Chapter 30
MYLES
I could have told Charlie last night. It would have been so easy. It was exactly the right moment, but I’d been too afraid to do it.
Shit, I think he might already know anyway. Or maybe guess is the better word, but still. I don’t think my secret is a secret from him.
And if I’m right, what does it mean that he hasn’t said anything?
God, what does it mean that when the two of us woke to the sound of the alarm Charlie had set on his phone last night, that he’d jumped up out of bed, almost landing flat on the floor with how fast he’d worked to disentangle himself from my arms and legs that had somehow pulled him close in the night so that, when our eyes opened, every inch of our bodies had been pressed together?
We’d both been hard. There’d been no missing Charlie’s dick pressing against my thigh any more than he could have missed mine straining through my sleep pants against his hip.
The whole time he’d been in the bathroom, I’d tried so hard to tell myself it could just be morning wood—on his side of things, at least—but it hadn’t done me any good.
Fuck, we’re nearing the end of lunch time, halfway through day one of this god-awful, completely unnecessary training, and it still hasn’t done any good.
“Hang on a sec,” Charlie holds up a finger, interrupting himself in whatever he’d been saying as he pulls his phone out.
I know I’m a jackass for not having been processing what he’s telling me, especially because we’ve finally given Janice the slip and found a quiet spot to sneak off to with our catered sandwiches.
Trouble is, I can’t get the thoughts in my head to switch off long enough to pay attention to anything.
He takes a moment, tapping out a response to a text on his phone before shoving it back in the pocket of his khakis. When he looks up, he’s wearing a relieved smile that makes me instantly curious.
“What’s up?”
“Gemma.” He gestures at his phone.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he looks away. Of course, that only sets off alarm bells in my head.
“You sure?”
It’s a reverse of our conversation last night. Just the thought of that’s enough to get my adrenaline going.
He tosses me a sheepish look. Fuck, his eyes are pretty. The brightest, clearest, most nameless green I just can’t make myself look away from. And those long, soft lashes of his and the way they sweep over his freckled cheeks when he blinks…
He’d been wearing his glasses last night before we’d gotten into bed.
I swear my jaw had practically dropped right down to the floor when he’d walked out of the bathroom in them.
He’d put on this short little shirt that showed off a strip of his smooth, flat stomach, paired with these silky, almost sheer pajama pants that clung to make the hottest, most obvious dick print known to man.
The pale turquoise of his shirt highlighted the creaminess of his skin and brought out the auburn hints in his golden-brown hair.
One look at that combination of gorgeous sexiness, soft prettiness, and nerdy hotness, I’d had to hide in the bathroom so he didn’t see how the sight of him affected me.
“Don’t be mad or feel bad, okay?” Charlie’s words snap me back to the present.
“But I kind of bailed on her for something to come with you. I’d thought it wouldn’t be a big deal because I’d hoped she could just go with Rosa instead of me, but it turned out that Rosa was scheduled for work, and then I’d felt terrible.
That was Gem texting to tell me that Rosa found someone to cover for her, so the two of them can go together after all. ”
A stab of guilt punches through me. Not for the first time since I’d remembered that Charlie had had plans with his family for these days off. Like a selfish asshole, I’d completely forgotten when I’d panicked over coming here alone with Janice and practically begged him to come too.
“What was it?”
He looks away again, and that guilt hits, harder and sharper than ever.
“Charlie?”
“She’d—”
“There you are!” Janice’s voice makes me cringe. Cringe and take a step back from where I’d been leaning in toward Charlie. No idea how I’d ended up so close to him without even meaning to.
“We’ve got three minutes before things start back up again. Time to get back to our table!”
I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Charlie look relieved to see Janice. It only makes me more curious than ever what exactly it was that he passed up in order to come here with me.
There's no chance for me to ask him though as Janice inserts herself between the two of us, shooing us back to the conference room where our training is being held.
The woman who's leading the training is already calling everyone to attention as we find our chairs, and, for the next hour and a half, she talks; the room too quiet and still to whisper to Charlie without making my complete lack of attention obvious.
A group discussion follows, all of us expected to brainstorm at our tables about the question the presenter asked at the end of her latest monologue. Trouble is, I don’t have a clue what the question was or what she’d presented.
Thirty minutes of bullshitting my way through that activity later, and there’s a transition moment, papers being passed and shuffled around, and I seize my opportunity.
Under the cover of the rustle and murmur of other voices, I lean in close to Charlie and half whisper, “What had you planned to do with Gemma?”
“Uh,” he looks down, toying with the pen and pad of sticky notes at the table in front of him. If he’s surprised by the way I’ve jumped straight back to that topic, he doesn’t show it. “She’d gotten us tickets to see Hamilton. The Broadway show?” He shrugs, like it’s not a big deal.
It’s a fucking huge deal.
“Charlie,” my voice is a raspy croak, and I don’t know what I’m planning to say next. I’m sorry? I’ll make this up to you? Why the hell did you do this?
He’s trying to look like he’s paying attention to the speaker in the front of the room, even as he locks his gaze on me out of the corner of his eye. “I’d rather be here with you.”
It’s like the ground’s just dropped out from under me, but instead of falling, I’m floating.
Color springs to his face as he turns toward me, speaker forgotten, shaking his head. “I mean, so you didn’t have to— Because—” He trails off, and like a window to his heart’s just opened in his bright, perfect eyes, I know.
“Thank you.” It’s not what I want to say to him right now.
It’s just a random filler for the fucking fireworks of excitement and emotion and anticipation bursting through me.
My blood’s pounding so hard in my ears I don’t know how those words sounded, or maybe it’s something in the look on my face, but Charlie’s eyes go wide.
His lips part slightly, draw up in a smile, and I swear the sight of realization dawning on his face is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Here I’d been freaking out about telling him how I feel in some awkward declaration, and all it took was a look.
I should have known. Even with the years apart, Charlie and I know each other. Drop the barriers we’d been trying to hold up, even for a moment, and there’s nothing either of us can hide from the other.
Under the table, hesitantly, so cautiously that I barely feel it, the side of his pinkie brushes against mine, and that one innocent little touch explodes through me like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
Charlie’s touched me a thousand times. But this. This shy brush of skin against skin is the first time he’s touched me like this. With the knowledge that I want him too.
Fucking god, maybe, depending on how much he’s seen in my face, maybe even with the knowledge that I love him too.
My hand is shaking as I slide it over his, and through the background noise of the crowded room and the droning voice of the speaker starting up again, I hear the soft gasp he sucks in when I turn his palm up.
The pads of my fingertips drag over the soft skin between his fingers as I link our hands together, and he lets out a shaky breath, lips trembling, pupils expanding.
His eyes haven’t left my face once.
“I wish we could leave.” I almost have to read his lips to catch his whisper. Or maybe I just know what he’s saying because it’s exactly what I want too. “I want to be alone with you.”
He might just mean to talk—which we certainly need to do—but that’s definitely not what my dick thinks he means.
Those words, along with the way he’s stroking his thumb along mine, back and forth and down over the heel of my hand and across my wrist, sends a flare of white-hot heat through me, sheeting my skin in goosebumps.
I was half hard already, just from the look on his face and the wondering of what might happen when the two of us finally are alone, but now, my cock swells and stiffens the rest of the way. The pressure of it trapped against my leg by my jeans makes me shift and squirm in my seat.
Charlie’s eyes turn wicked, like he knows exactly what’s going on. I hope it’s because he’s in the exact same state.
“How much longer do we have?” I don’t even try to hide the desperation in my question.
It would be so easy to look down at the printed schedule in front of me. I could check for myself. If I could make myself tear my eyes away from Charlie’s face.
“Forty minutes.”
“Fuuuck.” It’s impossible to hold back my miserable groan. I am not going to survive this.