Simon’s lips quirked into a smile, but pulled down a second later. “Never,” he allowed. “I just wish they could be normal aboutyoufor one second. You’re not even particularly weird. I mean, if you were actually a strange person, if you were doing something out there, like… I don’t know, running a yoga retreat for goats in Sacramento, or something, I could see why they might have a little trouble understanding you. But you could notbemore normal. I’m so much weirder than you and my parents think it’s great.”
I twisted the cap off my own beer and took a sip. The label had promised me pineapple, but all I could taste was the bitterness and the carbonation.
“Your parents are great,” I said, licking my lips.
“They love you,” Simon said. “If adult adoption was a thing, we’d be brothers by now.”
I snorted.
“Seriously,” he said. “Whenever I talk to them, they ask about you. Whenever I tell them what you’re doing, they’re impressed. They talk about you like you’re their other kid.”
That, I believed. Simon’s mom had told me once she’d wanted more kids—it’d just never happened for them.
My mom, if anything, wanted less. Ideally starting with her middle child.
“Thanks.”
“You don’t have to thank me for the literal truth. I’m going down to see them next weekend,” Simon added, sipping his beer again. “You could come with.”
“Maybe.” I twirled my beer bottle by the neck. “How did your day go?”
Simon barked a laugh up at the sky. “We went paintballing. Is that the verb?”
“It is now.” I shrugged. “How was that?”
Simon set his beer down, leaning back further, then tugged his shirt out of his waistband, exposing a strip of his stomach.
He said something, but I only heard the sound of his voice, too busy staring at the exposed skin, the way his body moved as he breathed. On and off all day I’d been thinking about him. About last night, and how his body had felt against mine.
I’d been pressed up against Simon like that a dozen times before—so often that curling myself around him to sleep when I was upset didn’t feel awkward at all. As a rule, I didn’t think anything of touching him. It was something I did all the time.
Now, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, to feel the warmth of him under them.
“I know,” Simon said. “I’ve never seen bruises like that, either.”
Bruises?
I got out my phone, turning on the torch and running the light over Simon’s stomach.
He wascoveredin bruises, from purple so deep it was practically black to greenish-yellow stains. I reached out without thinking, pushing his shirt further up to see more of them. He laughed again.
“Turns out paintballs hurt,” he said. “And that I’m not great at dodging them.”
I tore my eyes away from the kaleidoscope of bruises covering every exposed inch and disappearing into the waistband of his pants to look him in the eyes. “Corey did this?”
“Actually, he was on my team,” Simon said, dropping his shirt and sitting up straighter again. “He saved me a handful of times.”
“He still made you go along,” I grumbled, glancing at the place where Simon’s shirt had been pushed up again. “Does it hurt?”
“Only if I move. Or breathe,” he said, laughing again. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
But Ididworry about him. I wanted to trace the outline of every bruise with the gentlest touch, press the softest kisses to the sorest spots. To, for once, take care of Simon the way he’d always taken care of me.
A sudden bang behind me made me jump.
The fireworks had started.
I turned to look just in time to see the first one fizzling out. Another two shot up either side of it, then three between them,bursting one after another and filling the sky with a rainbow of light.
