by Jones, Ayla
He kissed my outer thigh. When he sat up, too, he planted his lips on my cheek. “I’m. Done.” More kisses to shut me up, but I made myself be okay with the silence.
“Can I go verify my brother’s well-being on my own?” After I put on a pair of lounge pants, I went to the living room. Ty was vacuuming, lumbering around near-death. Very close to being a shoe-in for a role on The Walking Dead. He was wearing some of Charlie’s clothes…because my boyfriend was a sweetheart.
Tyler’s words from last night slammed into me when we made eye contact. I fucking hate you. We all do. The replay hurt a lot this time. I didn’t think human beings were really capable of hate, in spite of what my brother had said, but right in this moment, a grotesque, perverse feeling exploded inside me, and I realized it was possible to get pretty damn close. Strangely, I guess I understood his mindset more than I liked. It didn’t make me feel any better. He gave me an apprehensive smile. I couldn’t pretend it mattered. He suddenly straightened his posture and his skin went completely white.
Charlie.
He walked by me and went right up to Tyler. My brother was thin and athletic; Charlie was bulkier and towered over him. Drunk Tyler might’ve thought it was a fair fight, but sober(ish), there was only fright in his eyes. He was docile today. “See how you fucked up last night? You can blame her for it, but that was on you. Guess you’re not perfect, either,” Charlie said. Tyler flinched when Charlie took a tiny step toward him. “Oh…you had beer muscles last night, though.”
“Charlie…” I said as a warning.
He looked at me. “No, Nik. All that shit he said to you wasn’t cool. Even if he meant every word. He needs to understand that it hurt your feelings. Expressing how you feel is no excuse for intentionally hurting somebody like that.” He glared at my brother again, menacing and authoritative. “I don’t ever want to hear you speak to her like that again. So…go over there and apologize.” He trailed Tyler like he needed to make sure he would follow through on the instruction.
Best episode of Scared Straight yet.
Tyler was pissed but I could tell he was genuinely sorry, too. He knew he’d gone too far. “Yesterday was messed up. I wasn’t thinking. It was dumb. It wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Ty. That means a lot.”
“Don’t ever do this again…” Charlie said, and I gripped his arm when he leaned toward my brother. Like I could stop Charlie if he really wanted to get to him. Then he held his hand out to Ty. “Tell me now that you’re going to look out for your sister. And that’s all.”
“I will.” My brother nodded robotically, fearfully. He took Charlie’s hand then looked at me. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“No, because you will. I’m sure of it,” I said.
“You know how to get to the bus stop, right?” Charlie snatched his wallet from the coffee table and stuffed bills into his hands. As far as I knew, Tyler had never ridden the bus before, and a small part of me filled with dread thinking of him getting lost somewhere in the city. He didn’t even have his cellphone on him. But I let him leave shoulders slumped.
I didn’t feel any better.
“You’re pissed off at me.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, “you were kind of mean to him. Not that he didn’t deserve it. I was going to handle it.”
“I’m mad at you, too. No one’s mistakes should be thrown at them like this, especially when you are working hard to not repeat them. Human beings hurt each other, badly, and we leave people to deal with the damage we cause. But the good people live with those mistakes, too. And make amends. You’re living with it enough. And enough is fucking enough. No one gets to talk to you like that about that fucking accident, or anything else. Not him. Not your dad. Not your mom. Not even me. No one.”
“Charlie, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know, okay? I know that. I don’t want it to be that way. I don’t want to be someone everyone feels like they can beat down…” I trailed off for a moment because there was a flash of fight in his eyes and his jaw ticked. “But they need a villain. If I take that away—”
“Fuck that.” He shook his head, flustered. “Baby…no one, okay?”
“Okay. Okay.” I sighed. “I’m gonna go to a meeting today. I know I can talk to you, but I need a different kind of support right now.”
“I figured.”
“I’ll talk to you about it, too; I don’t want to keep it from you. I don’t want you to think this has to become your burden. I want you to be my boyfriend, not my savior.”
“You are never going to need saving.” Charlie’s hand landed on my collarbone. Then he gripped my chin, his thumb and fingers digging into either of my cheeks. His lips mashed mine in several hard presses. He held the last one and kissed me deeply, tongue somehow probing places that were nowhere near my mouth. Suddenly, I was on my tiptoes and falling against the wall. His hand was on my ass, because it was Charlie. And it was my ass. He kissed me that rough, possessive way he sometimes did when he was all worked up, and usually on top of me. And inside me.
Incredibly hot.
Stepping back, he brushed his hand across my stomach and grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter. “Where are you going?” I asked.
Charlie grunted. Grinned. “To take the little fucker home.”
“Hey! That’s still my little fucker. Don’t hurt him on the ride.”
“Fine, but we’re eating his cake later.”
“The whole thing.”
“The entire fucking thing. Love you.”
I went to AA all week the following week, and my parents called me for three days straight before Charlie told me he was answering. Ty had told them what he’d done and they wanted to talk, but I opted to keep my distance from all of them. I hadn’t felt like a part of my family for a long time; now I didn’t even want to be. At least I had Lea and Camryn and Mrs. A and Samira and Ghost.
And Charlie. I had Charlie.
By week’s end, I was almost back completely in my relationship bliss again. Not minding so much that he was still spending majority of his time here. So, I shaved, loofahed, lotioned…and got naked on Sunday while he was working. When I walked into my bedroom he was sitting at my desk and facing away from the door, staring at his laptop. I stood behind him at the doorway. I was so excited to pull this off I was already getting wet.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked, going in farther.
“Looking over some questions for a YouTube Q&A,” he said without turning around.
Charlie didn’t notice that I was all skin until I leaned over him. “Which question are you looking forward to answering the most?”
His eyes widened, pulsing with waves of lust and anticipation. “Wow,” he said, his hand sliding down my back, “why aren’t you riding my face?”
“That’s weird. Who asked that?” I pushed his laptop aside and sat on the desk, letting my legs dangle on either side of the chair. “Filming for work all the time, and never for play. It must get so boring.”
“It does…” he said calmly. His fingers moved delicately over my nipple. Charlie could maintain composure like the best of them, but I knew the wolf beneath. I loved the wolf. I yearned for it. He ran his hands up my thighs then cupped my ass. “God, it does. It really fucking does.”
“If someone gave you the opportunity to film for, say, fun…would you feel inspired?”
“Very. Very fucking inspired.”
“Good.” I hopped down and strode across the room to my bed, sensing him right behind me. I’d picked up a camcorder from Best Buy today. We were going to fuck the shit out of each other in HD.
“Jesus. This is happening…” he mumbled. His clothes were off by the time I turned around. Apparently the only thing faster than a guy getting naked, whose girlfriend just told him he could fuck her on camera, was the speed of light.
I tried to maintain my sexy demeanor and not laugh. “Well…where do y
ou want me?” I handed the camera to him. The wolf.
“Get on the bed and spread your legs.” Charlie flipped the viewing door open, handed it back to me, and smiled. “Film me eating your pussy.”
We ended up in a heap by the closet eventually. Both having been consumed and also sated. After a glance at the clock, he hauled me to the kitchen (“I’m cooking”). So at one A.M., he was making cheesy eggs, bacon, and pancakes. Oy. I was sitting on the linoleum with my back against the cupboards, across from the stove, and watching him cook in sweatpants. My boyfriend had a nice ass, in and out of clothes.
“…And then Ahsha and Pree’s birth mom died, too, right before my parents left India. My mom apparently cried on the plane the entire trip back,” Charlie explained. “She thought they would end up in an orphanage, or worse, so Dad started the adoption process right away. The girls were just under three years old when they brought them to the States. I was waiting with a sign that said, ‘Welcome home, Optimus Prime and Tigger.’” I spat out my water. “What? I thought they were great names! We actually still call Ahsha Tig. Don’t tell her I told you that. She’d kill me.”
“Have they been back to India since?”
“Yeah…the whole family went after I graduated from college. Pree is looking at study abroad programs there already. She just has to get Ahsha on board.”
“I love your family so much.” I sighed. “You’re lucky…I miss that closeness with mine.”
“You don’t think you’ll get that back?”
“Nope.” My throat quivered but my voice held. “And I’m coming around to accepting it. I really should stop letting hope hold me hostage.” It was an overrated feeling; if we were being honest here, yeah, maybe it gave you a reason to get out of bed in the morning, but it spent the rest of the day mounted on your back strangling you.
“Babe…” Charlie’s voice was pained. “But what if your parents never said those things? He can’t speak for them.”
“What if. What if. What if.” That was what always kept you stuck. “I just want to know how to move forward.”
“You could probably start by forgiving yourself, Nik.” Something flared inside me. I wanted to argue or get defensive but he was right. Guilt was some sort of security blanket for me. “Are you going to talk to them?”
“Yeah…when it stops hurting.”
He pivoted and aimed a grim expression at me. “What if it won’t until you talk to them?” I had no answer because he was probably right again. I just needed a few more days or millennia to process.
“I’ll figure something out.”
Charlie looked skeptical, but he nodded as he sat next to me on the floor with a plate in hand. It smelled amazing. “What the hell is that?” He gestured at his iPad on my lap.
“Six Flags New Orleans. It’s been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina. Not Chernobyl but still pretty creepy for something like that to be sitting in a major American city untouched.”
“The abandoned Disney one was weird as fuck, too,” he said. He kissed my cheek. Then he passed me the plate, and I choked on my heart. I snorted. I almost cried. The first pancake on the stack had a face. An asymmetrical, very poorly put together face. Chocolate chips for eyes and strawberry pieces for a mouth. The edge of his mouth went up just slightly, and Charlie tucked my hair behind my ear. “You don’t always have to be happy around me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
You want to know what I thought about right then? The entire planet. A place where with even the longest of lifetimes, no person could visit all its corners or know all there was to know about it. It was vast and strange and beautiful. And we were just in my apartment, my shitty apartment in a shitty neighborhood, just a speck on the Earth’s surface. Yet, what was outside these four walls—the vast and strange and beautiful—dulled next to Charlie Dara. This one man was greater than all of it.
He had made me breakfast, we’d looked up strange things on the internet, we’d watched (and promptly deleted) our amateur porn, I was wearing one of his shirts, and we were sitting on the kitchen floor and probably about to talk some more like it wasn’t Monday already.
I dropped my head on his shoulder. This was all I needed.
He was all I needed.
Chapter Twelve
Charlie
It was three o’clock in the morning, and Jessica and Daniel were nailing their scenes for the third episode of Confessions. The dialogue wasn’t mine and I wasn’t stressed out, but I wasn’t as content as I thought I’d be, either. I’d worked with the other writers from Hillington over email and Gchat, and it wasn’t that my vision was wholly missing; Tara as a character was just falling flat for me.
“Samira…” I whispered. She dodged me with a quick turn and a foot shuffle that would’ve made most NFL teams take notice. She walked out of the high school we were filming at tonight. She’d been doing this shit for a while now—no responses to my non-work related emails or texts or phone calls—but being avoided in person hurt like hell.
I followed her outside, and she stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “Tara was better with the dubious morality and dark humor,” she mumbled, a mug pressed against her lips. “Now all she does is blush and have a conscience every five fucking seconds. Bitch is so lame. They cut the whole entire fucking scene with my favorite voiceover, when the guy confronts her at the car!”
So, are you talking to me now?” I asked. Samira tilted her head and squinted like she didn’t recognize me. Melodramatic as fuck. “Are you?”
“Are you writing the script now?” she asked. “Whatever your answer is, it’s literally the same as mine.”
“I’m still writing on How to Fuck up a Friendship, aren’t I? That’s our baby. We’re gonna watch it grow up.” When I tried to pull her in for a hug, she stepped just out of reach. “Okay. Fuck this.”
“So, our baby grows up and then what? We don’t have any more? We get divorced?” she asked. I kept my eyes straight ahead. I didn’t need to confirm her disappointment in me.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and fished my cellphone out of my pocket. Nikki was texting to say she was home after SoBe rehearsal. I insisted she do it every night I wasn’t in the apartment waiting for her. She thought I was being an overbearing, overprotective boyfriend.
Nik: How much longer?
Me: 5 or 6 am
“Why don’t you know?” Samira asked impatiently.
“I just don’t.”
Nik: Darn. All the more fun with the retractable showerhead for me.
Nik: Muhaha!
Me: Hope it’s freezing and never gets warm. Love you.
Nik: LOL <3 Love you too.
“Have you been drinking a lot of coffee lately?” Samira’s tone was suddenly kind, but my gaze met shrewd eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I get the caffeine shakes, too.” She gestured at my hands. Shit. I hadn’t realized how noticeable these were getting. This was the side effect I hated more than anything else. I was glad she couldn’t hear my heartbeat. It sounded like I’d just run a mile uphill. “I’m sticking with hot chocolate. Coffee can’t ward off boredom, which is really what’s causing me to fall asleep,” she continued as she aimed a vicious snarl-squint at me. “Oh, by the way, I don’t want producer credit on this series.”
I groaned. “Seriously, Mira?”
“You’re making plans and changes without talking to me first. At least I warned you.” She walked backward to the building, shrugging the entire way.
“Are you and I okay? Are we going to be?”
“I want to produce your work, Charles Madden Dara. Yours.”
“Full name? You’re such a mom. Anyway, you’re sticking with the acting part, though, right?” She was playing the school counselor who Tara is required to start seeing after a hallway brawl, and is also helping the principal figure out who the school drug dealer is.
The double doors opened and shut without me getting a response. After Nikki sent me a
dirty picture fresh out of the shower and we texted back and forth until she fell asleep, I went inside. Samira had passed out on a couch that was part of the student lounge set we’d used earlier. She was curled up next to where I’d been writing. I wanted to tackle another How to Fuck up a Friendship script before we wrapped tonight.
I threw a blanket over Samira. She’d never say it, but she didn’t want to hold a grudge. I hated this distance between us, but I really just wanted her to accept my decision. Only selling show concepts to Hillington for other people to write and sticking with producing offered much more stability for us. For her and Patrick. For Lux. She entrusted me with her daughter’s future in a worst-case scenario, and taking on that responsibility meant not having my shitty scripts standing in the way. There were so many up-and-comers with web series we could lend our names to as well.
When I sat on the cushion by her head, Samira stirred then opened her eyes. Her confusion melted into a stubborn refusal to smile at me, but then she scooted closer and dropped her head on my thigh.
****
When I woke up, my heart felt like jackrabbits were fucking inside my chest. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and I glanced at the clock. Damn, it was almost ten. P.M. I’d lost the entire rest of the day after filming. Shit. The door to Nikki’s bedroom opened and she tiptoed across the carpet. “Hey, baby…” I croaked and switched on the table lamp.
“Hi,” she whispered and crawled across the bed to lie next to me. “You’re finally awake.”
“Sort of. How are you?”
“Awesome! Darla’s in the living room. We’ve been chatting since we got back from dinner about an hour and a half ago. I apologized for being awful. She’s going to be in Fort Lauderdale during the summer working, so we’ll see a lot more of each other.” She was beaming. “You were right. She doesn’t hate me!” Placing her head on my chest, she hugged my torso. Fear blasted through me when her head popped up, and I wondered if she felt how much I was shaking or the irregular way my heart was beating. But she only wanted to kiss me.
