Chapter Five
The next morning, Simon wakes to the sound of clattering coming from his kitchen. He finds Jamie using the stand mixer that
Simon keeps forgetting he owns. Gobs of batter are all over the counter. Simon averts his eyes.
“I’m making pancakes,” Jamie announces. “I don’t even like pancakes.”
Neither does Simon, but he takes one anyway and leans against a clean edge of the counter to eat it.
“So, I fucked up,” Jamie says.
“Oh?” All Simon can think is that even though it’s only nine o’clock in the morning, Jamie’s somehow gotten back together
with his ex.
“I told Charlie that I told you what happened last night, and now he thinks I outed him to you. I didn’t want to tell him
that you already knew.”
“If something had happened between the two of you, did he think you wouldn’t tell me?” Simon asks. He has some experience
with super closeted actors. For a while, Simon was sort of seeing this guy from his old show, but even he wouldn’t have expected
Simon to keep him a secret from his best friend.
“I know! Maybe it was tacky of me to tell him that I told you, but I was thinking that—well, anyway, I wasn’t trying to stir up drama, I swear.” He looks abashed, and Simon believes him.
“If he cares that much, he shouldn’t be hitting on men in his kitchen when there are fifty people nearby.”
Jamie pauses with a pancake on his spatula. “I didn’t tell you it was in the kitchen.”
“I was coming in through the laundry room,” Simon admits, his face hot. “I was there for less than a minute.”
“Hmm,” Jamie says, looking at him very carefully. Simon resists the urge to hide behind his pancake. “Anyway, I feel like
a bad gay. I know I’m a disaster along every possible axis but at least I’ve never outed anyone.”
“And you still haven’t.”
“But he thinks I did.”
Reasoning that if Charlie’s been texting Jamie, he’s definitely awake, Simon grabs Edie’s leash and his darkest sunglasses
and announces that he’s taking her for a walk.
It isn’t far, but Edie is old and her legs are only three inches long, so Simon carries her most of the way to Charlie’s house.
It would have been smarter to do this over the phone, but Simon can’t handle another minute in the house with the kitchen
in chaos.
Still, Simon should have texted to make sure Charlie was home and alone, which only occurs to him as he’s walking up the driveway
and steeling himself to ring the doorbell. But he’s already probably triggered Charlie’s doorbell camera, so he can’t turn
around now.
Charlie answers the door wearing a T-shirt with arizona diamondbacks in faded script and which might have fit him at some point in his life, like maybe fifth grade, but is basically obscene right now.
“Simon,” he says, looking exactly as surprised as anyone might when they see their least-favorite coworker on their doorstep
on a Sunday morning.
“Are you alone?”
Charlie blinks. “Yes?”
“Jamie didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Okay. Come in?”
“I don’t need—”
“You’re letting all the cool air out.”
Simon sighs and walks in. “Look, I saw you kissing that waiter at Lian’s house.” He takes off his sunglasses and tucks them
into the neckline of his shirt.
“And you told Jamie.”
Until now, Simon hasn’t properly considered that maybe he outed Charlie. “Yes,” he says. “I’m gay, Jamie’s gay, and it didn’t occur to either of us that a man who kisses other men
in public would be so closeted that you need top-level security clearance to discuss that fact with a close friend.”
Charlie scrubs a hand over his jaw. “It isn’t. A secret, I mean. I’m not closeted,” he says, a little defensively, like he
thinks Simon would blame him for it.
“Fair,” he says, instead of pointing out that you don’t generally accuse people of outing you if you aren’t closeted to some
extent. He’s here to clear Jamie’s name, not to debate the gradations and nuances of outness. “Sure.”
“Tell Jamie I overreacted. No, never mind, I’ll tell him myself. I can’t believe you came all the way over here just to make sure I wasn’t mad at Jamie.”
“He’s my best friend,” Simon says. And then, “He’s family,” in case Charlie’s the kind of person that means something to.
“And you brought Edie,” Charlie says, getting onto one knee and holding out a hand to her. “Can I pet her?”
“Yes, Charlie. She’s an elderly dachshund. She isn’t going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t think she was going to hurt me. I just don’t want to bother her.”
The sight of Charlie’s big hand scratching behind Edie’s ears is a little more than Simon can take, so he glances around Charlie’s
living room. There are no beer bottles, no crumpled napkins, not so much as a stray pool towel. “You wouldn’t know there was
a party here last night.”
“I had the cleaners come at eight this morning.” Charlie’s still kneeling, but he looks up at Simon and quirks a smile. “I
always do. It gets rid of anyone who crashed.”
That sounds like something Simon would do, or at least it would be if he had parties or allowed anyone other than Jamie to
sleep at his house.
“What was going on with the pictures last night?” Simon asks before he can think better of it. “And the stuff on Instagram?
Are you making fun of me in some way I haven’t figured out yet?”
Charlie gets to his feet and crosses his arms in a way that threatens to rip that poor shirt apart at the seams. “When I want
to make fun of you, I just make fun of you. For example, why are you dressed like a mime to walk the dog?”
Simon automatically glances down at himself. He’s wearing dark jeans and an orange striped boatneck that he stole from Jamie. The entire effect might be a little more Monaco Grand Prix 1955 than most people are comfortable with, but it barely even counts as a look.
“I run cold,” Simon says helpfully, “in case you’re wondering how a person can wear clothes that cover their entire body.”
He glances pointedly at the sliver of skin on Charlie’s side where his too-small shirt has ridden up.
“Should I just take it off?” Charlie asks, too amused.
“Nothing I haven’t seen a thousand times before. I’m contractually obligated to deal with your naked chest.”
“Not anymore, you aren’t. Anyway, with the pictures and stuff, I’m trying to do damage control in case people think it’s my
fault you’re leaving the show.”
“Why would anyone think that?”
Charlie laughs. “Why wouldn’t they? People are going to hear your name, and they’re going to think about Out There, and they’re going to remember the last time they heard gossip about Out There, which was when I wrecked the trailer and went to rehab.
Then they’re going to remember every rumor they heard about us not
getting along on set.”
“They’re just as likely to think that I got pushed out or that I flounced. There was an article in Variety last week.”
“I saw it. It makes us both look shitty.”
“Damage control isn’t a bad idea. Not that I’m definitely leaving right now,” Simon adds, not wanting Charlie to think he knows more than he does.
“But one of us is going to leave eventually. What you did is a good start.” Charlie preens a little.
“If anyone looks us up, they’ll see we interact.
That’s not what people do when they have longstanding professional grudges. But it isn’t enough.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
Simon absolutely does not, but he isn’t about to admit it. “We have two weeks until I need to be in New York. I guess we should
be seen together a few times. Lunch, maybe?” That isn’t going to be enough either. He isn’t sure how famous you have to be
for pictures of you eating lunch to be so newsworthy they make the rounds, but Simon definitely isn’t at that level. Still,
it’s a start.
They make plans to meet two days later for lunch at a restaurant that Charlie makes Simon pick because “you’re the one with
weird food issues.” He isn’t wrong.
“That place on Hillhurst and Price, the one with the patio?” Simon can’t remember the name—he just keeps track of nearby restaurants
that have outdoor seating so he can bring Edie.
“The one with the tiny pizzas or the one with the fancy fries?” Charlie asks.
“Fries.” It shouldn’t be a surprise that Charlie knows all the same restaurants. They’re practically neighbors, after all.
Only when they’re standing silently in Charlie’s foyer, nothing left to say to one another, does it hit Simon that this was
the first actual conversation they’ve ever had. Seven years of sniping and not a single conversation.
He scoops up Edie and makes an awkward retreat.
“As tempting as the offer is, no, I’m not coming on your friendship date,” Jamie says. “I’m cooking.”
There’s a butter wrapper face down on the floor, eggshells in the sink, and four bowls on the counter, each containing something gloopy looking. Simon wants to hose the entire room down immediately, preferably with bleach.
“It’s not a friendship date,” Simon mumbles.
Jamie gives Simon a once over, pointedly pausing on each garment. Peach cotton shirt embroidered with tiny flowers. Cream
colored pullover. Sandy twill pants. Penny loafers. A suede jacket that’s too warm to wear but which Simon will bring in an
emotional support capacity. Jamie’s ability to communicate “you’re wearing a mortgage payment’s worth of subdued neutrals
to eat sandwiches with your enemy” using only his eyes is kind of scary.
But all Jamie says is, “This is the best costume for today,” and Simon tries to look like someone who isn’t sagging with relief
at the approval.
Simon gets to the restaurant promptly, which means he sits in his car from 12:50 to 12:59. But when the clock turns over to
1:00, Charlie’s already there, sitting on a low wall outside the restaurant, wearing sunglasses and torn jeans, reading a
paperback with a dragon on the cover. Somehow, in the past two days, Charlie’s scruff has grown into an actual beard. Simon
wasn’t prepared for a beard.
“Oh, hey,” Charlie says, pulling off his sunglasses. Inside, he flashes the hostess a smile that has Simon almost flinching