Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
I bet Simon’s living room furniture was dead nice, but I wasn’t going to see it. Down the steps at the far end of the long platform, out of the station, Simon turned us towards Waterloo along the river walk, through the tunnel. We fell into stride, looking at each other more than the way ahead.
I didn’t care who I barged into, I wasn’t breaking eye contact this time. There was too much of him to figure out.
“Where now?” I asked.
Simon shrugged. “Your idea. You tell me.”
I hadn’t had a plan beyond catching up with him and finding out what had made him shoot out of the meeting room so fast. He was the social media guru – I barely ever updated mine.
“Erm. You fancy an ice cream?” The South Bank had all kinds of food stalls up by Festival Hall. There had to be an ice cream van in this heat, or someone was missing a trick. “That’d be all date-like, wouldn’t it?”
Simon gave a sigh, almost smiling. “Would it?”
“When I steal your flake it will be. Come on. Couple of snaps and Mel’s happy again.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” Grouchy Simon was new. Maybe he only came out in the middle of sleep deprivation and personal disasters.
The tiny wheels of his free-rolling suitcase rutted into the gaps between the square concrete pavers, stalling him and his bag every three and a half steps, ratcheting his frustration visibly higher.
“Here, let me.”
Telescoping the handle back into the body of the bag, I hoiked the miniature case up before he could argue. Carrying it one handed was easy enough. It wasn’t heavy.
“Thanks,” Simon bit out, more grudging than sincere, but he didn’t snatch it back.
“Missed going to the gym at the weekend, didn’t I? So, you’re doing me a favour.”
Our knuckles dusted together as we passed the narrow bit by the OXO tower, and then Simon’s fingers snaked between mine and stayed put.
And then we were wandering along the dappled path under sap-sticky trees like holding hands was not completely out of the ordinary for either of us. If I didn’t mention it, maybe he’d never let me go and never stop looking at me like that, either.
“You realise Mel’s trying to change who you are to suit the narrative?” Simon said. His barely reined in irritation didn’t make sense.
“That why you got so bent out of shape in the meeting?”
“I don’t understand why you’re not. She took one look at us and decided no one would buy us being together. It’s ridiculous.” Simon’s jaw rippled like that required avenging, rather than being common sense, good instincts. He practically gnashed his teeth.
And I didn’t get it.
“Course she did. Who’s going to buy us being together without a fake sex tape?” The back of my neck went hot. Nothing to do with the anaemic sun and everything to do with his incredulity. “You’re all... You. And I’m me. Look at us. It doesn’t make sense.”
Simon’s face stayed impassive, unconvinced. For a solidly uncomfortable ninety–five years he didn’t say a thing.
Maybe I’d mumbled. No way I wasn’t speaking sense.
“Did I go too Geordie on you?”
“No,” he said. “I followed perfectly.”
“Oh.”
A bustle of tourists gathered around the restaurants and pop-up food huts, but Simon steered us past them. Conversation forcibly halted until he looked at me again, and then he didn’t pick it up.
Which meant I had to.
“How can you be mad about Mel thinking that? You don’t want to date anyone anyway.”
I earned myself a heavy exhale.
“Really? It’s got nothing to do with my dating habits.” Simon’s lips thinned like he wasn’t sure he wanted to let the next part out. “Ben, you’re the only reason I’m not neck deep in shit over this. And Mel can’t be bothered to remember your name. I wouldn’t even be working for her without you.”
I made a face. “Of course you would. You’re amazing.”
He made a face right back. “Don’t deflect.”
“Simon…”
“No. It’s not okay for anyone to treat you like a disposable asset. You shouldn’t think it’s okay for anyone to treat you like that.”
Was this how he saw me? Unable to stand up for myself if I wanted to. My pulse rocked through me too loud, too hard. “It’s just a name. It doesn’t matter.”
He was blowing this out of proportion. Wasn’t he?
“It absolutely matters.” Outraged had a face. It was on Simon. “It’s always something with her. You wait– she’ll have a revised biography for you she thinks is more consumer friendly. Statistically sympathetic. Less working class.”
I flinched.
“And, what?” My voice dipped too quiet. “You’d rather everyone saw me as a proper bit of rough?”
“No!” His eyes flared round and wide.
Despite the crowds around us, silence hummed.
On Friday all I’d had to do was sit in the corner and translate.
Now, it was identity politics all over the bloody place.
And he was looking at me like I’d been the one who needed rescuing this whole time.
Suddenly his suitcase weighed twice what I could bench.
“Ben, you’re not a bit of rough.”
“Sure about that are you?” He could talk himself up, but he was slumming it with me the same way Luke had been. But Simon didn’t think he had to admit it when he’d framed the situationship so tightly none of it was supposed to mean a thing. I tried for a laugh.
“You don’t want to sleep with me for real.
Just for pretend, right?” I was fine with that.
I’d always been fine with that. There was no other option.
“You’re moaning about no one buying us together, but you’d rather act like it’s not even happening if you don’t have to.
I don’t care - everyone sees me like that. But you can’t have it both ways.”
He stopped walking like he’d stepped in wet concrete. Our hands pulled apart.
“Our arrangement has nothing to do with me not wanting it to happen.”
Sweat beaded from my palm onto the padded handle of his case. Any minute now I’d drop it, and break my own toes.
So I set it down, turning to face him again. “No?”
Behind him, one of the black-painted lampposts dotted along the railings gating off the river set him into shade. The heavy square stone base supported ugly, twining fish at the bottom of the metalwork, fresh off a map marked Here be Dragons. How bloody apt.
“No.” Storm clouds circled. “Listen to me.” Simon held my eye, but his mouth twisted, searching for the words.
And then he started signing instead, slower than he’d been speaking, taking his time to reach for the right signs, warping the flow of his sentences.
“It used to feel like winning, when I got this job, and I’d finally done enough to have a seat at the table.
One that wasn’t conditional on me being only inoffensively Black and only technically deaf.
Only acceptably eccentric. And then you turned up, and it felt different. ” Static buzzed.
“What?”
“I like you.”
Time stopped. There had to be a but. He cannot have meant it the way I wanted him to. The memory of his signs still hung in the air, his expression tugging at the edges of his features like it wasn’t done with him yet.
Simon stepped towards the river railings, out of the flow of pedestrians, grimacing like the words were painful to find, even signing them. “You’re straightforward – you get it. Get me. You don’t make everything… needlessly complicated.”
Oh what a joke. I was lying through my lying teeth to him about wanting more than a quick fumble.
All I wanted in the world was to make him smile and mean it all the way through for once, and I couldn’t even tell him.
Because I was the kind of shit who listened to his clearly stated boundaries, and still thought he might want more than sex if I hung around long enough.
“It’s not complicated.” My hands jittered with adrenaline, but I trusted my voice even less than my signs. I could school my face – show him the agreement he wanted to see. I had nothing else to give him.
“It shouldn’t be.” Simon’s nostrils flared.
“But it’s always been too much hassle for most people.
You get it. You’re easy to be around. So, there.
I said it. I like you. But I’m not going back on anything.
I don’t date anyone.” So why was he looking at me like he blamed me?
“And even if I did, we couldn’t, so it’s a moot point. ”
Over his shoulder, muddy river water swirled and shimmered in the sunshine. Everything sparkled. The day was way too bright for all of this confusion. I’d moot his bloody point.
“Explain that to me again, yeah? Because all this – you telling me you like me, getting het up about Mel, strolling along the river holding hands – it’s a bit fucking confusing.”
Simon groaned painfully low. “I know. Okay? That’s why you shouldn’t even be here.”
“Bugger that. You like me. I like you. I want to be here.”
He sagged against the railings, all the complicated thoughts in his head visibly failing to knit together. His fingers smoothed over his hair in a tight little motion, drawing himself together, finding order. “Ben, I’m your boss.”
He said that like it was supposed to be the final answer.
I squared in front of him. Westminster Bridge sloped over his shoulder – a low expanse of undecorated concrete, made even starker compared to the overly decorative fish on the lamppost next to him. “Yeah. I know. And?”
“And there’s an inherent power imbalance between us.
I pay you. That’s what. And – as if that wasn’t bad enough – I cannot function at work without you.
Did I not spell that out clearly enough?
” He shook his head bitterly. “I’m not entirely sure who even has the upper hand here, but it’s a clusterfuck whichever way you look at it.
We can’t ever do anything other than mess around.
There is so much co-dependence between us we shouldn’t even be doing that. ”
Why had I opened my stupid mouth? He was right about clusterfuck.
“Simon?” I signed, flowing through the rhythm of the letters of his name on autopilot, and his eyebrows hitched in question.
Sucking in a rib-achingly huge breath, I held it. I’d spent yesterday way too into faking a sex tape with him. Had merrily bounded into bed with him on a tissue paper thin excuse. Did he seriously think I didn’t want to do any of it again?
“You can do whatever you like with me.”
Simon made a face.
“Look at me.” Borrowing a move from his playbook, I touched his jaw, angling his face towards mine. My thumb fitted into the dimple in his chin like it was always meant to. “I want you to.”
His throat shifted, bobbing as he swallowed and he pushed my hand away. “You don’t get it.”
“I really, really don’t.”
“What if I was into something horrible, and you thought you had to agree or lose your job?” His thumb smoothed along my cheekbone so deliberately it felt like he was holding himself back.
“Like what?” Simon wasn’t that guy. Whatever else he got up to, I trusted him to do right by me.
“I don’t know…” Exasperation rose in his voice. “Deep-fry your testicles?”
“That’s a bit...” dick-wiltingly unsexy. “Off side?”
Out on the river, tourist boats shuttled back and forth. My brain buzzed blank static. “Do you want to deep-fry my testicles?”
“No.” A ripple of frustration chased across the muscles of his jaw. “But getting you to participate in a sex tape is pretty much on a par.”
To think, yesterday going on about Jonathan Creek murder rooms had seemed like crossing a line. I sniggered, and tried to stuff it down. I could picture him standing in Richard’s giant kitchen, with a pan on the hob, apron on.
“Don’t. You only agreed because you didn’t want to be fired, which makes me a total creep.”
“No…” I grimaced. “Okay, maybe? But seriously, you don’t look like a cannibal.”
“Tell me Ben,” his brow arched up, all superior and hoity, like he thought he’d won. “What do cannibals look like? You have no idea what I might force you into. That’s my point.”
I wanted to throttle him. One minute he was all vengeful towards Mel because she’d dared to make my name more interesting, and now he was telling me we shouldn’t even be messing about in case he went power mad.
“Simon. If you decide to Hannibal Lecter me because I didn’t explicitly say I expect not to be cannibalised, I will take full responsibility.
Scout’s honour. All that garbage. But right now, the way I see it, we’re just two blokes who happen to be pretending to be dating for career purposes, who’d quite like to get off. ” I swallowed. “Aren’t we?”
He eyeballed me like he expected the truth to geyser out if he stared long enough. But who needed romance? This man cared so much about doing right by me he’d burn his own life to the ground instead of taking advantage.
“You’re impossible. Ben I’m trying to get you to understand how morally reprehensible I’m—”
“Oh fuck that narrative.”
I rolled him against the high stone base of the nearest lamppost, and all the air oomphed out of his lungs.
“—being.”
I pinned him, stretching up to kiss under the sharp corner of his jaw and his hands dragged down the line of my spine, pulling me into the core of him on this gloriously surprised little “oh”.
“Yeah. Alright.” I leaned back, so I knew he could read me. “You’re reprehensible.”
The world narrowed – just him and me, humming like a tuning fork, vibrating from the buzz of sheer chemistry anywhere our body heat bled together.
A double-decker bus roared past, up on the bridge a hundred yards away, throwing out diesel fumes. Eau de duck pond wafted up from the low tide mud. I tongued bluntly at the pulse jumping in his neck, guarding my teeth until I wanted to bite him too much.
Maybe it didn’t matter if I was a disaster if he liked it. Maybe he didn’t need me to be perfect. Maybe I didn’t need romance at all, as long as we got to sort this mess out together.
Simon fisted my bum hard enough to make me gasp. I peeled back, angling to look at him.
“And, I’m well upset about all this.”
“You should be.”
“I am. Full-on devastated.”
Simon laughed. My skin prickled under the dip of his eyes, tracking the bob of my Adam’s apple, and the way he waited, like it was obvious to him I hadn’t finished speaking. Like he wanted to know what conclusion I’d come to. This was what being listened to felt like.
“So,” I whispered, “I really think you’d better take me home.”