Not Who You Thought (BxB Drama-Romance)

Feels Like We're Making Up

Now

Warning: explicit content

"I'm sorry." Charlie is holding two iced coffees, the ice cubes beginning to melt. The condensation is dripping from his hands and I'm sure his palms are cold. "I'm sorry for being pissy."

I drop the garden hose to the ground, where it continues to gush into the grass. I was watering my mother's peonies when he walked up my driveway; though he snuck up on me, I wasn't surprised by his voice. I haven't seen him in two days.

"You don't need to apologize for being pissy."

Nothing.

"Charlie," I coax.

He kicks a stone in my driveway, where it goes skittering away. The coffee sloshes in the plastic cups. The straws are those decomposable ones that always start dissolving before you finish your drink. His eyes trail the stone's path, until it rolls to a stop in a dip in the cement.

Then he stares intently at it and I wonder if he's going to go kick the stone again.

"Charlie, look at me."

He does. During conflict, he never makes eye contact. It used to really bother me, but now if I ask him to look at me, he will. I used to think he was being shifty until I realized he was being scared.

We both drink large iced coffees with almond milk and two pumps of caramel. It was his drink first. When he started bringing me one whenever he bought coffee, I became hooked. Now it's not Charlie's drink, it's our drink. We drank them all winter when there was still snow on the ground. We drank them all spring, picking them up on our way to go hiking or to the skatepark. This summer we've been steadily drinking them and I associate the taste with him.

I don't know what to say.

"Have you seen Allison?" He asks, and his voice cracks.

"No," I tell him. "She hasn't stopped by after we dropped off the croissants."

"Oh." His mouth twitches like it does when he's upset, but he's still looking at me, probably because I told him to. "Okay."

"Do you want to come in?"

"Yes." He walks over and hands me the coffee.

I take it from him and I take him inside.

We go to my room and he sits on my bed. Earlier today, I put a fan in the window to get cool air to circulate, now it blows his hair around his head. I play music through my Bluetooth speaker; a playlist I made for him a few months ago. We don't like the same music, he likes female musicians who sing about boys and money, and I like heavier classic rock.

He smiles when his favorite artist's voice comes flooding through the speaker. When he pulls the straw out of his mouth, the tip is all chewed up. He's a chronic straw chewer. The woman sings about a primadonna girl who wants the world, and I want him, not the world.

I take a sip of my coffee before setting it down on my dresser.

I approach him and he flops onto his back. We watch one another, the taste of caramel sticking in my throat, my eyes surveying the view of his body. When my hands go to the waistband of his shorts, he lifts his hips. He always does this, so I can slide them easily off of his legs.

I kiss his diamond-shaped navel above the elastic of his satin underwear. I've gotten used to the fact that he wears women's underwear, which I find ironic when I see them laying on my floor. I asked him about it once. He explained with no shame that they were more comfortable and that he liked them because they looked 'pretty'.