Simon replayed the kiss in his mind a hundred times. Hell, make it a thousand. That night, after the storm had blown through and he’d made his way home, he lay in bed, shut his eyes tight, and went over every detail he could remember. It turned out he could remember enough to make his heart race, his dick go hard, and his breath come short just thinking about it.
He slid a hand down his belly and into his underwear and brought himself off in just five glorious strokes, shuddering and biting his lip. He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, 6.8 miles northwest, Jack might be doing the same.
He fell blissfully asleep, but woke up with a dragon of anxiety curled in his stomach. What would it be like when he saw Jack this morning? What if Jack thought the whole thing was a mistake and everything they’d been building was ruined? Simon had talked to him! What if Jack pretended it had never happened? Simon couldn’t bear to see him twice a day and pretend. Or what if Jack assumed they’d fuck now? That was normal for people who had sex, right?
By the time he got to Jack’s he was nauseated and shaking apart. Jack opened the door with a warm smile, but it slid off his face the second he saw Simon’s expression.
“What’s wrong?”
He held a hand out and Simon followed him in.
“I didn’t know if—What are—We don’t—”
Too much, too many possibilities all intersecting, contradicting, overloaded. Choking.
“Hey, hey, c’mere,” Jack said, leaning his crutches against the wall and opening his arms.
Simon stood face-to-face with something he’d wanted since the moment Jack first opened the front door. The chance to be held close to that big, warm body, in its soft, worn sweatshirt. Something he’d wanted far longer than just since then, if he were honest.
Someone who regretted kissing him and wanted to pretend it never happened wouldn’t open his arms, right?
He stepped forward, heart racing, and let Jack’s arms enfold him.
Jack squeezed him tight, then stroked his back.
“What’s up, darlin’?” he asked softly after a few minutes. It was only when Simon pulled back that he found the pack sitting in a circle around them, watching them.
It felt right, somehow.
He tried to put his thoughts in order but they started to get tangled up again, and the tangle stuck in his throat.
“You wanna text?” Jack offered when he cleared his throat for the fifth time.
Gratitude for the unexpected kindness of this man flooded him and nearly leaked from his eyes.
He nodded and pulled out his phone.
Sorry. I got so nervous and I didn’t know if it would be weird today bc of the whole kissing thing and then I freaked out like what if you regretted it or maybe I’m a terrible kisser or what if you thought that kissing meant I would just have sex right away and I don’t think I’m ready and then I thought you might be mad at me.
He couldn’t quite make himself send the message, held his phone until Jack gently took it from his hand. After a minute, Jack cupped his cheek.
“It’s not weird for me. I definitely do not regret the whole kissing thing.” He winked. “You’re, fuuuck, the opposite of a terrible kisser. I thought maybe I scared you away with how much I, uh, liked it.”
Simon flushed, thinking about touching himself to memories of their kiss, and shook his head.
“Well, that’s good. I’d never assume that kissing me meant you wanted to have sex with me, even if you’d kissed a million people before, and anyone who’d be mad at you for not being ready is a piece of shit. And I’ll knock their block off.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say and from Jack it sounded like the most natural thing in the world.
“Okay,” Simon said. He dropped his forehead forward to rest against Jack’s shoulder. “Good.”
“Good,” Jack echoed.
Bernard howled, echoing it in his own way too.
The next week was perhaps the strangest in Simon’s life.
He wasn’t used to waking up excited about where he was going or who he was seeing. He wasn’t used to getting out of his car and not feeling a sick sense of dread creep through him. He wasn’t used to falling asleep with memories from the day that he wanted to ruminate on. And he absolutely, certainly, one hundred percent was not used to being gathered to a man’s chest, his lips and cheeks and brows kissed; to the taste of someone else’s lips tingling on his own as he walked the dogs, made coffee, did his work.
It was visionary, transcendent, addictive.
It gave him the unfamiliar sense of having a place in the world. Of being tethered, rather than floating, ghostlike, through a land that belonged to others.
He didn’t suppose that a week of kissing was supposed to be able to change the world, but his world was sweetly, irrevocably altered.
Of course his grandmother had noticed. Simon worried she might tease him, but that was a worry from another time.
“What’s Jack’s favorite cookie?” she’d asked, taking out the flour.
Simon didn’t know.
“Well, ask him, silly!”
Simon had stared at his phone. It had never occurred to him that he could contact Jack when they weren’t together.
Hi. It’s Simon. What’s your favorite cookie?
Hmm, Simon who? came the reply. But it was followed immediately with a winky face and Simon realized that although it was the first time he’d texted Jack from afar, of course he’d texted him a hundred times while they were in the same room.
He tried to stop smiling, embarrassed that Grandma Jean could read his absurd happiness on his face.
He sent back: Wow, you just gave me a panic attack. But he also sent a wink of his own.
Jack wrote, I know you’re a tough cookie. Mmm speaking of cookies, I like oatmeal.
For a moment, Simon didn’t even notice the second part of the text. No one had ever called him tough before. Told him to toughen up? Yes. To tough it out? Definitely. The thing was that he knew he was tough. He’d never told anyone, but sometimes at the end of the day, when he closed the door on the world and pulled a blanket over his head, he thought: You are so fucking tough. You just did hard shit all day. You are so brave for doing that.
He felt a flush of pride and gratitude that Jack had seen that in him.
Then: OATMEAL??? That’s your FAVORITE cookie??? Whose favorite sweet confection is made of GRUEL?!!!
Daaaaamn, Simon, I love oatmeal in all forms!
WOW. Well, okay, I’ll tell my grandma, but she might not let me hang out with you anymore...
You tell your grandma that I’ll fight her for you.
You’d fight an old lady? Cold-blooded, Matheson.
I’m gonna tell your grandma you called her an old lady, Burke. Now make me some damn cookies.
And then, as if it were as simple as pressing a button, Jack sent a heart. A red, clear-as-day heart that sat there staring at Simon and making him wonder what would happen if he sent one back.
With a trembling finger, he sent the emoji back.
Voop as it sent, and Simon blinked.
Because he hadn’t sent a heart. He’d sent the green-faced vomiting emoji that was next to it.
He dropped his phone.
“Dick pic, dear?” Grandma Jean said sympathetically. “The bits not quite what you’d hoped for?”
“Grandma, no! God.”
He grabbed his phone and scrambled to type: OMG I meant to send the heart! My finger hit the wrong emoji and OMG.
Jack sent back a flurry of crying laughing emojis and then a kissy face. With relief shaking through him and great care in the emoji-choosing arena, Simon sent back one perfect heart.
“Phew,” he said, collapsing on a kitchen stool.
“Just a bad angle, then?” his grandmother drawled impishly.
“You’re a true menace,” he told her. “Oh, and oatmeal cookies.”
She pursed her lips pensively and cocked her head.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Very interesting.”
They’d been kissing for what felt like hours. Simon’s spine was liquid and his thighs burned from kneeling over Jack on the couch. Every swipe of his tongue against Jack’s, every trail of Jack’s fingertips down his throat, sent a pulse straight to his cock.
He buried his face in the crook of Jack’s neck, the skin there hot and smelling deliciously of Jack. He pressed a kiss to the throbbing pulse in Jack’s throat and felt Jack’s breath hitch.
“Jack,” he whispered.
Jack stroked up his back. “Yeah.”
“I... I...”
Jack eased him back so they were looking at each other.
Simon was burning up. He wanted everything and didn’t know how to ask for any of it.
“Feeling shy, darlin’?” Jack drawled. His eyelids were heavy and there was a flush across his high cheekbones.
Simon shook his head.
“Not...with this.” He pressed his palm to Jack’s chest. “Just...” He gestured to his mouth.
“Easier to touch than to talk?”
Yes. So much easier.
He nodded, relieved Jack understood.
“No problem. I can do the talking,” Jack murmured. “Want me to tell you what you do to me? What I wanna do with you?”
Simon knew it was a choice but he just nodded. He wanted it all.
“Mmm, okay.” He put his hand over Simon’s where it rested on his chest. “You make my heart race. So fucking hot. And knowing that I’m the first one—the only one—to touch you. That you’ve kissed? It’s...” He groaned. “I don’t know. Fucking gets to me.”
He stroked fingertips up the side of Simon’s throat and Simon’s eyelids fluttered. The gentle touches made him squirm in the best way.
“It’s like you’re so sensitive because this is all new and it...” He sucked in a breath through his nose. “It really turns me on to watch you.”
Simon’s breath came faster. Jack’s fingers moved from his throat to his chest, and he brushed his thumbs over Simon’s nipples, watching for his reaction.
First nothing, then Jack pinched and bolts of sensation shot through him, arching his back.
“Damn,” Jack breathed. He did it again and again until Simon was writhing. “Wanna take this off?”
Simon stripped off his shirt. His face was on fire and the flush was spreading down his chest, his nipples standing out, rosy and pert. Jack pinched them again and now that Simon could see it he felt it even more.
His thighs were trembling so hard he could barely hold himself up. Slowly, he lowered himself to Jack’s lap.
Jack’s broken groan ripped through him and for a moment he worried he’d jarred Jack’s leg. But Jack cupped his shoulders, holding him there firmly, and when Simon’s mind cleared he felt the hardness he was sitting on. He moved experimentally, pressing this way and that, and watched Jack’s eyes roll back.
“Fuck, baby, stop for a second.” Jack sucked in a breath. “You’re—Shit, that’s so sweet. You wanna feel it too?”
Simon nodded, heart pounding in his ears.
“C’mere.”
Jack pulled himself more upright and settled Simon’s full weight back on his lap. Simon tipped his hips forward and Oh, fuck, there it was.
Jack rearranged himself and then they were moving together, hard cocks straining against one another in their pants. It was so very, very much, but with each minute that passed it became more frustrating.
Simon whined and Jack kissed him hard.
“Simon,” he said when they broke the kiss. “I wanna touch your dick. I wanna—fuck—I wanna feel you lose it. Wanna touch you till you come all over us.”
A bolt of pure lust ripped through Simon and set him shaking. He fumbled with his fly. He pulled at Jack’s sweatpants until Jack got the hint and eased them down his thighs along with Simon’s jeans.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” Jack muttered, tracing the head of Simon’s cock with his finger. Simon’s hips bucked violently at that first touch and he gasped, bracing himself on Jack’s shoulders.
“Oh, yeah, darlin’. I want to touch you fucking everywhere.” He stroked Simon’s cock slowly, gently, then a little bit harder, a little bit faster, making everything go liquid and hot.
“I want to touch every inch of you, inside and out. Wanna make you scream and beg and come until you can’t come anymore.”
“Ungh!” Simon babbled, feeling like his skin was too tight for the arousal roiling inside him. “Jack, p-please,” he managed. He held on with one hand and with the other, he reached down slowly and wrapped his hand around the first erection other than his own that he’d ever touched.
Jack was big and uncut and Simon could feel his pulse through his veins. At the first squeeze, Jack’s hips bucked up and Simon fell backward, which sent Jack into a flurry of cursing.
“S-sorry. I’m too big.”
“Goddamn my leg,” Jack hissed finally. “I want to do fucking everything to you and this damn thing.” Then, as if Simon’s words had finally caught up with him, he furrowed his brow. “You’re the perfect size. And if I hadn’t fucked myself all up—” He broke off and blew out an angry breath.
Then he pulled his good leg up, foot resting on the couch, and held Simon’s hips so Simon couldn’t fall backward.
“C’mere,” he said then, eyes hot. Simon let himself be arranged so that his cock pressed to Jack’s. His eyelashes fluttered at the sensation of that hot, velvet flesh against his own.
“So hot, darlin’. You just move however you want. I promise I’ll fuckin love it.”
Simon braced his hands on Jack’s shoulders again and ground his hips down, undulating to the rhythm his body demanded. His pulse got stronger and stronger until he felt it in his ears and temples, in his cock and balls, in his asshole and in his gut. He was hard and leaking and so was Jack. That press of hot, slick, swollen flesh was all Simon could think about.
Jack’s hips pulsed up too, tiny movements that spurred the heat between them even higher.
Heart pounding, cock pulsing, Simon kissed Jack desperately. Jack groaned when their mouths met, and his palms on Simon’s back were strong and hungry. Tongue in Simon’s mouth, Jack hauled him down so they were belly to belly, chest to chest.
“Oh, fuck,” Jack said into the kiss when Simon’s weight pressed their erections together again. He reached between their bellies and when his hand closed around their hard lengths, Simon nearly swallowed his tongue.
“Oh! Oh, oh,” he heard himself say. He slung his arms around Jack’s neck, suddenly afraid that the dark, pounding surf gathering deep within him would rip him away forever.
Jack’s strong arm held him tight and Jack’s other hand worked them, sloppy and straining and better than anything Simon had ever imagined.
He heard someone whimper and realized it was him but he couldn’t care because suddenly the world aligned with a shocking snap. Jack’s hand tightened just so and the drag of his palm against Simon’s skin had him soaring, grinding, clutching, writhing. Then the sky cracked open and pleasure tore through him, shattering him apart.
In wrenching spasms he came into Jack’s hand and over Jack’s cock and as if from a distance he heard Jack shout and felt Jack’s heat added to his own.
Simon shook and Jack kept stroking them lightly, which sent tingles and shivers skating along every nerve ending.
“Mmmmhh,” Simon groaned finally, and slumped against Jack’s chest, shaking.
Jack’s heart pounded beneath his cheek and Jack started petting his hair and his back, his hand finally coming to rest on Simon’s ass, and giving a little push, pressing them together again. Simon felt Jack’s cock twitch and a ghost of pleasure ran through his own.
They lay like that for a minute or two. Jack’s heart rate returned to normal, as did Simon’s breathing. Then Jack slid a hand into his hair.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
Simon nodded. For once, his head was blissfully empty, every habitual inkling blasted away.
“Good.”
They lay for another minute.
“We’re gonna get stuck together,” Jack warned.
But Simon was so comfortable. So comfortable and so very, very peaceful.
“The dogs are gonna try to lick our come,” Jack warned.
At that, Simon sat up, horrified.
Jack half chuckled and half groaned, since Simon sitting up involved a redistribution of the mess between them.
“Okay, okay, don’t do anything drastic,” he muttered.
They eased apart slowly, Simon wiping at their come with his shirt.
Jack caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm.
“Hey.” Simon looked at him. There was a softness to his expression—an uncertainty that Simon hadn’t seen before. “Was it okay?”
Simon grinned and rolled his eyes. The notion that Jack might not know how mind-blowing it was for him was laughable.
But Jack’s eyes had a rawness in them that made Simon remember how much it hurt when sincerity was treated as a joke.
Simon cupped Jack’s face, kissed his cheek, and said very seriously and very firmly, “Yes.”
When Simon got home, someone was breaking things.
At the first crash, he braced for a burglar. But this was Garnet Run so it was more likely to be a moose.
Then he heard the yell. It was indistinct and garbled with pain, but Simon knew. What he didn’t know was whether to give his grandma privacy or go to her. It was something he was never sure of. When he felt at his worst, the idea of someone seeing him was mortifying.
Once, in tenth grade, after Mr. Warner had forced him to the front of biology class to demonstrate removal of the fetal pig’s heart and his hand had shaken so hard as the man barked instructions at him that he’d nearly sliced the pig in half, he’d bolted from the room. A well-meaning classmate had followed him, crashing through the bathroom door just in time to see him puke into the sink. At the sight of her Simon had shut himself in a stall, wishing he were dead. Finally she left, and she never followed him again.
It never helped to be witnessed in the depths.
But with Jack’s scent on his skin and Jack’s taste in his mouth, an unfamiliar image slid into his mind. What if, someday, Jack were the one to find him? The one to witness his body and brain trying to tear each other apart? What if he didn’t run? What if he didn’t cringe? What if Jack just wrapped those strong arms around him and held him as he shook? That wouldn’t feel the same, would it?
Simon nosed into his collar, hunting for one more whiff of Jack, when another crash came from the kitchen. He turned the corner and jumped back as the plate hit the ground inches from his toes.
“Grandma, it’s me,” he said, keeping his voice casual.
“Don’t come in here unless you’re wearing shoes,” she said, voice choked. “There’s...everything’s broken.”
Simon gulped.
Broken crockery littered the floor and a hole was caved into the wall next to the window, flowered wallpaper punched into the drywall.
His grandmother stood outside the entrance to the pantry. For the first time since the funeral, Simon found himself thinking how old she looked. How small.
She’d simply always been there for him. In the usual ways, when he was a child. Birthday presents and hugs and special outings and favorite meals. But it was later that mattered more. When his parents began to realize that their son wasn’t going to be who they wanted him to be. Wasn’t going to act the way they thought he should. When they lost patience with his fear and his pain and began to see them as inconveniences instead of needs. That’s when his grandmother’s open door and open arms, her empathy and her acceptance, her fierce protection, had meant everything to him.
At fifteen, when he’d left his job at the Dairy Queen after three days because they’d forced him to take orders when he’d thought he would only fill them—when his boss had barked at him to Speak up, son, and when Simon couldn’t, let fly unsavory comparisons that Simon wouldn’t repeat—when his father had thrown up his hands in exasperation and asked how the hell Simon thought he’d ever be an independent adult if he couldn’t even keep a job at a fucking Dairy Queen—his grandmother had stood up for him. She’d told his father to back off and she’d told him that it wasn’t being able to ask strangers what kind of ice cream they wanted that made you an adult.
At sixteen, when he’d failed three classes because the teachers wouldn’t waive the participation and presentation grades and the school had sent home a letter warning that he might be held back a year, she’d been the one to pluck the letter from his mother’s hand, announce that she’d take care of it, then march into the principal’s office and give him a piece of her mind that had, Simon was sure, been what let him enter his senior year.
At seventeen, when he wanted to apply for college but didn’t have a single teacher who could write a recommendation letter on his behalf, his grandmother had been the one to suggest he ask Cindy and Bill, who ran the Humane Society where Simon had spent the weekends since he was fourteen, to write instead. He hadn’t gotten in anywhere, but he still had the letters. They were the only endorsements of his character he couldn’t deny.
She’d been there for him more times than he could count, always warm and fierce and unrufflable.
But now she looked small, uncertain, angry. She looked heartbroken.
Simon crossed to her, not sure what to say.
“I can’t believe he left me,” she choked out. “Bastard.” Simon put his arms around her and gathered her close. “Can’t believe that bastard died and left me all alone,” she sobbed. Simon had never heard his grandmother say bastard before.
“Bastard,” he cooed in solidarity about the kindest man he’d ever known.
His grandmother swatted him. “Don’t talk about your grandfather like that,” she admonished through her tears.
“Sorry,” Simon laughed. His grandmother laughed. She cried and laughed and then Simon found himself crying and laughing.
“Good lord,” she said, wiping her tears and taking a deep breath. “What now?”
Simon knew she wasn’t talking about this very moment, but sometimes the next moment was all you could really deal with.
“Well,” he offered, “we could break more stuff?”
His grandmother’s eyebrows rose.
“We could,” she said thoughtfully. “We could break more stuff.”
Simon reached into the open cupboard and took out two plates. He handed one to his grandmother. Then he clinked the rim of his to the rim of hers in a defiant cheers and threw the plate at the wall.
It exploded, then the pieces hit the tile floor and shattered again. Simon grinned, giddy with glee.
“Wow,” he said. “Good thing you replaced those linoleum floors you had when I was a kid. They wouldn’t have yielded nearly such a satisfying result.”
“True,” his grandmother said. Then she threw her plate at the wall and let out a holler of joy as it exploded.
They looked at each other, wide-eyed and grinning like naughty children.
“Again?” his grandmother said.
“Again,” Simon agreed.