Charlie grabs Simon’s wrist, his fingers encircling it far too easily, then scratches his shoulder with his free hand. Simon attempts to wriggle free and, when that doesn’t work, tries to pry Charlie’s fingers open.
“You have five seconds before I bite you,” Simon says reasonably.
“All right, mister workplace health and safety.”
“Gentlemen,” Lian says, looming over them, murder in her eyes.
“We’re being good,” Charlie says immediately, dropping Simon’s hand.
“If I kill you both, every person on this set will give me an alibi,” Lian says. “We’ll finish the season with Alex and Roshni playing your roles and call it another alien body swap storyline. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charlie says, the picture of innocence. Simon wants to drown him.
It’s past midnight by the time Charlie’s and Simon’s characters are rescued from their hostile alien planet and they can all go home.
In the parking lot, Simon presses the button on his key fob, trying to hear his car beep over the pounding in his head.
“You can’t drive,” Charlie says, coming up next to him. His mouth is full and he has half a blueberry muffin in one hand. Simon would kill a man for some of that muffin. Every time he stops by craft services, they’re out of muffins. Every time he sees Charlie,he’s eating one. Simon suspects foul play. “You’ve been yawning for an hour. You’ll be asleep before you get on the highway.”
“And how exactly is this any of your business?”
“If you’re dead in a ditch, we’ll never finish this episode.” Charlie crosses the parking lot. By the time Simon realizes he’s following, it’s too late to change course without looking like an idiot. “For the millionth time, how hard is it to just let the studio send a car when you know we’ll be late?” Charlie unlocks his car. “Get in.”
“No.”
“I’m going to run you over if you don’t get in.” Charlie opens the passenger door. “I’ll chase you across the parking lot until I’ve run you over and then I’ll put the car in reverse and do it again, so help me—”
“Do you ever stop?” There’s a blurry halo now around the LEDs illuminating the parking lot. Simon knows he can’t drive with a migraine, but he also can’t let Charlie be right. Truly a no-win situation.
Charlie sighs and looks up at the sky. “It’s better for the environment,” he says. “Only one car going to our neighborhood instead of two.”
Somehow Charlie figured out thatIt’s better for the environmentis Simon’s override code, not because he cares that much about carbon emissions or whatever, but because he can’t disagree without sounding like more of a dickhead than he’s willing to let even Charlie think he is.
“Oh my God, shut up.” Simon gets in the car. It’s ridiculously comfortable, something he forgets in the weeks or months between the times Charlie forcibly kidnaps him and drives him home.
“You should put something on that rash,” Simon says after aminute, when Charlie’s basically driving one handed and scratching his shoulder with the other hand.
“It’s fine.”
Simon rummages around in his bag and hands Charlie a tube.
“Of course you carry around allergy cream.” Charlie says this like he’s discovered some filthy secret.
“My God, you’ve found me out.”
“You’ve been inGQ.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Sometimes Simon worries that Charlie’s thought process is fundamentally broken.
“You look likethatand you still manage to be the least cool person I’ve met in my life.”
Simon sighs pointedly. He’s reasonably tall and fairly thin, and his cheekbones and jawline do a lot of work that his personality doesn’t. All that, plus good clothes and a decent haircut create the optical illusion of charisma. The only reason Charlie doesn’t understand this is because he’s the kind of man who spends three hundred and sixty days a year wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts that got shot from cannons at sporting events.
“Nobody sayscoolanymore,” Simon says, which is something he learned from his niece and has been saving for the right moment to deploy against Charlie.
But Charlie just starts laughing—his real, ear-splitting, honk of a laugh; not the smoldery, square-jawedhahe does on camera. “Have you been watching TikTok unsupervised?”
Simon tries to breathe in slowly and breathe out even slower, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when you want to throttle your coworkers, and when that doesn’t work, he focuses on the fact that he only has to put up with Charlie Blake for another month. Onemonth, and he’ll be done withOut There, done with Charlie, done with storylines he’s already acted out a dozen times.
