Chapter 37
CHARLIE
“I feel like a bitch even talking to you about it,” Gemma sighs in answer to my question if she’s excited for Hamilton.
It may or may not be the case that the only reason I even remembered that that is tonight is because she’d texted me to ask if I was out of my training for the day so she could call before she left to go pick Rosa up.
Okay, so maybe I’d also forgotten that she has no idea I’m not still halfway across the state with today and tomorrow left of that training too…
It’s honestly kind of just a miracle that I’d managed not to get lost driving home from Myles’s house this afternoon.
The two of us stayed up half the night last night, talking and kissing.
Myles seemed also to have made it his personal mission to prove to me that not only does he not have any second thoughts about touching me, he might just love it as much as I love touching him.
Even though we’d slept in past ten this morning and then stayed in bed until noon, my brain capacity is reduced to my current state of hyper focus on replaying every moment of last night on a heart-stopping, smile inducing, waaayyy too sexy to concentrate on anything else loop.
Seems like the combination of too little sleep, discovering the man you’ve secretly(ish) pined over for more than half your life has always had feelings for you too, and five incredible orgasms in sixteen hours with said man, will do that to you.
“But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you,” Gemma goes on, and I shake my head, trying to banish the goofy, totally spaced out grin from my face at the same time as I try to process the fact that I’m having an actual phone call with someone and need to pull it together at least enough to fill her in on what’s happened.
“I needed to make sure you survived night number two of Charlie and Myles share a bed without doing anything too embarrassing, like waking him up by humping his leg in your sleep or something.”
Because I hadn’t told her how that, or something kind of like it, had happened yesterday morning… Not that it matters anymore, since this morning, Myles and I had woken up both already grinding and thrusting against each other, which of course led to him taking hold of both of our dicks and—
“You still there, babe?”
“Uhhh,” is my eloquent answer, because what had she been asking me? And now, dammit, I’m hard all over again. Hard and on the phone with my cousin…
“You did?” Gemma sounds scandalized and more than a little gleefully curious, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what she’s all worked up about.
“Did I what?”
Up ‘til now, I’d been trying to focus on unpacking, but with the way my mind keeps wandering, I’d picked up my bathroom bag from my suitcase, only to set it down back inside at least three times.
Instead, I flop down on my bed beside it.
The way I bounce slightly against the mattress reminds me of how Myles and I had practically fallen into his bed last night…
“Charlie, what’s going on? Are you even listening?” Gemma’s voice cuts through the memory I’m starting to slip back into. “I was asking if you’re okay after another night of having to share a bed with Myles. Is something wrong?”
Before she can start spiraling into worrying about me, I brace myself, preemptively pulling the phone away from my ear a little in case she gets squealy. It doesn’t happen often, but excited Gemma can be loud.
My heart’s going crazy and my stomach is doing little dizzy swoops. Partly because I’m just that giddy over everything, and partly because there’s more than a little of me that’s worried about what Gemma’s reaction is going to be.
“He has feelings for me, Gem.”
And just like that, my throat goes tight and my eyes prickle at the sheer magnitude of emotion that rushes through me.
He’d looked me in the eyes and told me over and over again last night.
I’d felt the truth of those words in his touches and seen it in his face, but saying them out loud as fact gives them a whole new layer of reality.
“What makes you think that?” I can hear the leeriness in her voice. The worry for me and how she’s gearing up to remind me, yet again, not to get my hopes up.
“He told me.” The words come out thick and almost tearful, and even though she already wasn’t saying anything, I can hear her go silent. Like she’s gone completely still, holding her breath at what I’ve just announced. “We kissed and—”
Annnnd there’s the squeal. “Holy shit! Charles Lancaster! Are you serious?”
“So serious.” I’m still sniffling back tears, but that goofy grin’s stretching across my face again, so big and so damn happy, I know she’s got to be able to hear it in my voice.
Even with Gemma’s past of less than friendly feelings for Myles, she totally eats up every word of my story. When I backtrack to tell her about Myles’s utterly adorable jealousy attack over the hotel clerk when we checked in, she’s giggling just as hard as I am.
“Thank you,” I tell her, once our giggles subside.
“For what, babe?”
“For being happy for me.”
“You seriously thought I wouldn’t be?”
“I wasn’t sure. You kinda hate him, Gem.”
“Hated,” she emphasizes. “And only when I thought he deserved it. But you know it’s always only ever been about wanting you to be happy.”
“I know. And I hope you know how much that means to me. Even though I’m still not really over you calling him an asstoad and all those other weirdly ridiculous names.”
“Well if he hadn’t been one—”
“He wasn’t—”
Gemma cackles with laughter at my indignation.
“Calm down, darling. I’m just teasing. You really do have it bad, don’t you?
” Her question’s rhetorical. We both know just how bad I have it.
“But ugh,” she groans suddenly. “This means I’m going to have to come kidnap you if I ever want you to come visit now, doesn’t it?
You’re going to be too busy with lover boy—”
“Ohmigod, Gemma,” I shake my head against the bed, covering my eyes with my hand that’s not holding the phone. “Why is that only slightly better than you calling him an asstoad?”
But of course, she ignores me.
“—just like tonight and how you ditched out on Hamilton with me.”
“Were you not just telling me how excited you and Rosa are?”
“Not the point,” she dismisses me, even though I can tell by her tone that she’s wearing that new smile she’d had last time I saw her, anytime she’d talked about her girlfriend.
And now my smile’s not just for myself, but for her too.
“But please tell me you’re at least still coming for Dad’s sixtieth birthday, right? ”
“Why do I feel like there’s some kind of unspoken threat behind that question?”
I push up off the bed, determined this time to successfully unpack my suitcase.
There’s no excuse for three days’ worth of clothes to be difficult to put away, especially considering the fact that I’d come home pretty much specifically to unpack.
That, and to grab some non-work clothes that would be comfier and better suited to spending the rest of the weekend at Myles’s house, supposedly keeping him company while he gets some projects done.
I’m totally hoping (and guessing) that nothing much is going to be accomplished annnnd that it really doesn’t matter what clothes I have with me.
Yet again, Gemma ignores me.
“Ooh, I know! Why don’t you bring lover boy? Rosa’s coming with me, and Ellie and Alex’s friend Jesse is bringing his new boyfriend—who’s a total sweetheart, by the way. Please?”
“Why do I feel like you only want me to bring Myles because, one, you want to make me miserable by calling him that, and two, you haven’t yet made up your mind whether you approve or not?”
“Because you know me so well, Charlie darling. But honestly? That’s only part of it. I also know you so well, and I remember with perfect clarity that a Charlie missing his Myles is a sulky Charlie, and I’d rather not have sulky Charlie be the one Rosa gets to meet.”
“You forgot about the part where you say how you know bringing him will make me happy, which is, of course, according to what you yourself have just told me, your real priority?”
“Yes, that. What you just said. So will you bring him?”
“I’ll ask him.” A fluttery squirm of excitement and nerves runs through me at the idea.
It’s not like he hasn’t already met most of my family that will be there, and he doesn’t have to come as my boyfriend—not that we’ve talked about what we are, or even whether we’re keeping whatever it is just between ourselves.
I’d asked him if he minded if I told Gemma, since his recent realizations about his sexuality are so new to him, I’m not even sure if he’s thought about what, if any, level of coming out he’s comfortable with, and he’d said of course he didn’t mind.
There was more conversation to be had, but the two of us had ended up deliciously distracted from it, and by the time I could think about things other than how perfect his lips are and how incredible his body feels against mine, I’d totally forgotten about it.
The thing that really has me all fluttery and excited is simply that I can ask Myles to come with me.
When we were kids, even though I worried about him seeing through my flimsy efforts to hide my feelings for him, I’d never worried about integrating him into every aspect of my life.
From about halfway into our first year in Riverside on, he spent every holiday with us.
Even his birthdays were celebrated at my house and with my family.
Until last night though, since the two of us reconnected, I’ve felt a heavy weight of hesitation with everything that could possibly be showing him too much. I’d certainly never have dared invite him for something like a family celebration.
Having that hesitation lifted and just being able to freely show him how very much I want to spend as much of my time as possible as close to him as possible has me more than a little giddy.