Chapter 3 #2
They traded places, and Charma headed for the kitchen for more water.
He detoured back to the coffee table to grab their glasses and noted that Darcy had left out a take-out flyer for a Thai restaurant, which he assumed was for him to check out.
He filled their water glasses up first, drinking about half of his right there at the sink and then topping it up again.
Then he brought the glasses back to the coffee table and grabbed the take-out menu as he sat.
Darcy had mentioned Pad Thai, and they had several on the menu, but he was more interested in the panang curry.
And maybe they could go halfsies on a Tom Yum soup to start with or some green papaya salad.
He checked out the prices—maybe they could do both.
Of course, he wasn’t paying Darcy for his half until he got back to his place.
At least he hadn’t brought his wallet or his phone with him to the beach, so nothing had been stolen.
He also loved spring rolls and Thai dessert…
maybe next time, when he actually had the ability to split the bill immediately instead of having to wait until he got back to his place.
Now that he was thinking about it, had it been a good idea to agree to stay even longer without his phone? He worried his lower lip.
“Everything okay?” Darcy asked from right next to him, making Charma jump.
“Sorry! I didn’t hear you come back.”
“Yeah, you seemed pretty far away. Which was why I asked if everything was okay?”
Charma shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong per se—I just realized that my wallet is back at home, so I can’t pay my half for dinner until I go home and get it. And it doesn’t seem fair to ask you to pay for dinner yourself until then.”
“Well, I did get paid recently so I can afford to wait until tomorrow for you to pay me your half. But I do need to go for groceries tomorrow, so I can’t really wait longer than that,” Darcy admitted.
“You could come home with me tomorrow so we can square up asap?”
Darcy’s face brightened up. “That works. I’m not really ready for you to go home yet.”
“Yeah, me either,” Charma admitted.
Darcy’s smile widened. “Is it wrong that it feels like I’ve known you for more than twelve hours?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know if it was wrong or right or what, but he did feel the same way. “They’ve been an eventful less than twelve hours.”
“True that. I guess that makes it make more sense.”
“Does it need to make sense?” He was a shifter for goddess’s sake; magic didn’t make sense, not true magic. It just was.
Tilting his head, Darcy considered the question before answering. “No, I guess it doesn’t. Everyone is different and so is everyone’s story. Besides, who’s going to care how long we knew each other before we made love?”
He snorted. “My mother for one, but that’s just because she’s still holding out hope that I’ll impregnate someone before giving up women altogether. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell her it’s not going to happen, she doesn’t believe me. It’s just wishful thinking, of course.”
“She wants you to help keep up the population of chameleon shifters, eh?”
“I really think it’s more a case of her wanting grandchildren.”
Darcy laughed outright at that, then he sobered up. “At least she hasn’t disowned you.”
“It sounds like you have experience with that.”
He thought Darcy’s shrug looked more practiced than anything else.
“No child of theirs was going to be gay. They tried to send me to conversion camp. Thank goodness I caught wind of it and ran away before their church cronies came to get me. Unfortunately, that means I left with little more than the clothes on my back.”
“Oh, man, I’m so sorry. How long have you been on your own?”
“Let’s see… I wasn’t quite sixteen yet and I’m twenty-six now, so over ten years.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Charma admitted.
His family and friends were disappointed in his choice not to procreate, but they hadn’t disowned him at all.
Leaving the compound had been his choice, and he could go back to visit anytime he wanted to.
He could even go back to live if he wanted to; there would always be a place for him at home, no matter what.
“And you haven’t spoken to them at all in all that time? ”
“Nope. I’ve tried. I called several times the first year I was gone, but all that happened was they tried to find me to send me to the camp. I’ve only called twice since, and it was made clear I was dead to them.”
Charma wrapped Darcy in a hug, holding him close. “I’m so sorry.”
Darcy tried to shrug, but then his arms snuck around Charma and held on tight. “Thanks. People suck.”
“They sure do. You just don’t expect the sucky ones to be family.”
“I kind of do, actually.”
“Yeah, I get that you would.” Charma sighed and squeezed again. “I’ll be your family.”
Darcy nodded. “Yeah, found family is a real thing.” Then he took a deep breath and let go. “Okay, let’s order some supper.”
“Sounds good to me. You said you liked the Pad Thai, right? And I love Panang Curry, so that’s what I want.”
“Cool.” Darcy grabbed his phone. “You can totally order online instead of calling the number and it’s easier for them to not have to answer the phone if they’re busy.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
Darcy shrugged. “I delivered food for a take-out joint once upon a time, so I know a little about how things work. Just a very little. You want some spring rolls too? They’ve got an amazing dipping sauce. It’s spicy and sweet and yum.”
“If you’re sure, I’d love that.”
“Done. And we have two Cokes left, so we’re good on the drinks front.”
“Am I taking your last one?” Charma asked. He didn’t want to leave Darcy without any.
“I’m doing groceries tomorrow anyway, so that’s cool.”
“Perfect. Where do you do your groceries?”
“There’s a No Frills store a few blocks over. They’ve got the best prices on most stuff.”
“Oh, I’m not too far from there. We can go to my place first so I can get dressed and pay you back for dinner, then we can go to the store.” Charma closed his mouth hard, his teeth clacking together. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to invite myself on your shopping trip.”
“I can’t think of anything that would make doing groceries better.” Darcy was all grins so Charma figured he hadn’t been presumptuous. Or if he had, it was welcome.
Darcy poked at his phone a couple more times, then slid it onto the table. “Okay, that’s dinner ordered. I suppose I should put more than just a blanket on.”
“You don’t have to for my benefit.” He was rather enjoying being naked under blankets together.
“I was thinking more for the delivery guy’s benefit.”
“Of course!” Charma rolled his eyes at himself. He’d already managed to forget that someone was going to be ringing the doorbell soon.
“I’m totally willing to go back to just a blanket after the food gets here,” Darcy offered.
“I think that’s a great idea. Should I put my—or rather your—clothes back on, too?”
“Nah, we don’t both need to answer the door, so you’re good. You wanna find something to watch?” Darcy asked before heading down the hallway.
“Sure.” Charma waited until Darcy was out of view and then grabbed the remote and managed to get the TV turned on.
It was still on the game so he examined the remote and pressed the ‘home’ button, grinning when it turned out to be the right one, bringing him to a screen with options.
Like Netflix. Excellent. There was bound to be something there that they could watch.
They could Netflix and Chill. He giggled at himself.
He’d never done that before, even though he'd heard of the expression.
“What’s funny?” Darcy asked as he came back, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
Charma shrugged. “Just thinking about Netflix and Chilling.”
“Ooo, is that what we’re going to do.” Darcy wagged his eyebrows.
“We should probably eat first. But after that—I’m down.”
“Don’t you mean up?” Darcy asked.
Charma groaned. “That was baaaad.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to warn you—not all the time, but sometimes I can be a very punny guy.”
“Already learning about your flaws. We are moving fast.”
Darcy laughed, joining him on the couch. “If that’s the worst thing about me…”
“Is it?” Charma didn’t think Darcy was a bad guy at all, but he knew everyone had their foibles, things that were annoying or whatever. He knew he did.
That earned him another laugh. “I’m pretty sure it’s not, but I guess you’ll just have to find out about the rest as we go.”
“As long as you’re not an axe murderer, I think we’ll be okay.”
“Nah, if I was planning to murder you, I probably would have pulled your tail off back when you were a chameleon.”
“Ouch!”
“Too soon?” Darcy asked.
Charma shrugged. “Just not really funny, especially given what was going to happen if you hadn’t rescued me.”
Sobering, Darcy nodded. “True. No jokes about hurting the chameleon side of you. I think that’s fair.”
“It would translate to you hurting the human side of me, too. What happens to my shifter, happens to me.”
“So if you lose your tail? No… ass?”
Charma nodded somberly.
“Well, that would suck!”
“It really would. It would probably kill me.”
“I wouldn’t want that. At all,” Darcy said quietly.
“Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all serious on you.”
“No, you just told me it’s not a joking matter and that’s totally fair.”
“Good deal. We can move on now, eh?” Charma wanted to get back to the easy vibes they had going with each other.
“Yep, sounds good. So what are we Netflixing? Is that a word?” Darcy asked.
“It is now!” Charma was all about making things up if he needed to.
Darcy laughed for him, and Charma beamed back at him, then started scrolling through the icons on the Netflix screen.
“Squid Games?” He frowned. He’d seen that, but this was something different.
“Oh, that was brutal. I’m not against rewatching shows, but I don’t need to see that again.”
“This isn’t the original show, though.” Charma hit the more info button. “It looks like it’s an actual game based on the show.”
“Huh.” Darcy scanned the blurb info as well. “Okay, I have to admit, I’m curious as to how they’ve translated the show into an actual game. I mean, the show is about a game, but you die when you’re out. Obviously, they’re not doing that on this show, right?”
“Not unless we’ve stepped into some alternate universe.”
“Well, this I’m willing to check out.”
“Cool.” Charma hit ‘play episode’ and the show started.
“It’s still pretty brutal,” Darcy noted after the first game sent a bunch of people home, the departing contestants keeling over and playing dead.
“Except nobody is actually dead.”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong.”
The doorbell rang, and Darcy jumped up to go to the door. Charma pulled the blanket around his shoulders, just making sure he wasn’t flashing anything to the delivery person should they glance in past Darcy.
In the end, he didn’t even see the person, Darcy grabbing the bag and saying ‘thank you,’ all without opening the door the whole way. He put the food on the coffee table and headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll grab us some forks as well as the Cokes.”
“Sounds good.” Charma opened the bag, the scent of the spices hitting him in the face, making his stomach growl.
“It smells amazing.” He pulled the containers out of the bag, putting his curry in front of where he was sitting, the pad thai in front of Darcy’s spot and the spring rolls between them.
Now that the food was here, he found he was starving.
The lasagna had been good and filling, but it had been quite a while ago now.
“I should have ordered us a dessert, too,” Darcy noted as he came back. “My stomach feels like a gaping hole.”
“Have you got cereal?” Charma asked.
Darcy gave him a frown. “Cereal? Sure. Why?”
“I find it makes a great dessert, or at least stomach filler when there’s nothing else.”
“I bet you’re right. I tend to do ramen noodles when I’m needing something extra. Especially as we have curry and pad thai sauce already—it would add a little flavor to the ramen noodles.”
“That’s a neat idea!”
“I know. And you can still get the cheap ramen at four for a buck twenty-five at the dollar stores.”
“I know! Been there, done that.” Living on his own sucked, especially when he was eating plain noodles for a week, which had happened, and knowing that if he was home he’d be enjoying all sorts of goodies.
Darcy opened the lid on the dipping sauce and grabbed a spring roll. He dipped the side in and took a bite, the vegetables crunching loudly. “Mmm. Oh, they’re good tonight.”
“Are they not always?”
Darcy shrugged. “Sometimes the veggies seem less than fresh, but they’ve never been bad. Still, these are especially good.”
Charma grabbed one and dipped an end into the sauce before taking a bite and testing it for himself.
He didn’t know what they were usually like, but Darcy was right—these were good and the sauce exploded with flavor.
It boded well for his curry. And a few moments later, he could confirm that the curry was as good as any he’d had elsewhere.
He unpaused the show, and he and Darcy devoured their takeout, Darcy licking his fingers once he’d finished he last spring roll. Charma found himself watching that instead of the show, his body taking a definite interest.
Darcy caught him watching and gave him a warm smile. “I think you should stop the show.”
“I do believe you’re right. I should.” He did exactly that and turned off the TV.
They didn’t even discuss it, they just both headed to the bedroom, blankets dropping as they got to Darcy’s bed.