Oh, this nigga is pyscho.
“It’s little shit, Bird. That will have my mind running for days. The clutter. I just need my life organized,” Demi tried to explain.
He had even cleaned her entire bathroom before emerging. Demi was a man who required order.
“You can’t organize your heart, Demi,” Charlie whispered. “I can do some things to make you comfortable, but I’ma make mess of your heart.”
He nodded, biting into his bottom lip, face destroying in indecision and turmoil. “I know.”
“I can’t not touch you,” Charlie said. “I need to be the exception.”
Demi stood before her with beads of water dripping from his strong body. “I don’t fuck face to face. I ain’t fucked nobody without a condom ever and I don’t put my tongue in wet places. I would say you’re the exception.”
“Can we revisit the tongue in wet places rule?” she asked.
He snickered at that and she blushed. “Com’ere,” she whispered, patting the spot beside her.
He sat beside her, and Demi turned, lifting her left thigh onto the mattress so she could face him.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah,” he whispered. He didn’t even hesitate. He wanted to hop in his car and push 90 in the 70 zone just to put some distance between them, but there was an urge to be in her space. To smell her. Her locs. To inhale the scent of her hair because the shit smelled like freshly cut flowers and he breathed deep when he was around her.
Her smile was blinding. Worth it. She stood. “Come on, Bails, Demi don’t like you, baby boy,” she said, pouting as she picked her dog up and put him out the room. He whimpered on the other side of the door and Charlie laughed. “You’re fucked up for making me put my best friend out,” she said. She went to the linen closet and pulled out new sheets.
“My bad, Bird,” he smirked as she pulled off the old sheets. She changed the linens, tossed the water bottles, and sprayed the room down with Lysol before opening the windows. She went to the sink to rewash her hands and forearms and Demi was appreciative because the fucking dog was a real thing.
“I’m clean, you’re clean,” she said as she climbed into the middle of the bed, sitting up on her knees.
Demi walked over to her and Charlie made her way to the edge.
He placed his face in the groove of her neck, kissing her shoulder. Progress. They were making progress. The shit felt so dirty, but it was the most enticing filth he had ever discovered. Muddy puddles. Charlie was like the muddy puddles that kids loved to jump in on a rainy day. Liberating, completely senseless, but the best fucking time. He would watch those kids when he was younger, having the time of their lives, smiling bright as their laughter infected the warm scented air. He never joined in the fun until now. Charlie was his muddy puddle.
Charlie climbed beneath the covers and held them up for him. He hesitated but joined her. Demi eased behind her body, wrapping one hand around her waist, spooning her, burying his face in her wet hair.
“You’ve got to breathe, Demi,” she whispered.
“Fucking I can’t,” he whispered back.
She sat up, yawning, and nodded. “Okay.” She scrambled across the bed and reached for her guitar. “Relax.”
“A tornado flew around my room before you came, excusssseee the mess it made, it usually doesn’t rain innnn Sunny Demifornia, much like Charliezonia,” she sang, changing the lyrics, pulling a scoff from Demi as he sat back, both arms folded behind his head and watched her play. She laid down, cozying underneath his arm as she strummed the strings. Frank Ocean’s song had become her own and her version was better, at least to Demi.
“My heart won’t get you dirrrty, boy, let’s ball, cuz I’m thinking ‘bout you. Oooo, nahh, nahh, nahhh, I want to touch up on you, oooo, noo, noo, nooo, rub my hands up on you, please, boy, tell me that you will, let me, let me...”
Charlie had changed the entire song and her voice regulated his pulse, slowing it, taking the anxiety out of his mind effortlessly.
“Or do you not think so farrrrr, aheeeeeeadddddddd, cuz I’ve been thinking about forever, with your weird-asssss, yeahhhhhh.”
She felt his chest rumble as he laughed. Such a deep, throaty sound. It made her heart fill and her lips spread east to west as she tried to contain her own… Smile. He made her smile. How this man had ended up in her bed was anybody’s guess. His timing was all off, but somehow, he was filling a hole in her heart.
She stopped singing and just kept playing lazily, her fingers stroking the chords from memory as Demi’s body relaxed.
“Charliezonia, huh?” he asked.
She nodded. “That’s our place. A clean, safe place where we don’t think. We just exist and do whatever we want with one another,” Charlie explained. She was playing the guitar effortlessly, not even thinking or looking at the strings. The impression she was leaving on Demi was one that he wouldn’t be able to erase.
