Play It Again, Charlie (7 page)

Charlie snorted the moment Will's attention left him. Right. A
darling
. But there was absolutely no sign in the kid's attitude that he realized how idiotic that was, even though he
had
to know that a friend under the influence wasn't always the friend he knew.

“Yeah, sure,” Charlie finally agreed. “Whatever, Miss Golightly.” If the kid was going to act stupid, then he was going to treat him like he was. “This has been... .” He focused on the paper grocery bag, folding it before tucking it under the sink to use later. “Something, but I have things to do.”

“
Of Human Bondage
?” Will said quickly, moving just out of sight for a moment and forcing Charlie to move to the edge of the dining area to see him. He tossed one arch look over his shoulder as he reached up to grab that book, and even knowing it was an act, Charlie felt himself tensing. His eyes fell on the leather cuff at Will's wrist, as they were probably meant to. “Kinky.”

Charlie's throat locked. “I'm not... .”

“Into Bette Davis? I know, a lot of people find her scary at first, but after a while you
really
start to get into her.”

The completely reasonable tone was at odds with the wicked light in the kid's eyes, the way his lips were curved up, how he held his breath when Charlie blinked and frowned, replaying the insane words until they made sense. Until he remembered that Bette Davis was in the film version of that novel, until he could finally take his gaze off that wide leather band.

His face was burning.

“Smartass,” he muttered, completely mystified when being called a smartass made Will hop in place, since Will had already made it clear that he had a brain under all that hair and glitter.

For a brief moment Charlie couldn't remember what he'd been planning on doing tonight, that he was in his own kitchen. He had to be dreaming or something, because Charlie knew that beautiful, bright men never followed him home. “You're insane, you know that?”

The question
why
was still lingering— why Will was here— and this time his frown was real.

“Never mind my mental problems.” Will waved a hand, moved a few steps in his direction, then stopped to look around. “Charlie, where's your cat? I see the food and the litter box and the fur, but no cat.”

Charlie swept a look around and saw his bedroom door pushed open. “Hiding, probably. He's not used to many visit— strangers.”

“I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that.” That the statement slipped out in barely a whisper didn't make it any less startling. Charlie lifted an eyebrow, watching Will's face for a moment before Will saw him and blinked. He gestured wildly a second later, jumping forward.

“I hear you're supposed to use wet food.”

Charlie took a moment to stare at him and then shook his head, trying to regain some of his sanity. “I have that too. Look— ”

“Do you think he'll like me?” Will was staring with interest at the kitchen table, or maybe the collection of unused cat toys in the corner.

“I doubt it,” Charlie answered honestly. He couldn't imagine Will sticking around long enough to even meet Sam. But Will instantly turned his fallen face to him, and he heard himself explaining, “He can be cranky.”

“You got a cranky cat?” Will looked momentarily frozen, half frowning, half smiling, as if uncertain whether to be curious or amused.

“Yes, I thought a cranky cat would give the place that finishing touch.” Will didn't react to his sarcasm beyond a faint lift of one eyebrow, apparently already used to Charlie griping at him. He twisted for another look at the living room.

“Books are
awfully
decorative, don't you think?” From the sudden shift in Will's accent and tone, Charlie had a feeling that this was another reference that only Will understood. Will blithely continued without pause, however, apparently also used to people not understanding his jokes.

“You know, there aren't any books in Grayson's apartment,” Will continued in his normal voice, back and forth like a breezy, flaming ping-pong ball. Charlie's jaw tightened.

“We're going to talk about Grayson now?” There was no hiding the irritation in his voice, bordering on outright anger, though he had never had a problem with Grayson as a tenant before.

The only way he could have embarrassed himself more would have been to actually get naked, scar and all.

“Oh, Charlie.” Will's voice was soft, and Charlie had to make himself look up, scowling through the heat in his face, in his mind. The other man had his head to one side again and looked puzzled. Charlie wondered briefly if it was genuine, then decided it was when the look didn't disappear right away. “I don't get you at all.”

Charlie resisted the urge to answer back with a snappy, “Ditto,” and used one of Will's tricks, tried a shrug, something helpless and annoyingly indifferent. “Is that important?”

“It just makes me want... ,” Will began, then he sucked in a breath and smiled. He glanced around as though he had forgotten where he was too, but he was young and flexible and recovered fast. Charlie curled his fingers into his palms.

“
Anyway
, he doesn't have any books anywhere, just his photographs in frames on the walls and all those plants that need someone to water them. I don't know why he has plants at all, really, since he's never home. I guess he thinks they're pretty.” Will moved away, hopped up to sit on the counter. “You like plants, though, don't you?”

“Look,” Charlie tried again as Will made himself comfortable, rubbing his perfect ass all over the tiled surface of Charlie's kitchen counter. “You don't have to do this.” He stopped, saw the blank look thrown his way, and pressed grimly on only to instantly regret it. “Pretend you're interested.”

No, this was far more embarrassing than stripping naked. He lifted his chin, but Will didn't seem to notice, rolling his hand in the air, kicking his legs with too much energy.

“Well,
obviously
. You know— ” A tinkling sound from his jeans stopped him, thankfully, and Will pulled his phone from his pocket and started pushing buttons without taking his gaze away.

Charlie coughed and looked away first. “I'm sure you have things to do, Golightly, so why don't you— ”

“It's Liam... or Will... and not William. William is my dad's name.” Will sucked in air, glared for a moment at his phone, then tucked it away in his pocket. “And not that other thing. Though I'll take that as a compliment. Audrey's not my Natalie, but she'll do.”

“Will,” Charlie started again immediately, ignoring whatever the kid was talking about now, only to fall silent when saying the name out loud made Will melt off the counter like butter on hot toast. Suddenly Will was directly in front of him.

Charlie had time to blink, and then the tinkling started in again.

“Your phone is ringing.” That earned him another startled look, but Will ignored the text this time and switched on a smile. To get away, Charlie would have had to sit in one of the chairs. He stepped to the side. Will stuck out his lower lip.

“So what did you have planned for tonight, Charlie?” The question, echoed by the sound of Will's phone receiving another message, made Charlie glance back over, then look away.

“This might come as a shock to you, Miss Golightly, but there's such a thing as personal business,” he answered after a pause, moving carefully around Will to get to the cabinet to take out the bag of pasta. “Which means it's none of yours.”

“Do you always talk that way?” Will was watching him. Charlie picked up the pasta, moved it to the stove without opening the bag, and looked up.

“What way?” He stopped. His voice had gone rough.

“I feel like I'm seventeen and getting arrested all over again.” Will probably thought the way he let that drop was charming and mysterious.

Charlie looked back at him without blinking, had a strange urge to smile when the silence dragged on and Will finally gave a small, uncomfortable wriggle. He liked Will being the one off guard for once. He wasn't going to ask, not when Will clearly wanted him to, when all he'd wanted to do was come home, eat some dinner, and do some work in peace.

That was what he wanted. But he frowned when Will's phone went from tinkling to playing a song about putting on his Sunday clothes and he yanked it up to answer it.

“Sorry,” he murmured at Charlie, and then he squinted his face into something irritated and distracted that made Charlie stop what he was doing. He was staring by the time Will started to speak and got cut off, the urge to smile only getting stronger, because for the moment Will wasn't trying to be anything but frustrated. Even that managed to be somehow charming.

“Hey, B— No I didn't. Oh really?” Will lifted his eyebrows and then let out a small laugh that he turned back to share with Charlie. Whatever was being said on the other end made Will laugh again and lower his voice. “You naughty thing. I'm working on it.”

Charlie bent down, grabbed a pot, and moved to the sink to fill it with water. He did not set it down hard onto the stove. Will laughed again, let his rich voice fall another octave into something private. “No, I can't, Boo, I'm busy. I'm with someone.”

Charlie's ears were probably red. He actually ground his teeth when Will laughed again, as though it was all hilarious.

“Hey, listen, do you still have those things you sent me? Well, how am I supposed to? No, I don't want them... exactly. I just... I should go. I always say that, yeah yeah yeah. I avoid everything serious, blah blah.”

Charlie could imagine the eye roll without seeing it, almost smiled again at the person on the other end of the conversation calling Will on
something
, whatever it was. “Can we have this talk later? Like when I'm eighty?” Charlie sprinkled some salt into the pot of water, caught part of the fond smile that went with that. Then Will returned to what seemed to be his normal setting. “Bitch. I love you too. Okay. Bye, Boo.”

“Apparently I need to get spanked on a regular basis,” he announced the moment his phone was back in his pocket. Charlie sucked in a breath and turned on his heel to get a beer from the fridge. With Will so close, so obviously excited about it, he couldn't help picturing a flat hand on bare skin,
his
hand, on Will's lightly tanned, possibly freckled, skin.

Despite being in the refrigerator for well over a week, the beer didn't seem close to cold enough to keep him from burning up.

He paused before closing the door and wondered if he ought to offer Will one, then decided he wasn't sure he could risk Will being even slightly intoxicated, even if it was rude. It was too hard to remember that Will's touches and remarks weren't serious without Will as loose and warm as he'd been last night with alcohol in his system.

Will pouted at him when he saw the single beer, then worked his way back over to perch on the counter. It was as if he didn't register Charlie's bad manners at all, though Charlie could hear his Nana yelling at him every time he snapped. But then, Will had already dropped a potted plant on him and invited himself inside his apartment. He wasn't exactly Miss Manners’ favorite person either.

Charlie moved without any real destination and passed Will, shivering at the slight contact. He swallowed a mouthful of beer, then pulled one chair further out and sat down.

The unexpected, instant ache in his hips at finally taking the pressure off made him close his eyes. He'd been on his feet too much today.

He breathed out loudly as he settled, then opened his eyes, embarrassment coming and going when he saw Will's gaze passing over his face before traveling down to his leg.

It was his hip that had been shattered and, with a great deal of medical intervention, healed, but usually people assumed it was his leg when they saw the limp. They also liked to imagine a lot of danger once they found out he used to be a cop: liquor store holdups and gang fights, all that.

Will, at least, didn't try to look like he wasn't wondering about it, his stare sparking to what it was in dark places, taking far too long to come back up to Charlie's face, where Charlie could feel his blush.

Charlie twitched his eyebrows into a frown but didn't speak. There was nothing to say, really. He'd already done everything but tell Will to get out, but like with everything else in Charlie's life, what he wanted didn't seem to matter.

Will was watching him, and Charlie felt his attention fall back to the man's hair and then down to his face, wide green eyes and the full mouth and the first, faint traces of shadow at his jaw. The kid was slouched, his jeans tight but still loose enough to allow him to sit with his legs open, and Charlie's eyes slipped further down, slowly, like one drink of beer was enough to make him drunk.

Maybe it was, maybe he'd forgotten what it felt like to have a lot of alcohol swimming in his system, because his mouth was dry as he stared at the slightly stretched dark cotton, and he took too long to blink when Will pushed himself from the counter. He shook himself, trying to snap out of it, to not see the play of muscles in Will's arms at the movement.

“Does it hurt?” Every move that Will made was as smooth as his voice, and Charlie stared at him with stinging eyes, unsure of what Will was even talking about. He shook his head anyway, reflex or pride, must not have been convincing because Will was in front of him again, in front of him with their shoes bumping into each other and Will's jeans within reach. The jeans were slung low on his hips, seemed lower than before, barely covered by the bottom of the T-shirt.

Charlie realized his legs were open, denim just rubbing against his knees, the inside of his thighs.

He sucked in a breath, too aware again of the beautiful man in front of him, smiling at him. He was sweating and probably red in the face but couldn't look down, not when he knew exactly where his gaze would get stuck. And while Will was clearly not shy, Charlie was only going to embarrass himself if he kept staring.

But Will was pressing close, and the heat of their near contact, how close they were to touching, was making him as dizzy as it had last night. His limbs felt shaky.