Page 77 of Thirsty
Charlie still hadn’t said anything. He was just staring at Lorenzo’s lips, and Lorenzo wasn’t sure whether he wanted him to finish his sentence or kiss him.
“Done fighting?” Maggie asked in a meek voice, peeking from around the edge of the kitchen wall.
Charlie slumped into Lorenzo’s chest. “Done fighting,” he shouted back, his voice muffled. Lorenzo brought his arms up around Charlie and felt the tension drain out of him.
Maggie was clinking as she shuffled awkwardly back into the living room. “Well, while you guys were occupied,” she said obliquely, “I got all my hot sauces together.”
“Your hot sauces?” Charlie asked. His throat sounded thick.
“Oh yeah, I have almost everything fromHot Ones,” she said, laying them all out on the table. “And—” She was interrupted by a beep from the kitchen. “And I thought we could experiment,” she called back. “See which one tastes best.”
“You want to make wings?” Charlie asked, looking at one of the bottles.
“No,” Maggie said, coming back into the living room with an enormous bowl of popcorn. “We’ll try it on this.”
Charlie laughed, and Maggie’s smile lit up her weather-beaten face.Thank goodness for Maggie.
“It’ll be awesome,” she said. “Now, let’s start with this one.”
Chapter 23
In an incredibly sweet gesture, Lorenzo let Charlie set up a mini home office in his bedroom. It was just a little secretary desk that he could tell Lorenzo never used—sort of a vanity without the mirror—but he’d let Charlie lay claim to it, keep his water bottle and box of tissues there, and that’s where he’d set up his laptop when he was going to be spending a while at Lorenzo’s and wanted to be able to work a bit. Sometimes he’d get to Lorenzo’s place before the sun had set and putter around the room while Lorenzo lay in bed, still all corpse-like; he’d shower and get some writing done, eat a snack, and wait for Lorenzo to arise.
At the moment, he was scrolling aimlessly in front of a blank page. According to the new widget he had on his home screen, sunset had been six minutes ago, but Lorenzo was still lodged under the covers and showed no signs of stirring. He sighed.
An email pinged as it arrived—Ava, probably wanting to know where his next column was. The only downside of the column being a smash hit was Ava and their bosses breathingdown his neck, always looking for the next installment. He was still dodging her calls.
He loved writing the columns—he wasn’t sure that would ever change—but hitting publish every week was getting harder and harder. The bigger the column got, the more inescapable it became—all the things he needed to do, and everything he had to answer for.
He clicked on Ava’s email anyway, out of resigned guilt.
She was not checking in on his next column. He saw the wordsAdvance Media, a conglomerate that owned hundreds of outlets worldwide. And he saw the wordoffer.
Panic choked his throat, and he shut his laptop before he finished the email.
From the bed there was a soft rustle of sheets, and he looked up to find Lorenzo, blearily awake and looking at him, drowsy eyes peeking out from over the crest of a pillow. He couldn’t see the rest of Lorenzo’s face, but he could tell he was smiling, and his chest gave a little happy clench at the sight, his anxiety about his job and the column melting away.
“Good evening,” Charlie said, and came to sit on the bed next to him. He threaded his fingers through Lorenzo’s hair, petting him as he stretched and groaned, throwing some of the covers back.
“Hmm,” Lorenzo said. “When did you get here?”
“A little while ago.”
Lorenzo sat up and kissed him undemandingly. Then he yawned, stretched again until Charlie could hear something pop, and mumbled “Let me brush my teeth” against Charlie’s lips.
Charlie flopped back onto the bed while Lorenzo trudged off to the bathroom. He felt warm and tingly all over, like he might start purring. The sheets were cool and silky, and he couldfeel himself melting into the mattress. “Have I said enough that I love your place?” he shouted to Lorenzo.
There was the sound of water running, on and off. Charlie frowned as the silence stretched, but he still heard little echoing noises as Lorenzo moved around the bathroom, so he waited patiently. Eventually, Lorenzo came back and sat next to him on the bed. “Yes,” he said, though he looked distant.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.
Lorenzo smiled at him faintly. “I like that you’re here.”
“Me too,” he said, disarming the non sequitur. “But...?”
Lorenzo glanced around. “This place just—it can feel a little lonely sometimes.”
“This place?” Charlie said skeptically. “It’s a palace. And you have your roommates.”
