“I know, Simon.”
Simon sits up and swings his legs to the floor. “You learned on the job. If you compare what you were doing in the first season to what you’re doing here”—he gestures at the television—“you can see. You started out with limitations, but that was because you were new and you had no training at all. You have fewer limitations now. In a few years you’ll have even fewer. But even at the beginning you were charismatic and—”
“Simon, just stop.” Charlie slouches and sort of knocks his head into Simon’s shoulder. Before Simon can ask what on earth is going on right now, he realizes Charlie’scuddlinghim.
“It isn’t going to work,” Simon tells him. “I’m too bony.” But he puts his arm around Charlie’s shoulders, his fingertips landing on the inside of Charlie’s elbow.
“Shut up and let it happen,” Charlie says into Simon’s clavicle, and Simon does.
They go out for a late lunch, or maybe an early dinner, and they spend so long at the restaurant that they wind up getting takeout for dinner on the way home. Back at the apartment, Simon unpacks the suitcase Jamie sent, then sends Jamie about ten thousand heart emojis and one thank-you.
He takes pictures of all his clothes laid out on the bed and sends them to Nora, asking her to tell him what to wear to her party, upfronts, and just in general.
When he finishes, he finds Charlie lying on the couch, shirtless, Edie on his chest. He has one arm cushioned behind his head, and with the other he’s holding a book. Attractive Man with a Dog and/or a Book is a particular weakness of Simon’s, so he has to take a moment, and it’s even worse when the dog is his dog and the man is Charlie and the book is—
Simon has to sit down on the arm of the sofa.
It’s a book he mentioned offhand, in a series of semi-deranged foura.m.texts when he’d been listing all his favorite dragon books. Honestly, he hadn’t expected Charlie to pay any attention, and even less to read any of those books. But here he is with the book that was Simon’s favorite from ages eight to fourteen—Patricia Wrede’sDealing with Dragons.
Twenty years later, he can see that part of the book’s appeal is that it’s a wish-fulfillment fantasy of running away to live in a cavewith a dragon for a roommate, nothing to do but organize books and treasure. That, and there’s something going on with gender that spoke to him when he was starting to understand that he wasn’t particularly interested in masculinity, or at least not in performing it.
But now, seeing Charlie with that book, he has the same feeling he did at the restaurant yesterday, where he’s sure Charlie can see the invisible ink all over him.
“Take a picture,” Charlie says. “It’ll last longer.”
“You know what you look like.” Simon refuses to be embarrassed by finding a hot thing hot. But his phone is already in his hand, so he does take a few pictures. He tries not to think about how he’s going to feel in a few months when he comes across them in his camera roll.
“Lemme see,” Charlie says, holding out his hand for the phone. Simon passes it over, and watches as Charlie taps the screen a couple times. On the coffee table, Charlie’s phone vibrates, so Simon guesses he sent the pictures to himself. “You mind if I post one? Edie’s in them.”
“You have permission to post whatever pictures of Edie you like.”
Charlie gives him an odd look, but he reaches for his phone. Simon moves closer, sitting on the edge of the couch, his hip against Charlie’s thigh, and scratches behind Edie’s ears.
“What about this one?” Charlie turns his phone so Simon can see a selfie Charlie must have just taken—Edie on his bare chest, Simon’s hand on Edie’s head. It’s just Simon’s hand and wrist, his cuff folded back twice. It could be anyone’s hand, but if someone recognizes Edie from Simon’s own social media, they’ll guess whothe hand belongs to. Simon doesn’t object to any of that, but he’s surprised Charlie doesn’t.
“Sure.” Simon gets up, a little overwhelmed and not interested in thinking about why. He crosses the room to look out the window, but it’s dark out and it’s bright inside, so all he sees is Charlie’s reflection looking at him. “Are you enjoying the book?” His voice is weirdly small. He makes himself turn to face Charlie.
“Yeah. I should probably just stick to kids’ books.”
“Nothing wrong with kids’ books.”
“I mean, I can get through this without the audiobook.”
“Nothing wrong with audiobooks either. I like audiobooks.”
“Andyouaren’t stupid.” There’s an edge to Charlie’s voice.
A few years ago, they were doing press at a hotel—probably something to do with Comic-Con, if Simon’s Xanax-filtered memories are anything to go by—when they wound up on the same elevator. Charlie looked him dead in the eye and pressed the button for every single floor, just smearing his palm along the panel until all the buttons were lit up, never breaking eye contact. Simon had simply gotten off at the next floor and taken another elevator, but he’d felt unsettled the rest of the day, like he’d missed a cue.
The look Charlie had on his face when he pressed all those buttons is the same look he has now. This is some blatant shit-stirring, maybe even picking a fight. Simon shouldn’t be humoring him.
But he remembers that awkward moment this morning on the sofa and figures he can either deal with this now or Charlie’s going to keep poking at it.
“Maybe I spent seven years treating you like you were dumb and talentless,” Simon says, “but in my defense that was because I didn’t like you.” It was also because Charlie has these alarminggaps in his knowledge that have more to do with a total lack of education than they do with anything else. He seems to have switched schools often, and, ultimately, just stopped going.
Charlie gives him an incredulous look. “In your defense you didn’t like me,” he repeats.
Simon rolls his eyes. “Are you going to tell me it wasn’t mutual?”
