Page 8 of Break the Rule
“I’m ace, not blind, Charlie. I can see when people are attractive. I just don’t have the desire to do anything about the knowledge like you do. But yes, he was very pretty. Very your type.”
“I don’t have a type,” Charlie counters.
“You absolutely have a type.”
“No,” Charlie argues, thinking back to his last half-dozen hookups. He can’t think of anything they had in common, their variance in gender and body types vastly different. Charlie has always found all people beautiful—big, small, short, tall and everything in between.
“Whatever you say,” Andrew shrugs. “There’s your pretty boy.”
Spinning on his heels, Charlie’s gaze roams over the far side of the room until it lands on a pretty head of blond hair. While he’s dressed in the same black slacks and white button down as all the other servers, and far more casually than the clientele, something about him demands attention. In a room full of art, he’s the only thing Charlie sees.
“You’re staring.”
“I know, look at him,” Charlie sighs. This guy is so pretty it physically hurts. On the way here, he told himself he was completely fine with finding someone else to take home if he got brushed off a second time, but he’s not sure that’s true. The difference is Charlie has no intention of being like the creepy cream suit dickhead. He wants to officially shoot his shot, but if he gets turned down he will accept it with grace, then go home and eat a pint of ice cream on his couch, preferably while naked.
“Do you even know his—or their, I shouldn’t assume—name?”
“Uh, Ron,” Charlie answers. “I didn’t actually get their pronouns. I got so far as telling him how pretty he was before he told me pretty things break then walked away.”
“So your type,” Andrew whistles. “AlsoRon?”
“We’re going to revisit my type later when I’m not on a mission,” Charlie says, waving his hand in Andrew’s direction without taking his eyes off his target. “And yeah, I know, he doesn’t look like a Ron.”
Ron chooses that exact moment to get close enough for Charlie to take his shot—and to see the name tag on his shirt. One that definitely doesn’t say Ron.
“Eugene,” Charlie blurts loud enough half the gallery turns to stare at him, including his pretty blond boy.
Ron, or Eugene, who knows what the hell his name actually is, fixes his piercing blue eyes on Charlie while he walks. For a split second, Charlie is sure he’s going to walk past him and follow the servers into the back, but he stops in front of Charlie, a question in his eyes. Well, Charlie’s got questions too.
“I thought your name was Ron.”
“That was yesterday,” he replies, straightening his name tag.
“So it’s Eugene?”
“Sure,” he replies, cocking his head. The eyeliner at the corners of his eyes is slightly smudged, and Charlie has the compulsive urge to mess it up further, to smear it into the glitter dusting his eyelids and make a mess of him. “Today anyway.”
“Do you have a lot of names?” Charlie hedges, unsure why feeling so confused by this pretty person is making him so turned on.
“Maybe,” he answers, twirling the tray in his hand. “Hungry?”
“He’s hungry but not for food,” Andrew snorts.
Eugene—and shit that name doesn’t match him either—turns his gaze to Andrew. Where his features were awash in distrust before they soften. “You are very polite.”
“Uh, thank you?” Andrew says, clearly confused.
“A lot of the people here act like the food is being served by invisible servers. You’ve thanked every single server who gave you something tonight, and got napkins for Addy when someone spilled wine on her. You even gave her laundry tips.”
“Who’s Addy?” Charlie interrupts.
“One of the servers,” Andrew answers when it’s clear Eugene won’t. “That one.”
Charlie turns to see a pretty woman with tightly coiled midnight black hair. She doesn’t seem to notice them all staring.
“She’s pretty,” Charlie observes.
“Don’t even think of hitting on her,” Eugene says, stepping in front of Charlie and obstructing his view. Not entirely, since he’s a good five inches shorter than Charlie and slight as the wind, but enough to distract him. “She’s fucking off limits.”
