Chapter 14 Charlie
“Miraculous as my kitchen is, this is not what I wanted to show you.” Charlie announces, leaning against the doorframe and peering into his kitchen.
He spent so long getting Birdie and Agnes settled, refilling the outdoor food and water bowls for Biscuit and Oreo and then changing into a fresh pair of boxers and a clean, or moderately clean, t-shirt that he worried Eden might be gone.
Or if not gone, perhaps wandering his house snooping.
If the roles were reversed, he would definitely be snooping.
Instead, Eden is standing in his kitchen glaring at Charlie’s colorful kitchen like it's personally offended him. For some reason, this makes Charlie smile.
“Do you have a proclivity for cabinetry?”
“No,” Eden frowns. “It reminds me of your clothes.”
“Thank you,” Charlie grins before pushing off the doorframe and moving into the kitchen towards Eden, unable to resist being as close as possible until he’s not allowed.
He can’t shake the feeling that at any moment Eden might run again or change his mind, and he’s determined to make the most of his company. The prickly little shithead.
“That was not a compliment.”
“It sounded like a compliment.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
“I think anything can be a compliment if you have the right frame of mind for it.”
“You mean you're delusional.”
“Or confident,” Charlie counters.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Thank you,” Charlie murmurs, leaning down until his mouth is just an inch or two from Eden’s. The desire to pull him close and kiss him is there, but Charlie resists, strongly suspecting he won’t like the consequences if he pushes too hard. “I really, really want to kiss you.”
Eden’s eyes dart to Charlie’s mouth, the longing in them unmistakable.
“What makes you think I want to kiss you?”
The reply is at such sharp odds with his body language that Charlie can’t help but wonder why.
What happened to make him so afraid of being liked?
An unfamiliar longing fills Charlie. Were it anyone else, Charlie might be trying to get them into bed again, or maybe reminding them to leave.
With Eden, all he wants is to spend more time with him, to peel back his layers and figure out exactly what’s going on in that pretty head of his.
Right now, Eden reminds Charlie of one of his outdoor cats when he first got them.
Oreo used to watch Charlie paint, but would hiss and run if Charlie so much as acknowledged his presence.
Desperate for connection yet so damn distrusting of it.
“I can wait until you’re ready,” Charlie says. “You’ll want to kiss me before the night is over.”
“Bold claims, Mr. King.”
“Just Charlie,” he corrects. “Mr. King is my dad.”
“You’re old enough to be mine,” Eden says with an air of such innocence Charlie is momentally blindsided. The last thing he needs is to be reminded that Eden is over a decade younger than him, especially after the shit he’s given Theo and Alec after they got together.
“Little shithead.”
“Call me little again and I’ll kill you.”
It almost looks like Eden is trying not to smile. The corner of his mouth quirks slightly before he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, playing with his lip rings. God, Charlie wants to see this man smile.
“Testy,” Charlie teases, ignoring the death glare Eden sends his way. “Fine, my shithead. Better?”
“Fuck you,” Eden snaps, but the words are belied by the little half-snort laugh he desperately tries to hide.
Eden is a lot of things. Beautiful. Pretty. Sarcastic. Prickly as all fuck. He’s also cute.
“I knew it. You think I’m charming.”
“I can’t even imagine what might give you that idea.”
“You’re in my kitchen,” Charlie starts, ticking off one finger, then the next. “You’re entertaining my company and I made you laugh.”
“I didn’t laugh,” Eden protests, like he can’t help it. Like admitting he enjoyed something might hurt him. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
That need to understand prickles at Charlie again. Who the fuck is this guy? What’s his story? Charlie wants to know.
“Sure.”
“What do you mean sure?” Eden frowns. He’s so prickly, and riling him up thrills the dopamine-seeking center of Charlie’s brain. He’s also really fucking hot when he looks like he wants to hit Charlie.
“I mean what I said,” Charlie replies, inching so close into Eden’s personal space that he would not be surprised if he did, in fact, get himself hit.
Eden doesn’t flinch, lifting his chin to meet Charlie’s gaze head on. “As a child, you said watch me a lot, didn’t you?”
“Guilty,” Charlie confirms.
“Attention whore,” Eden mutters under his breath.
“Just admit it, you wanna watch me,” Charlie asks, hardly even sure what he’s asking.
Watch him, what? Paint? Jerk off? The opportunities are endless.
He wants Eden to do them all. The idea of Eden in his studio watching him paint is as thrilling as the idea of putting on a show for him in a far more salacious manner.
“I’d rather watch paint dry,” Eden grumbles. It’s a bold face lie because his lips are parted and his fingers twitching at his sides. There’s no mistaking he wants Charlie.
“So are you ready to see it?”
“You still haven’t said what it is.”
“It’s a surprise.” Charlie winks for good measure, but it clearly doesn’t help because Eden looks like he’d rather be walked off a plank.
“I don’t like surprises.”
“Just come with me,” Charlie urges, not above begging. “Please.”
He can’t explain why he’s so desperate to show Eden what’s in his studio when there’s a very high possibility it’ll weird him out, and he’ll run away as fast as he did after kissing Charlie.
If Charlie were being methodical about this, he might wait it out, but he’s not methodical or patient. He knows what he wants and goes for it, and he wants Eden. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t understand the full scope of it.
There was a lot of truth to Eden’s earlier teasing.
As a child, Charlie had wanted to be watched, near constantly.
Luckily that need was usually met by Andrew who would happily sit and watch Charlie play or do art for hours.
As they got older, he used to sit and study or read while Charlie painted.
At least, until his sleeping issues got worse in high school, when most of Charlie’s art was done while the rest of his family was asleep.
Well, except for Alec, who used to wake up at all hours of the night and drag his blanket into Charlie’s room to fall asleep while he painted.
Time has changed a lot since Charlie was younger, but not his deep-seated desire for attention and validation, especially where his art is concerned.
For Charlie, the act of creating is a part of who he is—an expression of how he experiences the world and something that makes him deeply fulfilled.
There’s also a loneliness to it—the hours spent holed up in his studio creating something that makes him think and feel with no outlet to verbally process.
There’s no doubt in Charlie that even if he hadn’t lucked out and turned his passion into a career that he would still paint as much, but the truth is, sharing his work with the world is something that thrills him as much as the process of its inception.
Right now, he wants to share it with Eden. Even if the prospect makes him slightly anxious. The buzz of anticipation makes him eager, and desperate, and he can’t stop himself from reaching for Eden’s hands, thrilled when Eden doesn’t protest.
“Trust me, I think you’ll like it. Or maybe, I want you to like it, is more accurate. To be honest, I have no fucking idea what you’re going to think. But if you hate it you have full permission to leave.”
“You’re being weirdly ominous,” Eden says, eyes locked on where their fingers are touching. It’s not quite holding hands, but it’s close enough that Charlie’s heart beats faster at the sight of Eden’s fingers compared to his own—smaller, more delicate, yet covered in scars and calluses.
Experimentally, Charlie hooks his pinkie around Eden’s, as close to holding hands as he dares. He holds his breath, waiting, but Eden doesn’t pull away. He’s not sure he’s ever been as thrilled by such a small amount of physical contact.
“Let me show you, and you can decide for yourself.”
“Fine.”
“Yeah?”
“I said yes, don’t make me repeat myself, Charlie.”
“Thank you.”
“No. Don’t thank me. That’s weird. Don’t be weird. Or weirder than you always are. Your other weird is good, that’s…not good.”
“I was just being polite.”
“Well, stop it.” Eden huffs, pulling his hands back and crossing them over his chest. “Just…let’s go see whatever it is that’s in the fucking yard. It better not be anything weird.”
“You just said you liked my weird.”
“That’s literally not even what I said.”
“You totally did,” Charlie counters, taking two steps towards the back door.
When Eden follows, he takes two more, unlocking the door in the kitchen that leads to his backyard.
“I think your exact words were ‘Charlie King, I adore your vibrant and unique personality and can’t get enough of your weirdness.’”
“Shut the fuck up, Charlie.”
Charlie beams, flipping on the light on the back porch.
It’s not much, but it lights up part of the yard, at least until they get about twenty feet from the house and are met with a shocking amount of darkness.
Below them, the lights of Santa Leon are lit up, the sea nothing but a distant memory on the horizon, hidden away in the dark.
“You’re not instilling confidence in me about this being on the up and up. It better not be a murder plot, or I swear to god I’ll fucking kill you, Charlie.”
“Do you trust anyone?”
“No,” Eden snaps, followed by, much quieter, “Addy.”
“You guys are close.”
It’s not a question, but Eden answers nonetheless.
“She’s my family.”