42
Simon
“You want to… to pay for what my brothers need?” A sum rose in Simon’s mind, amorphous and ever-changing. It was ridiculous to ask Harlow to do something like that, but Harlow’s eyes were honest—he meant what he’d said. “How can I ask you to pay for something like that?”
Humor tinged Harlow’s reply. “Consider it a raise?”
“Oh my god.” Pulled from his melancholy, Simon gave Harlow a look. “Really?”
“If Evie’s going back to acting, then… yeah.” Harlow’s expression persisted. The man was stubborn, Simon would give him that. “I’m going to need you back on my team, and even before we met and any of this happened, I was going to approach you about upping your rates, anyway. The work you do for me is worth more than you’re charging. Besides, if you come back to Los Angeles with me, you can consider it a bonus for all the moving around I’m going to have you do. You’ll have the potential to be mobile if you’re not living here, right? I can bring you with me wherever Evie goes, have you on standby in case we need something—or someone—investigated.”
“I…”
“And if that’s not enough—if you still think that they need your income to survive—maybe you should put Shep in contact with some of your business associates. With his skills, I doubt he’d have trouble earning at least a little extra money a month.”
Simon blinked, taken back by that statement. “Um… what?”
“Shep,” Harlow clarified. “When I spoke with Evie this morning, she told me that it was him who’d killed the power and wiped the security cameras. With those skills and a little combat training, he’ll have a career waiting for him the second he graduates high school. Hell, even without the muscle to back him up, he probably wouldn’t have a hard time finding work. I’m pretty sure he’d be ushered into the EOD training pipeline if he was willing to put in the work.”
Simon’s world slowed. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear his head, but it didn’t help—his thoughts spiraled, twisted, collided.
Shep.
All the time he spent alone in his room, listening a little too loudly to music and staying up a little too late, hadn’t been because he was too caught up in video games or chatting with friends online. In the last year, since they’d built Shep’s powerhouse of a computer together, since Shep had discovered Simon’s old codes and programs, he hadn’t just learned programming and coding—he’d excelled at it. To have the know-how not only to program a remotely activated device, but to understand how to build one? How to apply it? To sneak into a convention hall andplantthose devices?
Simon’s head spun.
Shep—snarky, moody, apathetic Shep—had given enough of a fuck to learn how to create something so intricate? Where had he gotten the parts from? Who had he gone to for resources? Had he been careful to cover his digital footprints? What other schemes was he up to, and what other projects had he carried out?
If he was up to black hat activities—which he certainly was, if he knew how to sneak into buildings and wipe the memory on security cameras—then Simon needed to talk to himimmediatelyabout digital security. Shep, as arrogant as any teenage boy, was likely cutting corners, thinking he was too good to get caught. Simon couldn’t let that fly.
Worried, he went to stand, but Harlow grabbed his wrist and held it loosely, holding Simon in place. “Simon?”
“I… I need to go talk to Shep,” Simon told him. “I didn’t know that he was capable of that, and I need to talk to him about… about the consequences of his actions.”
“Another minute isn’t going to hurt you.” Harlow released his wrist. His touch had never been unkind, but its suddenness had jolted Simon out of his fear. “Before you go, tell me… will you accept my offer? Whatever it is your brothers need, I’ll provide it. I don’t want to leave you behind, Simon. I don’t want this to have to end.”
Simon didn’t, either. The thought that Harlow would have to leave so soon made Simon sick, but life was about more than what he wanted. Want was a greedy, demanding thing… but in this moment, it was tempting. So tempting.
“I…” The syllable was paper thin. It would tear in two if Simon wasn’t careful. “I…”
Silence won. Simon closed his mouth, unable to continue. If he said yes, he would betray the family who counted on him. After everything they’d been through together, he couldn’t leave Jayne and Shep behind. They’d fought too hard to stick together to be split apart now.
Harlow’s cheery aura turned gloomy. He spoke quietly, as if afraid to ask what he needed to ask. “There’s no way to change your mind, is there?”
Simon shook his head. “No.”
“I—”
Bare feet struck the kitchen tile, hurried, frantic. Simon looked up to find Shep standing a few feet from the table, ruffled from sleep and visually distressed. His forehead was creased and his eyes were wild, like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have seen. But, worse, his lips were thin and his jaw was stiff, held at a nearly unnatural angle.
Something was wrong.
“Simon?” Shep’s voice wobbled syllable to syllable, sometimes overly sharp, sometimes barely enunciated. “I… I need to talk… to you.”
“What’s wrong?”
Shep looked at Harlow, distressed, then made a wild, senseless gesture with his arm. When Simon did nothing, Shep clenched his teeth and balled his fists. Simon saw the tears in his eyes too late.
