Chapter 40
CHARLIE
“I remember what you wished,” I whisper, when I’m able to make myself speak again. “I never told you what I wished for.”
“Don’t,” he shakes his head, and the laugh he huffs out almost sounds like he’s holding back tears. “If you do, it won’t come true. I learned that the fucking worst way.”
His hand finds mine across the center console, grabbing and holding on so hard, it almost hurts.
He exhales, almost like he’s relieved, when I squeeze back.
“What if mine already did? Do you think it’s safe then?”
I stroke my thumb along the base of his, and his eyes dart over to meet mine as he nods.
“I wished that someday, you’d kiss me.” My mouth goes a bit dry as I say out loud those words I’d been so sure I’d never, ever let him hear. “At the time, it felt like the most impossible thing in the world, but—”
His lips silence the rest of what I’m saying.
It’s a sweet, short, gentle kiss; just the briefest brush and press of lips, and my heart flutters and warms at the realization that how he’s just kissed me might be something like how he might have kissed me before.
If he’d known how he’d felt about me, all the way back then.
“So, I know it’s not the Perseid meteor shower, and I know we’ve missed a lot of years,” I tell him as he pulls back. My hand finds its way into his hair, and I can’t help smiling at the softness of his curls as my fingers slip through them. “But did you know there’s a meteor shower tonight?”
“I want to talk to you about something.” Myles’s voice is soft as he rolls his head to the side to meet my eyes.
Even with the scruff he’s grown and the sharper, more chiseled lines of his beautiful face, it’s so easy to imagine that no time’s passed at all since that night thirteen years ago. Suddenly, it feels like my heart is lodged in my throat.
Unlike that night though, instead of just lying beside me, Myles has his head resting on my chest. One of his hands is splayed out possessively over my upper thigh as I stroke through his curls.
Just like before, we’re here too early to see many meteors.
The shower’s supposed to peek around three in the morning, and since we have work (and especially since I’m very much hoping that our date will very much not be over once we leave here) nine was really the latest I felt like we could push things.
Even if we don’t see any, tonight’s already been perfect.
The cold dampness of the ground is totally noticeable, even through our coats and the blanket we’re lying on, and I’d underestimated how well the thermos I’d packed worked, resulting in me burning my tongue and spilling hot tea on my hand when I’d tried to take a sip, but none of that changes anything.
Until Myles spoke just now, it’s been one of those times where we’re just quiet together.
Just as easily as the two of us can talk non-stop for hours, we can also just be together.
Now that we can freely touch each other, this silent togetherness feels even more special.
Yet another item to add to my list of things I know I’ll never get enough of with Myles.
“What is it?” I know already from how his voice sounded a moment ago and how he’s looking at me that it’s nothing bad, even with the hint of uncertainty that colored his tone.
He rolls onto his side, scooting toward me, his body partly covering mine as he props himself on his elbow so his face hovers over mine.
“In your text today. You said we’d go somewhere no one would see us. Is that because that’s what you want, or was that for me because you think that’s what I want?”
“For you, mostly,” I tell him honestly. “Not because I necessarily think it’s what you want, but because we haven’t talked about it, and I want you to know that I understand if you don’t want people to know.”
“You’re not something I want or need to hide, Charlie.”
Oooh, it’s impossible not to totally love the hard, firm set of his jaw or the little flash of fire in his eyes as he grits out those words.
“I want the right people to know about us,” he goes on, “like your family, when we go to your aunt and uncle’s. If you want them to know?”
“Yeah,” I nod, totally unable to keep the smile off my face. “I’d like that.”
He presses a soft kiss to my cheek, but I can feel the way his breath trembles as he pulls back.
“I don’t know about here though,” he sighs, eyes squeezing shut as his forehead pulls into worried lines. “Part of me just wants to give a big fuck you to anyone who doesn’t like the idea of us together, but—”
He sags slightly, leaning a little more heavily onto my chest as I wrap my arms around him.
“Charlie, I don’t want us to have to deal with the kind of bullshit I know some people around here are going to give us if they find out. Like Byron Dutch or like my dad would have. I don’t want you to have to deal with that kind of thing because of anything to do with me.
“I don’t want to hide, but I don’t know that I’m ready for everyone to know about our relationship either. Is that,” he drops his forehead down against my shoulder, tangling his hands up in the fabric of my coat at my sides, like he’s afraid I’ll pull away from him. “Is that horrible?”
“No,” I shake my head, slipping my hand under his chin to tip it back up toward me.
“It’s not horrible, and it totally makes sense.
I’d had reservations about everyone at work knowing too, honestly, and if we’re out in the open with things outside of work, that’s the same thing as being out in the open at work, because everyone will know. ”
If we were staying, I know I’d feel differently. Since we’re not though—something I’m not about to spoil the evening by bringing up—Myles is really right. Things will be far happier and easier for us for the time we do have together without all of Riverside knowing about it.
“Besides,” I give Myles a light push so that he’ll roll onto his back so I can have a turn snuggling on him. “I really think not having a whole bunch of over-interested pre-teens and teenagers getting all nosy about our relationship sounds an awful lot better than the alternative.”
“Agreed.” He laughs, and I can feel the tension seeping out of him.
I relax my head back on his shoulder, tucked right under his chin as he wraps his arms around me. Lying like this, I can feel the exhale of his breath stirring the hair at the top of my head as the two of us stare up at the sky together.
It’s not long before a spot of light streaks through the star-strewn darkness. Just like we did when we were twelve, as soon as we see it, Myles and I point and exclaim in unison, sitting up to track its brief, bright movement across the sky until it’s gone below the horizon.
The next moment, I’m flat on my back, Myles’s knees on either side of my hips, his hands in my hair. Before I can even catch my breath, he’s kissing me, deep and slow and thorough, like he’s trying to taste every whimpered moan that slips from me.
I’m panting and totally breathless when he pulls away, and from the way his chest heaves against mine and the ragged sound of his breathing, he’s no better off than I am.
“Wh-what was that for?”
His grin is positively feral as he looks down at me. “Just in case.”
“In case w-what?” He’s making no sense, and much as I’d like to completely blame his vagueness, I know that a major part of the problem is also that he’s just totally short circuited my brain with that kiss.
Through the darkness, his grin softens to that sweet smile of his I love so much. “In case you wished for the same thing this time as you did before.” He grazes his knuckles softly over the curve of my cheek.
“You are ridiculously cute,” I tell him, laughing as I wind my arms around the back of his neck. “Did you know that?”
“No.” He shakes his head, chuckling quietly. It’s too dark to tell for sure, but somehow, I just know his cheeks are going pink under his scruff.
“Well, you are.” I tug him closer. Kiss him again as my heart fills with giddy joy. “Are you going to tell me what you wished for?”
The truth is, I hadn’t wished for anything this time. One, because it’s been a long time since I believed in that kind of thing, and two, because I hadn’t even been thinking about wishes when that meteor had blazed across the sky. I’d just been thinking about now.
He shakes his head again. Hard and firm this time. “Nope. I told you, I learned my lesson about telling last time.”
I’m not positive, but he sounds one hundred percent serious, and I can’t deny how totally sweet I find it that practical, realistic Myles very well may believe in the superstitions of a kids’ wishing game.
“Then, will you tell me if it comes true?”
“Yeah.” He traces his fingertips along my jaw, down over my throat, and a shiver that has nothing to do with the chilly dampness of the night runs through me. “Promise. But I’m remembering a promise you made me now.”
“Oh?” I shift my hips ever so slightly beneath him.
He responds instantly, dropping his in a long, slow grind that lets me feel all too clearly how hard and ready he is.
“M-hmm.”
“What was it?” I know damn well what promise he means.
“You promised,” his fingers are stroking slowly over my collarbone now, and ohmigod, it’s hard to think with him touching me like that. “That you’d make it up to me that I didn’t get to touch you all day.” Another slow roll of his hips. “And since seeing just one meteor is kind of our tradition…”
“Myles Marlow!” I give him a shove, trying to force all the indignation I can into my voice, quite a feat considering that indignant is literally the last thing I’m feeling right now.
“Are you telling me that you’ve just been faking it?
Acting like you’ve been enjoying my extremely romantic meteor shower watching date, while all the while just waiting for one,” I hold up my finger, pointing accusingly in his face, “meteor to show up, so that as soon as it’s gone, you could get in my pants? ”
Before I realize what he’s doing, he’s darting his head forward, catching my accusing finger between his teeth. Next thing I know, he’s sucking, swirling his tongue around the length of my finger, and I don’t even know what I was pretending to be upset about anymore because oh sweet Jesus, yess—
With one last suck I can seriously feel in my dick every bit as much as my finger, he pulls away. “Can’t it be both?”
“Huh?”
His chuckle at my eloquent answer is beyond smug as he ducks down to nuzzle his nose along the length of mine. “Can’t I have actually loved every moment of tonight, but also be dying to get into your pants?”
“Yes.” I nod emphatically. “Both. Both is good. So, so good.”
He laughs again, but breaks off in a gasp that ends in a groan when I shift my weight, rolling us so that it’s me on top of him again. He’s heavy enough that it’s definitely a challenge, but seeing his startled expression is so very worth the effort.