Little by little, he came to realize what it was.
Freedom.
Beautiful and ever-changing, dangerous and clawed, it promised the world in the same breath that it promised nothing. Unlimited potential meant unlimited chances to fail, to fall, or to soar. But now that Harlow was here…
Now that Harlow was here, Simon didn’t fear falling half as much as he had before.
For so long, Simon’s hands had been tied, but now loneliness wasn’t a necessity—it was an option. Harlow had come to him, he was staying in the same house, sharing the same room, sleeping a few feet away. If Simon was inclined, he could tell him how he felt and what he wanted.
Or he could say nothing at all.
Fantasy had bled into reality. Simon’s two worlds, once held far apart, had collided. There was no coming back from that, and no way to tell Harlow that he’d caused such an impact on a near-stranger’s life. His crush was embarrassing enough as it was without admitting that it had triggered a paradigm shift.
“Goodnight, H,” Simon whispered.
“Night, Kid.”
There was a distant kind of longing in those words, likely imagined. It made Simon’s guts squirm. When he couldn’t tell real life from his own constructions, what hope did he have?
Not very much.
But it was pointless to worry about now. At four in the morning, it wasn’t like Simon was going to go up, straddle Harlow’s hips, and kiss him senseless, nor was he about to start a serious conversation. It could wait. With Evie refusing to leave, and Harlow determined to do what was best by her, he’d be around the house for days, weeks, maybe months to come.
There would be time, and Simon could wait.
Pushing his feelings aside as best he could, he closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep.
