Page 16 of Country Road Romance

“You’re a real smartass, you know that?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You can take it however you want.”

By this point they’d reached Charlie’s room and come to a stop, neither of them quite ready to take the plunge.

Jared turned to Charlie, getting out from under his arm in the process, and raised an eyebrow. “So…are we going to stand here in the hallway all night, or are we going to go inside?”

“Come on in and be my guest,” Charlie said.

“Okay, Lumiere.”

“See, this is why we’re great geriatric millennial gays. We both understand a reference to the originalBeauty and the Beastwhen we hear it.”

“There is only one trueBeauty and the Beast,” Jared said primly as he stepped into Charlie’s room. “And anyone who says otherwise is guilty of Disney heresy.”

“What’s the punishment for Disney heresy?” Charlie asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “Are you forced to watchThe Black Cauldron?”

“You take that back,” Jared said. “The Black Cauldronis a misunderstood masterpiece, and I won’t hear another word against it.”

“The Black Cauldronmight have been a masterpiece before Katzenberg got his hands on it and literally cut up the footage that would have made it one of the great animated films of the 1980s. Unfortunately, as it is, it’s just sort of a testament to how some people just can’t resist the urge to destroy good art.”

“You know, Charlie Garrett, I’m starting to think that you might have the makings of a film critic.”

“When you’ve acted in enough of them, you start to understand a bit of how the business side of it works,” he responded.

Despite himself, Jared found himself enjoying this playful little bit of banter. Strangely enough, Charlie didn’t make him feel stupid or uneducated or childish just because he still liked Disney movies.

Now that they were in his room, Charlie was doing everything he could to make Jared feel comfortable. Jared wasn’t sure where to sit, so he just sort of slumped in the nearest chair.

“I think we both know that this is going to be all over the news tomorrow,” Charlie said, pouring them both a glass of wine. “I…I really don’t know how I could let myself lose control like that.”

Jared quirked an eyebrow at him. “I must say that it’s not the type of behavior that I would have expected from Charlie Garrett. I don’t think that punching a homophobe, no matter how much he probably deserved it, is going to go over very well with middle America.”

Charlie sighed and, sitting his own glass on the nightstand, threw himself on the bed, his arms outstretched. His shirt rode up a bit, revealing his tight stomach and his nature trail. Jared couldn’t help but think of what it would be like to run his hands along it, following it down lower, lower, lower…

Keep your mind out of the gutter, Jared,he reprimanded himself.

“Don’t tell anyone I said this,” he said, “but I’m actually kind of impressed by what you did tonight. I don’t condone violence, and I know it’s going to cause all kinds of complications, but that guydidfollow you all the way to the Stonewall, knowing that he was going to force you into a fight. And, well, hedidalso shove me, so part of me thinks that he had it coming. Y’know what I mean?”

He was flailing, and he knew it, but he really did want to make Charlie feel better about what had happened.

Charlie, for his part, seemed to appreciate it.

“Thank you for that, Jared,” he said, pushing himself up to his elbows and holding him in a disconcertingly direct gaze.“You know, you might seem like a bit of an asshole at first, but deep down it seems like you’re not so bad after all.”

“I…guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” He laughed a little. “And you have every right to call me an asshole. I wasn’t very nice to you when we first met, was I?”

“It was just a few hours ago, you know. Not like, a thousand years ago.”

“You really are a very exasperating person, do you know that?”

Charlie flashed a smile. “I get that a lot, particularly from Sheri.” At the mention of his publicist’s name a shadow passed across his face, and the air seemed to go out of the room. “She’s really not going to be happy when she finds out about tonight.”

Jared sighed. “I don’t think that Rebecca is going to be very happy with me either. She specifically told me that my job was to help keep you out of trouble, and that’s exactly what I didn’t do. And I can just imagine how the City Council is going to react to all of this. They weren’t very friendly to the idea of having a gay movie festival in the town to begin with, and this…well, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Charlie levered himself off of the bed and came over, a genuinely concerned look in his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m really sorry, Jared,” he said. “I hope you know that I didn’t mean to cause you any kind of trouble.”

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