Charlie was too hot to blush anymore. “But... .”

“Yes.” Charlie frowned. There was sugar at Will's lips. Will licked it away before a smile burst out of him.

“Well, if you insist.” Will breathed into Charlie's ear as he moved to stand at his side. “But I could go for
hours
,” he promised with another horrible innuendo, not for Charlie's ears alone, then he beamed over at his friend. Bill's eyebrows were sky high. Charlie tried not to look too embarrassed, or as aroused as he was.

It was more difficult than it should have been. Will was hot next to him, whispering things about “Hitchcock blondes” just against his neck, his tone more than a little giddy. Charlie had to fight a smile, the lick of pleasure traveling down his spine with every excited word spilling from Will.

“I really don't mind,” Charlie told him when, mid speech, Will asked one more time if he was being too geeky, and he felt even more foolish when that made Buffalo grin. Charlie didn't need the man's approval, exactly, but maybe Will did, and for now he told himself he was only happy that Will had stopped hopping around. Will was actually still, though Charlie saw him exchange a look with Buffalo. Then the other man opened his book again.

“Nice to have met you,” he remarked to Charlie, nodding once, and then he flicked on his reading light and turned his back on them.

“Charlie.” Will's voice was thick.

“William,” Charlie answered, shivering slightly. “How many names do you have, anyway?”

“Depends on when you met me. There was a brief time when I was younger where I wanted to be a ‘Liam'. It didn't last. Though ‘Lee’ stuck around. Charlie... .” Will's hand landed gently on his waist. Charlie straightened and looked out over the crowd without seeing a single face. “I had no idea she'd keep serving you, or that you'd... . Charlie, how drunk are you right now?”

“I'm not. Enough.” Will's other hand slid over his back. Charlie glanced at Buffalo, who seemed engrossed in his book.

“I should have known you'd drink like that, all or nothing.” Will wasn't laughing. “Want to step outside?” he offered in that same whisper. “Clear your head?” He bent to speak directly into Charlie's ear. “You just had two beers in, like, fifteen minutes. You are at least buzzed.” He was speaking persuasively, as though he needed to work to convince Charlie of anything. Charlie thought he'd been pretty obvious about giving Will everything he wanted, except for the things he couldn't think about safely while in public and which still worried him, no matter how much Will claimed they shouldn't.

He turned his head, then stopped when Will was so close that they could have kissed, right there. He looked at Will's mouth, then up into his eyes when Will's lips curved up. He was dizzy.

He nodded without answering and straightened in surprise when Will insinuated himself under one of his arms and helped him up.

“I'm not drunk,” he told Will, but he let Will lead him past the pool table toward the doors in the back. Two were bathrooms. One was an office. The other opened up into the night air. Charlie shivered again, then pulled himself up to walk on his own, not that Will let him. He stayed plastered to Charlie's side, staring up at him with an expression Charlie couldn't read.

He blamed the dark. There were a few lights from neighboring buildings, not bright enough to do much good, and then a beam of light from the back of the take-out place that didn't quite make it through the wooden fence that separated the properties.

He was being pushed in that direction for a moment, urged one small step at a time until he was at the corner of the bar, just at the entrance to the narrow walkway between the bar and the fence. Then he made Will stop by refusing to move anymore. He lifted his chin.

The music from inside was still audible, and beyond that he could hear pots and pans banging and swearing from the take-out place. He caught a sniff of carne asada before he lowered his head to inhale Will's cologne.

Will was breathing hard. So he wasn't calm; that was good to know. Charlie was starting to sweat, and his heart was racing.

“What's going on here?” he asked, watching Will glance away. “Did you want me to get drunk? So I could talk to your friend?” That was humiliating, the idea that Will thought he'd need to get drunk to have a conversation. But Will's gaze came back up, and he looked shocked. Charlie didn't quite buy it. “Were you trying to fix us up?”

Will gasped.

“No!” His hands moved, on Charlie, over his chest and under his coat. “I just wanted you to have a good time. Buffalo? No! You're
my
— I mean, no. God, no! Sweet Baby J, no, I was not fixing you up with Buffalo.

“Seriously?” he added a moment later, his glare a mirror of Charlie's. “You seriously thought that?” He tossed his head, then peered at Charlie in the dim light. “Why would you... ? Haven't I... ? I'm torn between being flattered that you think I'm that crafty and insulted that you think I'm so easy. Okay, so sometimes I am.” He stuck out his lower lip, then moved on. “But honestly, Charlie, sometimes you are so— ”

“Irritating?” Charlie finished for him, having heard this before, then he shuddered all over and hit the edge of the wall when Will pressed closer and put his face to his neck. Will slowly shook his head, back and forth.

“No.” He apparently didn't feel like elaborating. At least not on that subject. He stepped in and put his mouth just above the collar of the jacket. “But he
reads
.” His lips shaped a kiss, then moved to a new spot and did it again. “And I don't.”

Charlie's back was pressed painfully against the corner, but he didn't move other than to look around. He wet his mouth, tried to speak.

“Will... .”

“But
you
read, and you... .” When fingers wormed under his T-shirt, Charlie finally moved, jumping and frowning at the space around them. Will just followed him, glancing up through plain, undecorated eyelashes before dropping his head back to Charlie's throat. “You called me a nerd.”

“You
are
a nerd.” Charlie closed his eyes and tried to remember they were in public, or close enough to it. Then he tried to remember what they were arguing about. If they
were
arguing, he couldn't exactly tell anymore. Will's hands were at his waist, over bare skin. At his hips, sliding together along his stomach. “You gave me a whole monologue on the color
red
in the movie
Marnie
. And another about
knees
.”

“I know, I... .” Will's mouth paused over Charlie's Adam's apple. Will's shadow was growing in again already; it was the faintest scratch against Charlie's skin. Charlie opened his eyes and went dizzy as the second beer hit him. Or was that Will, breathing hard and sounding so sweetly hopeful that Charlie wanted to ask why? “Tell me you like me for my mind, Charlie.”

Who said that with their body pressed to someone else's, Charlie wondered, then dragged in a deep breath.

“Will... .” He brought his hands up to rest on Will's back, which apparently was all the encouragement Will needed. He sucked hard at Charlie's pulse point and slid his hands up, taking Charlie's shirt with them. The cooler air made his skin prickle with goose bumps, and Will gave a gentle laugh Charlie could taste.

He was too close, too hot. Charlie couldn't think.

“We're in public, Will.” He got the words out, though his head was swimming. Will's tongue flicked out, and he dropped a hand to Charlie's fly. He rubbed the heel of his hand down the length of the zipper and hummed when Charlie's cock responded. Charlie made a slight hissing noise that would have embarrassed him if not for being two beers into the evening.

“Yeah,” Will agreed, not slowing his hand, not for a second. Charlie swallowed, felt one of his hands sliding up to the back of Will's neck. Will obediently shifted to ease into the touch, letting Charlie cup his head before Charlie realized what he was doing. There was something Will had said he was supposed to be replying to.

“No,” he managed. This was... this was serious, but Jesus, Will knew how to tease. He felt like there were lights under his skin, warm like holding hands, like those kisses against his throat. “Will, this is
public
. You can't just... .” He was an idiot, because obviously people did. But they weren't even
hidden
, not that he couldn't wait until they got back to his apartment. Not that Will couldn't wait. Charlie's eyes slid closed again as he remembered that.

Will pushed forward, forcing Charlie to step back to keep them both from falling. He had one hand working over Charlie's dick and the other tugging at his jeans. His mouth moved, his words tumbling out into Charlie's skin.

“Yeah, Charlie, yes we can,” he murmured, and then, “Please, let me. I'll show you how smart I can be.” Will's voice was unsteady, trembling like his hands. Charlie moved his thumb, felt it sweep softly over the nape of Will's neck, and how Will shivered.

He didn't like it when Will was upset, didn't want him to feel any kind of need that he couldn't answer, and shook his head. He blinked his eyes back open, tried to remember that that wooden fence wasn't that tall and wasn't in such great shape, or, at what was suddenly the very
least
, that this was all kinds of illegal.

This space was too small to even be an alley, and it was filled with trash. It wasn't
safe
.

He must have said that out loud, part of it, all of it, must have bitten it out somewhere between his grunts when Will got the zipper out of his way and ran his mouth over Charlie's collarbone through his T-shirt. Will stopped to suck there, not quite hard enough to bruise, just enough to make his point. That he didn't
want
to wait. That it was safe enough. He wanted Charlie to trust him.