He tries to take a mental snapshot—the buzz of conversation and the distant sound of a honking horn, the blue of the sky, the smell of corn dogs and cigarettes. Charlie, laughing, always in frame. He settles for an actual snapshot, even though it can’t capture the lightness inside him.
It’s closure, probably, that’s prompted today’s happiness. He’s leavingOut There, leaving a chapter of his life that hasn’t been all bad. Ending things on good terms with Charlie feels right. When, later on, he thinks back on the seven years of his life that he spent onOut There, maybe he can be glad about it.
When Simon’s phone starts buzzing, he takes it out of his pocket, ready to show Charlie whatever picture of Edie that Jamie’s just sent. But it’s Nora.
Nora:so I showed the video to my dad and he says he’s never seen you laugh like that, not even when you were a baby
Simon:video?
Nora:the tiktok from the taqueria???
Nora:have Charlie check his tiktok. that girl tagged him
Simon sits on a bench, tugging Charlie down by the sleeve so he follows. He shows Charlie his phone screen, and Charlie immediately checks his notifications.
“Oh, wow,” Charlie says after a minute. “That’s a lot of views.”
He holds his phone up for Simon to watch the video of them trying to reenact that GIF two days ago. Simon thought the waitress would post a couple pictures to the taco restaurant’s social media, maybe that three second clip where they finally manage to get it right, but now he’s watching a video that’s got to be a minute long, at least, of him and Charlie grabbing one another and cracking up.
“I told her she could post whatever she wanted,” Charlie says, scrubbing his hand across his jaw. “I didn’t think she’d post the whole thing. I didn’t know she has like eighty thousand TikTok followers, or that it—” He clears his throat. “That it looked like this.”
The video ends and loops back to the beginning. There’s a lot of touching, much more than Simon remembers. There’s also more eye contact. Simon remembers that moment when Charlie caught his eye, and Simon recognized a flicker of want there, but he doesn’t think you can pick that up on camera, just a general sort of intensity. At least on Charlie’s end.
Simon, though, looks—he looks fucking smitten. He looks like he’s never seen anything as wonderful as Charlie Blake.
Something hot and panicky starts swirling around in his stomach and he forces himself to think about this rationally. Does this video change anything? Charlie was there, Charlie knows they were a little flirty. After yesterday, that’s all out in the open, anyway. Nothing on this video is news to either of them, however embarrassed Simon might be at the moment.
The rest of the world may see this video and realize they’re witnessing a not particularly heterosexual moment, but Simon doesn’t think it will affect him. Some people will be assholes about it, but it isn’t anything Simon hasn’t heard before. He doesn’t need to be convincingly straight to get the kind of roles he’d like to get in the future. He isn’t looking to be a leading man in action movie blockbusters or superhero franchises. Mostly, Simon is annoyed that he has to think about this at all. It’s like an emotional tax levied only on queer people.
Charlie, though. He may want the kind of roles casting directors equate with a certain kind of straight masculinity. If he’s out, some doors will be closed—maybe not as many as would have been five or ten years ago, but it’s still a problem.
“Are you okay?” Simon asks. Charlie must have watched the video five times by now. “For what it’s worth, I think it mostly lookslike I’m being gayatyou, not like you’re... complicitly queer, or whatever.”
“Simon, can you just shut the fuck up?”
They’ve probably told one another to shut up a thousand times, and there’s no reason this time should feel any different. Simon finishes his coffee and counts the number of cowboy hats in the crowd passing them by.
When he glances down, Charlie’s still watching the video. Simon hears his own laugh. It’s been a while since he’s seen himself just being... himself.
“There isn’t anything in this,” Charlie says, tapping his phone, “that bothers me. It’s two people having fun. It’s cute. Flirty, sure, definitely. I’m glad I saw it. Don’t treat it like a bad thing.” He runs a hand across his beard. “I told you I’m not closeted. I’m notnotout. I don’t care about that. I’m not—I really fucking refuse—to make a big deal over being seen flirting with a man. For fuck’s sake. If we were—I mean, if I were dating a man, I wouldn’t keep it a secret, so.”
Simon thinks about Charlie kissing that waiter, about him flirting with Jamie. Those aren’t the actions of a man who’s spending a lot of mental energy on staying closeted.
“Okay. Soft launching your queerness. Happy to help.”
“Areyouokay?” Charlie asks.
“I mean, this,” Simon says, gesturing broadly at himself, “is not a secret and never has been. I don’t love the idea of my personal life meaning something to total strangers, and that includes homophobes, obviously, but also people looking for queer inspiration or whatever. Sorry if that makes me an asshole.”
“That isn’t what makes you an asshole,” Charlie says.
“Anyway, I guess we don’t need to worry about people thinking we hate one another. I mean, mission accomplished.”
“Yeah,” Charlie sighs.
Simon’s phone buzzes with another text from Nora. She’s written, “It took my dad fifteen whole minutes to mention that if you publicly came out it would be convenient for his campaign.”
“My brother’s running for reelection,” Simon tells Charlie, showing him the message. “He’d be so happy to be able to talk about his gay brother. Makes him sound like an actual person.”
