Page 46 of For Your Heart
We nod, watching him step out of the bedroom. He rounds the corner and we lose sight of him. There’s a moment where I feel suspended, like we’d just imagined him here. He didn’t actually come home. He hadn’t actually been in our arms.
As though the entire conversation was fabricated from the desperation in my head and fueled by my exhaustion. Thrust into a hallucination because of my brother’s exhaustion compounded on my own.
“No,” Declan whispers. He’s still behind me. Still wrapped around me. Holding me to him like a lifeline in the storm that my mind kept trying to create just now. “He’s here. Simon came home.”
But I don’t hear him. I can’t see him. The warmth where his body was has already faded and I’m cold again.
Was he really here?
Was he?
We both jump when Simon steps into the room again. He pauses to look at us, his gaze trailing over where we’re hugging. His usual small smile, slightly amused, rests on his pretty lips.
“That really is cute,” he says and pulls his shirt over his head. “Quin’s going home. He’ll be back in the morning to take me to work.”
We don’t answer as Simon continues to take his clothes off until he’s standing before us in his underwear. They’re new too. Not the brand we normally buy. They’re… purple and gray. They fit him like skin but look comfortable. Soft. I don’t recognize the brand that’s just a bunch of blocky shapes going around the thick elastic that sits low on his hips.
“What’s cute?” Declan asks after a minute while I try not to lick my lips.
“You two all curled up together,” he says and turns to face us. He’s smiling still. It’s a little bigger now. “It’s really adorable. I like it.”
Declan rolls his eyes but doesn’t move. Simon smiles wider and comes closer. We reach for him and pull him back into my lap.
“Is your professor going to be mad that you’re in bed with us, mostly naked?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. He knows this is how we sleep.”
“And we can still touch you?” Declan asks.
Simon smirks. “As much as you ever did.”
“And kiss you?” we ask together.
He laughs. “Yeah. He’s never had an issue with how we display our friendship.”
“How does he know whether he has a problem with it?” I ask.
It’s Simon who rolls his eyes this time. “Like he didn’t see us around campus? Or when you waited for me every day outside his classroom? Or at Stripes? Come on. Subtlety and privacy are not concepts either of you are familiar with.”
I huff.
“And he doesn’t care?” Declan asks.
Simon shakes his head, shrugging. “But I’ll make a deal with you. You can touch me, kiss me, whatever, in whatever way you touch each other.”
“That’s bold,” I say, teasing. “You’re assuming we have boundaries.”
“Don’t you?” he asks.
“No,” we say together, but I can’t contain my smirk.
He’s not convinced, but since this isn’t about proving a point, we don’t go any deeper into proving it.
“You’ve—”
“No,” we say together again.
“But not because… of any particular reason except that we just don’t,” Declan says, shrugging.
