“You’ve never had bad vibes, what the fuck.”
Maybe that’s the moment Simon knows that Charlie loves him, and is a little stupid with it, because Charlie is America’s greatest living expert on Simon’s bad vibes. “Okay,” he says. “If you say so.” They’re both petting Edie, and Simon lets their fingers tangle.
Maybe Simon’s operating on a different definition of love than most people. Maybe he needs the kind of love that won’t let himforget it, not for a minute. Maybe he needs the kind of love that flies your dog across the country after a seven-year-long fight.
“I never had a bad foster placement, but the worst ones, for me, were when the parents had kids of their own. There was this whole family and there I was. Not their fault, not my fault, just a shitty situation.” Charlie rubs his thumb over Simon’s wrist. “In your case, though, it’s definitely your family’s fault. I’m gonna fight them. Don’t care if they’re old.”
“I think you can take them,” Simon says, a little overwhelmed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jamie picks them up at the airport. Simon hugs him hard enough that Jamie’s feet leave the floor.
“You messaged me literally half an hour ago,” Jamie says, but it’s not like he’s letting go either. “We FaceTimed every day.”
Then Jamie hugs Charlie, which might have been a surprise if Simon hadn’t seen Jamie’s name on Charlie’s phone from time to time. It makes him feel warm. Maybe this is how people feel when they think about family. He doesn’t know.
They manage to get all their luggage into Jamie’s car. Charlie climbs into the back seat with Edie and Simon gets behind the wheel.
“You’re making Simon drive?” Charlie asks Jamie. “Wow.”
“Oh, honey,” Jamie says after he finishes laughing. “Don’t you know—”
Simon gets a hand over Jamie’s mouth and Jamie stops talking, but in the rearview mirror he sees Charlie looking thoughtful.
On the ride home, Jamie fills him in on the minutiae of his life, as if they haven’t been talking the whole time Simon was gone, but Simon doesn’t mind hearing it all again.
“That was the turn for Charlie’s house,” Jamie says after they’ve turned into their neighborhood.
Simon doesn’t know why he didn’t think of it. Charlie’s going home to his own house, and Simon’s going tohisown house. They’ve spent the past week in a six-hundred-square-foot apartment. The idea of Charlie not being there is a little strange, too abrupt.
“You probably don’t have any food in your house,” Simon says, even though it can’t be true. A week isn’t even long enough for eggs to go bad. And whoever cleans his house could have brought groceries, for all Simon knows.
“You’re right,” Charlie says from the back seat, absolutely lying.
“You probably want coffee,” Simon goes on. “Jamie made cupcakes.” He’d gotten the pictures somewhere over Colorado.
“It’s true,” Jamie says, sounding like he’s trying not to laugh.
“I’d love coffee and cupcakes,” Charlie says.
“Okay, it’s settled,” Simon says, relieved.
Simon doesn’t know how much he’s missed his house until he walks through the door, but now that he’s home, it’s going to take a court order to get him out again. He wants to pet every wall, every bookcase, every piece of furniture. He wants to jump into his pool and stay there until tomorrow. Edie obviously feels the same way, rolling around on the sofa and sniffing everything.
Then he turns and sees Charlie standing in the doorway, and it hits Simon that Charlie’s never been here. They’ve lived a few minutes away from one another for years, but Charlie’s never been here. Until last month, Simon had never seen Charlie’s house either.
It would be so terrifyingly easy to just... stop. To go back to the way it used to be. Maybe the thing that exists between them depends on being away from their normal lives.
Maybe they’ll forget how to be together or why they want to be. Maybe Charlie will realize he doesn’t have patience for Simon’s nonsense, not when he has dozens of easier friends nearby. Maybe Simon will forget how to be the person he is with Charlie—a little less guarded, a little more generous. He likes that version of himself.
Hoping he looks like someone who isn’t mid-crisis, Simon goes to the kitchen and puts on coffee. The kitchen is kind of amazingly clean, but then again, Jamie always does clean up after he cooks, just not within the thirty-second time frame mandated by Simon’s rogue synapses. He opens the cabinet to take out mugs, and the handles are all fucking over the map, so jarring it’s almost a jump scare.
He feels Charlie come up next to him, one hand landing heavy on Simon’s shoulder.
“Do you want me to go?” Charlie glances at the cabinet and starts rotating the mugs. Simon takes his hand, pulling it away from the mugs and keeping it in his own hand. Charlie’s trying to help, and Simon’s almost convinced himself that he can live with people knowing he needs help. But fixing the coffee cups isn’t the solution.
“You’re freaking out,” Charlie says.
