Chapter Twenty-Two
“Is Edie coming?” Charlie asks while they’re getting ready to go uptown for network upfronts.
“She can stay here alone for a few hours. It’s fine. She has water and about fifteen hundred pillows.”
“No, I mean,” Charlie starts. “You’re happier when you have her with you.”
“I like my dog. Everyone likes their dog. But there isn’t anywhere to put a dog during these things. I can’t bring her out
onstage.”
“You could have a PA hold her leash for five minutes. If someone brought a service dog, that’s what would happen.”
“But she isn’t a service dog.”
Charlie doesn’t say anything. Charlie does, however, put on the sweater they bought yesterday during their stress shopping
expedition. Technically, Simon bought it while Charlie waited outside with Edie: a sea blue crew neck sweater in a cashmere
and linen blend, lightweight enough to wear all year. His thinking is that it’s emotionally identical to a T-shirt.
It’s also almost indecently soft, so Simon spends most of the car ride petting it.
He’s decided to deal with upfronts using the time-honored maladaptive coping mechanism of taking an edible and dissociating, so it isn’t his fault if the weave of Charlie’s sweater is just really important to him right now.
Simon is perfectly comfortable being onstage and reading lines. He doesn’t care whether the audience is filled with people
who bought a ticket to see a play or advertisers trying to decide whether Out There is worth spending money on. It’s just that in order to project an unholy level of excitement and charisma for five minutes,
he doesn’t need to be his smartest, soberest possible self. He can space out fully, be a passenger for this whole experience.
When they get to the theater, he and Charlie get hustled through a mysterious back entrance and dragged off for makeup, because
apparently they should have had that done at the hotel. This would ordinarily annoy Simon—they knew he wasn’t going to be
at the hotel, so don’t make this his problem—but instead he sips his iced coffee and wonders why oat milk tastes different
in New York than it does at home: a mystery.
He shakes hands and he smiles, and some man he’s probably met before acts like they’re friends. Simon just kind of stares
at his teeth—they’re amazing, science can do such wonderful things—until someone with a clipboard and a headset tries to corral
them toward a step-and-repeat backdrop so they can get photographed.
Simon feels a hand on the small of his back.
“First, we have to go to the other place,” Charlie says.
“The other place,” Simon says knowingly. “There.”
Charlie brings him to a mostly empty hallway. His sweater is the softest object on the planet. Simon knows this because he’s
leaning against it.
“Oh, buddy,” Charlie says, holding Simon at arm’s length and peering at him. “How many did you take?”
“Just one. I’m not—fuck off. I’m not high. I take this exact dose when I have a migraine coming.” Or sometimes when he has an anxiety spike or the urge to repeatedly
check his cabinets for rogue mug handles. “I’m just leaning into it.”
“Leaning into it,” Charlie says, amused. “Listen, I wanted to ask if it’s okay if I do this.” He puts his arm around Simon’s
shoulders. “Or this.” He drops his hand to Simon’s waist.
“Are you getting affirmative consent for putting your arm around me?” Simon asks, stunned.
“Babe, you can’t consent to shit right now.”
Simon gives him what he hopes is a scathing look.
“I meant, on camera,” Charlie says. “I would have asked before but I didn’t think of it until now. And, um, you didn’t seem
bothered by the picture yesterday.”
It slowly clicks into place what Charlie’s asking.
Yesterday, Charlie said he wasn’t specifically bothered by their relationship—or whatever—being made public, but he’d also
said that he wished he’d been able to choose who knew. This, apparently, is him taking control of the narrative. Or trying
to, at least.
It’s not like Charlie’s doing this in front of a huge audience. Nobody pays attention to these things, except for the live
audience and some media journalists. But the media journalists, bored out of their minds, are looking for anything even mildly
interesting to write about. If Charlie’s giving them that, they’ll take it.
Simon spends a solid two, maybe three, seconds deciding whether he has any objections to Charlie’s plan.
Does he care whether Charlie feels him up, subtly, on camera?
Not really. Does he care that every journalist he’ll talk to this summer for promo is going to say something like, “So, you and your costar Charlie Blake seemed awfully cozy,” and Simon will have to come up with professional ways to say what does it fucking look like?
“Sure,” Simon says. One thing about Charlie is that it’s never boring.
Charlie beams at him. It’s a smile Simon’s seen before, on the show, this whole face situation that unfurls slow and a little
crooked, crinkling his eyes. Even on set, it makes Simon feel drugged. And now that he is, in fact, slightly drugged, the
effect is too much.
“Oh my God, are you telling me that thing is real?” Simon asks, poking at Charlie’s face, like he might discover that the
smile is a hologram. “You’re just walking around with that inside you?”
Simon proceeds to put his entire being on autopilot while he smiles for the photographers. Occasionally Charlie’s arm is around
Simon’s shoulder, super casual, except for how sometimes he slips a finger beneath Simon’s collar. And sometimes his hand
lands at the small of Simon’s back. It’s exactly the same way Charlie’s been touching Simon in the apartment and on the street
for the past few days. Affectionate, but not overtly sexy. It just barely crosses the line out of platonic territory. It’s
nothing new.
Usually, what Simon does at this kind of event—anything where he has to appear as himself—is still acting: he’s playing the
role of Simon Devereaux. But today, every time Charlie touches him, the persona drops away, and he’s left there, under too-bright
lights, as nothing but himself.
He doesn’t know what to do with his face or his voice, doesn’t have the faintest idea what the blocking for this scene should even look like, so he has to get rid of the persona completely and just be Simon.
And if that means he has a hand clutching Charlie’s sweater, if it means he can’t quite stop looking at Charlie even when he’s supposed to be looking at the camera, then so be it.
When they go onstage and act wildly enthusiastic about the upcoming season of Out There, he must look nervous, because Charlie shoots him a questioning glance, an obvious should I back off.
He doesn’t want Charlie to think that, not for a minute, so there’s nothing to do but double down. By the time their bit
is done, Simon’s plastered against Charlie’s side and the network guy with all the teeth is looking at them with—well, Simon’s
about sixty percent sure it’s amusement, which could be worse.
After they’re done and the PA unclips their microphones, Charlie follows Simon into a bathroom, where Simon takes a face wipe
from his bag and uses it to get rid of the makeup. The products the makeup artist used today are different from what he’s
used to on Out There, so a full sensory nightmare is unfolding on his face. Charlie watches him like he’s doing something fascinating.
“How much of that was an act?” Charlie asks. “Here, give me that, you’re missing a spot.” He takes the wipe and dabs at Simon’s
temple.
Simon would laugh if it weren’t for how much he hates that this idea even crossed Charlie’s mind. “There was no acting involved,
except me acting like a—” Like a lovestruck idiot, but he isn’t quite ready to say that out loud. “I just didn’t hide anything.”
Then Charlie’s kissing him, or as much as you can kiss someone while you’re smiling. He tastes like terrible wrong-brand setting
spray, so Simon shoves a wipe at him until the makeup is gone, then lets Charlie press him up against the sink and kiss him
some more.
“I need to wash my hair,” Simon protests when Charlie has him up against the wall before the apartment door is even shut behind them.
“You need to wash your hair?”
“Whatever spray they used, I can feel it on my scalp.” Also, that makeup wipe was insufficient, and Simon’s skin is crawling.
Charlie follows him into the shower and proceeds to interfere with all Simon’s attempts at self-care.
“I swear to God, Charlie, if you can’t keep your hands to yourself for thirty seconds.” It’s not exactly unflattering just
how much Charlie can’t keep his hands off him. Simon’s not under any illusions that he looks his best soaking wet and lit
by an overhead blue-tinged CFL bulb.
Charlie makes it fifteen seconds, but Simon manages to get some conditioner in his hair.
When Charlie’s reasonably clean, Simon kicks him out so Simon can finish his shower in peace. Two minutes later, there’s knocking
on the door.
“Come on, you’re clean enough. What are you even doing?”
Simon attempts to ignore him. There’s more knocking. Edie barks. Simon starts laughing. There’s some pounding that at first
Simon thinks is Charlie escalating the bit, but which he then recognizes as the downstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling.
Charlie shouts, “Oh, calm down,” and now Simon’s laughing hard enough that he’s in pain. His sides ache. His face hurts. He’s
out of practice.
He’s glad to have the door between them because he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do.
He’s never felt so wanted, or so happy with it, and that’s probably because he’s only been with normal people who don’t bang on doors and make the neighbors mad, and honestly that’s on Simon.
Why would he ever think he could make anything work with normal people?
He turns off the shower.
The only way they even wind up seventy percent dry before getting into bed is because Simon does the job himself. Then Charlie’s
on top of him, and Simon stops complaining.