“I’m trying to give you space,” Charlie says. “Trying to follow your lead.”
“My lead is terrible. It’s a path straight to hell.”
Charlie’s quiet for a moment. “Simon, I’ve been following your lead from the beginning.”
“Explain.”
“You seem like you don’t actively hate me, I spend more time with you. You flirt with me, I flirt back. You harass my stepfather, I assume you might care about me. You stand around biting your lip and ogling me, I kiss you. You text me, I text you back. You say shit like you promise to be niceifwe break up—no, shut up, you saidif—and I start to get some ideas about what it is we’re doing.”
That’s a bracingly accurate summation of their relationship, even if Simon might fight about the lip biting thing, just on principle.
But what’s Charlie counting as the beginning? The way Charlie says it, it’s like he was looking for an opportunity to spend more time with Simon. Charlie’d said he had a crush, but Simon believed him when he said it was only physical. This all sounds a lot more involved than that.
“If I need space, I’ll tell you,” Simon says, instead of asking Charlie for a detailed written timeline of every feeling he’s ever had.
“Will you, though?” Charlie asks, skeptical. “Will you really?”
“Like, fifty-percent odds.”
“Okay, we can work with that.” There’s something about the way Charlie says it, so casual about dealing with Simon’s bullshit, that makes Simon feel panicky at the idea of losing it.
“Also I actively hate space most of the time,” Simon says. He shuts his eyes and tries to astrally project to somewhere he isn’t doing this. “I mean, yes, sometimes I need half an hour to think about redundancies in my skin care regimen, but in an ideal world I’d have one of those shock collars like Alex’s dog has and I’d get zapped whenever I get too far from—well—basically you or Jamie.”
He opens one eye. Charlie’s staring at the camera, his mouth a little open.
“I realize that’s not healthy,” Simon says. “I’m not going to microchip you. Or myself. My point is that I don’t think you need to worry about me needing space.”
“You are...” Charlie shakes his head, but his expression is all goofy and fond. “You are a mess. A disaster. And that fact is so special to me.”
“Oh my God, just die please,” Simon says, but he knows Charlie means it. “I don’t want to ruin this,” he says in a rush. “Don’t let me ruin it.”
“Okay,” Charlie says.
“Okay?”
“I won’t let you ruin it.”
“What’s your plan? Give me, like, a flowchart.”
“If you’re being a dickhead, I’ll say, ‘Hey, Simon, you’re being a dickhead and it’s making me sad,’ and then you’ll fall all over yourself trying to make me feel better. Off the top of my head. Just brainstorming.”
Maybe Simon did something like that once or twice. Charlie didn’t have to point it out, though. God. Also in none of those instances was Simon being a dickhead. He’ll take being called a dickhead over accuracy, though, because accuracy probably involvesuttering phrases like “meeting one another’s emotional needs” and Simon might never recover. Still, he switches back to a regular audio call because actions have consequences, Charlie.
“Or, plan B, I just fuck you, because that’s a battle-tested strategy to get you in a better mood,” Charlie goes on happily.
“Oh my God,” Simon says, a little faintly. “You’re a monster.”
He thinks of how he is after sex, warm and dumb and not quite there. He thinks of Charlie askingare you always like this.
“You started it,” Charlie says. “But I’m not wrong.”
“No,” Simon agrees. “You aren’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Do you want to go to Petra’s wedding?” Charlie asks.
It’s bright in Charlie’s bedroom, the curtains wide open. “I RSVP’d ‘no’ already,” Simon says. “I thought I’d still be in New York.”
