“If he cares that much, he shouldn’t be hitting on men in his kitchen when there are fifty people nearby.”
Jamie pauses with a pancake on his spatula. “I didn’t tell you it was in the kitchen.”
“I was coming in through the laundry room,” Simon admits, his face hot. “I was there for less than a minute.”
“Hmm,” Jamie says, looking at him very carefully. Simon resists the urge to hide behind his pancake. “Anyway, I feel like a bad gay. I know I’m a disaster along every possible axis but at least I’ve never outed anyone.”
“And you still haven’t.”
“But he thinks I did.”
Reasoning that if Charlie’s been texting Jamie, he’s definitely awake, Simon grabs Edie’s leash and his darkest sunglasses and announces that he’s taking her for a walk.
It isn’t far, but Edie is old and her legs are only three inches long, so Simon carries her most of the way to Charlie’s house. It would have been smarter to do this over the phone, but Simon can’t handle another minute in the house with the kitchen in chaos.
Still, Simon should have texted to make sure Charlie was home and alone, which only occurs to him as he’s walking up the driveway and steeling himself to ring the doorbell. But he’s already probably triggered Charlie’s doorbell camera, so he can’t turn around now.
Charlie answers the door wearing a T-shirt witharizona diamondbacksin faded script and which might have fit him at somepoint in his life, like maybe fifth grade, but is basically obscene right now.
“Simon,” he says, looking exactly as surprised as anyone might when they see their least-favorite coworker on their doorstep on a Sunday morning.
“Are you alone?”
Charlie blinks. “Yes?”
“Jamie didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Okay. Come in?”
“I don’t need—”
“You’re letting all the cool air out.”
Simon sighs and walks in. “Look, I saw you kissing that waiter at Lian’s house.” He takes off his sunglasses and tucks them into the neckline of his shirt.
“And you told Jamie.”
Until now, Simon hasn’t properly considered that maybeheouted Charlie. “Yes,” he says. “I’m gay, Jamie’s gay, and it didn’t occur to either of us that a man who kisses other men in public would be so closeted that you need top-level security clearance to discuss that fact with a close friend.”
Charlie scrubs a hand over his jaw. “It isn’t. A secret, I mean. I’m not closeted,” he says, a little defensively, like he thinks Simon would blame him for it.
“Fair,” he says, instead of pointing out that you don’t generally accuse people of outing you if you aren’t closeted to some extent. He’s here to clear Jamie’s name, not to debate the gradations and nuances of outness. “Sure.”
“Tell Jamie I overreacted. No, never mind, I’ll tell him myself.I can’t believe you came all the way over here just to make sure I wasn’t mad at Jamie.”
“He’s my best friend,” Simon says. And then, “He’s family,” in case Charlie’s the kind of person that means something to.
“And you brought Edie,” Charlie says, getting onto one knee and holding out a hand to her. “Can I pet her?”
“Yes, Charlie. She’s an elderly dachshund. She isn’t going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t think she was going to hurt me. I just don’t want to bother her.”
The sight of Charlie’s big hand scratching behind Edie’s ears is a little more than Simon can take, so he glances around Charlie’s living room. There are no beer bottles, no crumpled napkins, not so much as a stray pool towel. “You wouldn’t know there was a party here last night.”
“I had the cleaners come at eight this morning.” Charlie’s still kneeling, but he looks up at Simon and quirks a smile. “I always do. It gets rid of anyone who crashed.”
That sounds like something Simon would do, or at least it would be if he had parties or allowed anyone other than Jamie to sleep at his house.
