Page 9 of Pages of My Heart

When the door swings open, Thomas greets him with a beaming smile, his excitement and happiness plain.

Charlie wonders how he can seem so devoid of fear or shame.

But then again, Thomas isn’t like anyone he’s ever met.

No other person has looked at Charlie like he’s actually worth something except maybe his ma, and that doesn’t count.

“Charlie, welcome. Come on in.”

He steps inside and Thomas closes the door behind him. They go on a quick tour of the house, each room immaculate and elegant, and eventually end up in Thomas’s room.

“Should I leave this here?” Charlie asks, holding up his overnight bag.

“Yes, of course. My bed is small,” Thomas rushes to say, as if embarrassed, “but maybe we can sleep in Bridget and Eddie’s room. They have a double bed.”

Frankly, Charlie isn’t sure he’ll be able to sleep at all, given the circumstances, but he keeps that to himself. “Won’t they wonder why you slept in there?”

“I can change the linens and then change them back, so they never know.” Thomas must pick up on Charlie’s anxiety, because he’s quick to let it go. “Anyway, we can decide later. I cooked us dinner. Are you hungry?”

Charlie lets go of the breath he’s been holding. “Yeah, I’m starved.”

They head back downstairs where Thomas has set the dining room table for two. He motions for Charlie to take a seat and comes back a minute later with a steaming pot of something that smells delicious.

“So you can cook, can you?” Charlie asks. “Hope ya didn’t go to too much trouble.”

“It’s nothing fancy, but I can cook all right.”

They tuck into the food Thomas has prepared—ham and pea soup, complete with fresh bread to mop their bowls clean—and for the next several minutes the house is quiet save for the clink of their spoons.

Charlie gulps down the meal as fast as Thomas does.

He wants to get to the next part of the evening and doesn’t want to, all at once.

Charlie is somewhat relieved to notice that underneath his excitement, Thomas seems as nervous as he is, but he wishes he hadn’t led Thomas to believe he has more experience than he does.

It would have been far wiser to be honest from the beginning, but it’s too late now.

After dinner, they clean up the kitchen and settle in the sitting room, but things feel awkward and stilted. All the confidence Charlie had that first night they met at the club is gone, and he isn’t sure how to make a move.

Thomas is the one to finally break the silence. “So did your folks believe you when you said you were helping a friend move?”

“I think so. My pops was out, so I just told my ma. Just hope he doesn’t snap his cap and take it out on her when he gets home—he’s a real son of a bitch. Drinks like a fish and loses his temper.”

Thomas nods. “My dad drinks too much, too. We would all be living on the streets if it weren’t for Bridget and Eddie.”

Charlie is sorry to hear that Thomas’s father is no good, but it makes him feel a bit better knowing that Thomas understands. “How’s your old man treat your ma when he’s drunk?” he asks carefully.

A shadow seems to fall across Thomas’s face, his eyes growing almost cold. When he answers his tone is expressionless. “My mom . . . she isn’t here.”

Charlie thinks that can mean only one thing. “Shit, Tommy”—the nickname easily slips out without a thought—“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . Has she passed?”

Thomas looks down at his lap. “It would be better if she had. A few years after she had Maggie, she went crazy. They say she had always been crazy, but it got a lot worse, and she tried to . . .” Thomas stands and walks over to the window, staring out into the night.

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I understand. My pops is a no-good bastard. The stories I could tell you . . .” Charlie clears his throat, unused to talking so earnestly. “What I mean is, nothing you say will shock me or make me think differently about you, Red.”

Thomas turns, his eyes watery. “She tried to kill herself. More than once. She’s at Dunning.

You know, the mental asylum.” Thomas’s gaze turns vacant, like he’s somewhere else.

“She’s been there since I was eight. My dad is always saying how much I remind him of her, and I .

. .” his voice trails off, shoulders heavy.

“I worry that one day, I’ll go crazy, too. ”

Charlie goes to Thomas, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You won’t,” he assures him. Even though he can’t possibly know what the future holds, the thought of Thomas being anything but okay turns his stomach.

“And I’m sorry about your ma.” He gives the back of Thomas’s neck a gentle squeeze.

“You wanna dance? Might take your mind off it?”

A hint of a smile appears on Thomas’s face, his eyes warming back up, so Charlie quickly switches on the radio sitting in the corner.

There’s a love song playing, and when he holds out his hand, Thomas comes to him.

He places his arms around Thomas’s neck while Thomas’s hands come to rest on his hips, and they begin to sway.

“I’m glad you’re here, Charlie.”

Thomas’s lips brush against Charlie’s ear, and when he dips his head lower, Charlie shivers at the sensation of warm breath on his neck.

When Thomas’s arms circle around his back, closing the space between them, it silences all the unwanted noise in his head, and it dawns on Charlie that he’s experiencing something pure and joyful.

Something he’s experienced little of in his twenty years of living.

Don’t waste this, he reminds himself. Tilting his face up, he waits for Thomas’s eyes to meet his, then says, “Kiss me.”

Thomas first lays his lips upon Charlie’s jaw, then at the corner of his mouth, and then Charlie opens to him, their lips slotting together and tongues meeting tentatively.

The kiss is tender, and, against his better judgement, Charlie finally relaxes, feeling safe dancing in Thomas’s arms. Their hands begin to wander, the kiss deepens, and their touches grow firmer and more insistent.

Charlie moans against Thomas’s lips, and when Thomas pulls back, his eyes are questioning, pleading. Charlie doesn’t need Thomas to ask out loud because he already knows what the question is, and its answer.

“Yes,” he says, nodding his consent.

Thomas grabs his hand and pulls him urgently upstairs to his small bedroom.

The wind is nearly knocked out of him as Thomas slams him against the wall, their bodies no longer soft and pliant but now hard and demanding.

Thomas ravishes his neck with wet, eager kisses and love bites that fall just shy of pain.

But then Thomas turns tender once more, and Charlie’s head lulls to one side, offering his bare neck, his knees buckling as he drowns in bliss.

Their clothes come off one piece at a time and fall at their feet, discarded without a second thought.

It’s not until they’re both naked that Charlie feels anxious and vulnerable once again.

They really haven’t talked about this, and he has no idea what Thomas wants or might expect.

Thomas’s body is all hard lines and defined ridges.

His legs are long and muscular, his shoulders broad and freckled.

The sight of him takes Charlie’s breath away.

They are both painfully hard, and Charlie’s heart beats uncontrollably fast, confronted with the truth of how badly he wants to take Thomas into his mouth.

Is that disgusting? Surely not as wrong as wanting to take Thomas inside his body . . .

“We could get into bed,” Thomas suggests. Perhaps sensing his reservations, Thomas leads him by the hand to the single bed pushed up against the wall.

Onetime deal, Charlie reminds himself, mentally pushing the outside world aside. He places a firm hand on Thomas’s chest to stop him from crawling atop the mattress. Then he sinks down onto his knees.

“Oh . . . oh, Ch—Charlie,” Thomas stutters.

With a hand around the base of Thomas’s cock, Charlie follows his instincts and licks at the wet tip.

The taste is surprisingly salty, but good, and he can’t suppress the shudder that passes through his body when he swallows.

Above him Thomas moans, his hands coming up to thread through and then lightly tug on Charlie’s hair.

It’s all the encouragement he needs, and he sinks his mouth down, trying to remember what that older man did to him to make it feel good.

After some experimentation, he pulls off and looks up at Thomas, silently asking for approval.

Thomas’s mouth is open and his eyes hooded. “Feels so good. More, please, more.”

Charlie continues, almost shocked by how good it feels to bring Thomas pleasure, the heavy hardness between his legs testament to it.

Thomas’s moans rise and rise, and his hips start to rock, forcing his length further into his mouth.

But when Charlie accidentally drags his teeth over the delicate skin, Thomas winces and inhales sharply, pulling away.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says, voice thick. “I haven’t really done this before.”

“It’s okay, I’ll need to practice too.” He reaches down to tug Charlie up off the floor. “Let’s get into bed and kiss a while. I was already so close, but I want this to last longer. I want to . . . do more.”

They squeeze onto the narrow bed and pull the blankets over them, their naked bodies coming together like two halves of a whole.

The sensation of his skin pressed to Thomas’s is not something he could’ve ever prepared for.

Not just in the way his body ignites with heat and pleasure, but also .

. . Charlie isn’t even sure how to articulate it, but it’s like all his tightly held anger and anguish rushes straight out of him.

They kiss wetly, greedily, as if searching for the answer to some unknown question Charlie didn’t know he’d been asking.