7
Simon
The doorknob was no longer on the floor—it hung precariously from the bore hole, like Shep believed that simply placing it in the vicinity of the knob set would be enough to fix it. Simon scrunched his nose and reached for it with a single finger extended, touching the rounded metal fixture with the barest exertion of pressure. It toppled from where it had been set and clattered to the floor all over again. The door, as if protesting this inconvenience, edged forward until it bumped against the fallen knob and came to a stop. When Shep didn’t try to wrench it shut, Simon cleared the knob away from the door with the toe of his socked foot, then guided it the rest of the way open.
Shep was still inside, and so was the hooded girl. Both of them were seated on Shep’s bed, Shep’s chest pushed out, his brows furrowed, and his lips tight, while the girl sat with too-proper posture, her shoulders stiff and her expression worried. She kept her gaze averted, her eyes perpetually set on a corner of the room, as if Shep’s overflowing laundry basket was a source of endless mysteries. There was something about her—the slope of her dainty nose, the pretty Cupid’s bow of her lips, or the almond shape of her eyes—that struck Simon as hauntingly familiar. Had she been one of the friends Shep had brought home when he was younger, back when they were still living at the house? Simon searched his memory, but came up blank. The details of those days were lost to time, blurred together incomprehensibly, or discarded completely. All that was left was the stifling present.
The stress, the regret, and the sorrow.
“Can I come in?” Simon asked.
Shep crossed his arms over his chest and glowered. “Are you going to give me a choice?”
“No, not really.” Simon stepped into the room and slotted his fingers through the bore hole, guiding the door shut as best he could. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
“I brought a friend home,” Shep replied stiffly. “You told me I could, so if you’re going to get shitty about it, it makes you a liar.”
Shep’s friend tore her gaze from the laundry basket, her lips pinched and her brow furrowed. “Shep,” she hissed. “Be nice! He’s letting me stay here.”
With a roll of his eyes, Shep faced Simon again. He crossed his arms and slouched, but his grumpy expression didn’t change. “Sorry.”
Simon had never heard an apology less sincere in his life.
“You’re not shitty, I guess,” Shep continued. If his eyes could unscrew from their sockets, they likely would have fallen out of his face and rolled across the floor. The more he spoke, the less Simon believed him. “So… are we good? I have my friend here like you and Jaynebothsaid I could. If you’re mad that the doorknob broke, then I can figure out a way to fix it later. Fulch won’t ever know it happened.”
Maurice Fulch—Moe—was in his sixties, and unremarkable to the point of invisibility. He was the kind of man who seemed to glide down a hallway rather than step, silent in everything he did, and sneaky when he couldn’t be silent. More than once, Simon had been on his way out the door, confident that he was alone, only to turn around after locking the apartment to find Moe standing a little too close behind him, pale blue eyes hungry and lips curled into a little telling smile that said, “Gotcha.” Simon was fairly confident that, if given the chance, Moe would bend him over the railing in the stairwell and fuck him senseless. Moe avoided Jayne, likely because Jayne wouldn’t put up with his bullshit for a single second, but Simon hadn’t been able to shake him.
From time to time, especially as paranoia set in during his heat, Simon had nightmares where Moe’s potbelly brushed against his back, and the balmy breeze of his breath brushed against the back of his ear.You want to know how you can pay rent this month, pretty boy?
The memory alone made Simon shiver.
If they couldn’t fix the doorknob, it’d be Simon’s job to let Moe into the apartment to assess the damages while Jayne was at work and Shep was at school. Shep knew he wanted nothing to do with that, and he was trying to use the offer of repair as leverage to get Simon off his case.
What the hell was going on? Simon glanced at Shep’s strangely familiar friend, then back at his brother. There were pieces to this puzzle he was missing, and he couldn’t let whisperings of Moe distract him from what was going on.
“It’s not that you brought a friend home that’s the issue. Neither is the broken doorknob.” Simon prepared himself for an argument. Trying to make his point to a teenager, he’d quickly learned, was an exhaustive exercise with very little reward. “The issue is that you slammed the door and stormed through the house when Jayne asked you to be quiet, then fought me when I politely asked you what was going on.”
“There’s nothing polite about coming into someone’s room when you weren’t invited there in the first place,” Shep fired back. His eyes narrowed argumentatively, and he planted his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward, drilling holes through Simon’s head with his gaze. While Shep was often confrontational, he’d never gone to this extreme before. The puffed chest, the tough guy act, the sullen behavior, the aggressiveness…
An idea struck Simon, and he blurted it out before he had time to consider it. “Are you trying to impress her?”
Shep bristled. The girl at his side did her best to keep a straight face, but Simon noticed her lips twitch upward. At last, she looked Simon’s way and raised a brow playfully. The tension disappeared from her shoulders. “If that’s what he’s trying to do, he’s going about it all wrong. The Shep I know is sweet—he isn’t some surly, growly asshole who treats his brother like shit.”
“I’m not a growly asshole!” Shep shot back, scooting back on the bed so he could face her and plead his case. “I just don’t want Simon sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He’s going to try to find an excuse to get you to leave, even though I asked if it was okay if you come over and stay.”
“Shep…” Simon looked between him and his friend, doing his best to treat the situation with as much sensitivity as he could. It was clear that Shep was interested in the girl he’d brought home, but whether or not she was interested in him was still anybody’s guess. It was sad, in a way, and Simon felt pity for his brother. He knew what it was like to want someone so badly that common sense became an afterthought. He’d embarrassed himself more times than he could count trying to act cool around Harlow.
“Don’t say that it’s not true.” Shep scowled. “I know that’s what you’re trying to do. You thought I was going to bring home a dude friend, didn’t you? But now that it’s a girl, you don’t want her to stay. That’s sexist, Simon. You’resexist.”
“Shep,” his friend said with a sigh. “You’re really grasping at straws here… can we give Simon a chance to speak his mind instead of putting words in his mouth?”
Whoever Shep’s friend was, Simon was grateful for her. Not only was she fantastic at keeping Shep in line, but it seemed she had a good head on her shoulders. What was her parents’ secret? There had to be something Simon was missing—a way of speaking, or acting, or being that would tame Shep’s behavior and turn him into a respectable young man. Maybe he’d give up his parking space and offer to drive Shep’s friend home at the end of the night. If it meant meeting her parents and maybe gaining a valuable contact, it was worth the trek back home from parking in Siberia.
“It’s just… it’s complicated,” Shep said, partially to his friend and partially to Simon. It was difficult to tell where his focus lay—his gaze darted back and forth between them. “All of this is super complicated, and I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Can we let it go for now and talk about it tomorrow, Simon?” Shep’s gaze came to rest on him, his eyes softened with genuine regret. “I’m really sorry for what I did, I swear. If you want to punish me or whatever, you can do it tomorrow. Just… not here, okay? Evie’s had a really long day and she needs to rest. I know that what I did was wrong, but don’t punish her for what I did.”
Shep’s selflessness took Simon by surprise. Gawking, he looked to Evie for clues and found her cheeks had turned pink. A small, pleased smile shone on her face, and there was a sparkle of her eyes that betrayed the fact that she was flattered and impressed by what Shep had said.
Stunned further, Simon stared at Shep. “Shep, is Evie your—”
