Page 113 of For Your Heart
“Then why are you?” I ask.
He sighs and reaches for the knob to turn it on. I cover his wrist before he can. “I like cooking. If you don’t like to cook, then you don’t have to.”
Simon gives me a smile. He leans into me for a minute, and I remember that his love language is physical touch. Wrapping an arm awkwardly around his shoulders, I give him an even more awkward half a hug.
He grins up at me and takes a step back. “I was going to cook because I wanted to make you all breakfast. Then I thought maybe I should just order breakfast, but I already took the bacon out. That’s when you walked in, while I waffled back and forth between cooking the bacon and ordering breakfast for delivery.”
“You don’t like to cook?” Zarek asks.
“No,” Simon says. “I think it’s too much a reminder of my mom, actually. I can cook. Damon and Declan’s mom made sure I knew how. But I have so many memories of cooking with my mom when I was young. From a really young age. Sitting on the counter and dumping chocolate chips into the bowl of cookie dough. Licking batter from a beater. Stirring pasta water. I think cooking now is just too loud a reminder that she’s gone.”
I gave him another awkward half hug again, and he laughs quietly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you down,” he says.
“No, it’s okay,” I say. “I like to hear about your mom. Or whatever you want to share.”
“Thanks, Sage.”
Zarek attends to the bacon, adding sausage and getting ready for eggs as I prepare batter for pancakes. Simon busies himself with heating the syrup and cutting fruit. Those tasks don’t seem to bother him. Although he’s quick to get through it and then sits on the counter to watch us.
“Are we going to be okay?” Simon asks after a while and I shift to look at him. But he’s watching Zarek.
Zarek frowns at him and shrugs. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“To start with, you don’t even like to look at me,” Simon says with a slight smile.
Zarek flushes and sighs. “I’m sorry. It’s not personal. It’s just—”
“Jealousy,” Simon says, cutting him off.
Zarek nods and his words are stiff when he speaks. “Yes. His hands on you bother me. I know that’s stupid because it doesn’t bother me when he touches Sage or Damon. But when it’s you, I just remember how hurt and down he was when you weren’t a part of his life. How miserable he was. Lost and just… empty. Because he loves you so much. Seeing him touch you and knowing how much he loves you…”
“Zarek,” Simon says and waits for him to look up. “You know that he was exactly like that when you wouldn’t talk to him for that week too, right?”
By the way Zarek stills, I don’t think he knew that. “I—He was?”
Simon nods, looking at me. I agree readily because it’s definitely the truth. I saw that first-hand. Since I came around sooner, I was here for that.
“Maybe you’ve been told this already, but the twins, they don’t do anything by halves or fractions. If they love someone, it’s with their whole being. Every single cell beats for that person. They live their lives for that person. I’m sure you know that they’re pretty easy to get along with. It wouldn’t be hard for them to make friends or date or anything. But they won’t let someone in their lives unless they know that person is here to stay. Because they claim a piece of their heart.” He rests his hand on Zarek’s, where it pauses holding the fork over the sizzling bacon. “That’s you, Zarek.”
Zarek takes a sharp breath and looks into Simon’s face. His lips are pinched together, but his eyes are wide behind his glasses.
“I’m really, really glad you’re here. That you love him enough to put yourself in a place you’re uncomfortable because you love him and want to be with him. He does that for me too. I know they think they hide what they really feel for Quin behind their monotone voices when they speak to or of him, but they can’t hide that shit from me. I know them better than they know themselves.”
I laugh at his amused face.
“But the point is, we sacrifice and compromise when we love someone so much that we want to spend our lives with them. You’re perfect for him, Zarek. Everything about you is. And you’re everything that I’m not. Everything that I’ll never be. You will always be able to give him pieces of you that I don’t have and can’t give him.”
Simon’s eyes flicker to mine and I know those words are for me, too. Even though he’s talking to Zarek.
Zarek pulls the bacon already finished out of the pan and Simon adds more. They work in silence for a while as I finish the next couple pancakes, before Zarek says, “I needed to hear that. From you. Thanks.”
Simon nods. “I told Declan to let me talk to you. Damn man doesn’t know how to listen.”
I laugh, and Zarek does, too. “Don’t I know that.”
Thirty-Six
DAMON
