Work Text:
I got to be your friend now, baby / And I / Would like to move in just a little bit closer.
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) Cover by Charles Rowland – Track no. 13 from BAD IDEA deluxe edition 2025.
The Unity Gala
The Unity Gala is renowned annually for its fusion of fashion, live performances, and moving speeches from prominent figures advocating for social change. Attendees are encouraged to step onto the indigo carpet in daring, fashion-forward looks, focusing on individuality and creativity.
The 2024 Unity Gala (co-hosted by Dream Studios) will be held in honour of the late Unity Kincaid, a visionary dedicated to social progress and the support of underprivileged youth and founder of The Unity Project. The program provides essential services such as food, clothing, housing, and access to education, ensuring that no child is left behind. However, its most impactful initiative might be its specialty arts program, which offers an exclusive opportunity for young talent to flourish, providing mentorship and guidance in various creative fields.
Donations to The Unity Project are welcomed and appreciated, helping to continue the mission of supporting youth in need and fostering the next generation of artists and advocates. For more information, please visit www.theunityproject.com and follow @theunityproject on the various social platforms listed below.
via www.theunityproject.com
─────
Dear Charles Rowland,
You are cordially invited to the 10th annual Unity Gala!
July 29th 2024 7PM - 11PM
607 S Park View St, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Dress code: colourful and bold, with an emphasis on creative expression
We look forward to seeing you on the night!
RSVP by July 25th 2024
─────
If Charles makes headlines for punching a reporter in the face at the fundraising event of the year, Edwin will never forgive him.
Needless to say, the desire to start swinging has reared its ugly head three times since the night began, and every second draws closer to imminent disaster. There are factors at play, of course; One, if Charles has to charm and dodge more probing questions about the scandal business with his former employers. Two, if he must smile and act bashful when someone asks him one more time what it was like to grow up quote-un-quote brown and dirt poor in fucking Reading. Or three, if Charles just has to laugh along with another unfunny interviewer.
A few affirmations have helped to prevent Charles from blacking out and winding up on the front page of Dessert Special, should any of the above scenarios come to pass. One, Edwin will kill him. Two, Crystal’s heels are very pointy, and she will not hesitate to drive one through the top of his foot. Three, his mum is watching. Four; Jenny will fucking kill him.
Or five, Charles will end up passing out from lack of blood flow before any of that can happen. It isn’t definite, but Charles has a working theory that Thomas took in his trousers half an inch every time he disagreed with one of his styling choices, which was often.
Fuck. Truly, times like these make him wish he never gave up smoking.
“Oh my god.” Crystal hisses through her beaming smile, attention focused on the line of photographers snapping away at the two of them. “Stop wiggling. People will think you’re constipated.”
“These trousers are too tight,” Charles hisses back, his own smile a little more strained than hers.
Crystal clicks her tongue and adjusts the strap of her flowy silver dress. She looks stunning tonight, her hair silk pressed and bouncy, and she doesn’t look at all like she’s sweltering in the heat. “They’re not too tight, it’s just 86 degrees out here,” she says. “You look hot, okay? So suck it up.”
“I’m gonna look hot in the emergency room, Crystal.”
“Could you be more of a baby?”
“Yeah, I’d say I’m up for that challenge.”
“Okay, listen.” Crystal tugs him behind the line of guests stalled against the barricades by overzealous interviewers, flicking her hair off her shoulders with a flair of irritation. Okay, upon further observation, she does look a little warm, and the day’s humidity has not yet left despite the sunset. Begrudgingly, Charles sets aside his enmity for their new stylist for now.
“I’m gonna go talk with that cute journalist from Billboard,” Crystal continues, “and you can go … elsewhere. Anywhere but near me. I swear to god, Charles, I love you, but you’re stressing me the fuck out. Also, I really need the internet to stop shipping us. Cool?”
Before Charles can form a response, Crystal is smiling sweetly and flicking her hair once more. She sings, “Okay, byeee,” and skips off to said cute billboard journalist without a backward glance.
Charles sighs, takes a moment to ground himself, and then follows the organisers down the carpet, who less than favourably thrust him at a new array of photographers.
Just a little longer, Edwin assured him. Or, rather, did a little jittery wave of his hands the last time Charles looked over to him. He spots Edwin in the crowd now, far down the indigo carpet through the throng of celebrities and influencers posing for photos or talking with interviewers and friends.
He is hard to miss. Wide collar, navy blue shirt and high waisted trousers, chatting to a man Charles vaguely recognises as a director from Dream Studios, hair styled in its usual coiffe. There is an extra quality about him tonight that demands attention, however, and Charles can only oblige.
He is not the only one if the not-so-subtle looks by other guests and double takes from confused photographers are anything to go by.
When Edwin meets Charles’ eyes over his friend’s shoulder, eyebrows rising in question, Charles sends him back a thumbs up and a furtive wink that settles him well enough. The interviews run relatively smoothly for a while. The girl before him couldn’t be any older than eighteen with an affinity for twirling her hair. Also present is that faintly awed, first-day-on-the-job shine, so Charles amps up the charm and makes sure to be extra enthusiastic about whatever questions she fires at him, which are, of course, mostly the same as everyone else’s.
Charles’ attention wanes several times over the top of her head to Edwin, who lingers persistently at the edge of the event in Charles’ line of sight. In the field of glitter and bold colours, there is also Jenny, striking in her platform heels and black dress, effortlessly switching between three microphones thrust at her at once by overzealous reporters.
There are Niko and Monty with their heads ducked together, peering at something on Niko’s phone. Crystal has done better than Charles and managed to free herself from the alleyway of reporters and news outlets. She chats with Shelby Khan against the starry backdrop popular with influencers, the two of them bopping to the music playing overhead while photographers snap pictures. Brad and Hunter pose back-to-back, and other artists Charles recognises from the studio mill about the indigo carpet.
Charles notices it for the first time at that moment; a photographer wearing the bright pink lanyard from Dessert Special snaps an array of pictures towards Edwin and the director, the latter tugging Edwin closer with an arm slung over his shoulders, shooting the photographers a blinding smile. Guests laugh, the music overhead pumps and the bustle of camera flashes linger on Edwin after his friend has been called away.
A whole eternity passes—and Charles has only met with one other punchable journalist in the interim—before he feels the distinct buzz of his mobile in his back pocket. Not a moment after the interview has wrapped up does Charles barely waste a breath before pulling out his phone.
Edwin’s name and message light up the screen: I think you’ve filled your quota for tonight. Well done. You can come back now.
The speed at which Charles leaves the carpet should be documented.
Edwin spots him when Charles is within five metres.
“Will I be referring to you as Mr. Popularity from now on?” is Edwin’s opening line, eyes twinkling playfully.
Charles can’t hold back a groan. “They kept coming out of nowhere.”
“Yes, they tend to do that,” Edwin says, taking hold of Charles’ elbow and pulling him further off the carpet into the shadowy corner he’s managed to secure—a small alcove cut into the long backdrop of purple and blue flowers that line the carpet event. “I told you about the three-minute rule, didn’t I?”
Charles makes a face. “Yeah, but it felt rude.”
Edwin makes a face back. “Charles, do not worry about that. It’s mine and Niko’s job to worry about your public image, and you simply can’t spend all night talking with every person here. Besides, I don’t believe you’re capable of coming off as rude.”
Charles leans back against the floral wall and sighs. At least it’s cooler in here, away from the lights and heat from all the bodies on the carpet. “I wouldn’t say that, mate. You just haven’t caught me on a bad day yet.”
“Remains to be seen,” Edwin says. His flippant unconcern makes Charles smile.
He can see everyone from here, and they continue to pass in drones: an influencer Charles vaguely recognises from his Instagram feed struts past in her platform heels, waving at the crowd with both hands. To the right, Rose Walker had made her appearance and drawn the attention of most of the photographers and reporters, as they all flock to ask after her great-grandmother’s legacy and photograph her periwinkle suit. Esther Finch throws her head back and laughs with an interviewer ostentatiously, platinum blonde hair stiff and unmoving. Charles sees her hold a hand out to beckon her son over, long black nails glittering under the lights. Monty pretends he doesn’t hear but shuffles further behind Niko.
Charles stays in the leafy shadows with Edwin.
“Oh,” Edwin says suddenly, hand reaching up in a quickly aborted mission towards Charles’ face. Thinking better of it, Edwin points at the corner of his own eye. “You have a little—a little smudge. The …”
“Oh,” Charles parrots, quickly mirroring Edwin’s gesture.
“The eyeliner.”
“Yeah. Bloody hell.” Charles wipes at the sensitive skin under his eye, the tip of his finger coming away black. “Better?”
“I’m afraid not,” Edwin says. “It’s over your cheekbone now. Here.”
In school, Charles had been forced to read certain books for English. Although the titles and authors differed, each of them featured the same fundamental moment wherein the heroin would catch herself swooning over some spiffy bloke in a garden or a posh party or somewhere equally asinine. Charles always found them silly and unrealistic and felt absolutely no connection to the characters in those moments.
That is until right this second, when Edwin reaches into the pocket of his very lovely shirt and pulls out an equally lovely—honest-to-god—handkerchief and holds it up to Charles.
Charles stares at the ivory cotton hanging in the air like an unsure alien, blinking from it to Edwin and back again.
“May I?” Edwin asks, and holy fuck. Charles finds himself nodding before he can conjure up a reason to say no.
Fortified with approval, Edwin slowly reaches forward and presses the soft—so soft—handkerchief to Charles’ cheekbone and begins to gently clean away the smudged eyeliner. Charles can only stand frozen in place and stare, wide-eyed, at the concentration on Edwin’s face as he leans in closer, too afraid to move or even breathe. A long minute passes before Edwin backs away with a little satisfied grin and shows Charles the smudge of kohl over the pristine white of his handkerchief like a prize.
“There. All clean.”
“Thank—” Charles’ voice cracks in a way that he will be thinking about for months, perhaps years, in the moments before sleep or between isles in the grocery store. Clearing his throat, face burning, he tries again. “Thanks, mate. Appreciate it.”
Not like that robotic delivery is much better, but Crystal is always telling him to choose a struggle, so maybe this is what she means.
Edwin folds the handkerchief up again and slips it back into his front pocket like nothing. Done. Nothing to see here.
Lights flash with purpose three times overhead.
“Ah,” Edwin says. “Time to go in. Shall we?”
“After you,” Charles says, swooping an arm out. Edwin smooths down the front of his clothes and exits the shadowy alcove.
Charles follows after him, almost sad to have to leave it. At least he’ll be able to take off the ridiculously thick jacket. Small mercies.
⊹
Chaos erupts the following morning. Well—overnight, but Charles discovers it in the morning, still in bed, scrolling through Twitter.
For a while, it is the norm of music news, other musicians and actors posting about the Gala, mostly funny animal videos, and a bit of cricket when he is feeling particularly homesick. He hasn’t noticed the texts from Crystal yet, or the ones from Niko, or the stunning lack of anything from Edwin, although the latter is less than inclined to participate in late-night texts, much to Charles’ ongoing disappointment.
Until finally the photo appears, and Charles recognises the backdrop of the Unity Gala behind the close up of a very sparkly blue eye and straw blonde hair. Over her shoulder is Edwin, their Edwin, staring off into the crowd, bored, phone in one hand, the other buried in the pocket of his trousers.
The caption reads: Making them in a factory these days.
149 comments, 863 retweets, 3.7k likes, and over 18k views.
Charles sits up a little higher in bed.
OMG check twitter. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, the first message from Crystal reads. And then, Idk whether to laugh or feel sorry for the guy …
The single image has sparked an online controversy, and Charles’ eyebrows crawl closer to the ceiling as he scrolls further into the mile long list of comments and retweets.
Hello?? Sir???
Does anyone actually know who this guy is. Asking for a friend
Not to objectify men or anything but BARKBARKWOOF
He was at #theunitygala right? So obviously hes an actor or musician or something
What’s his @???
He’s literally some random white dude guys what
A different photo this time, depicting Edwin walking along the outside of the indigo carpet. He is talking with someone not included in the photo, but Charles spots Monty’s arm and crow tattoo in the bottom corner of the image.
Homeboy looks Expensive. He’s gotta be a model. Is that Louis Vuitton?
Yo that shirt is like 2k online
Guys I intern at Louis Vuitton and everyone is scratching their heads over this guy. I promise you he is not one of ours!
From the Tom Ford official account, with 180 retweets and 800 likes: He’s not one of ours either but is he looking for work? Because if so DM us. I’m not kidding.
A clip from the highlights reel from the official Unity Gala TikTok page, now—someone has screen recorded three seconds of Edwin and the director the night before. Edwin is smiling, arms crossed, and rolling his eyes fondly. Charles’ chest does something funny at the sight.
Wait is that the same guy? Is that Robert Gadling he’s with?
Actor??? This is amazing news for me specifically
Gadling posted a couple photos with him on his insta
@HobGadlingOfficial come get your boy he’s breaking the internet
Wait hold up he’s in this one too. @CrystalPalace and @charlesrowland friend of yours?
Charles’ breath catches in his throat. Panic surges through him as the memory of him and Edwin in the floral alcove the night before surfaces. The anxiety lifts when, in the end, there are only photos of the three of them arriving at the event and sitting together at a table inside along with Jenny, Niko and Monty.
Finally, a black and white headshot of Edwin’s profile backlit by the lights of the Gala. The edges are hazy in a way that gives the whole image a sort of ethereal quality. Charles is unsure if this image has come from a professional at the event or an enthusiastic patron with a camera, but either way the photograph is awfully disarming, and Charles has to sit in silence for a minute.
Im sitting here laughing imagining how many photographers at #theunitygala took photos of this man assuming he’s a model but no agency will claim him so now they all just have photos of some random dude on their computers
#HotGuyAtUnity is trending.
⊹
“So, looks like Edwin’s handling the attention well,” Crystal remarks, and Charles watches her with the blood rushing to his head, feet dangling off the back of the couch and curls brushing the floor. Crystal herself is perched on the rug, back against the loveseat opposite Charles, smirking down at her phone. The coffee table has been pushed to the side, and between them is a battlefield of loose papers filled with both his and Crystal’s barely legible scrawl.
He's been stuck on a particular set of lyrics for a couple of weeks now—something in the second verse doesn’t flow into the chorus as well as it should, and after the fifth attempt at mending it Charles cut his losses and ran to Crystal for help. After some energy drinks, some granola bars and far too many sour gummies, Crystal’s suggestions steered away from prose and turned into Could you be less horny maybe? and Charles decided it was time to put a plug in it for now.
He squints at her through starry vision and asks mildly, “How do you know?”
It’s not that he and Edwin text often, but they text enough—mostly about work, okay, whatever, in between Charles’ occasional meme or animal video that Edwin seems to like enough, or is it that he’s too polite to tell Charles to stop?—but the idea that he’s texting Crystal back when all of Charles’ messages remain unread makes him feel …
Not mad. They’re not friends. There is a professional relationship, and they get along, of course, better than Crystal’s implied she and Edwin do, at least—
Charles’ mind flashes back to Edwin cleaning smudged eyeliner from his skin, and his stomach swoops. An odd sound crawls up his throat, born of a groan Charles managed to clamp down on early. He hopes Crystal doesn’t think anything of it as he swings around and sits right way up, stars bursting in his vision.
Crystal, thankfully, does not give off the impression she’s noticed anything at all and crawls towards Charles with her phone stretched out to him.
“Niko just sent this,” she says. On the screen is a photo of a mountain of blankets. It takes Charles a handful of moments to realise the mountain is a person, presumably Edwin, curled up on Niko’s neon yellow sofa with a fuzzy green blanket thrown over him. The only part of the man visible is his socked feet sticking out of the bottom.
The accompanying message reads, Greetings from the blanket town, population 1! <3
Charles can’t help but smile at the photo. When Crystal has crawled back to her side of the living room, sending off rapid-fire messages back to Niko, no doubt, Charles gives himself another minute or so to stew in his own despondency and texts Edwin, Maybe I should start calling *you* Mr popularity.
The shock of the century arrives soon after when Charles’ phone buzzes against his hip, and he looks down to see a response from Edwin lighting up his screen.
Ha ha.
Charles leans forward over his knees, watching all his previous messages switch from green to blue. They are all distinctly ignored, however, except for the image of the puppy dressed as Sherlock Holmes, which only gets a thumbs up reaction.
Charles is counting it as a win.
I think you need to leave blanket town, mate, he responds. You’ll run out of air eventually.
… I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.
“Are you texting Edwin?” Crystal demands gently, still from her position on the floor. “Niko says she hears notification sounds from within.”
“Um,” Charles says, just as he hits sends on, Come out and get coffee later? My treat :) before he can back out of it. He very much doubts Crystal would appreciate him launching his phone across her brand new living room, so Charles abstains.
“Don’t lie to me, Rowland.”
It’s the weekend, Charles. You’re off the clock.
That sounds like an excuse to me. What’s the weather like in there?
“Earth to Charles?”
When Edwin sends him the location of a coffee shop not very far from his apartment, Charles thumbs it up and sends, See you there! Let me know if you get through customs ok. I hear the blanket town security is nark.
You missed your calling in stand-up comedy.
When Charles finally looks at her, Crystal is eyeing him with a considerable amount of suspicion. Responding with toothy grin, he asks, “Got anything on for the day?”
Shifting from the look you give a strange little bug you’ve found on the side of the road into something more reserved, Crystal says, “I’m meeting Stacey in an hour, actually. They want me to speak on Tuesday, which I’m supposed to invite you to. It’s an open meeting or something, so you can come if you want.”
Crystal punctuates the sentence by chewing on the end of her nail and avoiding all eye contact with Charles until he slides to the floor and over to her, carefully dodging the paper detritus scattered over the carpet. He jostles her knee with his own until she finally looks at him. In her eyes is a determination not to emote, but by now, Charles knows how to look past the iron mask and see the guilt etched in the corners of her expression, like the careful brushstrokes of an impressionism painting.
Even after a year of this, those few weeks still haunt them both. But Charles will not pretend to have suffered even close to as much as Crystal did, nor will he ever allow her to think he won’t be right there, front and centre when she needed him, cheering her on.
They dawdle about for a bit, being lazy and wasting time. Charles collects pages of lyrics she can work with and bins the rest. By the time he has gulped down two glasses of water, Crystal’s mood has recovered from the dark memories it almost fell into, and she returns to doing what she does best: teasing Charles.
“You know,” she begins, and Charles feels dread rise in him at her tone alone, “Edwin and Monty used to date for a little bit. Niko told me.”
Because, of course, that’s what she chooses to tell him when he has one of her fragile ceramic mugs in hand.
Charles sets it down on the counter. “Oh yeah?” he says.
“A couple years ago.”
“Okay?”
Crystal shrugs. “Just some food for thought.”
Fuck sake. “Whatever you’re trying to imply, stop it.”
“I’m not implying anything. Okay, I actually have to go now. Go have fun with Edwin,” she calls on her way out the door, entrusting Charles to lock up after her.
“How do you know I’m—” the door shuts. Charles swears aloud in the empty apartment.
When he is three minutes away from Edwin’s café meeting point, Charles’ phone vibrates in his hand, and he unlocks it to find Crystal has sent him the photo of blanket town. He saves it without a second thought.
Charles has never seen someone look as miserable as Edwin drinking an ice chocolate frappe with extra cream. The man is the vision of defeat, perched with his elbows on the table, uncharacteristically slumped over with his mouth around the tip of the straw, eyes downcast. Charles watches him over the menu. They’ve managed to secure a round table in the back of the café’s quaint courtyard. High trellises of ivy box them in, offering both shade and privacy.
Charles says, “It’s not that bad, really,” and the way Edwin’s eyes flick up to him makes him balk.
“It is exceptionally mortifying, Charles,” Edwin says, mumbling around the straw.
“I just mean I’ve seen people go viral for less, and it’s sometimes a lot worse.”
“If that is supposed to make me feel better—”
“Ready to order?” a high feminine voice asks, and they both jump. The waitress with sandy hair whose eyes widened half a centimetre when Charles walked in pops her head around the corner, notepad and pencil in hand. Her nametag reads Hope.
Edwin straightens up and clears his throat, wiping cream from the corner of his mouth. Charles tears his eyes away and points a charming grin at Hope. “Can we have another minute?”
“Of course! Just call when you’re ready!”
Charles winks and watches her cheeks colour as she hurries back inside. Edwin looks marginally unimpressed but does not slump back over his frappe.
“When will it stop?”
“Soon, maybe?” Charles says. “It’s hard to tell with these things.”
“What can I do?”
Be less fit, sits at the back of Charles’ tongue. He swallows down. “Well, right now you can help me choose between the steak sandwich and the pasta.”
“Charles.” Edwin’s voice and eyes are pleading. Charles drops the menu.
“It’s a bit because of the mystery, mate,” he says. “I reckon that’s what’s driving people the maddest. Not knowing who you are.”
“I’m not that anonymous.”
“You don’t have any social media.”
“I have a Twitter,” Edwin replies snippily.
“You very literally have a Twitter,” Charles says, laughter in his voice. “I’ve seen it. Just your name and job description. No profile image, no posts, and I’m pretty sure Niko set it up for you.”
Edwin makes a face and takes a long sip of his ice chocolate. After a minute, “It was Monty, actually.”
Crystal’s unwarranted info drop from earlier rings in his head. “Okay,” Charles closes the menu with vigour. “I’m getting the pasta, and you’re getting a crepe. No, you are, mate. A savoury one. And drink the rest of your chocolate, yeah? Sugar is aces when you’re upset.”
“Sugar is a false energiser that turns into a depressant, Charles.”
“What was it that Julia Roberts said? Sugar is the best medicine?”
“It’s a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down—”
“Cheese and bacon or smoked salmon?”
Edwin takes a deep breath in and out through his nose. He settles on cheese and bacon and looks absolutely narked about it, and Charles calls Hope back to order their meals. By the time the food arrives, Charles is practically vibrating in his seat. Edwin’s crepe is presented beautifully, and Charles’ pasta is steaming like a dream. Edwin watches him groan around his fork.
“I get why you like this place so much,” he says through a mouthful of creamy pasta.
“It is very nice,” Edwin says, cutting into his crepe. “A hidden gem of sorts.”
“The food is amazing,” Charles says, loose-lipped, “I was never allowed to eat what I wanted back in London.”
“What do you mean?” Edwin asks, lowering his knife and fork.
“Oh, um.” Charles clears his throat and tries to stamp down on his hammering heart. “Hathaway just had a madman of a dietician. Super strict. You know how it is.”
He sees the question in Edwin’s eyes, and he is about to ask when Charles says, “I could help ease some of the mystery. People are asking me and Crystal about you, as well. I could tell them who you are.”
Edwin looks like has many things to say, all at once, and regards Charles for a long minute with something akin to an uncertainty laced with curiosity, wrapped in a tight bow of anxiety. His lips press and his jaw tenses, but eventually he nods.
Later, when Charles is on his way home, he opens Instagram and searches for the top comment in a post he’s tagged in, a repost of one of the pictures of Edwin from the night. The one where he is standing with Charles and Crystal against a backdrop of camera flashes, turned toward Charles with the slightest of smiles on his face.
Charles replies, Thats my manager!
Unfortunately, it does not help as well as Charles imagined.
⊹
The internet frenzy surrounding Edwin Payne remains strong a week in, and Charles is working on a guitar riff that’s been playing on loop in his head for the last week when Edwin texts him.
Mick sits behind the glass offering suggestions or feedback mainly in silence, with either thumbs ups, thumbs downs or a sage nod, the latter when Charles plays something he really likes.
The message reads, I know I’m going to regret asking this but what does “dicked down” mean?
Charles laughs so hard tears well up in his eyes, and he has to excuse himself from the studio. Mick watches him leave with unimpressed, bushy eyebrows pinched over his serious face.
At least Edwin is still talking to him despite the monumental failure, so Charles takes that as a win. He does, however, book him into a photo shoot with Starr Magazine next week, which is great, but it also means Charles is forced to spend an hour with their new stylist, Mr. Tight Jeans and a Corduroy Jacket in 86 Degree Weather Is a Good Idea.
A week before the Gala, Jenny called Charles and Crystal into her office when their invitations arrived in the mail. There was the usual briefing; behaviour expectations, how much each of them will be contributing to the donations, and so on. When the subject of styling came up, Jenny looked them gravely in the eye and said they will be starting early in hopes that Charles and Crystal would be ready by the time the Gala came around.
“Do yourself a favour,” Jenny had said, black nails drumming on her desk, “and don’t fight with Kocurek. He can be painful, but he’s annoyingly good at his job. Still, though. Good luck.”
Oh, but Charles did fight. He fought almost the second that smarmy wanker walked in with greasy, slicked-back hair and a fur coat in July, looking Charles up and down contemptibly. Before Charles could even utter a hello, he’d already listed about five things he thought were wrong.
“You’ve got that whole 80s vibe going on,” he said, forcing Charles to stand in the middle of the room while he skulked around him in a circle. “Which I dig, don’t get me wrong. But lose the shirt. A different jacket would be cool. Different pants, too. Definitely lose the shoes. Oh, and we’ll give your hair a bit of a trim.”
His previous stylist had been content to let him do whatever, so this poking and prodding is new.
Now, Thomas walks around him in a circle, tossing various items of clothing at Charles and ordering him to try them on. Most of the time Charles will only get one leg in a pair of jeans or his arm in a sleeve before Thomas decides whether the outfit is a yes or no.
“I actually liked that one,” Charles complains but tosses the shirt back to him anyway.
“Too wide on your shoulders,” Thomas says, hanging it back up. “You also need something more fitted at the waist. We can do baggy but not too much or it’ll swallow you up.”
“Good to know,” Charles mutters, not really listening. His phone has gone off three times in five minutes, distracting him fully, and Thomas’ eyes burn holes in the back of Charles’ head every time he picks it up.
Tom Ford is emailing Jenny about me. A swift death would be appreciated, Edwin writes.
Say yes, maybe she can get us some discounts, Charles sends moments before his phone is snatched out of his hands.
“Oi!”
Thomas glares up at him, all petulance and narrowed amber eyes (Charles is still convinced they’re contacts, there’s no way) and with a quick flick of his wrist, Charles’ phone flies across the room.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “am I interrupting your personal time?”
Charles’ cheeks burn. “I was just—”
“Just what?” Thomas says. “I have a job to do right now, so whoever you’re sexting is gonna have to wait—”
“I’m not—”
“—until we’ve found you an outfit that doesn’t look like you put it together yourself.”
“What the fuck,” Charles begins, affronted, “is wrong with how I dress?”
“You dress the way your old stylist told you to,” Thomas says, “which is all wrong. I’ve seen your photoshoots, some of them against my will, and we will not be doing that. And the saddest part is you don’t look half bad on the day-to-day. My job is to make you look hot in front of a camera and on stage, ‘kay? And I refuse to let you walk into another shoot looking like a messy, washed up rockstar at twenty-three.”
“I’m twenty-two,” Charles says.
“God, that’s even worse.” He takes a deep breath, steps back and looks Charles up and down slowly. “Go put on the black shirt. Yep, that one. Black pants. Leather jacket. No, the blue one, sweetie. That’s teal—stop, I’ll get it.”
When the hour hand ticks over, after an eternity, Charles all but runs to the studio when the hour is done. Thomas’ sarcastic salute waves him out the door.
Between tweets of Charles Rowland is a lying liar who lies and the general public either demanding more information or straight up not believing him about Edwin, Charles writes and records music to fill a slowly but steadily building album.
Crystal could help quell the virtual manhunt, but in her opinion, it is funnier to watch the chaos from the sidelines.
After the third SpongeBob meme, Charles decides enough is enough and uploads an Instagram story.
Alright guys chill out!
- His name is Edwin
- Yes he really is my manager
- No he doesn’t have social media because he’s actually a 130 yr old man trapped in a 23 yr olds body
- Yeah he is a pretty good looking bloke
⊹
“I’m confiscating your phone.”
Jenny Green on a regular day is a force to be reckoned with. Jenny Green on a bad day is a category five, seek shelter immediately event, and lately what constitutes as a bad day is when it is barely midday and she’s had to tell the fourth journalist to fuck off.
There is a certain shame burning the back of Charles’ neck akin to the feeling of being called into the principal’s office as he sits opposite Jenny and tries not to squirm too hard under her piercing glare.
Charles watches Jenny’s white knuckled fists clench and unclench on the desk. With a groan, she continues, “Fuck no, I can’t actually do that, but I really, really want to. What, pray tell, the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I could help the situation a bit. Ease the public, you know?”
“You strike me as an old soul, Charles, and I mean that offensively,” Jenny says. “There is no easing the public, kid. The public is batshit fuckin’ crazy. The public is emailing me about my employees, which is all kinds of wrong, and I’m about this close to telling the public where it can shove it.”
Charles fiddles with the hem of his polo shirt. “Edwin needed help,” he says, feeling his cheeks burn. God. This is worse than the principal’s office. Charles would take half a dozen principal’s offices in Hell over this any day.
“Edwin,” says Jenny, “is a big boy. He can handle himself.”
“And Edwin,” says Edwin, gripping the armrests hard enough to rip, “is still sitting right here.”
Jenny turns her deep brown glare onto Edwin, and Charles winces sympathetically even though Edwin himself doesn’t bat an eye. “I know. I’m getting to you. A two-thousand-dollar shirt? Fucking seriously, Payne? I’m paying you too much.”
Edwin’s expression maintains its stony outward resolve, although his cheeks pinken the slightest bit.
Jenny rubs her temples. “I need a coffee. Or vodka. Or both. Would it kill you to get an online presence?”
“I won’t do it,” Edwin says unwaveringly.
Charles can tell from the look Jenny sends him that this is a conversation the two of them have had many times.
“Why not.” She asks, flat. The histrionic flair with which Edwin throws his hands in the air makes Charles have to bite down on a smile.
“What good will it do me, Jenny? I’ve gone this long without one.”
“Well, for one it might get you off Twitter’s most wanted list, and give me some fucking peace.”
“Just forward all the emails to me,” Edwin says. “I’ll deal with them.”
“You mean you’ll just delete everything.”
“Precisely.”
“I—cannot have this conversation anymore, or my head will explode. You,” Jenny jabs a black painted nail at Edwin, “go make some phone calls. I want at least five bookings by the end of the day. And you,” turning to Charles, “are going to see Monty for some emergency PR training. Right now.”
Edwin makes a noise akin to an offended cat. “No he’s not. Monty’s helping me draft up a proposal for the meeting next week. I need him in with me.”
“Bookings,” Jenny enunciates, dark eyes flashing dangerously. “Five. Each. For him and Crystal. I want gigs and interviews. Radio or even the fucking morning show. I don’t care. Go.”
Charles picks at the armrest and tries to keep his expression neutral. “Where’s Niko?” he asks.
Jenny takes a long, measured breath. “Laryngitis. She’s got the week off. Now please get out of my sight before I give you the rest of the week off, too.”
Something tells Charles it wouldn’t be under vacation time, so he resigns himself to his fate and scrambles out of the room without another word, Edwin hot on his heels.
“How do you feel about morning shows?” Edwin asks Charles when they’re out in the hallway. The door to Jenny’s office shuts with a click. In a much smaller office sits Maren with a handheld fan pointed at her flushed cheeks. She offers Charles a sympathetic grimace through the glass wall.
“I’m not totally thrilled about waking up at 5AM,” he tells Edwin honestly.
“Yes, I thought as much,” Edwin says, smoothing flyaway hairs down at the top of his head. The week’s heatwave forecast started off brutal and is progressively climbing the ranks as the days go by. With a cool front not yet due for another several days, everyone is suffering at various levels, considering the air-conditioning’s bias for specific levels of the building. The cooling system in Jenny’s office, being the highest with the most natural light, seems to be struggling the most.
Edwin’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he’s forgone his tie. His hair is not quite frizzy with the humidity but ruffled. Charles feels a certain way about it all.
“Do you think you could make an exception?” Edwin continues.
“For you, Edwin?” Charles says, flashing a smile. “Always.”
Edwin’s eyes widen, cheeks dotting with colour. “Yes, well,” he says, “that is appreciated. And it would be for both our sakes. Granted I can secure a spot …”
The door to Jenny’s office opens and Charles is suddenly aware of Maren’s proximity, unsure of how much she can hear behind the glass, and the other reception staff that take up the rest of the floor. Jenny’s slick black ponytail peeks out behind the doorframe.
“Maren, can you get me a—what the fuck are you two still doing here?”
Edwin rushes them to the elevator with a hand on the small of Charles’ back, leading him down the hall.
“Did that shirt really cost two-thousand bucks? It was nice, don’t get me wrong,” Charles adds, hurriedly, when Edwin’s jaw tenses.
“I got it on sale, actually,” he says defensively and stabs the button for the fifth floor. After a moment, the elevator begins to move.
Charles leans against the wall. Even way back, Edwin always had that air about him. There was something present in the cut of his clothes or the slope of his shoulders and straight-backed posture that yelled rich boy. It was quieter, however; a whisper rather than a yell. There was a difference in the way Edwin carried himself to how people like Simon and Hathaway would strut around the HQ tower in London. They would look at Charles like they wanted him to jump to reach their level, all the while filling his pockets with rocks.
Edwin is just … Edwin.
“So you have money,” Charles says, shrugging. “No big deal.”
“My … family has money,” Edwin admits quietly after a moment.
“What do your parents do?” Charles asks after a quick scan of his memory comes up empty.
Edwin grows pale at the question, turning to Charles with a wide-eyed, nervous expression. He begins, “My—” but before he can continue, the lights in the elevator flicker, and the floor trembles beneath their feet before halting with a horrible screech. Charles cries out, the stuttered motion jolting him forward into Edwin, who catches him by the forearms, the two of them falling backwards into the wall.
The lights flicker once more in warning before failing altogether, and the space is plunged into darkness.
“Fuck,” Edwin hisses with a pained wince, rubbing the area where his elbow collided with the metal handrail.
“Shit, sorry!” Charles leans away to give Edwin some room, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. The faint blue glow from the elevator’s panel is their only light source in the small space, and it is enough to make out Edwin’s furrowed brows. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Edwin says. He is still holding onto Charles’ forearm with his free hand. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Aces, mate.” Peeling away from Edwin, Charles moves toward the panel and starts pressing buttons. When the elevator remains immobile, he presses them again with more vigour.
“Hey, Edwin? Don’t want to freak you out, or anything, but I think we’re stuck.”
“Yes, it looks like we are,” Edwin says, a sigh in his voice. “Charles, please stop jabbing at the buttons, that isn’t going to help.”
“What do we do?” Charles asks. “I don’t get stuck in lifts often.”
“Well, I don’t make a habit of it either,” Edwin says. “Check the bottom of the panel. There should be a button with a phone symbol?”
“Ah.” Charles jabs at it with the same energy he’d given the level 5 button, and a dial tone fills the enclosed space. Charles presses it again just to be sure. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
“Fuck,” Edwin says again. “This fucking heatwave must’ve taken out the power.”
It’s the most Charles has ever heard him curse. Edwin’s lips wrap around the word with so much conviction Charles almost wants to ask him to say it again. Long pale fingers run through dark hair, disturbing the fine hairs that are beginning to stick to Edwin’s forehead. Charles can faintly make out beads of sweat forming on Edwin’s skin in the low light as his eyes adjust further, his own skin beginning to prickle with the kind of itchy irritation that comes hand in hand with heat.
“Do you think it’s the whole building?” Charles asks, and the look Edwin gives him answers his question perfectly.
Edwin digs out his phone and unlocks it. “It’s important not to panic,” he says as his face lights up with an artificial glow.
“I’m not panicking,” Charles says.
“Good,” Edwin says, flashing Charles a tight-lipped smile. “Neither am I.”
⊹
The saving grace of it all is that WiFi is somehow still working despite them being trapped in a metal box, so while Edwin waits on hold with the elevator company, Charles stays out of his way and hosts an Instagram Q&A session from the floor.
Charles posts a selfie using the elevator’s mirrored ceiling, featuring Edwin’s pacing form as a black and white blur in the corner, with the caption Stuck in a lift. Ask me questions.
The questions roll in from fans, and reactions to their situation are an equal ratio of concerned and amused. Charles answers each—mostly about how and why they’re in the elevator, when they will be getting out of the elevator, when he is planning on releasing new music, and once, Q: zombies or ghosts? A: Ghosts!—with a new selfie or different angle of the elevator for each.
Edwin alternates between pacing the short length of the elevator, to leaning against the wall, to lying face up on the floor. The elevator companies hold music plays tinnily from Edwin’s phone. Charles posts a story of himself jamming to the hold music and mimicking the robotic auto message; “If you are trapped in an elevator and require assistance, please stay on the line. One of our team members will be with you shortly.”
Edwin, much to Charles’ surprise, agrees to be in a story, and Charles tries not to look too excited as he slides across the floor to saddle up next to Edwin, leaning against the wall with their legs stretched out in front of them. In this together, Charles captions the image of him and Edwin, the latter staring up blankly at the camera while Charles beams and flashes a peace sign.
Eventually, after what feels like hours but is only thirty minutes in truth, the bored voice of the elevator company representative mutters from the floor of the elevator, and Edwin lunges forward for this phone, knee brushing Charles’ thigh. Charles starts a live when Edwin gets up to pace again, phone off speaker, not so much arguing with the operator, but overly polite to the point of passive aggression that Charles can’t help but smirk at.
“Hullo everyone!” Charles whisper-shouts at the camera, watching the number of views fly into the thousands as the screen erupts with hearts and reactions. “Coming to you live from Elevator Land with an update. We’re finally off hold! Happy days! Edwin’s gonna sweet talk the operator so we can skip the queue. Right, Edwin?”
About-facing mid pace, Edwin rolls his eyes. “Yes, we have been in here for, oh … close to an hour now. Yes, we did try pressing the emergency alert button … I promise you we would not be having this conversation right now if it worked.”
Comments and reactions light up his screen as Charles watches Edwin lean against the wall with a sour expression. His eyes flick up and meet Charles’, who offers a thumbs up and whispers, “Doing great, mate.”
Edwin rolls his eyes a second time, without heat.
The temperature is climbing inside the confined space. Charles plans to shed his shirt the minute he ends the live. Edwin has pulled his shirt out from the waistband of his trousers and undone a couple extra buttons. The wide-open collar is obvious now with the way he leans against the wall, back slightly bent to avoid the handrail, inches of collarbone and a long, pale throat prettily on display.
Someone in the chat does something to turn Charles into a clown, rainbow afro and bulbous red nose lighting up the screen with flashing lights and circus music. It aggressively reminds Charles that he is live on the internet, and perhaps he shouldn’t be openly ogling its White Boy Of The Month.
Charles answers some more questions while Edwin talks to the operator. Edwin’s posh, refined voice translates through the speaker of Charles’ phone, as the occasional fan will comment something like Wait his voice is kinda … and HE’S BRITISH TOO GOOD LORD. Eventually, when his phone turns into a mini heater in his hand, Charles says goodbye to everyone and promises to give more updates soon.
Edwin has hung up with the elevator company and is groaning into his hands.
“Everything okay?” Charles asks, gently nudging Edwin’s shoe with his until Edwin removes his hands, leaning back against the wall with a sigh.
“Yes,” Edwin says. “The fire brigade has been called, apparently. I was correct that there is no power to the building, but as far as they’re aware we’re the only lucky ones trapped in a lift. They are on their way and we should be free anywhere between thirty minutes to an hour.”
Not exactly the news Charles had been hoping to hear, but better than nothing. “We’re safe in here, yeah?” Charles asks. “I mean, this thing isn’t going to plunge to the basement level … is it?”
Eyes piercing and voice so sincere Charles feels a shiver run down his spine when Edwin says, “We are perfectly safe in here, Charles. I promise. The fire brigade will be here soon.”
Charles coughs and slides the rest of the way onto the floor until he is flat on his back, staring up at himself through the mirrored ceiling. The toe of his shoe touches the opposite wall by Edwin’s hip. “Not soon enough,” he says. “It’s, like, a hundred bloody degrees in here.” Fiddling with the hem of his shirt, Charles asks, “Do you mind if I …?”
“Not at all,” Edwin responds calmly, starting at the opposite wall. Charles sits up to hurriedly rip off his shirt, slumping back to the floor a moment later with a pleased groan when his heated skin touches the cool tile.
“Better,” Charles sighs. “Thanks, mate.”
Edwin makes an amused noise. “No need to thank me. So long as you’re comfortable.”
Charles shrugs, bare shoulders rubbing against the tile. “I’m just trying to look good for when the firemen come,” he says, grinning. “Think there’ll be some fit ones?”
“I believe it’s an entry level requirement,” Edwin says, smirking, and Charles feels a pleased warmth stir in his belly. He forgets sometimes, loose-lipped as he is in Edwin’s company, how much of himself Charles really had to hide in London. He’d come out a couple of Septembers ago, mostly for himself but partly out of spite when Hathaway told him not to.
The post was a simple tweet of a blue, purple and pink heart with the caption Happy September everyone! later followed up with a re-affirming If you didn’t get it: I’m bisexual because he enjoyed seeing how red the old man’s face could turn when he was angry.
No one at Tongue & Tail has told him to hide who he is or downplay his sexuality. Some weeks ago, during a recording session, he’d told Mick he wanted to use male pronouns in a couple of songs. The man’s expression didn’t so much as twitch out of its usual bored, ambiguous temperament. “Sure,” he said, “but track four’s bridge is still a mess. Needs more bass.”
The difference between the two labels is still enough to knock Charles off his feet most days. As he lays there, blinking ghosts from his eyes, Charles finds himself asking, “Do you miss England?”
When Edwin doesn’t answer right away, Charles lifts his neck to find the other man watching him. There is a roaming look in his eyes, half-lidded in the darkness, and Charles’ skin burns at the attention. Realising he’s been asked a question, Edwin’s eyes widen, and he flicks his gaze upward.
“Sometimes,” he answers quickly. “My mother is over there.”
“Mine too,” Charles says. “I miss her a lot, sometimes.”
“I admit we didn’t have the greatest relationship when I was younger,” Edwin admits in a small voice. “I was told we were too similar and that’s why we would butt heads all the time.”
“You don’t think so?”
Edwin makes a face. “In some ways, I guess so. But I think the distance has helped us, to be honest.”
“That’s brills, mate,” Charles says, sitting up again. The cool metal wall of the elevator touches his skin and Charles sighs. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t talk to my mum every day.”
Edwin’s smile is genuine. “It’s nice you’re so close,” he says. “What does she do?”
“She’s a tailor,” Charles says. “But I think she’s a bit over it. She loves to paint and makes ceramics, too. She will make the coolest vase or plate with little tiny pieces of glass. It’s mental. I keep trying to convince her to retire early and just focus on her art. Things that actually make her happy, you know? She won’t do it.” Charles grins. “Think I’m getting close in convincing her, though.”
Outload, Charles doesn’t say part of the argument is that she finally leaves his dad and moves out to California with Charles. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be California. Charles will put a down payment on a house tomorrow if she says the word. Somewhere like Surrey or Dorset, with gorgeous coasts and scenery she can paint until the bloody cows come home, where she can have tea with her sisters and friends and never have to worry again about living under the same roof as a—
One day. Charles is known to be very persuasive, after all.
“I’d like to see some of her work someday,” Edwin says, so honestly, and Charles could swear, even in the low light of the elevator, his cheeks turn a soft shade of pink.
“What about your folks?” Charles asks. “You were talking about them before …” he waves a hand vaguely at the roof.
“My mother plays in an orchestra,” he says. “Cello.”
“No way! Which one?”
“The London Symphony,” Edwin says, and Charles’ eyebrows jump.
“Your mum’s in the London Symphony?” he says. “That’s, like, proper famous, right?” Edwin nods, and Charles whistles. “So, the love for string instruments is another quality you two share? Don’t think I didn’t notice the violin in your office, mate.” Charles says when Edwin begins to argue. “Will you play something for me?”
Edwin purses his lips, levelling Charles with a considering look. “If you do the morning show,” he says.
“Shit.” Charles laughs. “I guess I really gotta do that, now.”
“I could be horrible,” Edwin says, a teasing smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You’d be getting up at some ungodly hour for nothing.”
“I’ll take the gamble,” Charles says. Edwin holds his gaze for a long minute until Charles’ skin begins to prickle, and he is sure he is blushing beneath the surface of his skin. Edwin doesn’t understand the public’s reaction to him, but Charles understands it too well. Edwin is exactly the kind of gorgeous Charles is known to trip himself up over, the kind that makes him feel stupid. The kind that has walked right out of a black and white film, the kind that is oil painted and belongs on a gallery wall to be admired.
Thoughts rush through Charles’ mind at dizzying speed. Play a song for me. Talk in French while you do it, maybe, with some buttons undone and your tie gone, hair all—
Out of hand—it is getting out of hand.
Charles clears his throat and makes the mistake of asking, “What about your dad?” to rid the fuzzy feeling in his head. Because Edwin’s expression instantly dims, neutralising into an old sort of hurt, the kind that has been sitting in place for so long it is now nothing but a dull pain that has become a familiar, unmovable constant.
He says, “My father passed when I was in school.”
“Oh,” Charles mutters, feeling stupid, the back of his neck prickling with heat and shame. “Fuck, Edwin, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Edwin shrugs him off. “You weren’t to know.”
“You didn’t mention your dad, I should have—”
“You didn’t mention yours, either.”
“My dad’s not dead, he’s just an asshole,” Charles says and watches Edwin open his mouth and then shut it immediately. Edwin shuffles forward an inch or two.
“I’m also sorry to hear that,” he says.
“It’s okay,” Charles says, picking at a seam of his jeans until it threads. “We haven’t spoken in years, so. Yeah. Maybe let’s not talk about dads anymore.”
“Agreed,” Edwin says, sighing deeply. He wraps his arms around his knees and groans into the top of them. “How long has it been?”
Charles checks his phone. There are messages from Crystal letting him know they’re sending everyone home until the power comes back on, a severe weather alert, news of a power outage across the grid, and a couple of reactions to his Instagram saga from the select few he allows notifications for.
“Around twenty minutes.”
Edwin groans harder.
“Are you sure you’re not claustrophobic?” Charles asks.
“I am not thrilled,” Edwin begins, voice muffled, “about being stuck in one place for extended periods of time. And I have so much work to do.”
Charles nudges Edwin’s hip with the toe of his shoe until he looks at him. “Don’t worry about your work, mate,” he says sternly. “It will still be there when you get back. Right now we can’t do anything but wait, so how about we play a game to pass the time?”
Charles’ first suggestion is I Spy which doesn’t work for obvious reasons, so they shift to a short-lived game of I’m Thinking of A Number Between One and One Thousand that gets old very quickly. Eventually, Charles downloads a digital version of Clue on his phone and forces Edwin to do the same, and Charles is just about to guess Miss Scarlett in the ballroom with the dagger when a loud pounding on the doors of the elevator scares them both out of their skin.
“Hello!” shouts a voice from the other side of the doors. “Anyone in there?”
In the end, it takes one firefighter to cram the doors open with a long metal rod and two to tug the doors to the side. Charles chickens out and shrugs his shirt back on before he can see any of them when, finally, the doors struggle open inches at a time to reveal several men in yellow hats and vests at the bottom of the doors. Sliding through the minuscule gap, barely thicker than Charles’ torso, is panic-inducing, but Charles manages after he makes sure Edwin gets out first.
Despite the lack of power and air-conditioning, the temperature out in the hallway is a vast improvement to the confined space inside the elevator, and Charles takes a moment to lean against the wall and breathe as firemen pass him and Edwin cold bottles of water.
All the adrenaline drains from Charles the minute the water touches his lips. He slides to the floor, which is a catalyst to being fretted over by a fireman with a medical box for the next five minutes. The embarrassment almost knocks him out completely when the medic puts the little white peg on the tip of his finger, and Edwin sits beside him on the floor, cross-legged, while Charles has his oxygen level and blood pressure assessed.
The verdict is simple dehydration and stress, and so Charles is left with some extra bottles of water and a packet of sea salt chips when the firemen move off to check the rest of the building.
Edwin, suspiciously quiet and serious throughout that whole ordeal, finally breaks his resolve. “You’re being so brave,” he says, eyes glimmering with humour and smile twitching.
Charles groans, rubbing both hands down his face. “That was so fucking embarrassing,” he says, half-whining. It makes Edwin laugh, covering his mouth to stifle the giggles, which makes Charles laugh as well.
For a while, it’s the two of them, sweaty and a little delirious, laughing in a darkened hallway until tears form in Charles’ eyes and Edwin’s face has gone red.
⊹
By a general rule of thumb, Charles avoids himself on the internet. Unless Niko says otherwise, what the general public is saying about him is none of his business, but the occasional post will pop up on his feed at any unsuspecting moment. It is unavoidable.
Now, for instance, Charles is in his new loft apartment, still half surrounded by moving boxes and bags of bedding and clothing, lounging on the coolest couch he can’t believe he managed to stumble upon, and gets jumpscared by his own high school photograph.
The post is innocent enough and meant to be flattering: a side-by-side comparison of Charles at sixteen and a recent photo of him on the indigo carpet at the Unity Gala, with a quoted tweet Lets talk about this glow up. But it sends Charles into a panicked spiral.
Charles doesn’t have that photo. Charles doesn’t even think his mum has that photo, which means someone would have had to dig to find this, and—okay, it’s the internet, and Charles may be a little social media challenged, as so delicately phrased by Monty, but he understands that nothing can ever truly be private—then someone could one hundred per cent dig up—
Fuck.
Crystal stands in his kitchen, new appliances still in their boxes sitting like bookends on either side of her, tapping the entire tray of ice into her sweet tea. Charles calls for her, trying to keep his voice neutral. It doesn’t work—he hears it in his voice, as well—and Crystal stops tapping to look over at him with her eyebrows pinched in concern.
“What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Oh yeah. Sweet. Brills. Actually, um …” Crystal grabs her tea and joins him on the couch, sitting cross-legged and facing him, waiting. “You know that song I wrote ages ago? Ghost? The one that blew up and got me noticed?”
Crystal nods immediately. “The one about that guy you fumbled in high school, right?” she says.
Charles squarks. “I didn’t fumble—okay. No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Sure,” Crystal says, stirring the ice around with the straw. “Why are you bringing this up? And why do you look so spooked?”
Taking a long, deep breath and letting it out, Charles says, “Because it’s Edwin.”
Crystal stares blankly, not understanding. She asks, “What’s Edwin?”
“Ghost,” he says. “The song is about Edwin.”
The concerned frown in the middle of Crystal’s forehead grows deeper. “Charles … How is it about Edwin? You wrote that when you were what? Seventeen?”
“Sixteen.” Charles explains, “We went to school together. For a little bit.”
“No the fuck you didn’t. I don’t believe you.”
“I—” It’s late enough in London that his mum would be awake, but not so early that she will think him crazy for what he’s about to ask. Well. Maybe. “I can prove it!”
In the ten minutes, they wait for his mum to send the photo through, Crystal sips her iced tea and watches Charles closely as if she’s worried the heat has made him hysterical—it has, but not for that reason—and is quite possibly on the brink of a breakdown. Again—he is, but not for that reason.
Charles cheers when the photo finally comes through. It is a massive photograph, blurred and dot-coloured, but still clear enough, of the entire student body of St. Hilarion's School for Boys, separated by form group. His mum, bless her, hadn’t much been interested in the rows of boys from other years that weren’t Charles’ and managed to crop out the first three and last two rows. The result was a landscape image of Charles’ class and the year above, standing a row behind.
Charles passes the phone to Crystal so she can see the photo. “There’s me,” he says, pointing himself out amongst the sea of boys in blue-grey uniforms before moving to the row above and a little to the right. “And there’s Edwin.”
Crystal snatches the phone out of his hands and stares at it for a long minute, the screen inches from her nose. Then, finally, exclaiming, “What the fuck! That’s Edwin!”
“I told you!”
“Wait, so, hang on. My brain hurts. What’s … how …” Crystal stares at the back wall for a solid minute. Charles lets her. Then, “Does he not remember?”
“Not at all,” Charles says, leaning back against the armrest of the couch. “It wasn’t like that.”
What was it like? A boy in his form group who walked in one day and singlehandedly kick-started Charles’ sexuality crisis at the tender age of sixteen, that’s what it was.
“Why are you bringing this up now?”
Charles explains the school photo and the Twitter post, tied in with Edwin’s current internet popularity and the potential of someone making a connection between the two of them and that song. Hell, how many references to school did Charles make? How many mentions of someone a year older than him, so pretty it re-wired his brain chemistry, who appeared for a short while and disappeared suddenly, like a ghost. Fans have already made the connection to the gender of the person he was singing about, even well before Charles officially came out. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out, given he attended an all-boys school, but what if they start to look deeper?
“Okay.” Crystal sets her drink down on the floor and takes both his hands in hers. “I think you’re freaking out a little bit and overthinking it all. I mean, you’ve had a long day, and you’re stressing out. Besides, that song is pretty vague, right? And a lot to do with just discovering your sexuality?”
Charles shrugs meekly. Crystal grips his hands tighter. “Charles,” she says. “There are, like, five-hundred other boys in that school you could have written the song about. No one’s going to guess it’s Edwin.” Crystal pauses, slow realisation dawning on her face. “Unless you’re not worried about your fans finding out … just about Edwin finding out?”
Charles meets her gaze and watches her eyes soften. She makes Charles his own iced tea, and the two of them curl up as close as they can bear in the heat to watch The Lost Boys on Charles’ laptop. Halfway through the movie, the power comes back on, and Crystal launches herself over to the air-conditioning dial to turn it on.
Charles is usually fond of the heat, but after today, he lies on the floor until the apartment cools.
“Hey, I just thought of something,” Crystal says, poking Charles’ shoulder with her toe until he lightly slaps her foot away. “If Edwin really doesn’t remember you, it means you’ve got another shot. Try not to fumble this time. God, this is like a movie …”
“He doesn’t remember me,” Charles says. “And again—I did not fumble anything!”
“Sure, Casanova. You know I’ll be mentioning this moment during my best woman speech at your wedding, right?”
“I hate you.”
Content to lie on the floor and happy to leave him there, Crystal reclines on the couch and angles the laptop so Charles can see the rest of the movie from where he is. As the credits are rolling and Crystal has dozed off, Charles’ phone chimes in his pocket, and he opens it to find a new message from Edwin.
Souvenir from Elevator Land. Blanket Town is far more hospitable, he writes, with an accompanied photo of his elbow sporting a massive blue and purple bruise, vibrant against his fair skin. Thank you for the company today, Edwin sends a moment later. I surely would have gone mad in there without you.
A big, stupid grin takes over Charles’ face. Before he can talk himself out of it, Charles stretches his phone high above his head and sends Edwin a selfie from the floor, beaming at the camera.
Cheers, mate. Wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with anyone else.
─────