“Can’t talk. Dead now,” he whimpered.
A laugh bubbled out of me. “I’m going to clean up.”
He opened his eyes and pinned me with a stare. “Are you okay?”
I thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”
Three steps away, he called my name. I turned to him, and he grinned.
“In all the time I was with my ex, I never had an orgasm like that. Mitch liked getting off, then rolling over and going to sleep. You took care of my needs too. Thank you.”
Charlie’s ex was a selfish bastard. “You deserved better.”
“I found it,” he replied. “And I hope I never lose it.”
Yeah, I didn’t see that happening.
THE WEATHERstayed colder than the balls on a brass monkey. Charlie and I huddled inside as much as possible over the next two days. When he wasn’t writing, we were curled up in front of the fire, sipping cocoa and sharing stories. He asked me about my childhood—which was awesome, how Clay was as a brother—I pleaded the fifth, then laughed about it, and for my most embarrassing moment—which was streaking through gym class, because the girls’ volleyball team had set up for practice. In turn, I asked him how he got into writing.
“Before I started running, I was a chubby nerd. Comic books were my life, and I had the largest collection of anyone I knew. I thought it made me cool. Others had a different view on the whole thing. By the time I realized how bad it was, I was already ostracized. No one wanted to be friends with a geek, so I spent a lot of time alone. I began to write stories about my favorite heroes, only in my world, they were gay and had someone they loved with their whole heart. One day my mom found one of my stories—”
“Oh, shit.”
Charlie grinned at me. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. When I walked in after school, she had me take a seat at the kitchen table with her and my father. She pulled out the yellow folder I used to write my stories in and showed me the stack of papers inside of it. I gotta tell you, I don’t know if I ever sweated so hard. Everything in me was screaming to run away from home because they wouldn’t understand. In the end I hemmed and hawed for several minutes as I tried to figure out a way out of the mess. Then she leaned over, cupped one cheek, and kissed me on the other. I sat there flabbergasted.
“She told me they’d read what I wrote and how proud of me they were. They said I had talent, and they wanted to help me with it. They bought me my first laptop, complete with writing software. I stared, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. We went out to dinner that night to celebrate. It was totally surreal.”
“They didn’t care you were gay?”
He laughed. “Nope. That was never even discussed. To them I was Charlie, and my happiness was the only thing that mattered. Oh, I got the safe sex lectures from Mom, and Dad warned me, whenever I got a boyfriend, he expected to meet him. Sadly the only one he met was Mitch. That… didn’t go well. Mom said if I was happy, they would try to be happy for me, but they hated him. She said he seemed too smooth. Dad said he was insincere. Turned out they were both right. Wish I had listened.”
My heart ached for Charlie. “I’m sorry things with him didn’t work out.” Then, though the thought pained me, I added, “Maybe you could—”
He held up a hand. “Oh God, no. Don’t even think that I miss him. Leaving New York—leaving him—was the best thing I ever did. It brought me here and I got to meet you. I think that’s a win right there.”
I ducked my head as my cheeks heated.
“Don’t blush yet. There’s one more thing I need to talk to you about.”
He sounded so serious, I began to fret.
“Stop that,” he chided me. “What I wanted to say was that my parents would like to talk to you. I’ve told them that you’re not comfortable around new people, but Mom is hoping that you’ll allow her to talk to you on the phone.”
I blinked a few times. “How does she know about me?”
Now it was Charlie’s turn to blush. “I might have told her about you once or a few hundred times. Before the accident, you were a pretty popular topic of conversation. Mom said that she could tell from the sound of my voice I was in love. She told me I never sounded that way with Mitch and that she hoped to get to talk to you. There isn’t any pressure, though. If you don’t think you can do it, I’ll explain it to her. I promise she’ll understand.”
He didn’t say anything as I thought it through. Talking on the phone usually wasn’t too bad. I talked often enough with Clay, and even though I was nervous when I spoke with him or Mr. Gianetti, it was easier than face-to-face. “Okay. Sure.”
He seemed so surprised. “Really? Thank you!”
“When did you want me to do it?”
He glanced at the clock on the wall. “If you’re up to it, we can try today. But if you need time to think about it, then we can revisit the idea in a week or two.”
Charlie always seemed to put my needs first. He’d taken to going through the house daily to ensure things he’d used were put away—in the right places—or taking the scraps left over from the preparation of dinner and putting them into the compost heap that I used to enrich the soil for my plants. He did it all. Never once complained or made a fuss about why I had to do things in a certain way. He adapted to them instead. Having him here made my life easier, much to my surprise.
“Today would be good,” I said, swallowing hard.
