Page 81 of Break the Rule
Truthfully, Charlie isn’t sure he wants to be a dad. He loves kids. Other people’s kids. But if Eden has one, would that be a deal breaker? Charlie doesn’t know. If him being twenty years old isn’t a deal breaker, what’s one more curveball.
All Charlie can do is wonder what the hell Eden is doing in there while rubbing his hands over his knees.
Another ten minutes pass, and Charlie’s restlessness grows. Everything Eden might need is in that bathroom. Clean towels. One of Charlie’s favorite t-shirts that he selfishly wants to see on Eden’s body and even a pair of Charlie’s slippers and a robe, both of which will be too big but are there if he wants. If he needed anything else, Charlie told him to yell, but he hasn’t yelled. He hasn’t said anything or made a sound in the thirty minutes since the shower shut off, and Charlie’s about five minutes from making himself look like the caveman he swore he wasn’t.
Tapping his fingers on his knees, Charlie sighs. He’s never been nervous having someone else in his bedroom. Fuck and fun has been his motto. He and Eden have fucked, and it was fun, but there’s something else. A third F word that Charlie can feel creeping up on him—feelings.
Shit. No wonder his brothers don’t like casual sex if they feel like this any time they have sex. The need to check on Eden, tosee if he’s okay and crowd him into Charlie’s personal space, is driving him out of his mind. Eden is so close, yet it feels so far away that Charlie is crawling out of his skin. At this point in the night, he normally would be naked, but he kind of suspects that asking someone if they’re secretly a parent after inviting them for a sleepover is something better done without his cock hanging out.
Twenty minutes later, Eden finally emerges, and at least some of what he was doing becomes clear.
“Don’t say a fucking thing,” Eden mumbles, his arms wrapping around his middle while his shoulders hunch in on themselves.
He’s taken off his double wrists of bracelets, leaving only the one with “Ella” on it and a hair tie. He’s also dressed in Charlie’s favorite tie dye t-shirt which hangs to mid thigh on him, the neckline loose at his throat and exposing the sharp angles of his collarbones and his right shoulder.
His hair is just a little damp and hanging down around his shoulders, the ends curling up slightly as if he haphazardly tried to towel dry it. Most noticeable of all is the lack of makeup. Even that one night at the gallery, when his makeup had been more simple, it’d been there. It occurs to Charlie this is the first time he’s seeing Eden without it, and the difference is striking.
Even without makeup, Eden’s natural beauty shines through from his pale skin and wide eyes to the freckles on his nose he must hide with foundation. Without his usual liner and glitter eyeshadow, his face is a little more boyish—and infinitely younger.
So much younger. Fuck.
“What?” Eden snaps.
“You told me not to say anything.”
“Well, your face is saying a lot. You might as well fucking use your words.”
“I know you said you were twenty. I guess it was just hard to see until now.”
Eden frowns. “I’m aware I look younger.”
“Oh my god,” Charlie groans, scrubbing his hands over his face. He really thought he was over this. He spent an entire week telling himself age was nothing but a number, but Eden looks so young. “Does this make me a cradle robber?”
“I’m not underage, asshole. Petite people are still grownups, you fucker.”
“Right,” Charlie mutters, straightening. “Can we pretend I didn’t say that?”
“I wish,” Eden mutters, dropping down onto Charlie’s bed. “I can leave if it makes you uncomfortable. I know it’s not what you signed up for.”
“Wait, what?”
“The makeup and the skirt. You probably have a kink for it so I’m sure—I just needed a shower. I don’t like going to sleep with my makeup on, and it’s not like I’m gonna wear dirty clothes in your bed so the skirt had to go. But I get it.”
“Do you? Because I don’t,” Charlie admits, lowering himself onto the mattress beside Eden. He’s careful to leave a little space between them despite his desire not to. Everything in Eden’s body language is making it clear he’s got one foot out the door.
“You wouldn’t be the first man to be disappointed by what’s underneath the glitter and ruffles. You’d just be the first one who didn’t pay for my company first.”
Charlie blinks, taken aback by the admission.
“You know what, I should go.” Eden rises from the bed. “You don’t want me here.”
Before Charlie can get a word out, Eden is talking again.
“I get it. You like the look. People either love it or hate it. The ones who love it, well—I’m a kink for a lot of men. Some of them liked to pretend it made them less queer to fuck me in my skirt,my makeup all done. Others got off on the baby face and the blonde hair.” Eden makes a strange noise, tugging the hair tie off his left wrist and shoving his hair into a messy half-ponytail-bun thing with an expression that makes Charlie wish he were allowed to touch him right now.
“At least you looked horrified by how young I look when I walked out of the bathroom and not turned on by it. You’d be surprised how many men wanted me to pretend to be even younger than sixteen when I started.”
All his questions about whether or not Eden has a kid fly out the window as discomfort and surprise war in Charlie. Not at the admission of sex work, Charlie would never judge, but at the age he started. Fuck every single man who ever preyed on Eden. Fuck them. If they were in this room, Charlie’s pretty sure he would kill them, the sick fuckers.
