“I meant, do you want to come with me?”
The truth is that Simon doesn’t want to go to Petra’s wedding, or any wedding, or possibly anywhere at all, basically ever. But Charlie’s going, and maybe he doesn’t want to go alone? Simon doubts his company will improve anything, though.
“Do you want me to come?” Simon asks.
“That is literally why I’m asking you. But if you don’t want to, it’s okay.”
“Sure. Why not.”
“Alex is coming by in an hour if you want to say hi.”
Simon props himself up on an elbow so he can look down at Charlie. “Are you arranging playdates for me? Do I seem lonely? What’s going on here?”
“Just giving you a heads-up,” Charlie says. “You can stick around, or you can split.”
Simon spends a few minutes trying to find any hidden meaning in all that and concludes that Charlie is saying exactly what he means.
Charlie’s refrigerator is stocked with a bunch of the same salads and bottled water that Simon had been buying in New York. On the counter is a box of his favorite brand of granola bars. Simon feels mildly nuts about it all.
When Alex walks in, Simon doesn’t know what to expect. He’s braced. Well, he’s sitting on the sofa holding Edie, wearing his indoor sunglasses, but same idea. Simon wants to murder Jamie’s boyfriends on first sight, and he wouldn’t blame Alex for being suspicious of Simon’s ability to make Charlie happy—Simon’s suspicious of his ability to make Charlie happy.
“What does it take,” Alex says to Simon instead ofhello, “to get you to respond to your texts?”
“You’re not going to like the answer to that,” Charlie says. “Okay fine, don’t hug me, see if I care,” he adds when Alex makes a beeline to the sofa, plopping down next to Simon, stealing Edie, and supervising him while he reads the past week’s worth of messages in the group chat.
It’s eighty percent small talk and inside jokes that Simon barely understands, along with Charlie telling everyone to shut up whenever a picture surfaces of him wearing real clothes.
“Why are you even in this group chat?” Simon asks her. “You quit.”
“Tough shit, you’re stuck with me.”
“Fair.”
“Give me your phone. No, unlock it first.”
Not liking any of this, Simon hands her his phone, then watches as she makes herself a favorite contact. Which means she sees that his current favorite contacts are Jamie, Nora, and Charlie.
“Why?” he asks, gesturing at his phone.
“Because I’m going to miss seeing you every day.”
That seems highly unlikely, and he tells her so.
“Fine. You’ll miss seeing me, then,” she says.
The worst part is that she’s right. Simon remembers Charlie insisting that Alex and Simon are friends. He supposes, looked at from certain angles, it’s true. They’ve spent a lot of time together, and even though most of it’s been on set, Simon hasn’t minded it. He’s looked forward to it, maybe. Or he’s gotten used to it. He isn’t sure there’s a difference.
“Tell me about the movie,” he says, because that seems like a normal thing to ask a person, and also because he’s curious.
She tells him, and then they talk about how brave Edie was on the airplane, and it’s all... nice. She doesn’t warn him off Charlie. She doesn’t even say anything about him and Charlie.
“Do you like your agent?” Simon asks, the words out of his mouth before he’s made up his mind to say them. “I think I need a new agent.”
“Hey,” Charlie says. “You didn’t ask whether I like my agent.”
“Probably because your agent is mean,” Alex says.
“She’s so mean,” Charlie says, a little dreamily. Simon grins up at Charlie—he can’t help it—then catches Alex’s eye and she’s grinning too. His phone buzzes with contact info for Alex’s agent.
