There are years of irritations and grievances between them, built up like barnacles, a crust of ill will that makes it impossible to make out the shape of whatever’s underneath. Simon can start to see it, though, and wants to look away.
Simon disentangles his leg from Charlie’s when the waitresscomes to take away their plates. “My dad watches your show every week,” she says, bending a little to peer under the brim of Charlie’s cap.
“Is your dad Manuel?” Charlie asks, big smile in place.
“Manuel’s my uncle.”
“You tell your uncle he has the best taqueria on the west side. I used to come here after school.”
She gets a calculating look. “Okay, so, you can say no, but would the two of you take a picture in front of the sign? Manuel will do something embarrassing with it, like put it on the website, but he’d love it.”
Simon shrugs when Charlie raises his eyebrows at him. His face has been used to sell worse things than tacos.
They go outside to stand in front of the sign in the window. Charlie takes off his hat and Simon takes off his sunglasses.
“You should do the GIF,” the waitress says.
“Which one?” Simon asks.
He’s run across three GIFs that escaped containment from the fannish parts of the internet. One is mostly Simon. He’s just rescued Charlie from space prison using math and the power of his intellect, and now he’s demanding the heads of Charlie’s captors. The GIF is Simon looking furious, one arm around a battered Charlie. The text reads “Just one? As a treat?”
Another GIF is Charlie excitedly explaining something while Simon examines his nails.
And the third—
“The space ghosts,” the waitress says.
The context is that Simon’s been taken over by dead aliens, and Charlie is shaking Simon’s shoulders in a futile effort to get rid ofthe ghost. That episode had been fun to shoot—Simon always relishes a chance to be the villain.
Simon looks at Charlie. He might not want to reenactOut There’s gayest moments for a live audience, even in the service of good tacos. But Charlie just nods knowingly. “That’s a good one. Simon?”
They get into position. Angela, the waitress, has no scruples about bossing them around, and enough confidence to make them both do whatever she says.
Charlie takes hold of Simon’s lapels and gives him the world’s tiniest, gentlest shake. When they were filming that scene, Simon nearly demanded a stunt double, Charlie had shaken him so hard. And here, outside a taqueria, after six hours in a car and two hours in an empty house, he’s holding Simon like he’s made of glass. The disparity strikes Simon as hilarious, and he starts to laugh.
“Space ghosts don’t laugh,” Charlie says, low, in Simon’s ear.
Simon tries to rein it in, not very successfully.
“They don’t giggle either,” Charlie says.
“Take it back, I’m not giggling,” Simon says while Charlie shakes him a little.
“No, shut up. We just need one good take,” Charlie says, and he’s shaking Simon’s shoulders now. “Get it together, Hale!” he says in his Luke West voice.
Turns out Simon can’t laugh and keep his balance, because he trips a little. Charlie gets an arm around his back almost instantly. Simon’s holding on to Charlie’s arms, which isn’t even remotely necessary—not for this scene they’re reenacting, and not to avoid the fall.
He catches Charlie’s eye, which was the wrongest possible thing to do, because the look that passes between them is... warm. It’s nodifferent from what Simon’s seen in the eyes of all the other people who’ve been interested in him.
Simon knows what he looks like. Being sufficiently attractive is eighty percent of his job. It doesn’t mean anything that Charlie noticed.
But this is Charlie Blake, and Simon’s looking back.
Simon has to catch his breath because there’s no way Charlie can look at him without seeing seven years of flaws and resentment, but Charlie’s still looking at him like that. All the gears in Simon’s brain grind to a halt as he tries to process the truth of this.
“Okay,” Charlie says, letting go of Simon and taking a step back so quickly that Simon nearly stumbles again. “You guys can post that wherever you like. Go wild.”
Chapter Nine
