illicit affairs | Charlie Barber x Reader

chapter twelve: the lost art of distraction

HAPPY 'IA' DAY AND HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! I'm gonna make this quick since dal is tired from working all day!

REMEMBER!!! Once we hit 10K, that IA day we will have two chapters instead of one, stickers (hopefully) and I will go live on tik tok!! There will be more information when we get closer to it!!

Make sure you check out the links at the end of the chapter and let me know what you guys think :)

All my love, Dal.
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Things were the same as before... Well, sort of.

You were still attending classes and working, flipping through your notes when things got slow around the bar. Things were the same, only now, you weren't ahead in any of your classes anymore. You were struggling to read whatever book Andrea picked out for you. Still, you working and going to school, right?

Things were pretty much the same... Only now, you had to add Charlie to the equation.

The free time you had in between classes were now designated to him. If you weren't sneaking into his office, playing another round of the quiet game, you parked yourself underneath one of the many oak trees around campus. Before, you would have one of your textbooks open, taking notes and ignoring the chatter from students passing by. Now, your textbooks would be tucked away in your bag as your phone was glued in your hands.

When Charlie wasn't asking about your day or asking more of his burning questions, he would entail all the details of what he wanted to do the next time you were alone. It was really giving you whiplash, wondering if you were starting to develop feelings for the forbidden six-foot-something as you read his last message.

'I want to see you on your back with your legs wide open. Do you think you can be good and do that for me, sweetheart?'

Not only did your breath hitch at his message but you could feel yourself swooning at the nickname he was using on you a lot. You had to just tell yourself it was nothing, it was just a name... You repeated this in your mind as you responded: 'Without a doubt.'

When three dots popped on your screen almost immediately, that told you he was eager to respond to you. That certainly didn't help the situation you found yourself in, did it?

'Fuck, sweetheart. I'll see you tonight then.'

Reading his last text a few times, you were torn on whether to be excited or not. Of course, you wanted to know everything else Charlie had in mind for tonight, but you knew that deep down it was wrong.

Well, not taking advantage of your study time was wrong.

It was a dead giveaway that you thoroughly enjoyed whatever was between you two. Even while you questioned the way you felt about him, it wasn't enough to cut things off with him. For the first time in years, you were finally enjoying yourself, so why end things now?

In reality, you weren't that behind. If you were still keeping up with the content in class, you had nothing to worry about, right? If it became clear to you that you were having problems keeping up, then you would reassess the issue then. Why go out of your way to ruin how perfectly things were going?

'Tonight.' You replied.

Snapping out of it, you decided to put your phone away. It was time to pull out your next reading for Comparison of Literature. Pride and Prejudice. While you leaned back against the tree trunk, you read through the pages, getting temporarily lost in the world of Elizabeth and Darcy.