Chapter Nine
“A two-bedroom suite is always three times as nice as two single rooms,” Simon explains as he unlocks the door to the hotel
room he booked on the way from Dave’s house to the taqueria. The real reason Simon wanted the two-bedroom suite is that he
isn’t sure Charlie ought to be left alone tonight. He’s gone quiet and fidgety again.
The plan is to kill some time, order room service, go to sleep, and then in the morning—theoretically well-rested and less
stressed—Charlie will go to the police station and file a missing persons report. Maybe by then, one of the old men Charlie
contacted will get back to him with some idea of where Dave is.
“See,” Simon says when they’re standing in the main room of a fairly standard suite in a slightly upmarket chain hotel, “the
kitchen is much better than in a single.”
“You plan on a doing a lot of cooking tonight?” Charlie asks. It’s the first mean thing he’s said in hours, and it takes Simon
about three full seconds to clock that Charlie isn’t being mean at all. He isn’t exactly smiling, but he looks like maybe
he thinks it’s funny that Simon is pleased about a kitchen he’ll only use to brew stale hotel coffee.
Simon puts his bag in one of the two mostly identical bedrooms and shuts the door, then unpacks exactly what he’ll need for the next twelve hours: phone charger, pajama pants and a T-shirt to sleep in, that book he’s never going to finish, some clothes for tomorrow.
In the bathroom, he lines up his lotions in the correct order.
There’s something about the closed universe of one suitcase and one hotel room that makes Simon’s brain shut up for a little
bit. It’s not that his house makes him anxious so much as it is that in new places his brain hasn’t figured out what to be
anxious about.
He takes a shower. When he comes out, he sees that Charlie has already done the same thing. He’s sprawled across the living
room’s single couch, his hair wet, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Edie already caved in and ate the scrambled eggs Jamie made her for dinner,” Simon tells him.
“Is she going to be mad at you when you get back?”
“Oh, she won’t talk to me for days.”
Charlie grins. “Does she usually talk to you?”
Simon gives him the finger.
“Come on,” Charlie says, getting to his feet. He stretches, and since he doesn’t know how to buy clothes that fit, his shirt
rides up. Simon doesn’t bother looking away. “We need to watch some basic cable.”
“Why on earth would we do that?”
“Because we’re at a hotel. Gotta watch some weird television as part of the experience. Gotta use their remote control and
see ads for local news teams.”
That doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but then again, whenever Simon’s at a hotel in a new city, he finds himself watching the local morning news show, something that would never cross his mind to do at home. It’s like when he’s in a strange space, he forgets how to live his normal life.
Charlie’s walking toward the bedrooms.
“There’s a TV out here,” Simon points out.
“You have to watch the television in bed,” Charlie says. “That’s part of the experience.”
“Is mini-fridge wine part of the experience?”
When Charlie turns to look at him, there’s an odd look on his face, and it’s a few beats before he says anything. “For you,
maybe.”
“You don’t drink?” Simon thinks back to all the times he’s seen Charlie with a glass of clear liquid in his hand, and how
it never once occurred to him that Charlie might be using the same trick Simon does: a glass of seltzer with ice and a lime
wedge, a decoy for a mixed drink.
Charlie lets out an irritated huff. “You were there that first season. Rehab? Remember?”
“I knew there was . . .” Simon tries to phrase this as delicately and non-judgmentally as possible. “I knew there was a substance
abuse issue going on. But I didn’t realize there was any actual addiction.”
He isn’t even sure if there’s a meaningful difference. All he knows is that it is, possibly, a little strange that it never
occurred to him that Charlie was—what? In recovery? He knew Charlie must have made some changes, but never thought about what
that might have looked like. “Good for you,” he says.
“Good for me?” Charlie repeats, incredulous.
“For, uh. Dealing with the—thing?” Simon tries, cringing as soon as he says it.
“It’s okay, people always say something stupid at this point in the conversation. You shouldn’t feel too bad about yourself,” Charlie says, punctuating it with a sarcastic little tap on Simon’s shoulder.
“I’m trying to be nice,” Simon complains.
“You’re so bad at it. Have you ever tried before? Is this your first time? Should I be flattered?” Somehow, Charlie’s managing
to sound mean and hurt and fake-flirty all at once.
“Whatever. What’s your situation with other people’s substances? Do you need me to keep my pills someplace safe?” Simon’s
remembering what Charlie said in Simon’s trailer about locking up his meds. Simon’s emergency anxiety medication is infamously
addictive.
Charlie closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and looks like he’s trying not to do something regrettable. “I’m not gonna steal
your fucking pills, Simon.”
“I wasn’t implying that you were. But if you’d feel better if I flushed the benzos—”
“That’s bad for the water supply,” Charlie admonishes him. Simon wants to strangle him.
“Fuck the water supply and fuck you too. I’m trying to be supportive.”
At the taco restaurant, when Simon hadn’t been able to come up with the right thing to say, he’d touched Charlie. Well, he’d
kicked him, but same difference. He figures it’s worth another try in the name of not seeming like a jerk about literal addiction,
so he squeezes Charlie’s ridiculous arm. He does everything in his power to strip any bitchiness from his voice. “What you
did—what you’re doing—is hard. I respect it. Can you, just for the space of this conversation, assume I’m not a complete asshole?”
He’s made his point, or at least he’s tried to, so this is probably where he ought to let go of Charlie’s arm.
He thinks about it, even gets so far as to slide his hand maybe half an inch down toward Charlie’s elbow, then gets distracted.
They’re about the same height, but Charlie’s slouching against the door frame, looking up at Simon, bright blue eyes glittering in the unfortunate overhead lighting.
Charlie’s gone very still, like maybe he’s holding his breath. Simon watches his fingers attempt to span Charlie’s upper arm,
his own skin pale against the swirling black of Charlie’s tattoo.
“You’re impressed with me, are you?” Charlie says, voice quiet and smug and doing terrible things to Simon.
“You’re so embarrassing.” Simon still doesn’t drop his hand. Charlie’s so warm, and Simon wants to take a step closer. If
he had to bet, he’d say that Charlie wants him to take a step closer too. He might be a basket case on a good day, but he
can read a fucking room and he knows an invitation when he sees one. It’s the same as that moment at lunch, a silent acknowledgment
that they could.
It’s still shocking, a piece of information that doesn’t fit anywhere in Simon’s brain, and so it rattles around. They could,
and the reason they could is that they both want to.
“You,” Charlie says, his voice a little rough. He reaches a hand out to Simon but pulls it back. “You have a gray hair.”
“Ugh!” Simon spins out of Charlie’s reach and throws his hands up. “Way to ruin a nice moment, Charlie!”
“Oh, were we having a nice moment?” Charlie asks. Simon wants to push him out a window. “No, shut up. I noticed it this winter.
How could I not, dumbass? How many hours a day do I spend looking at you under studio lights? I’m not blind. Remember when
I had that pimple?”
Does Simon ever. They’d had to re-block everything to keep that thing away from the camera. “It was the size of my car,” Simon says. “How could I forget?”
“Anyway! My point is that I probably saw your stupid gray hair before you did.”
Simon doesn’t know what on earth that’s supposed to mean, except now he feels almost nostalgic, like he’ll have lost something
by not having Charlie’s eyes on him for hours a day.
Simon took the room with two double beds and left Charlie the room with one king bed, on the theory that Charlie is bigger
and could use the acreage. They pick Simon’s room, with its two beds, to watch television.
Charlie flicks through the channels, changing before Simon even knows what he’s watching. It would be annoying if Simon were
paying any attention. Instead he’s texting Jamie and trying not to think about Charlie, in bed, a few feet away.
“Oh, hey,” Charlie says. “Look.”
Simon knows what he’s going to see before he even looks up, because he can hear Alex’s voice as she shouts over the ship’s
communication system. Based on the red streaks in Alex’s hair, it’s an episode from the second season.
“She looks like a baby.” Simon doesn’t love the reminder that five years is a lot when your face is on a giant television.
He barely remembers this episode, so when the picture cuts to him harassing some actor he’d swear he’s never seen before—“Get
me the antidote, Callahan!”—he’s unprepared. Charlie’s on a stretcher.
It turns out that this is one of those rare episodes where he and Charlie aren’t in practically every scene together, and that’s only because Charlie’s supposed to be dying while Simon’s off finding space antidotes.
Unless Lian coerces him into attending a season finale watch party, Simon doesn’t watch finished episodes of Out There. He’s never seen this one, and for a minute it’s like he’s seeing something brand-new.
He’s a little surprised to find that he likes it, that maybe it’s a show he’d want to watch. Which is a stupid thought—he’d
signed on for Out There precisely because it’s the kind of show he likes. It’s just that at some point he’d forgotten.
“My hair was so short,” Charlie says, a little ruefully. On the screen, it’s barely peach fuzz. Now, Charlie’s hair curls
at his collar.