Chapter Two
Simon
Simon’s heart fluttered like a wild thing and he sucked in air through his nose and slowly blew it out through his mouth, concentrating on the smells of the autumn morning. Pine and dew and fresh asphalt and the warm, intoxicating scent that seemed to cling to him after only ten minutes spent in Jack Matheson’s chaotic house.
He rounded the corner so he knew he was out of sight, then led the dogs to the tree line and pressed his back to the rough trunk of a silver fir. He squeezed his eyes shut tight to banish the static swimming at the edges of his vision and willed his heart to slow after the encounter with Jack.
Shy. It was the word people had used to describe Simon Burke since he was a child. A tiny, retiring word that was itself little more than a whisper.
But what Simon felt was not a whisper. It was a freight train bearing down on him, whistle blowing and wheels grinding, passengers staring and ground shaking with the ineluctable approach.
It was a swimming head and a pounding heart. A furious heat and a numbness in his fingers. It was sweating and choking and the curiously violent sensation of silence, pulled like a hood over his entire body, but concentrated at the tiny node of his throat.
Shy was the word for a child’s fear, shed like a light spring jacket when summer came.
What Simon had was knitted to his very bones, spliced in his blood, so cleverly prehensile that it clung to every beat of his physical being.
The huge St. Bernard called Bernard—apparently this Jack guy wasn’t exactly the creative type—bumped Simon’s hip and he opened his eyes. The cautious yellow Lab, Puddles, was looking up at him with concern in his warm brown eyes; tiny Rat was scanning the road looking for threats; easygoing Dandelion was happily yipping at birds; and Pirate the cat was daintily cleaning her paws as her tail swished back and forth.
Simon’s breath came easier. He was right where he wanted to be: outside, spending time with animals. He dropped to a crouch and murmured to the little pack, letting them smell him, letting his heart rate return to normal.
“Hi,” he said, trying out his voice. It tended to go scratchy from disuse. “Thanks for walking with me.” Bernard smiled a sweet doggy smile and Simon couldn’t help but smile back. Animals didn’t make him feel self-conscious. They didn’t make him feel like he was drowning. They gave and never required anything of him except kindness.
He’d discovered this as a child, around the same time he’d discovered that other children could not be counted on to be kind. Not to him, anyway.
Pirate meowed and took off down the road and all the dogs mobilized to follow her, tugging Simon back onto the lane. As they walked, he basked in their quiet joy and the peace of simply being in the fresh air. In that peace, his thoughts drifted to Jack Matheson.
Simon had gotten himself to Jack’s front door by sheer, knuckle-clenching force of will.
For the past two years, Simon had been saving up to get a bigger apartment so that he’d have space for a dog. He’d planned the walks they’d take and the parks they’d go to together.
When his grandfather died six months ago and Simon saw his grandmother’s face—brow pinched with grief and eyes wide with fear—Simon knew what he had to do. He moved in the next week. His grandmother was his best friend and he didn’t want her to be alone. But the cost of her company was the plans he’d made: she was terribly allergic to animals.
He’d made his profile on PetShare the week he moved in with his grandmother and for the last six months, he’d waited. He’d matched several times, usually with people who needed someone to stop by and feed their pets while they were at work, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to spend time with animals, bask in their easy companionship.
So when he saw JMatheson’s profile pop up, with its picture of a huge, adorable St. Bernard and its description of his rather extensive needs, which managed to be both terse and self-deprecating, Simon’s heart had leapt.
But when he stood outside his door, he hadn’t been able to make himself ring the bell. It was like his hand ran up against a physical force when he tried. He stood there, trying to break out of the paralyzing fog.
And then the door had opened.
Stocking feet, worn sweatpants, a bulky cast on one leg—his eyes had traveled slowly up from the ground. A faded Penn State hoodie, broad shoulders, and biceps that bulged as they wielded crutches.
But it was the first glimpse of the man’s face that had frozen Simon in place. He had hair the color of copper and gold, a strong jaw etched with copper stubble, a straight nose, and hazel eyes beneath frowning reddish-brown eyebrows. His full mouth was fixed in a scowl.
He was beautiful and angry and it was a combination so potent that it flushed through Simon with the heat of an intoxicant, then set his head spinning with fear.
He’d clutched his arms around himself in a futile attempt to keep all his molecules contained, dreading the sensation of flying apart, diffusing into the atmosphere in a nebula of dissolution.
Simon had been consumed by the conviction he’d held as a child: if he could squeeze his eyes shut tightly enough to block out the world then it would cease to see him, too. But when he’d opened his eyes again, there was Jack Matheson, still beautiful, but now looking at him with his most hated expression.
Pity.
Simon shook his head to clear the image of Jack’s pitying gaze and picked up the pace, as if he might be able to outrun the moment when he’d have to drop off the animals and interact with Jack again.
* * *
“Grandma, I’m home,” Simon called as he shouldered open the door, arms full of groceries.
“In the kitchen, dear!”
He deposited the bags on the counter, but backed off when his grandmother moved to kiss his cheek.
“You’ll be allergic to me. One sec.”
He jogged downstairs to his basement room and changed his clothes, giving a fond look at the fur of his new friends clinging to the wool of his sweater.
“How did it go?” his grandmother asked, sliding a cup of tea toward him on the counter. The smell of lavender perfume and chamomile tea would forever remind him of her.
“As well as can be expected?” Simon hedged, sipping the hot tea too quickly. She raised an eyebrow and he sighed. “He was fine. I just... Whatever. You know.” Simon raked a hand through his hair.
His grandmother knew better than anyone how hard it was for him and how angry he got at himself for the hardship. She’d been the one he came to, red-faced and sweaty, when he’d nailed varsity soccer tryouts his sophomore year and then fled the field, never to return, when the coach noticed he hadn’t shouted the team shout with the other boys and forced him to stand on his own and yell it with everyone looking.