At the next red light, Charlie uncaps the tube and reaches under the collar of his T-shirt to rub some ointment on his shoulder.
“You can take it home and give it back to me tomorrow,” Simon says, magnanimous, like he can’t afford to just let Charlie keep some Target-brand allergy cream.
Charlie throws the tube across the car into Simon’s lap.
Simon shuts his eyes against the glare of oncoming headlights. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the next thing he knows, Charlie’s pointing the air conditioning vent directly in his face.
“What the fuck,” Simon mumbles. “What is wrong with you?”
“I was trying to aim it away from your face, you paranoid weirdo. Shut up.”
The next time Simon wakes up, they’re in his driveway.
“Come on,” Charlie says, flicking Simon’s shoulder. “Get out of my car.”
There’s a ten-year-old Prius chaotically parked in Simon’s driveway, a notification on his phone that his home alarm’s been disarmed, and a single word text from Jamie: “sorry.”
Simon wants to pause outside his front door for a minute to get his thoughts together, but Charlie always waits to make sure Simon gets inside, like he’s dropping Simon off after a playdate. So unless Simon wants to have a mini breakdown with Charlie’s headlights turned on him like a prison searchlight, he has no choice but to open the door before coming to grips with what he’s going to find on the other side.
Six cardboard boxes are piled in the foyer, each one of them battered and crumpled from all the other times they’ve been used to hastily pack Jamie’s things and bring them to Simon’s house. There isn’t a right angle to be found among them.
On the sofa, Edie sits with her ears impatiently in the air, staring at the door like a parent waiting for a teenager out past curfew. She loves Jamie, so this is just drama, but Simon can respect the effort.
“Sorry,” Jamie says. He’s sitting cross-legged on the other sofa. There are purple circles under his eyes and his hair looks like it’s been in the same ponytail for a few days, but he looks better than he did the last few times they went through this. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“You can always come here.” Simon means it, but right now he’d very much like to pack a bag and stay at a hotel. He loves Jamie, loves him as much as he’s capable of loving anyone who isn’t his dog, but right now, all he wants is to take his migraine medication and collapse dramatically into bed without anyone asking whether he’s okay.
With Jamie around, there’s always someone to bear witness to exactly how far from okay Simon is. He’s spent decades patching together something that looks like fine from a respectful distance, but once anyone gets too close they can see the seams. Simon has let Jamie see more of the seams than anyone else—and a lot more now than when they were dating—but nobody needs to see the full picture. Simon doesn’t want to see the full picture.
“It’ll only be for a week or two,” Jamie says.
It’s never only for a week or two. Simon doesn’t even want it to only be for a week or two. He’s told Jamie—oh, maybe ten or twenty thousand times—that he can move into the spare bedroom permanently. He likes having Jamie around—or, he does when hecan keep his own shit together well enough that Jamie won’t suspect how close he is to unraveling.
“The spare bedroom belongs to you. I don’t know who else you think ever sleeps there.”
Jamie opens his mouth and Simon knows that he’s going to offer to pay rent, just like he does every time they have this conversation, and the ball of pain behind Simon’s left eyeball might actually detonate if he has to go through it again. “I’m glad you broke up with him,” he says quickly. “Now I don’t have to go to jail for murder, so that’s nice for me.”
“Technically, he broke up with me.”
Simon groans and covers his face with his hands. Jamie dates men who are objectively terrible—not violent or abusive, but dirtbags who get upset when he doesn’t promote their YouTube channels or copyedit their screenplays.
Simon and Jamie were together for over a year. If Simon hadn’t already known he was a nightmare at relationships, Jamie not only wanting him but staying with him would be all the proof he needed.
Simon sits next to Jamie and lets Edie climb into his lap. He matches his breathing to the rise and fall of her chest, focuses on the weight of her on his thighs. Somehow, a ten-pound mini dachshund does better work than the heaviest weighted blanket he’s ever bought.
“I was going to ask you to stay here this summer anyway,” Simon says. “I don’t want to drag Edie to New York just for her to be alone all the time in a strange apartment.”
After they wrap up this season, Simon’s starting rehearsals for an off-Broadway production ofThe Tempest, directed by someone he went to college with. The role fell into Simon’s lap when the actorwho was their first choice broke his leg. He still can’t believe he got it, and was convinced it was all down to stunt casting until he spent an hour looking up every production the theater had done and combing the casts for anyone who looked suspicious.
This would be the perfect time to mention that he isn’t doing another season ofOut There, but he doesn’t know how to talk to Jamie about this. A few years ago, Jamie played a recurring character on the show. He tried not to act crushed when his character got killed off, but Simon leaving the show on his own terms will probably not be a great experience for Jamie.
“I always knew I’d wind up dog sitting for celebrities,” Jamie says. He must notice how uncomfortable Simon looks, because he quickly adds, “I will happily stay in your very nice house with its very nice kitchen and the world’s most perfect dog.”
“Well. Thanks,” Simon manages.
Jamie squints at him. “Do you need to take your migraine meds? Your eye is twitching.”
“No,” Simon says, even though there is no sane reason in the entire universe for him to lie about it. “I’m fine.”
