Page 44 of For Your Heart
“But… before we really get into all the missing you shit, I need to know,” Simon says, and it hurts that there’s a guarded expression on his face. “There’s no way I can live with your hostility towards Quin anymore. I love him. I didn’t mean to, or plan on it. But I do. I want to be with him. Are you going to accept that and support me? Can you do that?”
That shouldn’t still hurt, so why the fuck does my heart feel like it’s being ripped from my chest right now?
Fifteen
DAMON
We already knewthat this question was coming. And we already agreed that we’d do whatever it took to get Simon back and keep him. Weknewthat meant being civil to Stommer.
It doesn’t mean that everything inside me doesn’t rebel at the mention of it. Realistic or not, I still blame Stommer for this entire thing. If he’d just said no, he wasn’t awarded a work-study position in his department and been done with it, Simon would have moved on. He’d have either gotten an actual job or let it go until we graduated.
There’d be no secrets.
“Except the ones he’s been struggling with that we didn’t know about.”
Declan’s thought makes me flinch. He’s not wrong. How did we not figure out that our best fucking friend is asexual? I feel like a fucking idiot.
“Yes,” Declan answers before I can pull my thoughts together.
Truthfully, I don’t want to accept this tool into our lives. I want Simon for ourselves. I don’t want to share him with anyone. I sure as fuck don’t want him to love someone else.
But I want him here.
Taking a breath, I nod in agreement with my brother. “Yeah,” I say a second later.
Simon looks between us. It’s not unreasonable to see that he doesn’t really believe us. I mean, I’m not sure I really believe us, either.
“Really?” Simon asks. “Just like that?”
“You underestimate how much we want you back,” Declan says. “I’d sell my kidney on the black market if it meant you’d come home.”
He raises a brow. “I’m not sure how that has anything to do with this.”
Declan snorts. “It doesn’t. But I’d sacrifice a kidney.”
For you.
Simon sighs, shaking his head. The hint of a smile touches his lips and I can’t do anything but stare. “Really? This is it? You’re going to be nice to Quin?”
I can’t help the scowl, though I desperately try. Simon doesn’t miss it and I see the disappointment color his face as he starts to back off me. Sitting up, I wrap my arms around him and pull him close. “Listen to me,” I plead quietly. “Iwillbe nice to him. I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t go.”
“Why don’t you like him? What did he do that made you hate him so much?”
“He took you,” Declan and I say together.
Simon sighs. “You didn’t like him before that.”
“We didn’tnotlike him,” Declan says. “What we don’t like is other people touching you. We know you went to Stripes for us. Usually you were at the bar being left alone. So finding you in a dark corner with him all over you pissed us off. You don’t like men and suddenly there was one basically sucking your neck. Yeah, we thought he’d somehow forced or coerced you there. Ourstraightbest friend who comes to gay bars for us. Not because he wants to hook up.”
I’m surprised when Simon flinches. He glances away before sighing. “Yeah. Alright. That’s fair. But I told you he didn’t do anything.”
“Nothing, huh?”
Simon rolls his eyes. “Nothing I didn’t ask for.”
“You asked him to suck your neck?” I ask.
He laughs quietly and huffs. “Okay, fine. You want to know what happened, just remember you asked for it. I’ve listened to you two talk about sucking dick for years. Seriously, that’s your favorite topic.” He’s not wrong. “And I’d been struggling with the fact that sex does nothing for me. So, I thought that maybe I’m gay and didn’t know it?” He shrugs. “Once you two went off, I decided to see if sucking a dick did anything for me.”
