Chapter 8
EIGHT
T hey go to dinner at a restaurant called Greycrest Bistro. Their conversation is quieter now, matured like wine in a centuries-old keg. Bruce’s smiles are softer and sadder and Simon’s words are painfully more honest. The strings connecting them are thicker, tied tighter, and Simon is drunk on the feeling of belonging.
They eat lobster rolls, as recommended by Bruce, and Simon sips on a glass-bottled microbrew from a nearby town. Bruce shares his french fries and Simon brushes his ankle against the other man’s more than could be chalked up to an accident and by the time they’re sharing a brownie à la mode with two spoons and a cherry Bruce deftly slices in half with the edge of his utensil, a quiet sense of ennui has settled over the table.
“Simon,” Bruce murmurs as he scoops up a bit of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, specially made by the restaurant’s owner. “What do you think of Caerlloyd?”
Simon swallows thickly around a bite of brownie and returns to pushing his half of the cherry around on the plate aimlessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he replies.
“How you feel,” Bruce says simply. “The truth of it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Simon says and lets a bit of vanilla ice cream slough off his spoon. It feels like a lie even as he knows he speaks the truth.
“It is,” Bruce agrees. “But?”
“I’ve committed,” Simon says with a shrug that weighs like a confession. “I’ve bought the lighthouse. It would be a waste to—to what, leave it?”
“Maintain it,” Bruce offers and wipes a bit of dessert from the corner of his lips, right where the fine hairs of his beard touch his mouth. “Allow the beauty of the harbor and the functionality of Old Grey to work in tandem. Show others what there is out there, without ruining it for a bit of profit.”
“I can’t just throw away that money, Bruce.” Simon scowls and pushes the last bit of the brownie over towards Bruce’s side of the plate between them.
“I told you the town would buy it off you,” Bruce retorts and pushes the soggy pastry back towards Simon.
“And I told you I wouldn’t be changing my mind,” Simon reminds him and nudges it back, “so why are you so surprised that I haven’t?”
“It’s not that you haven’t, it’s that you refuse to even consider the possibility that you might feel differently now,” Bruce retorts but, before he can push the brownie bit back, his spoon clinks against Simon’s. Pale cornflower and tired hazel eyes meet over the table and Simon feels the tension slowly start to release.
“I do feel differently,” Simon says quietly and sets his spoon down. “With you— Christ, it has to be clear that I really fucking like you, Bruce. You took me out on the sea and taught me how to ride with the waves, not conquer the tide, and then we—” He cuts himself off and crosses his arms over his chest just for the pressure it provides. “You’re the rugged fisherman of my dreams and you’ve offered me twice as many allowances as I deserve, and I know I’m destined to let you down.”
“So you might as well do so with the lighthouse, instead of waiting to ruin it on your own?” Bruce finishes softly. His face is lit from the side in the quiet restaurant, shadows etching out the marks of old scars and dense freckles, and Simon wants to kiss him. He wants more than that, really—he wants to wake up to Bruce’s masculine scent and rumbling chest, he wants to make two cups of coffee in the morning instead of one, he wants to know Bruce’s quiet days as well as he knows his own—but he knows it’s impossible, even if Bruce claims it isn’t.
“I’m not good for people, Bruce,” Simon says finally. “I’m forgetful, and distracted, and as soon as I’m out of my fucking manic state, I go nearly comatose. I can only work from home, because if my job requires me to go into an office, I just won’t go when I’m depressed. My apartment is a goddamn mess, and—”
“Simon,” Bruce interrupts and reaches across the table, twining their fingers together. “Have you forgotten the part where, if people care about you, the hard stuff gets easy?”
“It’s never easy,” Simon whispers. Tears prickle behind his eyes and he blinks desperately to clear them. “Mo and I—she’s sick of it. She’s over me, Bruce, I’ve ruined that friendship too—”
“Did she say that to you?”
“What?”
“Did she tell you she was over you? Sick of you? That she wasn’t coming back?”
Simon racks his brain, thinks over every second of the last conversation he had with Mo before his mania kicked in and he hit purchase on the government-funded Zillow knockoff he found late that night, and it hurts just as as bad as it did before, but—
“No,” Simon answers after a minute. “She didn’t.”
“Did you give her a chance, before you shot off up to Maine, to explain? Or did you just go?” Bruce murmurs and strokes his thumb over the back of Simon’s hand. “I don’t think you’re bad for people, Si, unless you’re counting yourself.”
“Shit,” Simon gasps as the tears start to fall and reaches up to paw ungracefully at his face. “You would fucking love Mo.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Bruce says and leans even further forward to wipe a stray tear away from Simon’s jaw. “Seeing as she’s your best friend.”
“I—Bruce,” Simon says and leans into the touch. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Come back to my place with me,” Bruce offers, “and let yourself have tonight. We still have one more day in our agreement, and then tomorrow night you can make your decision.”
Simon takes a long, shaking breath and nods. The choice isn’t entirely selfish—Bruce wouldn’t offer if he didn’t want Simon in his bed—but an air of self-interest clouds the decision nonetheless. A warm body, the sounds of the sea—he’d much rather be with Bruce in his quiet crisis than alone at the inn.
Bruce scoops the last, soggy bite of dessert up on his spoon and slides it between his lips. “Let’s go, then,” he says once he swallows, and Simon couldn’t agree more.
Bruce fucks him again that night. He presses Simon into the mattress and fucks him so sweet and slow and doesn’t let him come until he says he can, says he’s a good boy , and draws it out for what could be hours or days. Simon repays him by sucking on his clit and by the time Bruce’s muscular thighs are trembling around his head, the sun has long since set and the quiet roar of the distant sea is the only noise audible beneath their gentle duet.
They don’t sleep right away. Instead, Bruce cracks the window by the bed and smokes a cigarette while petting Simon’s hair with his other hand. They talk, not about anything in particular, and listen to the sleepy town dwindle down for the night.
It’s painfully intimate.
Davey Jones rubs against Simon’s ankles as he tells Bruce about everything and nothing, and the two of them talk until the moon is high in the sky and Simon’s eyelids begin to droop. Bruce holds him like he deserves the softness in his strong arms. He holds him like he won’t break. He holds him like he expects Simon to be here again tomorrow, and Simon can’t help the racing thoughts in his head that betray his fears.
When he falls asleep, it’s to a shapeless dream of warmth and safety, and he prays to wake to a vision all the same.