Simon takes a deep breath. “Remember when I asked if I was treating you like my assistant, and you said it was okay because we’re helping one another? You help me out and I give you a place to stay?”
“That’s not exactly how I remember that conversation,” Jamiesays. “I have some names for you, by the way, if you do want to hire someone.”
Simon manages not to point out that assembling a list of potential hires is something an assistant would do. “What I mean is that I’m not giving you a place to stay. You live here. I think you’ve spent more time living here than you have anywhere else in the past few years.”
Jamie looks stricken. “I’m sorry.”
Simon is somehow still getting this wrong. “I love having you here. If you want to leave, I won’t be weird and sad about it—well, I won’tactweird and sad, at least—but it’s your home, permanently, unless you don’t want it to be.”
“You mean that?”
“I’ve meant it for a while.” Simon just hadn’t known that it was something he could say, something he could ask for.
“And when things between you and Charlie get more serious? You’ll want the place to yourselves.”
Simon’s less sure about that. There is nothing about that man that saysI need privacy. “Charlie has a house.”
“Most people would not be okay with their partner’s ex living with them.”
“Charlie isn’t most people. And I don’t even mean that as a compliment. He’s a total weirdo.”
“I’ve never seen you like that. You were almost clingy with Charlie.”
Simon’s mortified, but it’s not like he can deny it. Without a few helpful layers of armor, Simon’s... affectionate? He’s a little affectionate with Jamie now, but Simon didn’t let his guard down until he realized that Jamie wasn’t going anywhere. It took years for himto redraw his boundaries with Jamie in a slightly less constricting shape than he’s used to.
This thing he’s doing with Charlie depends on Simon keeping his guard down, on Simon letting Charlie in past his defenses. It’s possible that human relationships, in general, depend on not being covered in ten layers of spikes, but that’s a mystery for future Simon.
“It was nice,” Jamie says. “Seeing you like that. I’m happy for you.”
“It’s only been a little while.”
Jamie raises his eyebrows. “What, are you planning on ending it?”
Simon shakes his head.
“Do you think Charlie is?” Jamie asks. “He seemed pretty happy to have you hanging off his sweater.”
Simon’s face heats. “I don’t want to ruin it.”
“Then don’t ruin it.”
“I’m not great at relationships. You know this.”
“Have you ever really tried?”
The truth is that he’s done the exact opposite of trying: he’s done everything in his power to make sure people know he doesn’t care what they think of him, that he doesn’t need them.
“I know this isn’t exactly true,” Simon says, “but sometimes I think you’re the reason I know what it’s like to feel loved. Not tobeloved, maybe, but to feel it. You’re the only point of reference I had for a while.”
Jamie whips his head around. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t mean it as a bad thing.” Simon’s been thinking a lot about this since Nora’s graduation. “You never let me forget that I’m important to you. I think—” This is too heavy, and all Simon’sinstincts are screaming at him to stop, but he’s starting to figure out that with people he cares about, he has to take a good look at where his instincts are pointing him and throw himself in the opposite direction. “When I need to figure out how to treat someone like they matter to me, I just imagine what you’d do.”
“I have to do this video in five minutes and if you make me cry, Simon, I swear to God,” Jamie says, but he’s already hugging Simon.
Simon goes to bed early, partly because his body has no idea what time it is, and partly because he feels like he’s been awake for days. It’s seven o’clock.
While he’s brushing his teeth, he looks in the mirror and presses a finger to the lingering beard burn on the corner of his mouth and the side of his neck. There’s more in places he can’t see. He wonders how long it will take them to fade, how long it will take before Simon can feel comfortable in his body without thinking of all the places Charlie touched him, how long it will be before they can see one another in the neighborhood without it being strange.
