Heartbreaker, a Heartstopper Story - Ch. 19

Gay Cuckold, Gay Erotica, +18, Cheating, Vouyeur

The days after Nick’s call were different.

Charlie couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment the shift had happened. It wasn’t as dramatic as a switch being flipped or a fog lifting. It was more like a gradual change in pressure, like your ears adjust on a plane and suddenly the world sounded clearer without you noticing the transition. He still missed Nick. He still lay awake some nights turning things over, examining them, testing the weight of everything that remained unresolved between them. But the paralysis was gone. The dread that had been sitting on his chest like a stone for weeks had cracked and crumbled, and what was left in its place was something lighter and more bearable. Not certainty, he wasn’t naive enough for certainty. Possibility. The sense that there was a path forward, even if he couldn’t see all of it yet.

The conversation hadn’t fixed things. Charlie knew that a single phone call, however raw and honest, could undo months of damage. There were still things left unsaid, wounds still tender to the touch, questions neither of them had been ready to ask yet. But it was a step. A real one, solid ground beneath his feet after weeks of freefall, and for now that was enough.

He and Nick were talking again. Almost every day, usually late, when Charlie was already in bed and Nick was watching the California sunset from wherever he happened to be — Harp’s garden, the beach, the bus on the way home from Roosters. The calls were short, fifteen minutes, sometimes twenty, and they didn’t talk about anything in particular. Nick describing whatever absurd thing Harp had done that day. Charlie asking how Diane’s pancakes were. Nick asking if Charlie had finished the book he’d been reading. Small, unremarkable exchanges that meant everything, because they were proof that the line between them was open again, that Nick’s voice was something Charlie could have at the end of a day instead of something he had to grieve. They’d stay on until Charlie was yawning so much his words blurred together, and Nick would say, soft and fond in a way that made Charlie’s chest ache, “Go to sleep, Char.” And Charlie would say, “Okay. Night, Nicky.” And Nick would say, “Night, love.” And there it was, that word again, dropped back into its rightful place as if it had never left, and Charlie would lie in the dark after hanging up and press his phone against his chest and breathe.

He was eating properly. Three meals a day, no performance, no effort, just his body remembering what hunger felt like and responding to it. Jane had stopped watching his plate entirely. She’d started talking about normal things at dinner again, the neighbours, the garden, a programme she wanted him to watch with her, and the absence of the careful monitoring felt like sunlight returning after a long stretch of cloud. He texted Beto, letting go of the stilted exchanges of the past weeks, something closer to their old rhythm. Nick called me the other night. We talked. Really talked. I think it’s going to be ok. I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I miss you. Beto had replied within minutes, a voice note, forty-five seconds long, that was mostly him saying caralho, Carlinhos, finalmente in about fifteen different tones of relief, followed by a demand that Charlie call him immediately so he could hear every detail. Charlie had laughed out loud at his kitchen table, startling his mum, and called him back, and they’d talked for an hour, and by the time he hung up, something that had been dislocated between them had quietly clicked back into place.

He saw Tao again midweek, a quieter outing this time, fish and chips on the harbour wall, the two of them sitting with their legs dangling over the edge while the boats rocked gently below. Tao looked better. Still bruised around the edges, still carrying the Elle thing in his shoulders, but steadier. They talked about films mostly, Tao pitching an idea for his next short with breathless enthusiasm that meant he’d been thinking about it nonstop.

On Thursday, he took the train to Canterbury to visit the second-hand bookshop Isaac had been obsessing over since he started working there part-time. The place was cramped, chaotic, smelled like dust and old paper, and Charlie loved it immediately. They spent hours talking about books, then about Isaac’s boyfriend, and eventually about Charlie himself. Isaac asked if he was okay, and Charlie said yes — and for once, he mostly meant it. That same evening, he FaceTimed Tara and Darcy from bed with a cup of tea balanced beside him. They were living together in Hackney now, and they looked so happy together it made Charlie ache a little in the best way. Darcy gave him a chaotic tour of their flat while Tara laughed in the background. They asked about Nick, and Charlie gave them the simplified version: rough patch, working through it, getting better. Tara didn’t push, and Darcy threatened to fight Nick if he was being an idiot before immediately admitting she’d probably lose.

Charlie had laughed. He was doing a lot of that lately.

The only person he still hadn’t seen was Elle.

He tried. He called her twice the day after seeing Tao, and both times it rang through to voicemail. He texted her, trying to be light, nothing that would feel like pressure, and her replies came back increasingly brief, yes of course char let’s totally do it soon x and definitely! just super busy this week and soon i promise!!, each one punctuated with enough exclamation marks and kisses to mask the fact that none of them ever materialised into an actual plan.

Charlie’s suspicions grew. He rang the Argent house on a Wednesday afternoon, and Elle’s mum answered with the warmth she’d always had for Charlie, told him that yes, Elle was home, but sadly she couldn’t make it to the phone right now. When Charlie called again that evening, he was told Elle was in the shower, but Mrs Argent promised she’d pass the message along and Elle would call him back as soon as she was out. She never called back.

The next morning, after two unanswered texts and three calls that went straight to voicemail, Charlie rang the house again. This time, Mrs Argent, sounding increasingly uncomfortable with her role as middleman, informed him that Elle had just popped out to the shops and Charlie should try again in an hour.

Charlie told her that he would, thanked her very much, ended the call, and marched straight to the Argents’ house on Harbour Street. Mrs Argent herself opened the door, and her eyes widened in barely concealed panic when she found Charlie standing on the front step.

“Charlie, dear!” she said, glancing briefly over her shoulder into the hallway. “Everything alright?”

Charlie smiles brightly at her.

“I thought I’d come and wait for Elle here,” he informed her, very cheerfully. “So we wouldn’t miss each other again.”

“Oh, actually, would you believe it, Elle actually went to Canterbury to pick up some art supplies and she won’t be —” Her voice faltered when Charlie raised his eyebrows at her. The silence lasted approximately three seconds. Mrs Argent’s shoulders sagged. “She doesn’t want to see anyone, Charlie. I’m sorry I lied. She’s been like this since she got home. Please, try to put some sense into her.”

The Argents’ place was one of those houses that felt like home, the way the Nelsons’ did, the way the Xus’ did, in a way that nothing in California would ever quite manage. Warm, cluttered, full of evidence of a family that had been living on top of each other for decades and liked it that way. Mismatched mugs on hooks in the kitchen, shoes piled by the door, framed school photos climbing the staircase wall in chronological order — Elle at five, gap-toothed and grinning, all the way up to Elle at eighteen in her sixth-form blazer, beautiful and composed. Charlie had been here hundreds of times, ever since he was small, back when the only people in his world were Elle and Tao and the three of them had been inseparable.

He didn’t need to go far. Elle was in the kitchen. She was standing in front of the stove, wearing baggy jeans and a oversized jumper that swallowed her frame, her hair, straightened today, tied in a loose knot at the back of her head. She was mindlessly stirring a mug of tea with a small spoon, round and round, her stare vacant, fixed on something a thousand miles away. The kettle had long since clicked off. The tea was probably cold.

Charlie stood in the doorway and looked at her, and recognition hit him with a force that made his chest ache. That was how he’d looked. That was exactly how he’d looked to Tori and his parents in those first terrible days after coming home, the vacant eyes, the mechanical movements, the body going through the motions while the person inside it was somewhere else entirely. He understood, suddenly and viscerally, why they’d been so worried. Elle did not look okay.

“At least you’re eating something,” Charlie said, leaning against the doorframe.

Elle jumped. The spoon clattered against the rim of the mug and she spun around, a completely fabricated smile appearing on her face with speed the suggest she had been practicing in front of the mirror.

“Charlie!” she said, her voice bright in a way that fooled absolutely nobody. “I was just about to call you.”

Charlie snorted. “Yeah, right.”

He crossed the kitchen and pulled her into a hug. She hugged back harder than he’d expected, her arms locking around his ribs, her face pressing into his shoulder, and Charlie felt the tremor running through her.

“Hey, girl,” Charlie murmured, letting the hug linger. He suspected she needed it. He suspected she’d needed it for days and hadn’t let anyone close enough to give it to her. “I missed you, you know?”

“Me too,” she said, and her voice was shaking. She sniffed. “I really, really did, Char.”

He let her go and wasn’t surprised to see her eyes brimming with tears.

“Hey,” he said, pulling her back in. “Come here. It’ll be alright.”

Elle gave a shaky laugh.

“I know. I’m being silly.” She squeezed him one last time and was the one to break the hug, stepping back, wiping her eyes quickly with the sleeve of her jumper. “I’m sorry. Want some tea?”

Charlie wrapped his hand around the mug on the counter and felt it completely cold, just as he’d suspected. He tipped it into the sink without comment.

“Go sit. I’ll make us tea.”

He knew this kitchen, knew exactly which cupboard held the mugs, the blue one with the chipped handle for Elle, the oversized one with the faded Bowie print for himself, and where the Argents kept their tea. Green tea for Elle, because she’d gone through an art-school wellness phase at sixteen and never come back from it. Builder’s brew for him, strong enough to stand a spoon in, because he was a Kent boy and some things were non-negotiable. He filled the electric kettle and clicked it on, then spent the next few minutes rummaging through the cupboards for honey, finding the lemon in the fruit bowl on the windowsill, locating the sugar behind a tin of biscuits that looked like it had been there since the last Labour government. Elle opened the fridge and took out a box of custard tarts filled with strawberry jelly and a small pot of cream.

They sat at the small table by the window had always been too small for the Argent family but that nobody had ever replaced because it was where every important conversation in this house had happened. Charlie filled both mugs when the kettle clicked off and watched the tea darken, giving it time.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Elle said, wrapping her arms around herself inside the oversized jumper. “I’m trying really hard not to be the kind of girl that falls apart when her relationship ends, but everything’s just awful right now.”

“You’re allowed to be sad,” Charlie said. He picked up one of the custard tarts, spooned a generous dollop of cream over the strawberry jelly, and ate it. “Tao’s sad too, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t,” said Elle, miserably. “That’s the worst part of it. Nobody’s guilty, you know? Nobody did anything wrong. It’s just the circumstances that are horrible.”

Charlie picked up another custard tart, loaded it with an obscene amount of cream, and pushed it across the table toward her.

“Eat,” he ordered.

Elle rolled her eyes but took the pastry anyway.

“You’re just like my mum,” she said. She took a pointed bite and chewed at him. “See? Happy?”

“I’m much better than Tori was,” Charlie said. “She genuinely threatened to shove food down my throat if I didn’t start eating properly.”

Elle frowned at him. “You weren’t eating properly?”

“I am now,” Charlie said. “Nick and I went through a rough patch these last few days and I was a bit dramatic about it. But things are better now.”

“I’m sorry, Char,” Elle said, squeezing his hand across the table. “Want to talk about it?”

Charlie shook his head. “Like I said, things are better now. You’re what matters right now. Come on, tell me what’s going on.”

Elle sighed again, deep and tired.

“You know about the Tate St Ives?”

“I do. It’s amazing, Elle. Congratulations. I’m really proud of you.”

She gave him the first real smile since he’d walked through the door.

“Thanks. I’m really proud too.” But the brief brightness left her face almost immediately, like a light switched off. “That’s just it, though, isn’t it? There’s no way a relationship works with me in Cornwall and Tao in Leeds. We had no other choice, Charlie.”

Charlie took his time answering. The tea was ready and he doctored it with honey and just two drops of lemon. He took a sip, set the mug down, and made himself another custard with cream. He chewed slowly, letting the silence do some work.

“I may be talking out of my arse here,” he said carefully. “But after seeing Tao, I got the feeling that it was your decision to break up. Not his.”

Elle was suddenly very interested in the grain of the kitchen table.

“It’s my fault this is happening,” she said. “I should be the one to end it.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“It is. I can’t ask him to put his life on hold for a year and wait for me.”

Charlie picked up another custard tart, loaded it with cream, and held it out to her.

“Eat,” he said again.

“Char —”

“Eat!”

Elle snatched the custard from his hand and shoved it in her mouth. Satisfied, Charlie kept going.

“You don’t have to ask anything of Tao, Elle. Because he’ll do it gladly. You know that.”

“He’s just being romantic,” she said, dismissive, still chewing. “He isn’t thinking about what it’ll actually be like. The money we’d spend on train tickets. Only seeing each other a couple of times a month. He’s in college, Charlie. He deserves to have fun. Meet new people. Make his films. Not spend every free moment texting his girlfriend on the other side of the country.”

“But that’s what he wants, Elle!” Charlie’s voice rose with a frustration that surprised both of them. He set his mug down harder than he meant to, tea sloshing over the rim.

“It’s not — it’s not that simple, Charlie.”

“Of course it’s not simple. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Charlie said. “But isn’t it better than not trying at all? Talking to him on the phone, seeing him a few times a year — isn’t that better than not talking to him at all? Not seeing him at all?”

Elle stared at her tea. The steam had stopped rising from it minutes ago.

“You don’t understand,” she said quietly. “I’ve watched what long distance does to people. My cousin and her boyfriend tried it when she moved to Edinburgh. They lasted eight months, and by the end they hated each other, Charlie.”

“You and Tao aren’t your cousin.”

“No, but we’re not immune to it either.” She pulled her sleeves over her hands, a gesture Charlie had seen her do since they were kids, the thing she did when she was trying to make herself smaller. “I’d rather end it now, while we still love each other, while we can still look at each other and feel something good, than drag it out and watch it rot. I don’t want to hate Tao. I couldn’t survive hating Tao.”

Charlie looked at her across the table. At the tears she was fighting, at the set of her jaw, at the fierce, stubborn conviction in her eyes.

“Can I tell you something?” he said. “About me and Nick?”

Elle looked up.

“I did something really stupid this year,” Charlie said slowly. He wrapped both hands around his mug, not for warmth but for something to hold onto. “I made a decision for Nick, a big one. I told myself I was doing it because I loved him, because I knew what was best for us, because if I just handled it the right way everything would work out and he’d thank me for it later.”

He paused.

“He didn’t thank me, Elle. He nearly left me.”

Elle’s eyes widened. “Charlie —”

“I’m not going to go into the details,” he said. “But the point is, I thought I was being brave, you know, steering us toward something better. And what I was actually doing was taking away his right to choose. And the only reason we’re still together right now is because Nick is a better person than I deserve and he chose to forgive me.”

He took a sip of his cold tea and grimaced.

“You’re not protecting Tao, Elle. I know you think you are. I know it feels like sacrifice. But what you’re actually doing is deciding that he can’t handle the hard parts, and you’re making that call without letting him weigh in. And that’s not fair. It wasn’t fair when I did it, and it’s not fair now.”

Elle opened her mouth and closed it.

“What if he says yes and it doesn’t work?” she whispered. “What if we try and it falls apart anyway and we end up hating each other like my cousin did?”

“Then at least you’ll know you tried.” Charlie said simply. “And Tao will know you respected him enough to let him choose. That’s worth something, Elle.”

Elle pressed her hands against her face. Her shoulders trembled once, then again, and Charlie reached across the table and rested his hand on her forearm and let her sit with it. The kitchen was quiet. Somewhere in the house, Mrs Argent was moving around, giving them space, and through the window Charlie could see the late afternoon light slanting across the garden, turning the roses along the back fence a deep, burning gold.

“When did you get so wise?” Elle said from behind her hands, her voice muffled and wet.

Charlie laughed softly. “I’m not wise. I’m just someone who fucked up badly enough to learn something from it.”

Elle lowered her hands. Her eyes were red, her cheeks damp, but something had shifted in her expression. The rigid certainty she’d been holding onto had broken, and underneath it Charlie could see the thing she’d been trying so hard to bury. Hope. Terrifying, stubborn hope that refused to die no matter how many logical arguments you threw at it.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“That’s all I’m asking,” Charlie said. He squeezed her arm. “Just don’t think too long, okay? Because that idiot loves you, and he’s going to wait forever. He’d wait for you until the heat death of the universe and you know it.”

Elle laughed through her tears and it was the best sound Charlie had heard all day.

Charlie left the Argents’ house with the late afternoon sun warm on his back and a tupperware of custard tarts Mrs Argent had pressed into his hands at the door. He walked home along the seafront, the tide low, the mudflats gleaming silver in the light, and felt something he hadn’t expected to feel when he’d set out that morning: useful. He’d helped someone. Not by scheming or strategising or pulling invisible strings, but by sitting at a kitchen table with a cup of tea and saying the true thing instead of the clever thing.

Dinner was shepherd’s pie again, because Julio had discovered a new recipe that involved a ridiculous amount of cheese on top and was determined to perfect it. Charlie ate two helpings without being asked. His mum talked about the garden centre. His dad argued cheerfully with himself about whether the cheese needed to be gruyère or whether cheddar was perfectly fine, thank you very much. After dinner he curled up on the sofa and answered texts. Beto had sent a photo of himself at the beach in Santa Monica, shirtless, captioned missing my favourite British boy. Luna had forwarded him a link to an article about a bookshop in Paris that doubled as a wine bar and said this is your future career. Elena had sent three separate voice notes, the first about a customer who’d tried to return a book because he disagreed with the ending, the second about Barty accidentally setting off the fire alarm with the stockroom kettle, and the third just her saying “I miss you, come back, this place is falling apart without you” in a tone that suggested she was only partially joking.

His parents put on a film, something with Hugh Grant that his mum had seen four times and his dad pretended to hate but always ended up watching, and Charlie stretched out with his feet in Jane’s lap and let it wash over him. He wasn’t really following the plot. He was just existing in the warmth of his family, in the familiar creak of the sofa and the sound of his dad’s laugh and the weight of his mum’s hand resting absently on his ankle. His parents went to bed at half ten, his mum kissing the top of his head on her way past, his dad squeezing his shoulder and saying “night, son” in that quiet way he had. Charlie locked up, turned off the lights, and went upstairs. He showered. Brushed his teeth. Put on a clean T-shirt and boxers and climbed into bed.

A perfectly fine evening. A normal one, that people use to take it for granted and until they understood was precious they were.

He lay in the dark and thought about calling Nick. Just to hear his voice, say goodnight. To feel the connection hum between them across the distance, proof that the line was still open, that the silence of the past weeks was truly over.

He reached for his phone on the nightstand.

It buzzed before his fingers touched it.

Nick. As if, all the way across the Atlantic, Nick had been thinking the same thing at the same moment, wanting to reach across the distance between them because the silence had become something neither of them wanted anymore. It was a message, not a call. Charlie’s heart kicked against his ribs as he opened it, and found a single line of text and a link.

this is what you want?

Frowning, Charlie clicked the link. A streaming player loaded, buffering for a second, and then suddenly Nick’s face filled his screen, too close, just his forehead and those blue eyes Charlie would recognise in any light, in any room, on any continent. Nick was fiddling with the camera, adjusting the angle, his brow furrowed with concentration because technology had never been his strong suit.

Charlie laughed. “What is this? Going to give me a show or something?”

Nick stepped back from the camera, and the frame widened, and Charlie’s breath caught. Nick was shirtless. The screen glowed with the warm golden light of whatever room he was in, and every inch of him was on display. He looked like a painting. He looked like a god. He looked like the boy Charlie had been missing for weeks made suddenly, devastatingly real.

Nick smirked at the camera. Then he stepped back further, and Charlie saw the room, a bedroom he didn’t recognise, dimly lit, a bed behind Nick with dark sheets.

Charlie frowned. His pulse had started doing something irregular.

Then someone moved into the frame behind Nick, and Charlie felt his heart detonate inside his chest.

Jet.

Shirtless, pale, those crystal blue eyes almost luminous against the darkness of his hair. His body was lean and sculpted, the muscles of a swimmer, every line cut clean, his shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, the V of his hips sharp enough to cast shadows in the low light. He stood just behind Nick, close enough that Charlie could see the contrast between them, Jet’s dark, compact beauty against Nick’s golden enormity, and the sight of them together, side by side, half-dressed, sent a jolt through Charlie’s body so violent he nearly dropped his phone.

Nick looked directly into the camera. Those blue eyes, warm and steady and completely in control, found Charlie through the lens.

“Green is for go ahead,“ Nick said. “Yellow is for I don’t like this. Red is for stop. You got it?”

“W-what’s going on, Nick?” Charlie’s voice came out strangled, barely recognisable as his own. His pulse was hammering so hard he could feel it in his fingertips, in his throat, behind his eyes.

Nick didn’t answer. He just turned to Jet, who was standing beside him with an expression that was equal parts nervous and electric, eyes darting once toward the camera and then back to Nick.

Nick reached out, cupped Jet’s chin in one massive hand, tilted his face upward, and kissed him.

Charlie stopped breathing.

It was slow, Nick’s mouth moving against Jet’s with a confidence that made it clear this had been discussed, planned, agreed upon, and yet there was nothing rehearsed about the way Jet’s eyes fluttered shut, nothing performed about the way his hand came up to grip Nick’s forearm as if he needed something solid to hold onto. Nick’s other hand slid to the back of Jet’s neck, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss, and Jet made a sound, a small, helpless sound that the camera’s microphone barely caught, and Charlie’s entire body went incandescent.

Charlie’s hand flew to his mouth. His eyes were burning. His cock was harder than it had ever been in his life.

Nick broke the kiss. Jet swayed slightly, lips parted, eyes still closed, looking thoroughly wrecked from nothing more than a kiss. Nick’s gaze stayed on Jet and without turning to the camera, without breaking his focus on the beautiful man in front of him, he said:

“What colour, Char?”

Charlie’s throat seized. Nick wasn’t looking at him, and somehow that made it hotter.

“Green,” he said to the empty room. “Fucking green.”

—

Nick and Jet. Live. Charlie watching from three thousand miles away with his heart in his throat and his cock on his. No closets this time, guys. Next chapter, we’re in that bedroom. Charlie’s going to watch his kink come true and I can promise you it’s going to be the hottest thing I’ve ever written for this story. Nick and Jet are about to put on a show, and Charlie Spring is going to lose his mind, and you’re going to be right there with him.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, now is genuinely the time. You do not want to be late for what’s coming next. Hit the button. Trust me on this one. See you in Chapter 19.