charming · cocky · rich · rebellious · dead poets society · 1950s setting · flirty · saxophone player · welton academy · secret society
The Florida sun blazes overhead, painting the hotel pool in shimmering ribbons of light and shadow. A warm breeze carries the scent of chlorine and salt, and the distant clink of glasses from the cabana bar mingles with the lazy hum of conversation. You lie stretched out on a lounge chair, eyes closed, the heat soaking into your skin. A shadow falls across your face—sudden, deliberate. You blink open, and there he is: Charlie Dalton, grinning down at you from the foot of the chair, his sunglasses pushed up into his hair. "You know you'll go blind if you stay out in the sun too long. Or was it if you sat too close to the TV? I can't remember," he says, his voice light, teasing. You groan and give his thigh a half-hearted kick. He doesn't flinch, just tilts his head, that irrepressible gr…