“You’re forgiven, by the way, because I know you’ll worry later that I didn’t explicitly say so. Am I?”
Forgiven.
“Obviously,” I said. “I… not for… I mean, you didn’t do anythingwrong?—”
“I don’t need to be forgiven for helping Delilah or agreeing to be Corey’s best man,” Simon clarified. “But I do need it for not taking you seriously when you were upset. I should have. Even if I didn’t think it was justified, you were still upset.”
How was he so perfect?
I was so lucky to ever have met him. Wanting anything else than the privilege of knowing someone like Simon—of calling him my friend, and knowing that was true—was unbelievably greedy of me.
It didn’t stop me, but I knew it was asking too much. I’d always known.
“You’re forgiven,” I said, looking down at the glasses case again. “Hold still for me.”
Simon obeyed, facing me with his hands by his sides. Trusting me.
I pried the case open—the rust on the hinge made it stick—and took his familiar, thick-rimmed glasses out carefully by the bridge. I’d never really handled Simon’s glasses before—passed them to him a dozen times, maybe, but never held them in my hands like this.
The plastic wasn’t quite warm to the touch, but it wasn’t cold, either, like a metal frame would have been. The frames werealmost soft, and they were lighter than they looked. Something about that felt right.
My stomach flipped as I stepped forward, holding the glasses by the arms so I could guide them over his ears without running the risk of poking his eye out in the process.
In all the years I’d known him, I’d never put his glasses on for him. Never let my fingers brush the shell of his ear, or tucked a strand of hair behind it to keep it out of the way as I settled them in place.
I’d stepped closer to him than I realized, only a few inches of space between us. Close enough to feel the heat rolling off his body. To see the thin gold ring around his pupils that diffused into darker brown at the edges of his irises. He smelled of good cologne again, warm and spicy and masculine, but that wasn’t what really caught my attention.
“Missed these,” I murmured. His eyes looked right again.
Simon raised an eyebrow, one corner of his lips twitching.
I shrugged. “You didn’t look likeyouwithout them,” I said. “The glow up’s fun, but…”
But it’s not my Simon, I didn’t say.You don’t own mewas still bouncing around in the back of my head. I’d just been forgiven, I didn’t want to screw up again immediately.
“Used to them, I guess,” I said instead, my voice coming out softer than I meant. My fingers were still touching Simon’s neck, and we were close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.
I wanted to kiss him. We’d fought, we were okay, I was so,sorelieved, and I wanted, more than anything, to kiss him. Notbecause we were pretending to be together. Because we were alone.
I leaned forward, painfully slow, wanting to give him all the time in the world to stop me. I didn’t want to make the same?—
The squeal of the door swinging open behind me made me jump.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Corey said cheerfully as he strode toward the urinals. “Although you could pick a more scenic location.”
Simon scoffed.
The moment slipped through my fingers like a handful of beach sand, gone before I could even think to grab hold of it.
“C’mon,” Simon said. “Got something to tell you, anyway.”
“I thinkwe should have make-up sex,” Simon said the moment the bedroom door closed behind us.
I stopped dead halfway through shrugging my blazer off, getting my arms caught in it as I spun on my heel to stare at him. Outside the room, the muffled sounds of everyone in the house filtering into their own rooms ebbed and flowed.
Inside the room, I was fairly sure my heartbeat, currently aiming to break a land speed record, was loud enough for all of them to hear.
“Not for real, obviously,” Simon whispered, taking a step toward me. “But they heard us fight. I don’t want them to think I’m still mad at you. And Corey said…”