Dave doesn’t say hello to Simon, which is perfectly fine by him.
“It isn’t your business,” Dave repeats. “I’m not your father. It’s not your job to keep tabs on me. You don’t owe me that, and I don’t owe you that, so you can quit this shit right now.”
“Dave,” Mike says, but Dave grabs a pack of cigarettes off the table and walks out the back door.
In the last five minutes, Simon’s watched Charlie go from frantic with worry to incandescent with rage to just plain hurt. All this Dave fucker had to do was apologize, maybe even promise not to do it again, and Charlie would be completely satisfied. Charlie’s expectations for this man are at rock bottom.
Charlie’s jaw is clenched. There are divots in the Coke can where he’s gripping it. This is the same Charlie who dumped coffee on that dickhead director. This is the Charlie who took whatever he was feeling and channeled it into bad ideas and self-destruction. Simon is flooded with shame to remember that he once saw this Charlie and thought he was beingtacky, that Simon saw a crisis and thought it was in poor taste.
“We can come back tomorrow,” Simon says, low, in Charlie’s ear. “We can get out of here, take a break.”
“Yeah,” Charlie says, deflating a little. “Okay.”
Simon takes the Coke can and his own glass of water and hands them back to Mike. “Sorry,” he murmurs, because most people probably don’t like drama unfolding in their homes.
Mike shrugs. “What can you do.”
Simon gets into the driver’s seat and Charlie doesn’t even argue. “I’m going to get a hotel room unless you tell me not to,” Simon says.
“Yeah,” Charlie mumbles. “Fine.”
Once they’re at the bottom of the hill, Simon pulls over to the shoulder of the narrow road and takes out his phone. He has to lower his standards repeatedly before he finds a room, becauseapparently this car festival is a big deal, and all the decent places are booked.
Charlie doesn’t seem like he’s in any state to navigate, so Simon relies on GPS and luck to get them to the motel. It isn’t as bad as Simon feared, at least not from the outside. They only had one room left, but he doesn’t think Charlie will care. He isn’t sure Charlie will notice.
“It’s my own fault,” Charlie says, once they’re in the room. At least it has two beds. “He’s right. He doesn’t owe me anything.”
“Bullshit.”
Charlie flops onto one of the beds. “I’m so embarrassed that you were there for that.”
“I bet,” Simon says, because he’d have to murder anyone who got the kind of glimpse into his psyche that he’s had into Charlie’s.
“Thanks, Simon, you’re helpful as always.”
“No, I mean, I’d be dead from the shame.”
“Maybe stop talking?”
“I’m trying to say that I get it.” Simon sits on the bed and puts a tentative hand on Charlie’s ankle. “I want to push Dave off a cliff,” he says, which might not be comforting but is true anyway.
“We lived with him for a year when my mom was sober enough to have me but not sober enough to think twice about bringing me to live with strange men twice her age. In high school I worked at his garage. He was my boss. I’m not anything to him. I know that.”
Something in Simon’s heart gets pulled dangerously tight at that. Nobody should be able to say “I’m not anything to him” about someone they’ve spent days worrying about. Charlie is generous hearted in a way that Simon maybe couldn’t understand andwouldn’t think to value until he saw that same quality rejected and thrown back in Charlie’s face.
“I feel like a kid who accidentally called their kindergarten teacherMom.” Charlie groans and puts a pillow over his face. “And you were there, which makes it a million times worse.”
“If you want, I have three decades of embarrassing stories that are all yours, just say the word.”
“That’s nice.”
“I know.” He’s sort of patting Charlie’s ankle. Poor Charlie, stuck with nobody to comfort him but Simon, the world’s least qualified person.
“Give me one now,” Charlie says, the pillow still over his face. “Come on.”
Simon has no shortage of embarrassing stories, but most are just incidentally embarrassing. He went on a date with a man who confused Simon with some other, more famous actor; once he got distracted and left Whole Foods without paying, just sailed right out the door with his cart until the security guard ran him down. “A few years ago, Jamie was having problems with his boyfriend, so I kept telling him to move out and stay with me. I bought all his favorite foods. I bought a new mattress for the guest room. I offered to put him on my car insurance.”
“Yourcar insurance?” Charlie says from under the pillow.
