“Jesus Christ,” Charlie mutters.
“You look good, is the point. That’s all.”
Charlie stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks at the ceiling, like that’s where he’s going to find an explanation for why Simon is the way he is.
“Not that you look bad in the rest of your clothing.” Simon manages to ruin this by putting air quotes aroundclothing. “The internet’s full of people who’ll tell you so. There’s an entire Tumblr about your flip-flops, but those are probably fetishists. Which is fine,” he adds, feeling magnanimous. “I support that.”
“You support people jerking off to pictures of my feet,” Charlie says, incredulous. “You know, you’re kind of sweet over text.”
That’s just factually incorrect—Simon’s never been sweet in his life—and he’s about to say so when he notices that Charlie’s stalking across the room toward him.
“I forgot what a fucking gremlin you are,” Charlie says, stopping about six inches away. “How do people not realize you’re a gremlin?”
“You missed me.” Simon’s smug and a little giddy and absolutely unsuccessful at hiding his own smile. Honestly not bothering to try. “That’s what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m trying to say that I want to kiss you, but you just let your dog slobber all over your face.”
“That’s where you draw the line? You fill the internet with pictures for foot fetishists to masturbate over, but this is a bridge too far?” But Simon’s already halfway to the bathroom, and when he shuts the door behind him, he hears Charlie laugh.
He washes his face, which gives him just enough time to be filled with doubt and nerves, but then Charlie’s knocking on the door. “How the fuck long does it take to washoneface, Simon?” So Simon slows down and brushes his teeth too.
He thought there’d be a lead up. Donuts. Small talk. Lots of awkward dancing around the issue of what they’re doing together. Plenty of time for Simon to worry. But Charlie apparently decided to steamroll over that entire process.
When Simon opens the bathroom door, Charlie’s there, waiting, impatient and fake-angry, and it’s so easy—Charlie’s made it so easy—for Simon to grab him by the sleeve (itiscashmere) and kiss him.
He tastes like airplane pretzels plus one breath mint. In the interest of justice and fair play, Simon should insist that Charlie brush his teeth, but his hands are on Simon’s face, and Simon’s brain empties out, thoughts swirling down the drain. There’s nothing in the world but the scratch of Charlie’s beard, the softness of his sweater, the slide of their lips.
They’re good at this. It’s not like he didn’t already know, but the reminder is a bit of a shock anyway. He doesn’t know if Charlie’s kissing him slow and deliberate because he knows that’s what Simon likes, or if it’s what Charlie likes too. And it is Charlie who’s taking the lead here. That’s fine—being with Charlie always makes him feel slightly concussed and, honestly, he’s not smart enough to navigate a kiss right now. The best he can do is keep up.
Everything slows down even more, syrupy and almost sleepy, and it takes Simon a minute to realize that it’s not because he’s slipping into some kind of altered state where time doesn’t work right, but because Charlie’s barely kissing him now. Their lips are only skimming one another’s. They’re just sort of standing there, breathing, Charlie’s hands holding Simon’s face exactly where he wants it.
“You said you had donuts,” Charlie says, just above a whisper,his voice gravelly enough, and Simon close enough, that he can feel the rumble in Charlie’s chest.
“Your priorities are terrible,” Simon informs him, because somebody has to.
“I don’t think they are.” Charlie punctuates it with a kiss to Simon’s temple. Simon’s face goes hot.
In the kitchen, Charlie sits at a barstool, not even pretending not to watch as Simon puts on the coffee maker and gets out the bakery box. Simon tries to look like someone who isn’t thinking about Charlie’s priorities, and what that means in the context of a man flying your dog across the country and kissing you like you’re... precious or whatever. There’s only one way those pieces fit together, and Simon knows it, and it sort of makes him want to lock himself in the bathroom.
Simon brings over the box, but he doesn’t open it, just clutches it to his chest even after Charlie reaches for it. He makes a belated attempt at normalcy and drops the box on the counter. Charlie opens it, and Simon can’t look at his face, but does see that instead of taking one of the donuts he picks a blueberry muffin.
Charlie doesn’t say anything about it, because it’s just a muffin and not, like, an encrypted message. This is not a stained-glass window. This is not a text rich in symbolism. Simon got a food that he knows Charlie likes, and it’s only in the morass of Simon’s mind that the muffins have any meaning other than that he’s currently at peace with refined sugar and gluten.
Simon takes the other muffin like he’s a person in a play about normal people eating normal foods. He sits on the stool next to Charlie’s—just following the stage directions—and tries not to think about the gap between Charlie’s thigh and his own, tries notto notice that Charlie has one foot hooked around the leg of the stool while the other taps on the floor, tries not to notice the way Charlie’s folding up the paper muffin liner.
But Simon does notice, because you don’t spend as much time together as he and Charlie have and not pick up on someone’s nervous tics. The idea that Charlie is nervous is unbearable and, somehow, temporarily shoves Simon’s own thoughts to the side.
“How was your flight?” Simon asks. It’s probably the first normal thing he’s said since Charlie walked through the door.
“Edie wants to file a lawsuit against every person who walked past us without trying to pet her,” Charlie says, correctly guessing that what Simon’s really asking is how Edie tolerated the flight. “And she’s not a fan of altitude changes. Other than that, she was fine.”
“Thank you.”
Charlie folds the paper into the narrowest possible isosceles triangle. “You’ve already thanked me.”
“Well, I’m thanking you again and you can just deal with it.”
Charlie doesn’t say anything, not even to make fun of Simon. Instead he takes the triangle of paper and rolls it up like he’s making a croissant.
