Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“I missed you,” Simon says, because it’s true and he hasn’t said so yet, even if the fact that he’s burrowed himself into
Charlie’s chest might have made it obvious.
“You probably liked having some space.”
They’ve established a few times that Simon doesn’t want space. Space is Simon’s enemy, and Charlie knows it, so this is just
Charlie asking for reassurance.
“God no,” Simon says, his lips moving against Charlie’s T-shirt. “I complained to Jamie until he suddenly remembered something
he had to do in San Diego for a few days.” This is a slight exaggeration. Jamie probably did have something to do in San Diego,
but Simon’s not imagining the way he ran for his car like a fugitive fleeing police dogs.
Charlie starts laughing, always cheered by stories of Simon being embarrassing. “Does that mean your house is empty?”
Simon can’t imagine who else Charlie thinks would be at Simon’s house. “Sure. Want to come over?” he asks, assuming this is what Charlie’s getting at.
Charlie’s quiet, still except for his fingers tracing circles on Simon’s lower back. “I kind of hate it here. I mean. Not
all the time. But right now it’s empty, and tonight . . .”
“I wasn’t going to leave you alone,” Simon says, a little offended. He brought Edie’s bed and some dog food. “But please come
to my place. I have ingredients for you to make smoothies, and I bought a few extra of those bath sheets you like.” He was
going to bring the bath sheets to Charlie’s, but he’s getting the feeling that isn’t the right move at all. “And I want you
to come over, so you should, just to make me happy.”
“Yeah?” Charlie sounds perfectly casual. Only his hand, tightening on Simon’s hip, gives anything away.
For Charlie, being welcomed into someone’s home—being asked, being wanted—might mean something different than it does for
most people. Simon thinks about Charlie sitting at the kitchen counter of Simon’s sublet, nervously waiting for an invitation
to stay overnight. Or, later, waiting for Simon to ask him to change his flight and stay a few more days. Simon feels like
his heart is being run over by a car.
Simon gets it together and lifts his head up so he can see Charlie’s face. “I gave you the code to the door and cleared out
half the garage for your car. I don’t keep enormous canisters of bespoke protein powder in my kitchen for just anyone.”
“Did you get the chocolate flavor?”
“Obviously.” He slips a hand into Charlie’s pocket and pulls out his phone, then shoves it toward Charlie’s face. “It’s your
turn to pick where we order dinner from.”
“Why do you look like you’re about to cry?”
“A trick of the light. An optical illusion. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t get up if you don’t let go of me.”
“Sounds fake.”
Charlie gets to his feet, hauling Simon along with him.
Only later, after they’ve had dinner and watched an unmemorable movie, and Charlie’s unpacked his suitcase directly into Simon’s
washing machine, does Charlie start to unwind. The grumpiness and prickliness gradually slough off.
“Thank you,” Charlie says, low, grabbing Simon’s arm as they’re passing one another in the kitchen. “Nobody’s ever done this
for me before.”
Simon doesn’t know exactly what Charlie means, but he’s probably referring to how Simon basically grafted himself onto Charlie’s
body for a few hours.
“I want you to have what you need,” Simon says. “Because when I think of you not having what you need, I feel—” His voice
is wobbly and he takes a minute to steady himself, his fingers hooked tight in the belt loops of Charlie’s jeans. “The idea
of you being eight or twelve and not knowing whether there’s a place where you belong or a person who’s going to take care
of you—that’s the worst thing I can think of, okay? Is this too much? I don’t need to emote all over you.”
Charlie uses Simon’s arm to reel him in, close enough that Simon doesn’t have to make eye contact anymore. “You. Uh. You can
keep going,” Charlie says. There’s a hint of a question in there, the faintest doubt, like maybe Simon won’t keep going, like
there’s any universe where Simon isn’t going to do whatever Charlie asks right now.
“Is this because you want me to say nice things or because you want to hear me embarrass myself?”
“Yes,” Charlie says.
“Look. I’m glad I get to know this side of you. This part of you is worth knowing. I think you don’t know that.” Simon would
like to hide right now, but he can’t, so he buries his face in Charlie’s neck. “And that part of you deserves a place to belong
and be looked after.” Thank you for letting me do that, is what he’s supposed to say. “And if you think I’m letting anyone else do that,” he says instead, “you’re out of your fucking
mind.”
Maybe he got it right, because Charlie lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, and his arms tighten around Simon.
“I didn’t realize she was pregnant,” Simon says about an hour and a half into Petra’s wedding, when he finally realizes what’s
going on with her dress.
“She said so in the group chat,” Alex says from the seat next to him. “Like five hundred times. She has a registry.”
“We got her crib sheets from that linen place all your podcasts are obsessed with,” Charlie says.
The vows portion of the event is over, thank God, because even Charlie’s arm, steady on the back of Simon’s chair, isn’t enough
to make the spectacle of people voluntarily crying in public something Simon wants to experience.
He says as much to Alex as they’re eating tiny little pastry things the waiters are bringing around on trays.
“You’re a dick,” she points out. “But, like, same.”
“I love weddings,” Charlie says.
Alex boos him, so Simon doesn’t have to.
They’re at a giant house on the beach that gets rented out for weddings. Petra’s new husband has approximately five million family members and they’re all here. An elderly Filipino woman called Simon handsome, so Simon thinks Petra’s married up.
“It’s an excuse for dressing up,” Charlie says. He’s wearing a suit that looks like it was tailored by someone who knew what
they were doing. “And dancing.”
It’s true: people are, unfortunately, dancing. Charlie raises an eyebrow and tips his head to the dance floor.
“I can be obvious and slutty standing perfectly still,” Simon says. “It’s a gift. Dance with Alex.”
Charlie’s driving home, so Simon takes a flute of champagne from the next tray that passes by. He puts on his migraine glasses,
even though he knows it’s going to make him look like an asshole, but there’s too much happening at this party, lighting-wise.
Then he finds a seat at an empty table and settles back in his chair, watching Charlie dance with Alex, with Petra, with a
bridesmaid and two of the groomsmen. He dances slow songs, he dances fast songs. He twirls the flower girl around. It takes
about four songs for his jacket and tie to go missing, and another for his sleeves to get rolled up.
There’s something about the sight of Charlie having fun that beams joy directly into Simon’s dopamine receptors.
People from the show, or who used to be involved with the show, keep coming up to say hello to Simon but they don’t linger
(probably because of the glasses, and also his body language and entire personality). He says what he’s supposed to say and
tries to look friendly about it.
It turns out that he knows a lot of people who want to talk to him, or at least want it enough to cross a room. He’s been experimenting with the idea that maybe not everyone resents being around him. Maybe his coworkers like him. It’s possible.
Lately, Simon feels like he’s taking up more space, spreading out, letting himself care about people, letting himself think
he might matter to them too.
But, right now, what he has is a handful of people he loves, and who love him back, and that’s enough.
On the way home, Charlie starts clenching the steering wheel and cracking his knuckles and finally comes out with, “I don’t
think I’ll ever want kids.”
Simon’s glad they aren’t looking at one another because he doesn’t think anyone ever needs to bear witness to whatever his
face just did. He’s never had this conversation with anyone he’s been involved with. He’s not sure what made Charlie say something,
whether it’s Petra being pregnant, or if he’s worried Simon saw him dancing with the flower girl and got some ideas. All that
really matters is that Simon answers the implied question.
“Well, I definitely won’t, so that works out nicely.”
“I didn’t think so, but. You know.” Meaning, Charlie wanted to check because that’s mission critical information in a long-term
relationship. Which, obviously, is what this is, but any verbal reminder of this sends Simon into emotional outer space for
a few minutes.
But Charlie shouldn’t have to be the only one dealing with this sort of relationship housekeeping, if for no other reason than that Simon refuses to let Charlie be better at relationships than he is (even though Charlie is absolutely better at relationships than he is).
Probably there’s some normal and sane way to share your feelings but Simon isn’t normal and he’s pretty sure he’s only part-time sane, so his current strategy is to occasionally take the entire garbage can of his thoughts and feelings and dump it into Charlie’s lap.
“I kind of don’t see the point of marriage,” Simon says, and Charlie makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and being
strangled to death. And, okay, they’ve been together for two or three months, depending on who’s asking. Maybe it’s too soon
to talk about this, but Charlie started it. “Just going through the list of stuff you’re supposed to talk about when you’re
in love or whatever,” Simon says, a little defensive. “You started it.”
“Serious question: Are you trying to kill me?”
“What can I say, I’m playing a long game, Charlie. When seven years of bickering didn’t end your life, I had to get creative.”
“Do you want to stop at that food truck with the lobster rolls? I think it’s open late.”
Simon does, so he takes out his phone and puts in their orders, plus another to bring home to Jamie.
“I don’t really care about marriage either,” Charlie says.
“It’s administratively convenient,” Simon points out, feeling like maybe he shouldn’t disparage the institution on the way
home from a wedding. “I’ve never lived with a partner.”
“I haven’t slept at my house in weeks.”
“Mmm,” says Simon, who’s pretending to be very chill and relaxed and normal about how, after coming home from Utah, Charlie’s
been a fixture in Simon’s house.
“I only go home to use my gym.”
“Mmm,” Simon repeats.
“My PlayStation is in your living room. I keep waiting for you to tell me to go home.”
Simon gives up. “Do you not remember what I said about wanting to keep you locked in my basement?”
“You don’t have a basement,” Charlie says, sounding like a man who’d happily fling himself into the first available codependence
dungeon. Like he’d dig one himself.
Jamie’s still living with Simon, which means there are two people around to see the truth, two people who see all the cracks
in the facade. Which is terrible, obviously, and Simon wants to hide in the bathroom on an existential level, but also—it’s
two people he doesn’t have to pretend around. It feels like a secret club.
When they pull up to the food truck, Simon waits in the car while Charlie gets their food. Simon lowers the window and takes
a minute to watch Charlie walk away, handsome in his suit. Halfway there, he turns around and grins at Simon over his shoulder.
It’s one of those rare, easy, sunshine moments, even in a dark parking lot, bad music playing tinnily from inside the food
truck, no aesthetics whatsoever.
When Charlie gets back into the car, he drops the food into the back seat, puts his soda in the cup holder, and gives Simon
a funny look. It’s only when he leans in for a kiss that Simon realizes he’s smiling. Just sitting in a parked car in the
middle of the night, smiling like a loon.
But why shouldn’t Simon smile? He’s happy, and Charlie’s smiling back—a little tentative, like he can’t quite believe this.
“We’re good,” Simon says, not quite sure what he means, but knowing that Charlie will hear everything behind it.
“Yeah, I know,” Charlie says, kind of wonderingly, so Simon kisses him again.