Chapter Six
Jack
A week later, Jack and Charlie sat, eating meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas. Charlie always cooked absurdly balanced meals.
“He’s not weird,” Jack was saying. “He’s just shy.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow.
“You scared him away with your hugeness,” Jack grumbled.
“Mmhmm,” Charlie said.
Jack bit at his lip. “He’s...great. Sweet. I didn’t expect him to be... I don’t know. Cool.”
Charlie snorted. “Cool? What are you, fifteen?”
“Shut up. He’ll probably turn out to be an asshole just like everyone else.”
Charlie’s eyes grew serious.
“Not everyone will let you down, Jack.”
Jack sighed. “Yeah, well you won’t let me down even when I beg you to.”
Charlie just kept coming over every day, helping without being asked. He cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, and brought groceries and sometimes meals. He asked Jack how his leg was and talked about people they knew who’d come into the hardware store. He gave the dogs baths that ended with him soaked to the skin. And, vexingly, he still left Jack’s notebook and pens on his bedside table, a glaring reminder.
Still, every time he showed up, Jack was so glad to be distracted from mindless television or shamelessly spying on the house across the field. But within minutes of his arrival, Jack was snapping at him. He needed him—fuck, he knew he needed him—but he resented every moment of it.
Jack took a bite of meatloaf and it was so very familiar. His brother had made it the same way since he was seventeen. A week after their parents died, Charlie had cooked meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas for dinner, as if, with a well-balanced meal, he could somehow restore to their lives the balance that had been upset.
“Charlie? How did you know how to make meatloaf?” Jack asked, suddenly realizing he couldn’t remember him ever cooking before their parents’ death.
Charlie looked at him flatly. “I didn’t know how to make it; I learned. Mom had those recipe cards of her mom’s, remember? In the yellow plastic box.”
“Kind of, but she never made meatloaf, did she?”
Charlie shook his head. “I didn’t want to make something she used to make. I didn’t want it to taste like she was still there when she wasn’t.”
With a wave of vertigo that comes from realization, Jack thought of the meals Charlie had made in those first few months. They were plain and simple and balanced—nothing like their mother’s slapdash combinations of whatever had been on sale at the market or in season in the garden. She’d been a joyful and absent-minded cook. Charlie approached the task with military precision.
“Do you like cooking?”
It was something else he’d never thought of before. But he’d had a lot of time to think lately.
“I don’t mind it,” Charlie said slowly.
As always, Charlie seemed to be measuring his words. His revelations were as precise as his cooking.
After an awkward few minutes in which they both, as if by mutual agreement, shoved food in their mouths so words were impossible, Charlie said, “I saw Vanessa the other day. She said to tell you hello and that you’re an asshole for never hanging out anymore.”
Guilt and irritation jangled through him. Vanessa had been his friend since high school. The two of them and their friends Ed and Sarah used to meet up monthly for burgers and beers at a bar they’d frequented since before they were legal.
Other than those monthly meet-ups, Jack had never been very social—he was easily bored by small talk and preferred sitting around a fire or walking in the woods to dinner parties and birthday parties; casual fucks with few words exchanged to first dates—but since the incident with Davis, Jack had canceled more often than not. He hadn’t been in any fit state to socialize and he certainly hadn’t wanted to broadcast the humiliation of trusting someone who turned out to be a snake.
Though logically he knew the fault lay with Davis, he felt like a sucker, and learning he couldn’t trust his own judgment where Davis was concerned left him doubting it in general.
“Yeah, I’ll give her a call,” Jack mumbled.
“You all have a fight or something?”
“No,” Jack snapped. “We’re not ten years old and we didn’t have a fight.” Charlie raised a calm eyebrow and Jack felt even worse. “I’ve just been...” He started to say busy but it was so patently untrue.
“Feeling sorry for yourself,” Charlie finished.
Happy that Charlie had finally said something he could legitimately be pissed at instead of just being in a permanently shitty mood, Jack said, “Screw you.”
Charlie’s expression was impassive and he raised one massive shoulder in a shrug.
“It’s not unwarranted. I just wish you’d get over it.”
“Get over it? How about your best friend and collaborator who you’ve trusted and worked with for a decade totally betrays you and screws you over and steals something important to you and we’ll see how quickly you get over it, hmm?”
“Bro, I’m not saying Davis doesn’t deserve all your anger. He’s an asshole and he did a terrible thing. But you don’t deserve to be this angry. And you’re not drawing. You’re never not drawing. Not since you were a little kid. I just don’t like to see you like this.”
“Yeah, well, sorry you have to. I’ll try to get over it so you aren’t inconvenienced,” Jack snapped, more hurt than he could explain.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Charlie said stiffly. He took Jack’s empty plate and his own into the kitchen and Jack was glad for the reprieve and furious he couldn’t be the one beating a retreat.
Damn bones for breaking and gravity for functioning and greedy, egotistical bastards for being greedy, egotistical bastards.
“Sorry,” Jack muttered.
He knew Charlie couldn’t hear him.
A few days later, a storm blew in while Simon was out walking the pack. It started as a shower that sent Mayonnaise and Pickles scampering inside, but within twenty minutes was a gusting squall that darkened the sky and drove rain sideways against the windows.
Jack paced. Well. Jack swung himself back and forth in front of the living room window on his crutches until he had to stop because it was too tiring. It hadn’t had the same effect, anyway.
After another ten minutes, he lowered himself to the floor gingerly and built up a fire, wanting the animals to be able to warm up when they got home.
Yeah, the animals. It’s definitely them that you want to warm up.
After another ten, he brought armloads of towels from the bathroom to the couch so he could dry the pack off when they got home.
After another ten, he was able to admit he was worried. Puddles hated the rain. Rat was so small, and...and... He huffed out a breath.
Simon. He was worried about Simon.
Simon felt like part of the pack.
As if conjured by the thought, Simon burst through the door, a sodden, dripping mess. Pirate, seeming unperturbed, made a beeline for the fire and began to clean herself, and Rat followed, shaking off her skinny legs as she went; Dandelion ran right to the kitchen in hopes of a snack.
If Jack had been in fighting form, he would’ve had the towels on Bernard faster, but as it was, just as he turned to grab them, the huge dog shook himself, and Jack watched as if in slow motion as Simon got sprayed with another round of rain.
“Oh Jesus,” Jack said, as Simon slumped resignedly, but he couldn’t help but chuckle at the picture it made. Bernard, satisfied he’d wrung himself out, flopped in front of the fire to toast, which left only Puddles and Simon, leaning against each other, soaked and miserable.
“Aw, buddy,” Jack said. He was talking to Puddles, whom he approached with the towels he hadn’t been quick enough with for Bernard, but he included Simon in his sentiment, if only to himself.
He rubbed Puddles as dry as he could and then the dog slunk off to the bedroom, no doubt to soak a dog-shaped damp spot into his blanket and sheets. Making a mental note to change them later—fine, to ask Charlie to change them—Jack turned to Simon.
“Simon,” he said, and the man’s eyes met his. “Come inside, man, let me get you some dry clothes.”
Simon eyed his soaked boots, jeans, and sweater currently dripping onto the doormat. Jack wanted to tell him he’d already have to clean everything to get rid of the wet dog smell so a little more rain wasn’t a big deal. But for some reason, instead, he picked up the remaining towel from the couch and swung over to stand in front of Simon.
“Here,” he said, and he wrapped the towel around Simon’s shoulders and drew him close enough to rub his arms through it.
He heard Simon’s intake of breath and had the brief wild wonder if Simon’s mouth would taste of rain if he kissed him.
Then Simon let the breath out and leaned ever so slightly into Jack.
“Get your boots off and you can take a hot shower, okay? I’ll get you some clothes.”
Simon blinked up at him.
“Okay?”
Simon nodded and gave a ghost of a smile.
Since the first time they’d really talked the week before, they’d lingered over pickups and drop-offs, sometimes talking; sometimes Jack talking and Simon texting. Jack still couldn’t tell what made the difference in the times when Simon could speak and when he couldn’t. He appreciated the gift of Simon’s words when he managed them. But Simon via text was smart and honest and a little bit snarky, and he liked that too.
Now, standing so close, he felt like he should be able to tell whether words were forthcoming or not, as if the fanfare that announced their appearance would stir the very air between them.
But, no. He still couldn’t tell. What he could tell was that Simon was shaking with cold and his wool sweater was so sodden that it might as well have been dumping water down his back.
“C’mere, let me take this,” Jack said, tugging at the sweater. Simon’s eyelashes, spiked with rain, fluttered and he lifted his arms to help take the sweater off. It was plastered to his shirt beneath, so when the sweater came off so did it.
Jack couldn’t help but notice that Simon was lovely beneath his clothes. Angular and smoothly put together, though he was shivering. Jack dropped the sweater to the floor with a thlump and slung the towel back around Simon’s shoulders.
“Come on,” he said softly, and led the way to the bathroom.
He left Simon to his shower and fetched sweats for him to wear from his bedroom, where he did, indeed, find a sheepish Puddles on the bed.
He stroked Puddles’ damp nose and Puddles licked his hand. Worried Puddles might be chilly, Jack slung the blanket over him and gave him a rub.
“You like Simon?” he whispered. Puddles yipped. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”
He dropped the sweats outside the bathroom door for Simon and tried not to picture the way hot water would slide down his skin. The way his dark hair would cling to his skull and show off the angles of his face.
His fingers itched for a pencil and he could almost feel the first line he’d lay down.
That was the worst part. Davis’ betrayal had been gutting, but it was something that had been done to him. Not drawing for the last eight months? Losing the joy that had carried him through the darkest times of his life? That was something he seemed to have done to himself.
In fact, in the first blush of rage that had followed Davis’ news, Jack had been full of spiteful energy. He’d determined that he’d draw the most gorgeous book Davis had ever seen and it would be the ultimate revenge. When the wind went out of those sails a week later, it had felt like something deeper was ripped away.
Because betrayal for selfish reasons was grotesque, but it was base; comprehensible. His own heart’s turn away from itself was a mystery he hadn’t yet managed to solve.
Jack was absently poking at the fire when Simon emerged, flushed and damp, from the bathroom. His dark, wet hair clung to his cheekbones just the way it had in the picture Jack hadn’t drawn. His blue eyes burned, the cut of his cheekbone a perfect slash, and Jack couldn’t look away.
The sleeves of his sweatshirt hung past Simon’s hands so when he wrapped his arms around himself it looked like a straightjacket. Simon was only a few inches shorter than him but he was spare where Jack was muscular.
All in all he presented a picture so tempting that for the first time since it had happened, Jack was grateful for a broken leg because it felt like all that was keeping him from drawing too close to his new friend and breathing in every molecule of him.
“Better?” he asked, voice rough.
Simon nodded and picked his way through the maze of sleeping animals to get to the fire.
The storm still raged darkly outside, making it look more like sunset than morning; the fire glowed and crackled. It was Jack’s favorite sound in the whole world.
Suddenly, Simon turned to him and smiled—a quick, bright smile that cut through him.
It took his fucking breath away.
“Hot dogs,” Simon said, clear as anything.
“Huh?” Jack felt like the fog from outside had descended on him the moment he saw that radiant smile. Then he saw that Bernard, Rat, and Dandelion lay before the fire in a row, snoozing with their legs stretched behind them. Hot dogs.
He laughed, loud and deep. He laughed because Simon had smiled. Because Simon had made a dopey joke. Because Simon was in his cabin, with his pack, damp and warm, skin to Jack’s clothes, happy.
Simon let out a small laugh, low and light, and Jack found himself in the surprising position of having to revise his favorite sound.
“You can move them if you wanna sit there,” Jack said, just to say something.
Simon shook his head and sat on the couch instead. He seemed the most relaxed Jack had seen him.
Jack sank down on the couch too, easing his casted leg to rest on the coffee table.
“You aren’t missing work, are you?” Jack asked softly, hoping to preserve Simon’s relaxation. “I just realized you never told me what you do.”
Simon shook his head. Swallowed. Tucked his hands underneath him.
“It’s fine. I work from home. G-graphic design.”
“That’s cool. You’re an artist too.”
Simon scoffed. “Not like you.”
“Lemme see?”
He handed Simon his phone. Simon blinked at him for a moment, then let out a sigh and pulled up his website. He scrolled peremptorily through a few pages before Jack grabbed the phone from his hand to peruse in detail.
Simon’s designs were deceptively simple and Jack made note of the URL so he could look at the site later on his computer and see more of the detail. What at first looked like a simple border was, on closer inspection, words marching around the page. A clean layout of squares revealed itself, when you got to the bottom, to form the initials of the company. To the casual observer they were minimal and modern, but each design had a wink.
“These are amazing.”
Simon ducked his head but he was smiling.
“Have you always worked from home?”
Given Simon’s trouble speaking with people it would make sense that he sought out something he could do solo.
Simon shook his head.
“I worked at a c-company before.” He shuddered. “It was awful. Cubicles and p-people and no one would leave me alone.”
“What’d they do?” Jack asked, preemptively furious on Simon’s behalf.
Simon turned to him, eyes wide with horror. “Talked to me! Had b-birthday cakes and—and holiday parties.”
Jack laughed at his nauseated expression. “Monsters.”
Simon smiled and rolled his eyes.
The fire crackled cheerily along with the chorus of animal whuffles and burbles.
“If you don’t have to be at work,” Jack said slowly, “do you want to hang out? Watch a movie or something? Doesn’t seem like the storm’s letting up anytime soon...”
Simon nodded and joy zinged up Jack’s spine. He grabbed the remote before Simon could change his mind and started flipping channels.
He flipped past sports and news and reality TV and soap operas, finding nothing. He’d learned the hard way the last few weeks that television wasn’t organized for people with nothing to do during the day. Jack switched over to Netflix and Simon perked up.
“You pick, okay?”
He handed Simon the remote.
Simon bit his lip and extricated a hand from where he was sitting on them to take it.
He scrolled directly to The Great British Bake Off and raised a questioning eyebrow at Jack.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“What!?”
“I don’t bake.”
“That’s—That—that,” Simon stammered, but this seemed out of passion rather than shyness. “That has nothing to do with anything.”
Jack held up his hands in surrender and settled in to watch.
After a few minutes of Simon looking over at him expectantly he said, “It’s very... British?”
“What does that mean?”
“People are nice to each other and no one’s an asshole and they’re pretending they don’t wanna win?”
“Yeah,” Simon sighed blissfully.
After a few more minutes, Jack found himself having strong feelings about bakers and baked goods alike.
“That seems bad,” he said. “That seems like a terrible choice. There’s not time for that! Is there? I don’t know; I don’t bake!”
At his yell, Dandelion jumped up, startled. When she saw nothing was amiss besides underbaked cakes she flopped back down and didn’t look up again until Jack’s next outburst.
“You’re scaring the p-pack,” Simon said, swatting Jack’s leg for emphasis.
Unfortunately, it was his broken leg and Jack cringed. It hadn’t hurt so much as promised to hurt, but Simon babbled out a stream of apologies, face a mask of horror, until Jack twisted at the waist and grabbed his shoulders.
“I’m fine. It’s okay, really.”
“Sorry,” Simon said for the twentieth time, and this time it had no sound.
Jack ran his hands from Simon’s shoulders down his arms and took his hands.
“Seriously. You didn’t hurt me.”
Simon tugged one of his hands away.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, and let go, realizing suddenly that holding hands wasn’t necessarily something that everyone was comfortable with.
Simon shook his head and sat on his reclaimed hand.
“It t-t—” He snapped his mouth shut and rolled his eyes, as if exasperated with himself.
Jack grabbed his phone and held it out to Simon.
When Simon gave it back to him it said, My hand twitches. It’s from my medication, and an 
.
“What medication?”
For anxiety, Simon wrote. It’s a side effect. Muscle twitches.
Simon pulled his knees up and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over himself.
“Do they happen more when you’re nervous? Uh, anxious?”
Simon shook his head. He reached for the phone, then seemed to change his mind.
“It j-just happens. Once it starts, it happens f-for a while. Hate it.”
“Is it just your hand?”
He shook his head and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“My thighs somet-times. My...” He trailed off, scowling.
“Does massage help?” Jack asked.
Simon’s eyes snapped to his. He shrugged. And Jack wanted to kill every single person in the world who hadn’t offered to massage Simon’s twitching muscles.
“Want to try?” Then, realizing what that sounded like, “Your hand, I mean.”
He held out his own hand, palm up, in offering. Simon blinked. Then slowly he leaned closer, slid his hand out of the covers, and placed it in Jack’s.
“Watch the show,” Jack said.
For the next twenty minutes as they watched the bakers measure, mix, shape, and decorate, Jack massaged Simon’s hand. At first, he could feel micromovements that Simon was trying to stifle. Slowly, as Simon relaxed again, the twitches would flex his thumb up and back.
“It’s okay,” Jack murmured softly, massaging up Simon’s wrist.
Simon sighed and let his head drop onto the back of the couch. The episode ended and another began. Jack dug his thumbs into Simon’s palm.
Simon tipped his head to look at Jack. His eyelids were heavy and there was a slight smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. Or maybe that was just what his face looked like when he wasn’t clenching his jaw.
“Feel okay?”
Simon nodded, eyelashes fluttering.
“Want me to keep going?”
Simon nodded again.
This close, Jack could smell his shampoo in Simon’s hair. He was aware of every shift and breath. Jack wanted to pull him close, kiss his lips, twist his fingers in that unruly hair.
A rip of thunder split the air. Simon startled, jerking upright, and the animals whined.
“It’s okay,” Jack soothed, and though he’d been talking to the pack, Simon settled too.
Lightning flashed and a whine came from the bedroom. Puddles.
“Puddles is scared of lightning,” Jack explained, regretfully pushing himself off the couch. A sweet smile touched Simon’s lips and he nodded.
In the bedroom, Jack could just make out a lump at the foot of the bed. Puddles had rucked all the covers off and buried himself beneath them, not an inch of fur visible. On top of the pile sat Louis.
“Aw, buddy.”
Jack perched on the edge of the bed and patted the pile, feeling the trembling dog beneath. Louis fixed him with an even look, on guard but not unwelcoming.
“It’s good he has you to protect him,” Jack told Louis.
Louis slow-blinked at him magnanimously.
Simon appeared in the doorway brandishing his phone.
“I’m gonna check on my grandma,” he said, but he walked toward the bed.
He raised a questioning eyebrow at the blanket mountain with Louis perched on top and Jack nodded.
“Hey, Puddles,” Simon crooned. He got to his knees on the floor and lifted the very edge of the blanket to slide one hand underneath. “Being scared sucks so much. I’m sorry.”
He put his chin on the bed and after a minute Jack saw a trembling nose emerge from the blankets and inch toward Simon’s. Puddles gave Simon’s cheek a lick, then retreated back to safety.
Jack felt a funny emptiness in his stomach.
Louis, as if he could sense the danger had passed, put his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
Instead of leaving the room, Simon dialed his phone with the hand that wasn’t under Puddles’ blankets.
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said. “I know. I know you can.” He rolled his eyes but his smile was fond. “No one is debating that, Jean. Because!” He laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Yeah. Just til the storm passes. Oh, okay.” His eyes flicked to Jack. “No you cannot! Goodbye, I love you,” he said quickly and hung up the phone.
“What can she not?”
“She wanted, um. To talk to you. And make sure you didn’t let me leave until the st-storm ended.”
Jack was charmed by that.
“I would’ve reassured her.”
Simon was blushing and had looked away.
“What?”
He shook his head. “She’s just... Never mind.”
He turned even redder.
“She’s just what?”
Simon buried his face in the bed like a little kid and spoke into the mattress.
“Didn’t catch that.”
Simon put his arms over his head in a gesture that was so adorable and ridiculous that Jack’s heart ached.
Cursing his leg for the umpteenth time, Jack lifted himself off the bed and came around to where Simon was. Simon’s comfort language was clearly touch and Jack wanted his body back so he could speak it fluently. Laboriously and slowly, he lowered himself to the bench at the foot of the bed to sit beside Simon and put a hand on his shoulder.
Making his voice light so Simon would have no doubt he was joking, he said, “Don’t make me call your grandma back myself.”
Simon groaned and peeled himself off the bed, but still wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. But he didn’t look shy, just embarrassed.
“She wants to play m-matchmaker,” Simon mumbled. His face and throat were flushed and lust tore through Jack. He wanted to be the one to bring that flush to Simon’s skin. He wanted to do everything to Simon.
“Is that right.” His voice was low and rough. He’d never gone from finding someone adorable to wanting to ravage them in five seconds flat and it was wreaking havoc inside him.
Simon’s head jerked up at his voice, eyes wide and hot.
“And why does she think we’d be a good match?” Jack drawled.
Simon blinked. Blinked again. His pupils dilated.
“I... Um, I... I might’ve, um.” He shook his head in frustration and squeezed his eyes shut. “I said you were handsome,” he whispered, eyes closed.
Handsome. The word ricocheted around in Jack’s brain before sliding sweetly down to rest in his chest. It was so unassuming, so...grandmotherly a word, but it was so very Simon.
Not attractive, not hot. Handsome.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I think you’re handsome too.”
At that, Simon’s eyes flew open.
“Not just handsome,” Jack went on. He reached out a hand slowly—so very slowly—and traced Simon’s eyebrow, cheekbone, chin. “Gorgeous. Beautiful. Fucking stunning.”
Jack hadn’t thought it was possible for Simon to turn redder, but it was. His eyelashes fluttered wildly and he gulped.
“Wow,” he said on a breath.
Then he hiccoughed. He clapped a hand over his mouth but hiccoughed again. He groaned. Jack had never seen someone look so mortified in his life. This eclipsed even Charlie’s expression when their mom had found out he’d been reading the sex scenes in her romance novels.
Simon pulled his knees up and dropped his forehead to them. Jack couldn’t tell if he was hiding or trying to cure the hiccoughs.
Jack put a hand on his shoulder and when Simon didn’t shy away he began slowly rubbing Simon’s back. He could feel the hiccoughs as well as hear them. Simon muttered something to himself that Jack couldn’t make out. After a few minutes, Simon peeked at Jack.
“Doing okay?”
Simon glared and Jack laughed.
“Not my fault you’re gorgeous and your body revolts at a compliment.”
Simon smiled a little.
“I don’t suppose...” Jack started. But he lost his train of thought as Simon sat upright. The redness had faded to just a blush on his cheeks, and his hair was mussed. He was so damn beautiful.
Simon raised an eyebrow and Jack cupped his cheek.
“Don’t suppose you wanna kiss me?” Jack said, voice rough with desire.
Simon’s eyes went wide and his eyebrows shot up. But he pressed his cheek into Jack’s hand and Jack knew he wanted to. He waited. Simon’s eyes dropped to his mouth, then slid back up again. He licked his lips. He blinked. Finally, he leaned in.
Jack had kissed a fair few people in his life. In fact, if you’d asked him, he would’ve said that he’d sampled near every kind of kiss in the books.
But nothing had prepared him for the gutting sweetness of Simon’s lips slowly pressed to his; the brush of Simon’s long eyelashes against his cheek.
Simon pulled back, blinking at Jack, mouth parted sweetly.
“Okay?” Jack said.
Simon nodded, eyes fixed on Jack’s mouth.
Jack pulled him in, Simon’s hands on his shoulders, Simon’s face to his. And Jack kissed him. Jack kissed him with all the reassurance and desire he could possibly transmit.
He felt Simon’s gasp, felt the shudder that ran through him when Jack touched his tongue with his own, and he made himself a promise that whenever the time was right, he would see Simon dissolve into gasps and shudders and screams.
Simon pressed closer to him and Jack brushed his fingers down Simon’s throat. Simon made a shocked sound of pleasure that tore through Jack, sent his mind racing in a dozen directions at once as he imagined all the things they could do.
Jack slid his tongue against Simon’s, slick and hot, tasting him. Simon gasped again and Jack groaned.
Then Simon hiccoughed.
Simon jerked away so quickly Jack almost fell forward off the bench. He clapped his hands over his mouth and his eyes were huge. He hiccoughed again.
“Hey,” Jack said, reaching out a hand. “You okay?”
Simon rolled his eyes and Jack could recognize his look of mortification by now, even with his hands covering half his face. He scrambled to his feet, face turning red again.
“Simon, hey. It’s no big deal. C’mere.”
Simon groaned, and this time it was not in pleasure. He was about to bolt, Jack could tell. He struggled to his feet as Simon ran through the bedroom door.
“Simon, dammit, don’t make me run after you when I can’t run! Fucking fuck,” he muttered at his leg. He grabbed his crutches and made his way to the living room as quickly as he could.
“Seriously, you promised your grandmother!”
But when he rounded the corner of the living room, Simon wasn’t pulling on his coat and shoes to leave. He was standing in the corner, face pressed to the wood, arms wrapped around himself.
“You look like the goddamn Blair Witch.”
Simon snorted, which could have been a laugh or an angry exhalation.
“Okay, okay, come on. Tell me what the big deal is, please. You hiccoughed. It’s not the end of the world. Hell, I burped in a girl’s mouth once.”
And, okay, he hadn’t quite meant to admit that, but anything to underline how little this mattered.
Simon shook his head, clearly not reassured.
When Jack got to him, he slid a hand up his spine. Simon didn’t move away, so he rested his palm on the back of Simon’s neck. He could feel his flush.
“Hey. You just embarrassed or is something really wrong? Cuz you’re scaring me a little. Been a while since someone’s actually hidden in a corner just to get away from me. And that was during dodgeball.”
Simon slumped.
“Just emb-barrassed,” he choked out.
“Okay.” Jack rubbed Simon’s neck and into his hair.
Slowly, Simon relaxed. He muttered something Jack couldn’t make out.
“What’s that?”
“Can’t believe I r-ruined it.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Jack said. “Hell, kiss me again right now and pretend it never happened, if you want to.”
“Can’t,” Simon said, peeking at Jack.
“Can’t kiss me again?”
Simon shook his head. “Can’t pret-t-tend.”
Jack was running his fingers through Simon’s hair, entranced by how soft it was.
“Yeah, how come?”
“C-cuz,” Simon said.
“Oh. Well, that clears things up,” Jack joked, giving Simon’s neck a little squeeze.
Simon snorted and elbowed him.
Jack steered him around by the shoulder, wanting to see his face.
“What’s up, darlin’?” he said. “Because why?”
“B-b-bec-cause. It was my f-f-f-first k-k-k-k—”
Simon made an exasperated face at himself and Jack felt like his heart stopped.
“Your first kiss?”
Simon nodded miserably.
Jack felt like his dick went from zero to oh god in the space of that one movement. He wasn’t sure why that did it for him and he didn’t, quite frankly, care to interrogate it. He just knew that the idea that he’d been sweet Simon Burke’s first kiss set him on fire.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, and dropped his head to Simon’s shoulder. “That’s just—I, wow.”
Simon stiffened and Jack lifted his head to find Simon looking uncertain.
“No, sorry, I—Fuck, that’s so... I’m honored.”
He cupped Simon’s face and watched the relief relax his jaw and brow.
“Can I be your second kiss too?” Jack said, brushing Simon’s mouth with his thumb. “Please.”
Simon blinked.
“I promise I won’t burp,” Jack said very seriously, and was rewarded with a tiny smile.
Simon nodded and Jack felt like he’d been given a great gift.
“Thank you,” he breathed, and he kissed Simon. Gently at first—slowly. Then he slanted his mouth over Simon’s and deepened the kiss. The taste of Simon was delicious and the tentative way he touched his tongue to Jack’s made him wild.
When Simon started to breathe heavily, Jack eased off, weaning himself of that gorgeous mouth with gentle kisses to his lips, cheekbones, temple.
They stood together, breathing hard, and Simon reached out a tentative hand to touch Jack’s mouth.
Eyes burning and lips swollen, Simon said, “Wow.”