“Are all those yours?” Charlie finally says, gaze landing on the admittedly vast array of prescription bottles on the table next to the salads.
“That’swhat you’re going with?” Simon asks, and he’s blaming Jamie for that too.
“Are you okay?” Charlie’s still looking at the bottles. Usually they stay in Simon’s bag, but Jamie wanted aspirin and Simon’s been turning his bag inside out trying to find it.
“Um, yes?”
“Because that’s a lot of medicine for a person who’s okay.”
“Seriously?” Simon points at each prescription bottle in turn. “Allergy, migraine, another migraine, antianxiety, another antianxiety, antinausea. That’s it. Do you want a doctor’s note?A treatment plan? Are you doing a drug sweep of all your colleagues’ belongings?”
“You should keep those locked up,” Charlie says. Simon searches his face for some sign he’s being made fun of and comes up with nothing.
“They’re usually in my locked trailer.”
“Hmm,” Charlie says, because he is actually, honest-to-God, accusing Simon of unsafe drug practices. “You should leave them at home.”
“Are you under the impression that people can schedule their panic attacks and migraines for when they’re at home? Genuinely curious. You can leave anytime, you know!” He makes a shooing gesture toward the door, not something he’d do to anyone else, not even Edie (especially not Edie).
Charlie flinches a little, and Simon enjoys the dopamine hit he gets whenever he cracks Charlie’s facade of relentless cheerfulness. Then Charlie puts on the slightly constipated expression he uses when his character has just lost a crewmember. “Are you okay?” he asks, like he didn’t just ask the same thing two minutes ago.
For one hysterical moment, Simon imagines answering honestly. No, he isn’t okay. He left okay in the rearview mirror nearly a year ago when his migraine meds started fucking with his old anxiety meds, and since then he’s relying on much-less-effective anxiety meds. He isn’t okay, but he also isn’t getting three migraines a week.
“I’m fine as long as I have my medicine,” Simon says pointedly. “And as long as people don’t barge into my trailer and accuse me of drug trafficking.”
Charlie looks torn between embarrassment and offense. Onanyone else it would look ridiculous. On Charlie it looks—it doesn’t matter what it looks like, because Simon’s quitting this show and will peacefully live out his years not thinking about what Charlie Blake looks like. In a few weeks he’ll be in New York, where he’ll have a job that doesn’t involve spaceships and where he won’t have any coworkers he wants to sexily murder.
“I stopped by to ask if you wanted to come to the after party at my house. It’s after the wrap party.”
“I know how after parties work, thanks.”
“You could bring Jamie.”
Simon nearly says that of course he’d bring Jamie, because Jamie’s been his plus one to everything for years. But Charlie speaks first. “Partners are invited.”
“Jamie and I aren’t together,” Simon says before he can investigate why he needed to clarify that particular point.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Charlie looks at the pair of salads, like he thinks maybe Jamie dumped him midway through lunch.
“It’s been a while.” It’s been five years, but Simon’s used to people assuming he and Jamie are still together, because some straight people have a hard time with the idea that you can be friends with someone you’ve had sex with.
“Oh.”
“We’re friends,” Simon explains.
“That’s nice,” Charlie says, sounding perplexed. Charlie isn’t the kind of straight person who should need this explained to him, because he’s friends with Alex, and also Bethany in the costumes department, and probably every other woman he’s dated. He accumulates friendships like some kind of snowball of extroversion, always gathering and never letting go. It makes Simon—who hasone friend and a handful of people whose texts he mostly returns—feel panicky, but also, maybe, a little ashamed.
Simon claps his hands together. “What a fun conversation this is. We should do it more often.”
For a horrible moment, Charlie’s face brightens. Then he seems to register the sarcasm and his expression closes off. Simon feels like one of nature’s greatest monsters for the split second before remembering this is the same man who’s spent the last month somehow depriving Simon of blueberry muffins.
“Anyway, you’re invited. Jamie’s invited.” Charlie’s hands are in his pockets, his gaze on the wall behind Simon’s head. “People swim. So, like. Bathing suits.”
“Thank you for explaining how to use a pool. Please go now.”
When Charlie leaves, Jamie immediately enters, an expression of shit-stirring ecstasy on his face, and Simon doesn’t need to ask whether he eavesdropped.
“Charlie Blake is the only living person who thinks you need to be told not to skinny dip,” Jamie says, dropping into the chair next to Simon’s. “Also, why did he invite you in the first place?”
