“What do you mean? We’re dancing…” he says, leaning back with my hands on his shoulders. This position means we can still talk while we dance, although dance is a stretch for the slow side-stepping we’re doing. This position also means our groins are pressed snugly against one another and it’s harder than I can describe to not grind myself down on his firm length as it pushes up behind the fly of his jeans.
“No, I mean, with you. Why are you being weird about doing stuff together again?”
“Stuff?”
“Sex, Charlie. Sex stuff.”
I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. So cute, and so silly that he expects me to not believe he doesn’t want me. “Sex stuff.”
“Like what we did last weekend,” I explain. “You know there is an almost unlimited number of other things we can do on top of that.”
“Unlimited number…” he repeats me again. A flustered Charlie is one of my favourite kinds of Charlies.
“I want to do stuff like that with you, Charlie. And not necessarily in a storage cupboard. You could come back to my place, if you wanted,” I suggest.
Charlie looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Mina, I—“
“Wait, if you’re going to tell me no, you better tell me the real reason why not, and not some bullshit about wanting to have wholesome fun with me instead. Do I look like someone who is all about the wholesome fun?”
“But you have had lots of wholesome fun with me, you said so yourself.”
“Fine,” I concede. “Tonight has been lots of fun. With you. But the fun doesn’t have to stop now.”
“Mina, it’s just not a good idea,” he says and I give him time to explain himself but no more words follow.
“You’ve still not given me a good reason,” I say, and I press my body firmer against his.
Charlie reacts by flinching but at the same time the tips of his fingers dig deeper into my lower back, as if to pin me in this new closer position.
“I don’t…” he begins, then swallows again. “I don’t want to be your rebound thing.”
Of all the possible reasons I imagined Charlie had for turning me down, this is not one of them.
“You think you’re my rebound thing?”
“Well, aren’t I? Isn’t that what this is?”
I shake my head hurriedly. “No, God, no. Not at all.”
Charlie narrows his eyes on me. “Then what is it?”
“I told you. I want you, Charlie.”
“That’s really it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“But what about Hannah?”
“What about her?” I ask in a lower voice because I know she and Sally are likely heavy petting around here somewhere.
“Weren’t you upset earlier because of seeing Hannah and Sally here together? And I saw myself how pissed off you were when they were snogging in the corner. You also said you guys spoke in the Ladies and then when you came back you were suddenly on this mission to drag me into a storage cupboard.”
“Yes, because we cleared the air. That talk with Hannah proved to me that I am completely over her.”
Charlie’s brow is still furrowed. “But what about when you were in a mood earlier? What was that about if not Hannah and Sally?”
I hesitate before answering this question, deciding to be a little bit creative with the truth. Charlie doesn’t need to know about my uncharacteristic panging. “I was in a mood because I was about to tell Hannah and Sally that we were just friends, work colleagues, but you came in all date-y and put a stop to my plan. So, yeah, I was also a bit pissed off about that.”
