Charming Like Us (Like Us 7)

The lake house’s location is strictly secret from the public. So Everly couldn’t have been there.

That should make me feel good enough to coast through the rest of the day, but I just keep picturing this girl at Oscar’s studio apartment. Getting down on her knees. Giving him head.

My stomach twists in a pretzel.

I don’t know why the image of some chick deepthroating Oscar makes me want to hurl, but I’m at that stage, I guess. The stage where I don’t want to imagine my friend—or co-worker—getting off from someone…else.

But me.

I trip over a crack in the Philly sidewalk, and my tray of coffees spills onto the cement and warm liquid soaks my white T-shirt.

“Fuck.” I bend down and scoop up the paper cups and plastic lids. Some passersby grimace, their faces saying, ah, dude, that fucking sucks and glad that’s not me.

Spilt coffee isn’t a big deal.

Don’t sweat the small stuff has been my motto since forever. I’ve got bigger shit going on.

After tossing the cups and coffee tray in a nearby trashcan, I push into a mid-rise office building. Third-floor is home to the We Are Calloway productions.

I come into a small meeting room with a stained shirt and frazzled head. “Sorry, I’m late,” I apologize to Ali and Ambrose Miller, both behind laptops and waiting for me at the boardroom-style table, set with leather chairs. I offer a smile, taking off my messenger bag. “I did have coffee for you two, but here we are.”

Ali eyes the stain and snorts. “Did you trip? Tell me you caught it on film.”

Ambrose laughs while typing. “Now that’d be some camera gymnastics, sis.” He’s speaking to me, but Ali is also his sister. In their mid-thirties, only a year apart, the Miller siblings are almost inseparable, and they look like Hollywood starlets compared to me right now.

Ambrose has a faux-hawk with a side fade, and I’m jealous of his clean yellow button-down. Gold Tiffany bracelets complement his dark-brown skin, and his sister is equally put-together. Black hair gelled back in a curly pony, her trendy jumpsuit is spotless and ready for a red-carpet event.

She’s a kickass filmmaker. He’s an ace sound mixer. Singularly, they’re vets in the industry. Together, they’re the best power duo I know, and I’m the lucky producer who landed them on my team for We Are Calloway.

“Thank God I didn’t have my camera out,” I say with a hiking smile, and I walk to the small closet at the end of the boardroom. I keep clothes here when I pull 18-hour workdays. “Broken equipment isn’t on the budget.”

“Neither is a round of extra coffees,” Ali teases.

“Who said you’re getting an extra latte?” Ambrose banters with his sister. “You’re over there scrolling through Pinterest for a honeymoon you’ve rescheduled ten times. At this point, you should wait for tickets to pop up to fly to the moon.”

Ali and I laugh.

“Shut it down, I’m so close to scheduling this trip to Barbados,” she tells him.

I take a charcoal-gray button-down shirt off a hanger and smile back at Ali. “What happened to Maui?”

“Troy changed his mind.”

“And by Troy, she means Ali changed her mind,” Ambrose cuts in. “You should’ve done what I did and went right after the reception. Flight to Malta. No one but me and Cody and paradise.”

Talk about honeymoons is a reminder that I’m very single and surrounded by newlyweds. I attended Ali’s wedding, Ambrose’s wedding, Maximoff Hale’s wedding all within the same year, and it’s only July.

It didn’t bother me before. I’ll date when I can, I’d usually say, but now, a hot feeling flares up…a feeling like the one I felt with Everly in the Louvre.

I try to take a breath.

My personal life shouldn’t be affecting my work. So I tell Ambrose, “I’d drink to that declaration. But my drink is currently soaked in my shirt.” I shrug on the fresh button-down and return to the table, buttoning it closed quickly.

They stare at me a little more keenly.

I take a seat, about to start the pitch but they share a furtive look.

“What’s wrong?”

“Your fly is down, sis,” Ambrose tells me.

Fuck.

I zip up my pants. Heat swathing my neck. I let out a weak laugh, not even able to recover as smoothly as I know I can.

“You alright, Jack?” Ali asks.

“Yeah.” I run a hand through my hair. “Just lack of sleep.” Oscar.

Really, it’s Oscar.

For the briefest second, I almost consider telling them. Asking for advice. Ambrose is a gay man and in a great relationship with his husband. Maybe he’d understand. But it feels pretty unprofessional. We typically talk about our families and weekend plans. Office small talk. No one in production is spilling heartaches and lamenting their struggles to me, and I hesitate to be the first.

Really, at the end of it all, I think I don’t mention questioning my sexuality because there’s only one person I really want to talk to about it.