Charming Like Us (Like Us 7)

“And we can’t go in tees and jeans.” I open a baroque armoire.

“You keep clothes here?” Jack stands up.

“No, but I’m using his steamer.” One that Charlie never uses. Guy puts on wrinkled shirt after wrinkled shirt with zero care.

I squat down and rifle through a shoebox where he keeps it. “Pro tip: don’t wear tees if you forget a bag.”

Jack watches me. “Why is that?”

I grab the steamer and go to my backpack on a Queen Anne chair, digging for clothes. “Let’s put it this way, I’d much rather be wearing workout clothes to chase down Charlie, but when I first got on his detail, I had to chase him into a three-star Michelin restaurant.” I unzip my backpack. “I didn’t pass dress code, and I had to find the nearest department store and buy a suit. By the time I did, he was gone. Went to the airport and flew to Anchorage. I was a real cranky ass over comms that night.” I pull out my suit.

Turning around, I face Jack, and I meet his edging smile and honey-brown eyes that dip into me. Like I’m an ocean he’s swimming in. “Next time, call me,” he says coolly. “I’ll drive over with a suit.”

“Yeah?” I lick my lips slowly, recalling his apartment. “Aren’t all your suits in a cardboard box in your bathroom?” I begin steaming the white button-down, black slacks and suit jacket, catching sight of Jack’s widening smile and laugh. “Where’s the joke?” I ask.

He shakes his head and pops the sucker out of his mouth. “There’s no joke. You saw my Balikbayan box.”

My brows furrow. “Your what?”

“My mom’s side of the family is from the Philippines. We use a Balikbayan box to send household goods and clothes back to relatives. I had a couple old suits so I threw them in there. Once the box is full, I’ll sea freight it to my uncle’s house. He lives in a province in the Philippines called Batangas, where my mom grew up. Balikbayan is really a term used for a Filipino who’s gone abroad. Balik means came back. And bayan means country, land, a people, town.” He pauses to add with a smile, “What can I say, I’m a proud Filipino.”

I grin more, loving getting to know about Jack and his family, his culture. The biggest worry: the more I know, the deeper I’ll fall and I’m already flying too mother-effing close to the sun.

While I finish steaming out wrinkles, I tell him, “From one proud Latino to a proud Filipino, I gotta say I’m most interested in your snacks.”

“Filipino snacks?”

“Oh yeah, Long Beach. I need to try them. For research.” I check the time on my watch. “And we need to move faster.” I throw him the black slacks and white button-down. “Put these on.”

He frowns, but pulls his crew-neck over his head, not wasting time. “What are you wearing?”

“The suit jacket over my T-shirt, and the slacks I have on. You’re the one wearing blue jeans.” I thread my arms through the suit jacket. “Luckily, my pants might just fit your thin frame.”

Jack chokes on a laugh and extends his arms. “Is this thin, dude?” Bare-chested, his six-four height and sculpted abs tell the story of a letterman jacket jock.

I shake my head with a short motion. My muscles contract in desire that I try to thwart. Letting him change in front of me—not healthy. My cock hates me. My emotions are all over the fucking continent. Make that two continents, the one we left and the one we’re standing in.

“You’re hot, Long Beach,” I tell him bluntly, mentally checking off everything we have and need. I glance at a missed text from a contact. No Charlie spotting. “A classic athletic pretty boy.”

He steps quickly out of his jeans, tugging the fabric off his ankles. His eyes keep rising to mine. “I always thought you were the pretty boy between the two of us.”

Don’t check him out. He stands in tight blue boxer-briefs, and I run a hand across the back of my neck. “I have scars all over my face and body; I’m not a pretty boy.”

“From boxing, right?”

“Yeah, hard blows.” I request an Uber while he finishes changing.

Jack steps into the slacks, and in my peripheral, I notice how he studies Charlie’s apartment. His curiosity grazes the pale-yellow walls and the ornate crown molding.

Most people ask who bought it: Charlie or his parents. Every time Charlie brings someone here, it’s their first question.

His reply never changes. He smiles bitterly as he says, “My money is inherited. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the fucking same.”

But I was here the day Charlie walked into this place and signed the contract. His parents weren’t around. He was eighteen, and this apartment was his first big purchase as an adult. The price tag is a hundred times higher than what I spent on my first apartment after college.