20
Simon
“What happened tonight?” Simon flicked on the bedroom light, then led Jayne to his bedside. He kept his voice down, not wanting to wake Parker, who was asleep in the crib at the foot of Jayne’s bed. On the dresser nearby, the baby monitor’s red light blinked—Simon would have to swap out the batteries soon. “Was it just Harlow who frightened you? Nothing happened with Bastian, right? He’s still staying the hell away?”
“Mmph.” Jayne plopped back onto the bed and grabbed one of his pillows, clutching it to his chest. “Bastian can… can suck my dick. What a bastard.”
Simon took it to mean that Bastian hadn’t, in fact, been the root of Jayne’s distress tonight. As relief set in, he settled on the edge of the mattress and pushed Jayne’s hair from his forehead. “I’m going to go ahead and get some makeup remover, okay? Can you get ready for bed while I’m doing that?”
“I’m already in bed,” Jayne observed astutely. He yawned. “Do Ihaveto take off my makeup?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh.” Jayne scrunched his nose. “Fuck that.”
“Do you want to get wrinkles?” Simon lifted an eyebrow. “Or worse?”
“What’s worse than that?” Jayne squeezed his eyes shut, his lips pressed so tightly together that they puckered.
“Pimples.”
“Get the makeup remover.” Jayne’s eyes shot open. If it hadn’t been for the slow way his eyes dilated, Simon would have thought he was sober. “I’ll change, we’ll take my face off, and then—”
“Then I’m going to get you some water, and you’re going to drink it all before you go to sleep.”
With Jayne alert, Simon was free to leave. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, then headed for the door. It was too early to be awake.
“Simon?” Jayne asked.
Simon stopped on his way to the door and looked back. Jayne had kicked off his shoes and curled into a ball on the bed. “Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry that I’m so shitty all the time.” Jayne breathed in deeply, then let it all out. “I don’t mean to be. It’s just… hard, you know? With Shep, and work, and Bastian, and Parker, and having to essentially move back home again after living on my own for so long…”
“I know.” Simon smiled for him even though he wanted to fall apart. “All of us are doing our best. None of us asked for this. All we have to do is keep moving forward. Someday soon we’ll get it all figured out.”
“I hope so.” Jayne shoved the pillow over his head, blocking it out from view. When he spoke again, his voice was muffled. “All of this is bullshit. I feel like we won life’s most awful lottery, and they’re sending us a lifetime payout of misery.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Simon promised. It was a motto he lived by, but one that he found increasingly difficult to believe in as of late. “One day, we’re not going to feel this way anymore. We’ll catch our break.”
“Do you think we’re cursed?” Jayne asked. “Because I could get behind that.”
“No, I don’t think we’re cursed.”
“Then life had better throw us a little happiness soon, because I’m getting tired of feeling like shit all the time.”
Simon laughed a single, airy laugh that never made it beyond his throat. “I’ll be back in a second. Stay awake, okay?”
Jayne pushed the pillow more tightly to his face and kicked his legs out in displeasure. He’d never liked being told what to do. “This is a… a promise-free zone!”
Simon turned the doorknob. “I thought that was the living room.”
“Yourface,” Jayne replied, demonstrating all the poise and grace of a blackout drunk thirty-year-old man.
Simon rolled his eyes and left his brother on the bed. At least Jayne’s antics were a distraction from the uneasiness in his chest—the feeling that something had gone wrong, even when everything was going right..
* * *
Simon,cross-legged, sat on Jayne’s bed and held a cotton pad to Jayne’s closed eye. Glitter, as it turned out, was abitchto remove.
