Page 88 of Break the Rule
Eden looks down at his bowl of eggs, so filled with frothy bubbles he’s surprised he didn’t manage to somehow make meringue. “I’m fine.”
Except really, Eden is anything but.
For the first time, he wants a future.
A future he’s not sure he can have.
Fuck.
16CHARLIE
“Finally.You’ve been avoiding my calls and my textsandmy emails.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you, Amanda,” Charlie protests, even though it’s a bold-faced lie. “I’ve just been busy.”
Busy. Code word for having more sex in the last week than the last few months combined. Charlie didn’t know it was possible to find someone whose sex drive rivaled his own, but Eden’s proved he can keep up, or straight up outpace Charlie at every turn.
Since that night he slept over and the morning after when Charlie found him and Andrew in the kitchen, they’ve spent a lot of Eden’s free time together. Admittedly, it’s been sparse since Eden regularly says he needs to be somewhere, though won’t tell Charlie where. He is still turning over the idea of Eden being a dad in the back of his mind, and the timing of Eden’s ‘need to be somewhere’s aren't helping that.
For Eden’s sake, Charlie’s tried not to push, an unnatural inclination for him. But it’s been a week and a half of Eden flitting in and out of Charlie’s bed, and while the sex has been incredible, mind-blowing if he’s being honest, it’s not enough. Charlie didn’t even know it was possible to crave somethingmore than sex but every time Eden slips away, Charlie finds himself itching to follow.
He blames it on Eden and Andrew being friends. The relief he’d experienced at realizing that Eden hadn’t snuck out on him but was merely hanging out in his kitchen was immense, quickly followed by a kind of contented pleasure he’s never experienced when he realized Eden and Andrew were bonding. Then Eden had gone so far as to demand Andrew stay and hang out with them for breakfast. It had been fucking great. Since then, Charlie craves it. He wants Eden around more with him, and him and Andrew. He wants Eden to stay long enough to watch a movie or gaze at the stars in his backyard.
Pitifully, desperately, Charlie wants more Eden.
Which is the only explanation for why he’s sitting in front of Juanita’s—not because he’s hungry, but because Eden has a fifteen minute break coming up, and Charlie is so goddamn eager to see him he drove across town.
If Jason or Alec could see him now, they’d give him so much shit. He’d deserve it too, after the teasing he gave them for being attached at the hip to Theo and Emerson. Might be why his other brothers don’t know about Eden yet. It’s not like Charlie to keep secrets from them, especially Alec, but something about what’s going on between him and Eden feels different. It makes Charlie kind of scared in a way he’s never felt in a relationship before.
Relationship. Eden would absolutely kill him if he heard Charlie think of it like that. It is though, or at least Charlie thinks so. He’s never had a real one, not like this. The last partner he had was in college, and that was more of following the expected than what Charlie wanted.
This thing with Eden feels like a relationship to a man like Charlie who’s spent a decade avoiding them. Charlie hasn’t fucked anyone else since that first time he and Eden were together. Neither has Eden, who showed Charlie his negativetest results to prove it. Not that Charlie needed to see proof, he believed Eden, but after his confession about his past Eden had been insistent on it. The way Eden had shoved his phone at Charlie with his results, after Charlie had shared his own, had felt less like sharing and more like Eden was waiting for Charlie to change his mind about being okay with Eden’s past, which is bullshit as far as Charlie is concerned. It’s not his place to pass judgement. He hates it, not because of the sex work itself, but because Eden did it out of desperation, because he was abused. Charlie made the mistake of voicing that out loud, resulting in Eden telling him to fuck off, and not in the fun way.
Charlie can’t help but worry that Eden’s still waiting for him to change his mind, or worse that Eden might. It is exactly why Charlie has been careful not to call what they’re doing a relationship.
“Charlie, are you still there?” Amanda’s voice is sharp and clear. “Earth to Charlie.”
“Sorry,” Charlie apologizes, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Let me guess, you were up all night,” Amanda laughs.
“You could say that,” Charlie hedges. He’s pretty sure Amanda means having wild sex, but the truth is he spent most of the night awake sketching Eden while he slept. The urge to paint had been strong, but the need to stay closer to Eden in case he disappeared was stronger, so Charlie had pulled out one of his old sketch books and taken pencil to page.
His eyes burn with exhaustion, and his brain struggles to keep up with what Amanda is saying. Something about timelines and gallery showings. After a sleepless night, normally Charlie would sleep the day away until Andrew came and woke him up after work, but the second Eden left this morning—always gone so he can be somewhere by seven-thirty in the morning—Charlie had retreated to his studio and spent the day painting, until hemissed Eden so much he drove across town for a chance to see him.
“You’re not paying attention to a word I’m saying, are you?” Amanda asks.
“No,” Charlie admits, attention now drawn to a familiar head of blonde hair he can see through the large glass wall in front of Juanita’s. Even from across the parking lot, Eden stands out, and it’s all Charlie can do not to go in there and bug him while he’s on the clock.
“Fine,” Amanda sighs, “but you need to make a decision.”
“About what?”
“About what,” Amanda mutters, “the gallery showing. If you don’t get me those pieces of your mystery man this week, we’re going to have to go with something else. Do you have anything else?”
“I have a lot of new paintings,” Charlie says.
“They’re all of him, aren’t they?” Amanda groans.
