17
Simon
Silence descended upon the room like night sweeping across a valley—Simon watched its effects spread, settle, and plunge the room in chilling stillness. If it weren’t for the fire burning in Jayne’s eyes, he would have thought that time itself had been embarrassed by his declaration and frozen in solidarity.
“You… what?” Jayne asked, his anger brought down to a quiet simmer.
“I’ve decided that Evie can s-stay.” Simon swallowed hard, certain that he was seconds away from being yelled at. He hadn’t wanted to get involved, but what choice did he have? If no one else would take a stance, he would have to make the decision. “I would rather Shep be s-safe than… than unprepared, you know?”
“Have you lost your mind?” Jayne squinted at him, the scrutiny in his gaze too much to handle. Simon crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his head. His nose throbbed, and he wished that Harlow had brought him back the bag of broccoli after it had fallen. “He must have given you a concussion. There’s no way that you wouldeverthink that this is okay. Shep issixteen.”
“And I was nineteen when Mom and Dad died,” Simon murmured. He couldn’t find it in himself to meet Jayne’s eyes. “And even at that age, when they died, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready at all, and I would have given anything if there was someone who could have helped me… who could have helpedus.It would have helped me feel not so alone.”
“Simon.” Jayne’s voice was stiff, but uncertainty lurked behind it, barely contained. “I know that it’s been hard, but this… this is nothing like what we went through back then. The circumstances are different. You can’t base your choice off old circumstances. It just—”
“It doesn’t work?” Simon asked, finding the courage to cut Jayne off. “What about it isn’t going to work? If we accept Shep, if we try to help him, don’t you think he’s going to be happier? That he’ll feel like we understand him?”
Shep cleared his throat. “Spoilers: yeah, he would.”
“So why wouldn’t we want to try?” Simon asked. “If Harlow is offering—if it’s not going to cost us a cent—then why are we fighting it? Why are we trying to limit Shep?”
Was he was arguing for insanity? Maybe. Right now nothing made sense. Harlow was in his living room, a famous actress was dating his youngest brother, and his oldest brother was expressing interest in raising Shep in a way he’d never done before. At this point, if the tooth fairy made an appearance and proclaimed that she’d just discovered an evil scheme that only the Biernacki brothers could stop, Simon wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.
“We’re not limiting him. You’re thinking about this all wrong.” Jayne sighed. “All we’re doing is refusing to enable misbehavior.”
“I think that ignoring his feelings enables him more than listening to him,” Simon murmured. He rubbed his arm, using the tactile sensation of his sleeve to keep himself grounded. All the fear over being called out for speaking up had started to hit. His hands shook. “He’s… he’s sixteen. Don’t you remember what it was like at sixteen, Jayne? How… how hard it was? How you always wanted to feel grown up without ever being allowed?”
Jayne scrunched his nose. “There’s a reason we don’t allow teenagers the luxuries that adults get. Physiologically, they arenotadults. The brain isn’t fully formed until age twenty-four.”
Twenty-four? Simon laughed, but it was a sad, wheezy little noise that sounded more distressed than anything else. “I guess that explains why we’re not on the same page. I’m not even an adult then, according to science, am I?”
“Simon…”
“Listen.” Harlow stepped in, not intruding on their space, but standing close enough to make his presence known. “Wherever Evie goes is where I’ll stay. I don’t need you to accommodate me—all I need is a floor to sleep on. I’m not going to yank Shep out of school, I’m not going to put him in danger, and I’m not going to complicate your life. I won’t even keep groceries in the fridge if you don’t want me to.”
“Wedon’twant you to,” Jayne said pointedly.
The tremble in Simon’s hands grew worse. “Jayne!”
“We have rules about who’s allowed to stay in the apartment,” Jayne continued. “Terms on our very official, very legally binding lease. No guests can stay for longer than a week—”
“Then Evie and I will get a hotel room on day seven, stay there, and then come back and stay for the next six days. Cycle repeats.”
“And if our landlord finds out, he might get pissed about the occupancy limits,” Jayne concluded, unruffled by Harlow’s interruption.
Harlow dug his hands into his pockets, his thumbs hooked over the sides. “Federal occupancy limits are two per bedroom plus one—this is a three bedroom, isn’t it? So you’re looking at seven people max.”
“You haven’t been screened.” Jayne’s voice had started to grow shrill, and Simon couldn’t help but feel like it was because he was running out of excuses. “You and Evie haven’t passed a background check.”
“But if we’re guests, then it doesn’t matter—we’re not living here officially.”
“We’ll be good, Mr. Biernacki,” Evie added. “I promise.”
“God.” Jayne went to rub his face, then dropped his hand without having touched it at all. All the hard work he’d put into his makeup would have been ruined if he had. “I can’t believe that I’m the one you’re all talking down. Do you know how insane you sound? All of this would very easily be fixed if you took your daughter and flew her back to California like you should be doing. We deal with Shep, you deal with her, and eventually this whole thing blows over.”
In theory, Simon believed that what Jayne said had merit. In practice, he thought it was shortsighted. The circumstances behind the situation were too complex for traditional methods to work. Even if they grounded Shep, locked him in his room and only let him out for bathroom breaks, he’d figure out a way to get out eventually. This was the same boy who’d busted Evie out of Geek Out Con despite the presence of professional security teams, after all. Simon was far from a security professional—whatever tricks Shep had figured out, he could use at home just as well as he could abroad, and Simon would never be able to stop him.
Paired with Evie, who had earned enough in her short career to do whatever she wanted, they were trouble. Jayne just hadn’t figured it out yet.
