“You’re too good for me,” I said aloud.
“I’m not. No one is,” Simon replied, voice soft. His fingers brushed against mine—not holding, just touching. “Your mother makes you feel like you’re not good enough. It’s not true. You deserve the world, Theo,” he said. “Would I still be hanging out with you if it wasn’t one of my favorite things to do?”
No. No, he wouldn’t be. Simon was good with people. He made friends everywhere he went. He was vibrant and fun to be around and people liked him. He could have been spending his Thursday evening with just about anyone he wanted to.
I couldn’t have been more grateful that he was here with me.
“You want the first shower?” I offered, instead of actually answering that question.
“Are you saying I stink?” Simon teased again.
“You smell great, actually,” I said, turning my head to sniff him. I’d caught a whiff of something new on him, something musky and spicy andsexy. Not that Simon ever smelled bad—he just normally smelled of whatever body wash had been on sale when he’d last run out. Simon wasn’t a signature scent kind of man. He wasn’t a deliberate scent kind of man at all.
“Yeah? Ellie helped me pick this out,” he said. “All of it. So it’s her fault if I look and/or smell ridiculous.”
“You don’t.” Simon had never lookedorsmelled better. I owed Ellie a thank you.
I liked her. I’d wanted to hate her when she and Simon were dating, but I couldn’t. She was a sweetheart, like Simon. She’d always been kind to me. She’d even baked me a birthday cake once—Simon’s pancakes were amazing, but that was as close to baking with any success as he’d ever gotten.
So. I liked her.
I liked her a lot more now that theyweren’tdating, and that she was safely in a committed relationship with someone else, though.
“You didn’t have to dress up,” I added. “I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Good thing I did,” Simon said. “No one would’ve believedyou’ddatemeif I was wearing baggy jeans and an old t-shirt. I look like I’m punching far enough above my weight as it is.”
I wasn’t sure that was true. Simon was the kindest, sweetest man I’d ever met, and the smartest. He spoke LatinandGreek and he could read hieroglyphs. He did sudoku puzzles. Forfun.
I didn’t even knowhowto do those. He’d tried to show me once, but the numbers had all just blurred together.
Simon was amazing.
“I will take that shower, though,” he went on before I could say so, sitting up with a groan. “Back in five.”
I shouldn’t have letSimon take the first shower. The last thing I needed, on top of everything else, was to watch him walk out of the en suite with a towel slung low around his hips and nothing else on.
It’d been a while since I’d seen him without a shirt on—a handful of years, since I’d moved out of the apartment we’d shared.
Not to repeat a phrase that’d been going around a lot today, but he wasall grown up. We’d both been skinny in college, starving students living on coffee and instant noodles until Simon had broken down and learned how to cook in senior year, when we’d gotten our own place.
He’d filled out alotin the intervening time, broad across the chest and shoulders. A development I hadn’t noticed under all the baggy clothes he normally wore.
I was still all pointy knees and elbows. Not that I minded—I didn’t hate the way I looked at all.
I just wasn’t insanely turned on by the wayIlooked. Simon, though?
The mistake in letting him take the first shower was that he was just in the next room getting dressed and I couldn’t jerk off about it because he’d hear me. No matter how much I wanted to.
I wasn’t a stranger to jerking off thinking about Simon. Whenever someone broke up with me and he was sweet and sympathetic and let me curl up beside him on the couch with my head tucked into the crook of his neck, he took first place as my favorite guilty fantasy for a couple of weeks. I liked to imagine turning to kiss him while we were watching a comfort movie, the light of his practically vintage TV flickering over the two of us. He’d respond, and I’d crawl into his lap and kiss him until we were both breathless. He’d tell me he wanted me, he’d always wanted me, that I could be his from now on and no one would ever dump me again. Then I’d slide to my knees and suck his dick until he came down my throat.
Right now, I couldn’t help thinking about him coming back in here. Dropping his towel. Stepping into the shower, crowding me against the tiles. Murmuring that we ought to get in some practice before we went downstairs. Kissing me like he meant it, like it was allreal, like I could finally have everything I wanted.
I wanted to come in his hand, teeth digging into his shoulder as I muffled my own cries. I wanted to go downstairs with an unmistakable post-orgasm glow and a hickey on my neck, proof that someonedidwant me. That the best person I’d ever known wanted me.
Instead, I shut the hot water off and hissed as the cold spray cascaded over me, standing under it for as long as I could handlebefore stepping out and drying myself off like I was trying to scrub the imagined touch of Simon’s hands off my skin.
It might even have helped, if I hadn’t stepped out of the bathroom to find Simon dressed in a sharp, fitted suit. Deep navy, with a crisp white shirt under the jacket, the top two buttons still open and showing off a tempting slice of his throat as he held up two ties.
