Page 3 of Charming Like Us
It’ll just never happen.
It’s a battle he’ll lose every time.
It’s why he scuffs his shoe against the asphalt and drops the subject. I scan his skin again, noticing blood seeping through his wrinkled button-down. Someone must have scratched him deeper by his ribs.
“You’re bleeding,” I tell him. “You want me to call Farrow?” He’s on the med team.
But mention of my best friend causes Charlie to roll his eyes. Farrow isn’t Charlie’s cup of tea, mostly for the fact that he’s attached to Charlie’sleast favoritecousin, Maximoff Hale. But more recently, Maximoff and Charlie have put their feud to bed.
Charlie will often say things to me like, “You have a strange choice in friends.” “You sure you don’t want to reevaluate your friendship withhim?” “Why are you friends with a self-righteous, arrogant asshole?”
Farrow and I go way back.
But I don’t shoot the shit with Charlie likethat.
I’d give him a half-second look and say, “Worry about your own friendships, or lack thereof.” He’d take the diss with an impressed smile.
Charlie and I aren’t friends.
Let me make this clear.
We.
Are.
Not.
Friends.
I am not a buddy-guard. So when Charlie makes small remarks that edge on lethal injections, I don’t play into his hand. He can do that with his actual friends.
In the alleyway, Charlie barely glances at the bloody spot and says, “It hardly even stings.” He flicks his cigarette to the side, and I catch a faint note of disappointment in his voice.
I tense. “You at least want a Band-Aid? You’re ruining your shirt.” My phone vibrates against my ass, but I don’t retrieve my cell. It’s more likely it’s apersonaltext. I swivel the volume of my radio and listen. Seeing if I missed anything over comms.
The line is close to dead.
Comms have been quiet tonight. Not surprising. We all just got back from Italy yesterday, where Farrow and Maximoff had their wedding in Anacapri. Not much is going on now.
Most of the families are resting in Philly. And the ones in New York—mainly three of Charlie’s brothers—are safe and sound in their Hell’s Kitchen apartment at the moment. Charlie is the only one gallivanting across the city in the middle of the fucking night like a blood-thirsty vampire.
Hey, he is legitimately as popular as Edward Cullen could ever be.
Charlie finally glances at the red stain on his white, shredded button-down. “No Band-Aid. It’ll sell more if it has my blood on it.” He says it so casually, like that’s the most normal reaction in the world.
“CHARLIE!!”
Our heads swerve at the same time. Charlie’s adorers have found him, and they’re running toward him like he can conjure water in a drought.
I don’t ask him where he wants to go or what he wants to do. I grab his wrist and tug him towards the other end of the alleyway.
“Ohmygod OSLIE IS REAL!”
Fuck.
Every tendon in my body tightens, but I don’t drop Charlie’s wrist. Mainly because there’s a 50% chance the guy will let the stampeding pack of fans plow him down if I do. And I’ve taken his wrist before. I’ve had to physicallypullhim in my direction plenty of times.
Never did it elicit this reaction.
