Chapter 9 Eden #2
Trying to ignore any and all feelings he doesn’t want to deal with—which is usually all of them—he focuses on his appearance.
Standing in front of his closet mirror, he gives himself a final once-over.
He looks good, confident even, and his eye makeup looks cool as fuck—the blue liner he used to draw flames making his eyes seem even more blue.
Nothing makes Eden feel braver than killer eye makeup.
Before he leaves for work, he sets Ella’s pig plushie up with a fake tea party in her room, hoping it might appease the fact that he’s going to miss their nightly story time again tonight.
He’s almost out the door when he realizes he did in fact forget to eat, grabbing the lunch Addy packed him and eating it on the way to work.
His time gets crunched because he has to take the bus to work since Addy borrowed his car.
By the time he’s getting off at his stop next to the strip mall, his headache is gone, likely because it was as much from stress as lack of food, and he’s feeling better than he has all week.
Turns out getting his shit together does help.
Who knew? Probably Addy, which is why she nudged him in this direction.
Feeling confident and ready for anything, Eden heads into work prepared to handle whatever this day throws at him.
Eden cannot handle this.
“Why the fuck are you here?”
“You don’t look happy to see me,” Charlie says with the air of someone used to people fawning all over him.
Maybe that’s what happens when you’re handsome and monetarily comfortable and slightly famous.
Eden had spent all night googling Charlie, and while he’s not so famous to warrant strangers stopping him on the street, according to the articles he found, he’d been named one of the thirty artists to watch under thirty by some prestigious art magazine, and has dozens of articles and features about him online.
Apparently in the art world, Charlie is a little bit famous.
Probably why he walks around with the confidence of someone who thinks his shit doesn’t stink.
“Did you want to order something?” Eden asks, trying for dismissive.
There is not a chance in hell he’s going to tell Charlie he’s not happy to see him, because the cocky fucker would probably take that as Eden thinking about him at all.
Which technically he has been, but Charlie sure as shit doesn’t need to know that.
If his head gets any bigger, it won’t fit through the front door. This man could use some humbling.
“I want a lot of things,” Charlie replies, pushing his sunglasses up on top of his head in a way that highlights the waves of his thick hair. “Not all of them are on the menu.”
“Sounds like a you problem.”
“It’s a little bit of an us problem,” Charlie counters with a smile that is not befitting a sentence like that.
“That would imply there is an us,” Eden hisses, turning to look over his shoulder. Juanita and Armando are deep in conversation about the salsa, leaving Eden free to deal with his Charlie problem. Because he is, in fact, a fucking problem.
“Well, there’s not,” Charlie concedes, “but—”
“No buts,” Eden interrupts.
“But—”
“No.”
“But—”
“Do you even understand the word no?”
“In terms of consent, absolutely. Everywhere else, well—let’s just say it’s more of a starting point to negotiation.”
“I’m not sure what entitled fucking planet you live on but nothing about me is up for negotiation,” Eden hisses.
“That’s not what I meant,” Charlie says, expression softening into something almost apologetic. “Can I try again?”
Eden crosses his arms. “Whatever.”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“If you want easy, fucking go somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere else,” Charlie asserts. He rests his elbows on the counter, chin in his hands, gazing at Eden like he’s not put off by Eden’s brusque attitude. He should be, the insensible fucker. “And for the record I don’t need easy either.”
“What you need is none of my business,” Eden tells him, avoiding eye contact lest he have delusions about forgiving this frustrating man because he’s got pretty brown eyes and a nice face. Life would be so much easier if Eden didn’t like pretty things, and boy is Charlie King pretty.
“What if I wanted to make it your business?”
“I told you last week was one and done. I figured when you didn’t come in all week you understood that.”
To Eden’s horror, Charlie’s face breaks into a wide smile. He’s not sure if he’s more put out that he is, in fact, once again looking at Charlie or that Charlie is looking at him with such obvious glee.
“Aw, did you notice I was gone?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“You did,” Charlie grins, crossing his arms and leaning close enough that Eden should hit him upside the head. “How long did it take you to notice I wasn’t here? Did you miss me?”
“You are insufferable.”
“That’s just another way to say you can’t stop thinking about me.”
“I want to hit you,” Eden grumbles, not even caring he said it out loud.
“I told you before, you can do anything you want to me.”
That should not make Eden hard. Once again, he’s glad for the skirt he’s got on over his skinny jeans. He’s quite certain walking around with a raging hard on won’t endear him to his boss or fellow employees.
“I don’t hit during sex,” Eden tells him.
“So then you want to hit me now, and do other things to me in the bedroom?”
“How is it that you find a way to turn every statement into something benefiting you?”
“Bold of you to admit that us fucking benefits me,” Charlie smirks, “which by the way it does. Last week was—”
“Don’t. Fucking. Say. It.”
“Why?” Charlie pouts.
“Because,” Eden says sharply. “I’m at work.”
“So if you weren’t at work, I could talk about how good the—”
Eden all but launches himself across the counter, slapping his hand over Charlie’s mouth to stop him from saying another word. Sure, his boss and the other employees are busy, and there are no customers. That doesn’t mean Charlie should be saying this shit out loud.
“Stop talking right now.”
Charlie’s eyes widen, but he makes no move to pull away.
Given the copious space behind him, if he didn’t want Eden’s hand covering his mouth all he’d need to do is take a single step backward.
Yet, he doesn’t move a muscle, eyes hyperfocused on Eden.
It makes Eden’s dick hard and his brain confused.
Charlie King is a fucking menace.
What Eden needs to do is nip this in the bud before it becomes a problem.
Before things get complicated or messy or any of the other myriad of things that Eden has worked damn hard to avoid.
Eden needs to stop letting Charlie see anything he says as encouragement, needs to shut everything down and ignore him.
Unfortunately for both of them, what Eden should do and what he does are not the same thing.
“I’m going to take my hand away, and when I do you’re not going to say a goddamn word, got it?
” At Charlie’s compliance, Eden withdraws his hand.
“Good. Now go sit in the fucking corner where you belong, and I’m going to bring you your usual.
You’re going to eat it silently and then you’re going to leave. ”
“But—”
“I’m off at ten tonight. I can’t be home late because—just because. You can have twenty minutes.”
“To talk or fuck?” Charlie asks, definitely not keeping his big mouth shut.
It’s a good question, and one Eden is incapable of answering. He has no idea why he’s agreeing to meet up with Charlie.
“Go sit the fuck down and shut up, and you’ll find out tonight.” Charlie doesn’t move, but he doesn’t say anything either. He just stands there, half-leaning on the counter and smiling. It’s outrageous. “What?”
“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to walk. You’re so bossy, I was waiting.”
Unable to verbally spar a moment longer—and not because he wants an excuse to touch him—Eden flips up the counter and stalks around towards Charlie, grabbing his shoulders.
He’s just as solid and big as Eden remembers, and he tries not to think about the sweet, fruity scent wafting off him, or the way he looked bent over and moaning under Eden as Eden physically marches him to the booth in the far corner—out of his line of sight.
There’s not a damn way Eden can survive the rest of his shift if he has to watch Charlie suck mole from his fingers again.
“Sit down and shut up, Charlie.”
“You know, you’re hot when you’re bossy.”
“You’re not shutting up,” Eden points out, unsure why Charlie’s words make his cheeks warm. He doesn’t give a flying fuck if a man thinks he’s hot. He doesn’t.
“I don’t think you grasp the full scope of what it would cost me to not speak,” Charlie says.
“I’m grasping that no one has ever told you to stop talking before.”
“Oh lots of people have told me that,” Charlie grins. “I just don’t listen.
“You’ll listen or you won’t get your mole,” Eden threatens, even if the threat is empty.
He has no power to stop a paying customer, and while Charlie didn’t technically order or pay yet, as one of Juanita’s favorite regulars the only thing that would come of him refusing to serve Charlie would be Eden out of a job.
Charlie tips his head back to watch Eden walk away, his hair tumbling down and his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I like your skirt, by the way. It looks good.”
Once again Eden’s cheeks heat while something uncomfortable settles in his chest, making him want to run. What he does instead is flip Charlie off, not at all surprised when Charlie smiles.
Charlie King is a problem, and one Eden needs to rid himself of.
One and done didn’t work so two and, well—Eden doesn’t have a catchy phrase for it.
All he knows is fucking Charlie once didn’t dissolve his attraction.
If anything, it made things worse because for reasons unknown, Eden doesn’t completely hate what a pain in the ass Charlie is, and that is entirely unacceptable.
Eden hates everyone. It’s far safer to dislike people as a baseline, then you can’t be disappointed or surprised when they show their true colors and let you down.
Which Charlie will. All people do. All men especially.
One last hookup with Charlie is exactly what Eden needs to get over this inexplicable attraction.
It’ll give Charlie an opportunity to show his true colors, and once Eden can see for himself that Charlie’s as shitty as the rest of humanity, he can stop finding his stupid face and his stupid clothes and his stupid arguing hot.
All Eden needs is one more night to forget Charlie King. Then everything will go back to normal.