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Charles has never stayed over before. It just isn’t what they do.
But it’s happening tonight because the party had gone very late, and because some of the guys had decided to bring their girlfriends over to keep things going, and because by the time they started to trickle out, Charles was far too drunk to leave.
Carlos had considered that it might be a bad idea, of course. He asked a few of the others if they couldn’t help Charles back to his own place, get him settled. But most of them were too drunk (or otherwise incapacitated) to be responsible for him. And though that probably shouldn’t be any concern of Carlos’s, old habits die hard. He simply has to be sure that Charles is looked after tonight. In the morning, he can kick him out, hungover and crying about some missed opportunity to get laid, and he won’t be Carlos’s problem again for a very long time, at least.
He offers Charles the guest room. Well, he doesn’t offer it as much as he guides him to it, a giggling, disoriented Charles hanging off his shoulder and babbling in French that Carlos only half understands. When Carlos keeps asking him to repeat himself, Charles tries in Spanish before he remembers he does a much better job at English, and he asks if Carlos has any garlic bread. When Carlos says no, Charles tells him he needs it, that it’s very important that he has it. And Carlos tells him yes, in the morning, Charles. In the morning we will find the garlic bread.
Carlos sits Charles on the side of the bed. He reminds Charles of the adjoining bathroom, of the best seat in the house, the best place to puke, the best place to get a drink, all right there in that little room to the side. No need to leave the bedroom, he says. And then he tells him goodnight, and he’s probably a little drunk himself, but not nearly to the level Charles is.
“Could you help me?” Charles asks.
His voice is small and crackly and tired, nothing like the one shouting out the lyrics during the impromptu back deck karaoke just a couple hours before. Charles had wrinkled his nose when someone had queued up a Journey song, but as it began, Charles fell into the old familiar spirit, the need to show off, to do the job even if it wasn’t the best he could do. It had made Carlos smile for a moment. Before he remembered why he hates having Charles here. Why he never asks him to stay over.
“What do you need help with?” Carlos asks.
Charles lifts a foot off the ground. “Shoe.”
Carlos nods and sighs. “Yes, alright,” he says as he kneels in front of Charles. Unfortunately, this is a familiar place he finds himself in. But when he’s down there, he realizes that these shoes don’t even have laces, that Charles could simply slip right out of them. He looks up at Charles, who is smiling wickedly down at him, never too drunk to play his little tricks. But Carlos removes the shoe anyway.
“I forget how you act when you drink,” Carlos tells him as he moves to the other shoe.
“Sexy?” Charles slurs.
“Spoiled,” Carlos corrects. When he’s removed the shoe, he looks up again.
Charles reaches for him. This, too, is familiar. He takes Carlos’s face in his hands, draws it closer. Kisses him.
For a few seconds, Carlos lets it happen. Charles tastes of rich liqueurs and sugar-rimmed glasses, a sticky-sweet fondue of Carlos’s weaknesses. But then he remembers himself and pulls back, and Charles still sits there with his eyes closed, his lips slightly pursed.
“We stopped, remember?”
Charles opens his eyes again. “What? Because of her?”
“We agreed.”
Charles stares at him, eyes searching, the movement slow. “I changed my mind.”
“No,” Carlos shakes his head and pulls back fully, though he stays there knelt on the floor, maybe just a little weak in the knees, pathetic as it is. “You said when you were engaged, this was done.”
“It’s not even real.”
Carlos knows better than to believe this. He knows how Charles gets, the desperation, the lying, the manipulation. It might even feel to Charles right now that the engagement isn’t real, but in the morning – or maybe much sooner – he’ll be back to the role of family man, all committed and monogamous and ready for his new chapter in life, all picture-perfect. Sponsorships and all.
“You go to sleep,” Carlos tells him as he starts to stand.
Charles reaches out, grabs his wrist. “Come,” he says, trying to pull him closer. “One last time. We never got one last time.”
“Our last time was our last time,” Carlos tells him. But he isn’t pulling away.
“You miss it. You know you do.”
Carlos can’t help but miss it. But that’s not important right now. “You told me under no circumstances—”
“I’m an idiot. Look at you.”
It’s the weakness in his voice that’s killing Carlos. Carlos loves when Charles is weak. God, he loves it. More than anything. More than life.
“You won’t feel this way in the morning.”
“Who cares?” Charles uses Carlos to steady himself as he stands, and he crushes his body against Carlos’s in an instant, arms around his neck. “Do whatever you want to me tonight. Do all the things we never did.”
Carlos smiles. In spite of everything, it is sort of amusing. He knows he’s the only person Charles ever has to beg for anything, and he can’t help but feel extra drunk on the power.
“We’ve done everything,” he tells him, gently pulling the arms away from their hold on him.
But Charles doesn’t budge. “Not everything.”
Carlos thinks about it. “No,” he says at last. “We’ve done all of it. Believe me.”
“No. I never stayed over.”
“You can stay over without sex,” Carlos tells him, still amused.
“We never made love.”
Carlos’s smile drops slowly. He tries to look away, but Charles’s eyes follow his. “This is a silly expression.”
“It’s true, though. We never did.”
“Depends on the definition,” Carlos shrugs.
Charles has won the fight – not that it was much of one – and once again has his arms thrown about Carlos’s shoulders. “I mean make love,” Charles emphasizes the words, drags them out. “We always fuck like… like pigs.”
“Like rabbits, more.”
“Whatever. We don’t make love.”
Carlos forces a laugh. “Please go to sleep.”
“You love me, don’t you? Carlos?”
Carlos swallows hard, feels a little dizzy. “Go to sleep,” he repeats.
“Tell me you love me.”
“Stop. Lie down.”
“I’ll lie down if you lie down with me.”
Carlos considers it. But only briefly, and only because he’s stopped saying that other thing. “No. Lie down or I make you.”
“Mmm…” Charles twists his face in thought. “Yeah, that one, we’ve done.”
Carlos shakes his head. He needs to get out of this room. He needs to get out without Charles hanging on him. He needs to get out without somehow saying something he’d be an idiot to say, no matter how true it is.
“If you go to sleep,” Carlos tells him quietly, because Charles’s lips are very close to his, and he thinks if he’s quiet, they might not get any closer, “we can do it in the morning.”
“You know we won’t do it in the morning,” Charles tells him in a sing-song voice. He leans in even closer, and the smell of his breath is too sweet to be human. “You won’t love me in the morning.”
Carlos can feel the heat of his lips, the slip of a tongue ghosting against his even without contact. “Why do you think I love you tonight?” he whispers.
“Because you always love me at night,” Charles says. He kisses Carlos again, the last word or two melting into it.
He’s not even wrong, and that’s why Carlos is letting him kiss him, why he doesn’t fight it even though everything inside him is screaming at him to leave, to push the man away with the force he knows he could so easily exert over him right now. The fruit Eve ate in the garden must have made the juice that was mixed in Charles’s drink, though, because now that this is happening, it already feels final, like he’s been granted the gift of the curse, the recompense for his sins.
“Tell me,” Charles says.
“Shut up.”
“No.” Charles kisses him again, hands on his face, hands in his hair, kisses him harder, kisses him faster. “Say it.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“Do what?” Charles asks. He brings a hand down between their bodies and cups the hard bulge in Carlos’s trousers. “Ah. That.”
“We said no more.”
“We said no more,” Charles mocks, but it’s so ridiculously childish of him that Carlos laughs.
“I hate you.”
“Mm. Closer.” Charles pulls him by the front of his shirt back toward the bed, and when he sits on the edge of it, Carlos falls into the old familiar habit of crawling over him, pinning him to the bed, kissing his mouth, his face, his neck.
“Carlos…”
“What?” Carlos stops.
“What?” Charles asks.
“Are you asking me something?”
“I’m saying your name,” Charles grins. “You know. Romantic.”
“Stop that.” He kisses his neck again.
“Carlos…”
Carlos groans against his throat, the tone more of frustration than arousal.
“I love you, Carlos…”
Carlos stops, lets his head fall into the curve of Charles’s neck. He doesn’t know what to do with that.
“Don’t stop,” Charles says, his voice almost sounding sober now.
“This is a bad idea.”
“No, no,” Charles reaches for his face and pulls him into a proper kiss. “No, it’s a good idea. Great idea. Take your shirt off.”
“You can’t say these things.”
Charles giggles. “It’s just a game.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like anything. Take this off.” He tugs at the shirt impatiently.
After a sigh, Carlos sits up and quickly removes the shirt. Charles smirks up at him, bites his lip as his eyes rake over the lines of his body.
“No more talking,” Carlos says.
“Whatever. Just fuck me.”
Carlos falls into form again. He kisses Charles a little more like the usual way, like this isn’t for fun, like it’s a means to an end. This is how it’s supposed to feel, he thinks. This is the feeling that makes it easier to say goodbye afterwards and send him home. Although… well, tonight will be different. He’s staying over and he’s playing this strange game and it’s all a bit weird.
But he thinks maybe he shouldn’t think about that. Maybe he should get Charles’s clothes off instead.
They kiss and they toss and they turn while they finish removing each other’s clothes, the occasional nip here and lick there while they continue making contact in any way they can when their mouths cannot be on each other. When they are naked, Carlos turns them to their sides, their limbs wrapped together as they face each other, as they kiss, as the room no longer feels so cold and now only feels like it was created to see them to this moment.
“Turn over,” Carlos tells him.
Charles looks him in the eyes. “No. I want to look at you.”
This is strangely sweet, but there’s an earnestness to the request that makes Carlos consider allowing it. “Are you ready for me?”
Charles laughs. “No. When would I have gotten ready for you?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos laughs back. “You wanted to fuck right away. I thought—”
“I don’t want to fuck. I want to make love.”
Carlos’s smile drops once again. “Stop saying that.”
“No.”
“Charles.”
“No. I love you. Don’t make it weird.”
“You’re making it weird!”
“I don’t think my dick can get hard tonight anyway,” Charles says, and he attempts a look down between their bodies, but the light is very dim.
“Should we stop?”
Charles widens his eyes. “Oh my god!” he exclaims. “You do love me!”
“Stop.”
“You wouldn’t ask that unless you loved me. Admit it.”
“I’m leaving.”
“No you’re not.”
No. He isn’t.
“Just play with it,” Charles tells him. “Maybe it will wake up.”
Carlos wraps his hand around Charles’s limp dick. He begins to stroke it as they kiss again. He breaks away briefly to lick his hand and try again. A moment later, he starts to laugh a little against Charles’s lips.
“What?” Charles asks.
Carlos considers saying it, but then chooses not to. “Nothing.”
“No. Say.”
Carlos shakes his head. “Just kiss me.”
“No, you’re laughing. Tell me.”
Carlos pulls on him a little tighter. “Just it’s… you know…”
Charles rolls his eyes. “I know. The mighty have fallen.”
“And you say you love me?”
“You’re so stupid,” Charles smiles. “If I didn’t love you I would not let you see me like this.”
Carlos tries not to show how much he kind of believes that.
“Clearly,” Charles says as his hand returns the favor. “This is not the problem for you.”
Carlos shrugs. “I’m just a man.”
“I’m a man!” Charles shrieks.
“That didn’t sound like a man.”
Charles clears his throat. “I’m a man,” he says in an exaggeratedly low voice now.
Carlos smiles. “Alright, now I believe you.”
And then for a while they stay like that. They’re in each other’s arms and in each other’s hands and it’s comfortable. If Carlos doesn’t think about it too much, it’s all okay. Everything’s okay.
“Will you tell me now?” Charles whispers.
Carlos’s hand stops moving. He leans in a little closer, gives in to the comfortable closeness of this familiar body. “No.”
“Just tell me.”
Carlos kisses Charles on the tip of his nose. “Stop asking me this.”
“You know I love you.”
Carlos doesn’t respond. He kisses Charles on the chin.
“Carlos?”
He kisses Charles on the left cheek. On the jaw.
“I love you.”
“Stop.”
“No. I love you.”
“You have to stop.”
“No,” Charles’s voice is firm now, louder. “Look at me.”
Carlos ignores him. He kisses the corner of Charles’s mouth.
“Look at me.”
Carlos closes his eyes. Just to be sure he’s not obeying.
Charles also releases his hold, but only to bring his hands to Carlos’s face, to pull it away from his own. He holds it there until Carlos opens his eyes, and then he kisses him once, twice, quickly, softly. “I love you,” he repeats.
Carlos is breathing heavily. “It hurts when you say that.”
“Because you don’t believe me.”
“Because it doesn’t matter. Love doesn’t matter,” he says. “With us.”
Charles smiles.
“It isn’t funny.”
“I know. I’m not laughing for that.”
Carlos looks at him expectantly.
“Nothing,” Charles says with a little shake of his hand. “Forget it. I’m tired.”
“I’m tired, too.”
They stay there a while, still tangled up and naked, before they fall away from each other. Carlos knows he should leave and go to his own room, to his own bed. But Charles reaches for him before he can, snakes an arm around his waist and pulls his chest to Carlos’s back. Carlos doesn’t intend to fall asleep there. He only wants to stay long enough for Charles to fall asleep, and then he’ll leave, and he’ll lock his door, and he won’t cry because he doesn’t like to do that about Charles, but he’ll probably remember the prayers of his youth and practice saying them once or twice to an entity he isn’t sure he believes in anymore. And in the morning, they will be sober, or at least sober enough to know that they did the right thing by stopping. And maybe the friendship – or whatever it is – won’t be entirely ruined.
But then the sun is waking him as it pours through the crack in the curtains. He fights it a little, but it’s useless. There’s a body draped over his, and he’s too tired to move it. Too tired and too scared to put an end to this thing that never really had a beginning.
He lets a hand fall into Charles’s hair and absently weave through the thick waves that Charles will probably trim soon. He knows the exact length at which Charles gets it done, and that’s when the hair on his crown reaches Carlos’s third knuckle, middle finger. It’s nearly there.
He maps the curve of Charles’s mouth, which is slightly open against Carlos’s bare chest. The mouth haunts his body sometimes even weeks after it’s left. He can feel it tracing the parts of him that Charles knows best, like the dip below his ribcage, the inside of his thigh, the back of his knee. He wants to run his thumb along it, even right now while it’s a little chapped, the evidence of an oh-so-rare dehydrated Charles. A little lacking in color on his cheeks. A little heavy under the eyes.
This is why Charles doesn’t stay over. Because Carlos wants nothing more than to kiss those tired eyes awake, to offer him espresso and fruit and bread. He wants to pull him into the shower and let the cold water run over their bodies and wake them up. He wants to take Charles outside and stretch and run and come back and shower again, this time in warmth, this time in each other’s arms. He wants to let Charles use his lip balm like they are schoolgirls with crushes. He wants to be a child with Charles and sleep in until noon, watch mindless television and listen to loud, terrible music while they laze around. He wants to change his routines to give Charles whatever morning Charles likes best before he teaches Charles about the kind of morning he ought to have, which is why Charles should never be here in the morning, which is why he never has Charles stay the night.
It's so silly, he thinks. These feelings. Embarrassing. Childish. Unrealistic. Charles is beautiful and silly and charming. Charles is engaged now. Charles is going to marry someone, because Charles was always going to marry someone, and it is going to be someone who is perfect for Charles, who is all the things Charles needs and enough of the things Charles isn’t for everyone to buy that they’re the perfect match. One day, Carlos will do the same. He isn’t hurt by it and he doesn’t take it personally and he always knew this would happen, and it was always fine. It was always fine that Charles and he would marry people and would stop being so foolish and reckless together. They have to grow up. Charles is growing up first. Good for him. Good for him.
Carlos leans down cautiously, kisses the top of Charles’s head. He doesn’t know why. He isn’t sad. Everything’s fine.
Charles stirs at the contact, which is not at all what Carlos expected when he did that. He stills, but Charles opens his eyes, moves his head so that he is looking at Carlos. When their eyes meet, their expressions stay the same. Neither man looks away. For a while, neither man moves at all.
Carlos’s hand is still in Charles’s hair.
And then they are kissing. Who moved first is unclear and unimportant, and it had happened both very quickly and with exceeding caution. Charles no longer tastes like sweets and sugar-coated apples. He tastes like day-old vodka and stale bread, and Carlos can’t get enough of it. Their tongues meet between short, soft kisses as Charles moves his body on top of Carlos. Charles’s hands slide up Carlos’s chest, over his neck, on his cheeks. Carlos pulls him closer, kisses him harder.
He wonders if there’s anything in the world he would not give Charles if he could. It’s so strange, because he knows that Charles wants nothing, needs nothing. In fact, Charles has only ever really asked him for one thing, and that was last night. A ridiculous, unserious request. But right now, if Charles asked him for it, if Charles said those words – tell me you love me – Carlos would. He would say them. Worst still, he would mean them.
There is no world where they are anything more than this. They are two men who find themselves in the middle of something impossible. They’re a couple of the lucky ones, Carlos thinks. They have a way out. They have entire teams of people to ensure they never have to answer for anything. They are well-loved around the world and worth millions. They’ll be just fine with or without each other.
Carlos wonders why it’s so hard to imagine without.
Without Charles.
He pulls him closer, rolls him back into the bed, covers him. Holds his hands against the mattress and kisses him, kisses down his body, kisses him softly, kisses him with honesty, with purpose. Kisses over his heart so that he can feel the pulse against his lips. Imagines himself a vampire and this his final, perfect feast. He kisses under Charles’s arm and inhales the scent of a long night’s exertion, a longer night’s rest. He kisses down his side and almost examines it for the telltale wound before he remembers this is just a man, not a saviour, that he holds in his arms. He kisses lower and lower and even lower, down Charles’s thighs, down to his knees, down to his shins, down to his feet. He holds them in his hands and he kisses them because these are the feet that will walk away from him, and he wants, in whatever way is possible for a man like him, to bless the steps he takes.
Charles calls him softly, almost silently. Charles looks to him, sees the wide, pleading wetness in his eyes. Not tears. Exhaustion. He makes his way back up again.
Charles drapes his arms over Carlos’s shoulders. His knees hitch up, hold Carlos between them, keep him in place. They’ve both grown hard together and are somehow mostly ignoring it. They kiss while their bodies remember one another. Hello, old friend. I knew you’d never go far.
Charles closes his eyes as Carlos starts to move his body. The friction of skin on skin builds faster than either man expects, but these eager, early-morning erections can be so insistent in the most typical circumstances, even more so when there’s… something else added in. Something that, in this case, neither man can name. Or else both men are too afraid to.
“Carlos…” Charles whispers. And this time, Carlos knows why he is saying it. A call to action.
He buries his nose against Charles’s temple, grinds their hips together. “Shh…”
Charles smiles. But he obeys.
Their bodies are impossibly close, and Carlos is certain that this is the closest he has ever felt to anyone. Not only in the physical placement of their bodies, but in the way they are saying it all, every word, all of it right now. How the entire overdue dialogue defining the nature of their state of being lies in the paper-thin space between Carlos’s lips and Charles’s ear. How they are no longer just a couple of horny guys getting off on the adrenaline of their shared career, the danger they find in each other, the competition of each other’s attention. How something irrevocable has happened now. Maybe this morning, or maybe last night, or maybe sometime before without either of them noticing. At some point, somewhere, they had decided to love each other. Whether they knew it or not.
“Please,” Charles finally allows himself to speak, his voice still quiet as he opens his eyes again. “Come with me? Together?”
Carlos nods, and they face each other, foreheads pressed together while their bodies move in unison. Carlos reaches a hand down and takes them both together, and Charles lets out a long, quiet moan at the contact. But he doesn’t look away. Neither man does. A moment later, Carlos nods his announcement, and Charles answers in the same fashion. They kiss as they come together in Carlos’s hand, and Carlos can swear it’s the best he’s ever had. Longer, stronger, more satisfying than any fuck in any bed in any part of the world. He feels euphoric. Emboldened. Immortal.
The high fades slowly, and as it does, their bodies naturally fall apart from each other. Carlos kisses him again as he offers to grab a towel, but Charles suggests a shower instead. So they shower, and it’s quick, a little cold, not exactly the sexiest they’ve ever taken as a pair.
When they’ve dressed, Charles scans the room to find his things from the night before. His phone. His jacket. His wallet. Carlos helps him find them. Hands them over. Charles thanks him – always so polite – and makes himself presentable.
“I don’t really… remember last night,” Charles says. “Not all of it.”
Carlos nods. “I didn’t think you would.”
Charles hesitates a moment before he speaks again. “I stayed over. That’s new.”
“You were very drunk,” Carlos explains. “Clearly.”
Charles nods again. He looks around. “And last night, we… fucked?”
“No,” Carlos tells him with a little smile. “We tried. We were maybe a little too drunk to make that happen.”
“Ah.”
Carlos feels a little nauseous now. Like he’s in trouble for something.
“We did discuss…” Charles starts to say, then he stops as he seems to think for a moment. “Well, it’s only… I’m engaged now. We said that when I was engaged—”
“I know,” Carlos interrupts. “It’s nothing.”
“Didn’t happen,” Charles says. “This morning was… still a little too drunk to know what we were doing, I think.”
Carlos looks at him for a long moment. Nods once.
“I sort of woke up in the middle of it, I think.”
Charles says this with a smirk. Like it’s funny. Like he’s explaining a funny tweet he saw.
“I think the same,” Carlos lies.
“Anyway,” Charles pockets his phone and places his sunglasses over his tired eyes. “Thank you for letting me stay.”
“Any time,” Carlos tells him. He doesn’t mean it, but that’s alright. He can’t imagine the opportunity will come up again.
Charles leaves, and Carlos watches the door long after the man has walked out of it. The evidence of the night’s party is everywhere. The cleaners will be here later to fix that.
What they can fix, anyway. Which isn’t everything. Isn’t nearly enough.