“Want me to ask her to get in touch with you?” Alex asks.
That sounds like the next best alternative to doing nothing at all and hoping the situation magically resolves itself, so he says, yes, he’d love that, thank you.
Simon stays long enough to finish his coffee and eat a granola bar. He doesn’t have any interest in watching them play video games, but it’s nice seeing Charlie happy, nice hearing the twoof them laugh. Simon keeps waiting to feel jealous, and it doesn’t come.
He keeps thinking about how Charlie said that Alex needs things to be fine, needs to keep things light. Now that he knows Charlie better, he can see the work Charlie puts into it. But work doesn’t mean it’s fake. The fact that it isn’t perfect, isn’t ideal, doesn’t mean it’s fake either. It just means that Charlie’s taking care of his friend the best way he can, and that feels like a very Charlie thing to do.
When Simon leaves, Alex squeezes him on the shoulder, a humane alternative to a hug. But Simon’s trying here, he’s making an effort, so he leans over and gives her an actual hug.
Then he grabs his phone and leaves before anyone can say anything.
“I could kiss you both,” Lian says when Charlie and Simon sit down. They’re at a French restaurant that’s always Lian’s first choice for expense account lunches. “You can’t buy this kind of publicity.”
That TikTok is still doing the rounds, and so is the picture from the restaurant, a handful of pictures and a clip from upfronts, and a few pictures someone took of them in the Chelsea Whole Foods arguing in the pet supply aisle about the ethics of spending thirty-eight dollars on three pounds of dog food.
“Are you getting shit from the network?” Charlie asks.
“No,” Lian says, after a tiny hesitation that probably means she’s getting questions from the network, maybeconcern, but no actual trouble.
Obviously, bigots exist, and so do tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists who think he and Charlie are engaged in a publicity stunt, so their social media is a disaster zone. Simon can’t even look at it, andit’s too homophobic in there to ask Jamie to help, so he finally hired an assistant.
Charlie posted a video explaining that if anyone thought he was straight, “that sounds like ayouproblem,” and another video apologizing, and then a third saying that anyone who doesn’t like it can die mad, all within twenty-four hours. Neither of them are getting through the rest of June without agreeing to some terribly earnest pride month social media content.
“What’re you planning to do about it?” Simon asks. Charlie’s hand comes to rest on the back of Simon’s chair.
Lian takes a sip of ice water and looks like she’s counting to ten. “Actors become involved all the time without it changing the trajectory of the show.”
“Lian,” Charlie says. “Come on. It’s not about us being involved. It’s about us beingout. There’s an element of, like, responsibility here.”
This is mighty rich, since Charlie’s spent the past few weeks telling Simon that he’s never not been out, but Simon can respect the pivot. He butters a piece of bread just for the sake of doing something. He agrees with Charlie’s point. But he also feels like he should have had this conversation with Lian years ago. He’s a bit ashamed that he didn’t.
“Wait a minute,” Lian says, sitting up even straighter. “Do you think you need to persuademethat we need to do a romance storyline? After I’ve spent the past seven years being cyberbullied by gay teenagers who want to see your characters together?”
“Um,” Charlie says.
“Keeping the network happy and making the show I—we—want to make is a tightrope walk. I wasn’t going to commit to aqueer romantic storyline between two of the show’s main characters unless I had your full support. This time last year, would I have had your full support?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I was afraid one of you would quit. Or burn the set down. Or commit actual murder. Nobody on this show is paid enough to deal with what would have happened if I told you tokiss.”
“We’re both professionals,” Simon says, mildly affronted. “Romantic leads have hated one another since acting got invented.”
Lian looks like she might be praying. “I was trying,” she says after a moment, “not to be an asshole. Do you remember when I told youOut Therewasn’t going to be likeTree of the Gods? This is what I meant. No toxic power dynamics. No nasty comments about weight or shooting outside for twelve-hour days during heat waves or firing the intimacy coordinator in the middle of shooting. Just, in general, treating the cast and crew like people instead of like bodies that I hired to move around like little dolls.”
“Ah,” Simon says. “Thank you?”
“Besides, we didn’t want a romance between the central characters. That kills the tension. If we got Luke and Jonathan together, then we’d have to break them up, and this is not a prime-time soap,” Lian says, despite having very much written the episode in which Amadi’s character turns out to have a secret space baby with a sexy alien amnesiac.
“I think that what Charlie and I are trying to say is that you have our support, one way or the other.”
Simon doesn’t say much for the rest of the meal. Charlie and Lian are more than capable of keeping a conversation going. Simon’s had dozens of similar meals where he mostly keeps quiet, but this feels different—the press of Charlie’s thigh against his, the knowledgethat at least one of the people at the table wants to be there with him. Both of them, if he’s being his most truthful self.
After he finishes eating, Charlie peers over Lian’s shoulder. “I see someone. I’ll be right back.”
Simon watches distractedly as Charlie hugs two people he dimly remembers having seen on set. One of them, he thinks, was a space pirate in season three.
“I was all set to tell you not to fuck up my show,” Lian says, following the direction of Simon’s gaze. “I was going to tell you that you’d better be good to him.”
“Yes, thank you, it’s about time someone threatened me.” He kind of means it.
“I was going to say that, but I don’t think I need to.”
