Christmas Closure A Charlie & Will Short Story #2
Before Will knew it, a variety of cheeses, some crackers, and meat covered the counter. There was no bread, unfortunately, since they hadn’t run out to the boulangerie for a fresh loaf. But this was more than enough. They did, however, open a bottle of wine to go with their cheese.
“Fine. Where do you want to start?” Will asked.
Charlie spread some soft cheese on a cracker, and Will almost sighed. They needed bread. Nice, soft bread with the crunchy crust. “You start.”
“Okay. Was it always your plan to break my heart?”
Charlie shot Will a look as if he’d lost his fucking mind. “No. Of course not. But things got out of hand fast, and then I was in denial about how things were because I didn’t want them to end.”
“What do you mean, they got out of hand?”
“Really? Are you honestly going to tell me that when you picked me up in that nightclub, you imagined us still dating months down the road?”
Will quickly ripped his eyes away from Charlie to stare at the cheese as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Okay, so maybe that was part of their past he’d conveniently forgotten.
“For the first week, all we did was fuck like rabbits,” Charlie pressed.
Will swallowed hard and shoved a piece of Havarti into his mouth to keep from saying anything.
Those early weeks with Charlie had been wild, Charlie’s cock inside him every chance they could steal together.
They hadn’t even been limited to his tiny apartment.
Charlie was the only person to fuck him in a bathroom stall at a nightclub.
He’d even begged Charlie to fuck him in an alley.
And he was pretty sure there might have been a stairwell in that mix at one point.
Everything about those first days had been mind-meltingly hot. They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. All it would take was a look from Charlie, and he’d be hard.
Will cleared his throat and took a long drink of his wine. “Yeah. It was kind of crazy.”
“Remember that time outside your door? You kept dropping your keys.”
“Only because you had your fingers in my ass.”
“You were so hot and turned-on, you came in your pants before we could get the door open.”
Will snorted. “You weren’t any better. The door wasn’t even closed yet, and you had me on my knees in the foyer with your cock stretching my hole. Did you remember to close the door before you came?”
Laughter sparkled in Charlie’s eyes. “I honestly don’t recall.
” But the amusement faded along with his smile.
“The point is that we both thought it was a wild fling. That’s what all my interactions were with men at the time.
It was all I could afford to have because I was with the CIA, and all I wanted. ”
“But I fucked that up.”
“You didn’t fuck anything up. We were happy together. Right? I wasn’t the only one who was happy, right?”
Will nodded. “No, you’re right. I was happy too.” His brow furrowed, and he picked up the bottle of wine. He replenished his glass and topped off Charlie’s. “Can you tell me what you were doing in Paris all those years ago?”
“The team and I were monitoring a known illegal arms dealer who worked out of Western Europe. Real trash, but he liked to live the high life in London and Paris. We spent a lot of time following him, listening to his conversations, hacking his computer, and making note of the people he was meeting with.”
“So, each time you disappeared for a week or two, you were actually in London tracking this arms dealer?”
“Mostly. I think we went to Barcelona a couple of times while we were together. Istanbul once.”
“Did you ever catch him?”
Charlie’s face grew dark, and Will regretted asking the question.
“Not how we wanted. It was a while after we’d broken up.
Soren was in place as one of this guy’s trusted people.
We were to get clean proof of a deal and capture him.
But shit went south suddenly. Some innocent people died.
The dealer was killed in the mess, and we ended up getting cut loose from The Company. ”
“I’m sorry,” Will whispered.
Charlie grunted. “Losing my job not long after losing you was a real kick to the balls. Took me a while to get my head straight. We were all kind of messed up after that fiasco. Soren went his own way for a while. Decided to say fuck the world and became a cat burglar for kicks. Kairo, West, and Ed stuck with me, but for a while all we did was drink and wander around.” Charlie suddenly stopped and waved his hand.
“But we’re getting off the topic. When we started clearly dating, I kept telling myself that it wasn’t serious. ”
Will nodded. “So did I.”
“So I wasn’t the only one lying to myself,” Charlie said with a smirk.
“But I think I came around to reality faster than you. I wanted it to be serious. Half the time, you were sleeping at my place. We talked about everything under the sun, except for the future and your work. However, I suspected that IT crap you fed me was total bullshit.”
“I’ll tell Kairo you said so.”