Chapter Text
You’re alone, again. No one’s coming to get you, miss hyper-independence. You were out of the house at 18 and moved across the country for good measure. All to be stranded in the middle of traffic right off campus. Horns were blaring, rain was pouring down like God himself was holding a pitcher directly above your car.
You tell yourself it's fine, as you sob in your car.
It's a good thing to only have yourself to worry about.
You kept repeating it to yourself, worried that you might disappear – for real this time. If no one’s coming to save you, do you even exist? You covered your face in your hands, willing the symphony of honking horns behind you to stop. To give you a break. Please, just this once, a flipping break.
Your emergency flashers were on, and you were paralyzed.
There's no one to call. There's no one to come to help you. You’re just alone. The weight is just as enormous as ever, crushing you quickly and quietly.
You'll be fine though. In a minute. Just one more minute.
You pull your sweater up around your head, trying to shrink in your driver’s seat, eyes screwed shut as if that would do anything for anybody.
A minute passed before you heard it.
A small, polite tap tap tap, of someone intruding at your window.
"Hey!" he called, face distorted through the window by the rain, "it's Charlie from class...uh... college. Do you need any help?"
And you've been together ever since.
Not that it had been very long. Nothing serious, by outside standards, but that was the issue - you wanted it to be serious, desperately.
Feelings like this were new for you! It came bubbling up from between the tectonic plates around your heart. The jerk! It's a goddamn earthquake! He did this! He made you fall for him the second you met!
It was insane, how quickly it became easy.
You guys have lunch together, by a fountain on campus, about twice a week. You guys slowly migrate towards sitting next to each other during classes. You hang out and watch him at football practice. He picks you up after your shift at the diner, because tragically, your car was deemed scrap metal.
That's okay, Charlie said, now he can drive you wherever.
He takes you out on a date every Friday. Sometimes to a movie, or a new part of the city you'd never seen before. Or sometimes, you stay in! Charlie - your Charlie - was good at making 'breakfast-for-dinner'.
Every part of you he sees, he seems to want more. You can gladly say the same.
Yet, something was off.
Maybe if you had friends your own age, and not the ladies from the retirement home you volunteer at, you'd be a bit more balanced about Charlie's lack of physicality with you.
Never more than a peck.
Never more than a kiss, sometimes on the cheek.
Everything between you too had been strictly PG.
Every single time more than a heartbeat passed, he'd pull away. The heat- the attraction was there, but it was like he was actively running away from it - and you.
He kissed the back of your palm once, saying goodbye after watching you bawl your eyes out at some movie, and your knees buckled. You had to go back to your dorm and wear down the battery on one of your toys. It could have been Charlie!
He had to be playing some kind of mind game.
You'd hang out in the bleachers, watching him during football practice. The Cougars were lucky to have him.
You watch your quarterback stop for a water break and wave to you. You know lust is a real thing when you’re suddenly, vividly struck with the image of your teeth baring down on Charlie's forearm, not unlike the mastiff he had a photo of in his dorm room.
Or maybe you get dinner with Charlie after his shift at the garage, and you're suddenly thinking about his warm, wide palm, and what they'd feel like pushing up your denim miniskirt.
Which leads you to the current moment. You'd just wrapped from dinner with one of his sisters. Charlie introduced you as his 'girlfriend', and you got a lovely buzzing in your head.
The second you guys said goodbye to Nora, and watched her drive away from the restaurant, you plopped right into Charlie’s lap in the driver’s seat of his truck. You sit there like it’s where you belong, because it is.
You put your mouth on his, because you can. You want to believe he’s yours, but he pulls away, and crushes everything.
"I'm sorry honey, I can't."
Don’t panic.
Don’t panic.
Delay the shattering of your heart until he finishes speaking.
"Why not? Do you not…want me?" Your voice wobbles in a way you didn’t think possible. Charlie’s face matches your own devastation.
"No. No, absolutely I do. That's a part of it. Wait, do you really think I don't want you?"
"Yeah, you never touch me!"
He has the audacity to blink, stunned. He rolls your words over in his head, mulling them over.
In his mind, Charlie's thinking about how his roommate filed for a transfer to get away from him. Because he can’t shut up about you.
Charlie’s thinking about how he’d been worried about a callous on his dick from all the abuse he’d been inflicting on it. Because of you.
Charlie’s thinking about how he’d become a menace on the field because of the dreams he’d been having about you.
Charlie Baker says something entirely different, but no less true.
"I'm one of twelve kids."
Your jaw drops.
"Oh fuck. That's a lot of people."
"Yeah, the last four were twins. It really was...a lot..." Your heart twists at the softness in his voice, but he cleared his throat quickly, shaking it off.
"I don't want to have sex until all the risk is gone. Or smaller at least." You blink at him, trying to wrap your head around it.
The silence hangs a second too long, he breaks it.
"I got an operation next week!" he tries to smile, not happy that you've shifted your weight back, leaning against the steering wheel. Had he ruined everything?
You blink at him, his round eyes meeting your own, unwavering. He'd never really mentioned his family until he offered dinner with his older sister.
Fuck. Twelve is a lot of people. You wouldn’t even have twelve people over at your house for a dinner party.
"Like a vasectomy?" You ask.
"Yeah, a vasectomy. I go in early next Tuesday. It takes a while after that..."
Oh, that hit you like a punch to the chest. You bring a hand to his chin and look at him - really look at him.
His eyes
Charlie hopes the car is dark enough that you can’t tell the hair on his arms
How many times had he been smacked around in the shenanigans of his ten younger siblings? How many times had he
"So, you've never...?" You squeak, trying to understand. You roll over your feelings for Charlie in your head. He was gorgeous, sure. Kind? No doubt. And is he responsible now too?
"N-no." He clears his throat. He’s no fool, he knows how he looks. A face like his comes with assumptions, "Can you hold out for me?"
You let out a little sigh of relief. He does the same.
It's a Sunday night. You're sitting pretty in his lap, and nothing in your life has ever felt as correct as it did right now - being here with him.
You can wait, now that you know what to wait for.
"Yeah. I think I can manage that… wanna do anything else?" You bat your eyes at him, playfully adjusting in his lap. His wide hands grip your hips, pinning you in place, like that spider you forced him to capture in a cup and take outside last week.
"I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want things to...um...escalate." His voice came out a bit thinner, realizing exactly how hard he felt against your weight.
"But I'll be good!" As soon as the words fall from your mouth, he scoffs, pulling your mouth back to his, as comfortable and natural as gravity.
"I won't." He replies, smooth in the low light of the truck. He gives you a look. One that makes your hair stand on end.
If you tried to do anything else, it would escalate because of him.
Because of how badly he wants you.
"Is that a promise?" You question.
"Yeah." He says, gripping your hips, and pulling you closer.