Page 80 of Read My Lips

“Very dashing.” He threw me a chef’s kiss.

“Leave off.” I set the hat back down. “I can’t get away with any of this stuff.”

I set the watch carefully back on the table top, in its own space, not wanting to jumble it in with all the others. Its uncomplicated, dented face stared up at me like it wanted taking home. But what was I going to do with something that broken? Why would anybody want that when they could have a shiny brand new one?

“Who says?” His eyes wouldn’t leave me alone.

“Mel for a start. That’s why we’re out here fake-documenting our past together, isn’t it?”

Simon nudged me, eyes narrowed.

“Are you saying you’ve never bought anything more exciting than that beautiful tie you got me?”

My mouth hinged open. I snapped it shut. Shrugging was the easiest thing to do.

One eye on me, Simon flicked through the next rail of clothing, watching me, waiting, but I had nothing to add. He pulled out a jacket, fingering seams and hems, opening the front to find the lining frayed and shredded. The hanger screeched along the rail as he put it back.

“Don’t you ever get yourself things like that?” he asked.

I squirmed. “Didn’t think you really liked it.”

His flick through the hangers on the rail stilled.

“Of course I did.”

Easy for him, wasn’t it? He was elegant – classy – nobody did a double-take when he said something cultured, or wore something camp or outrageous or just plain amazing, because he made it make sense. When anything unexpected came out of my mouth, I had airs. Or attitude. Or I looked like a shrunken gorilla, trying too hard, playing dress-up. A wannabe straight guy was what Luke had said.

“When I was a kid, I bought these purple trousers somewhere like this.”

Simon blinked at me through the gap he’d made in the clothing. “Oh really?”

Tilting his head, he centred the full weight of his attention on me, and I wished he hadn’t. The story made me cringe.

“Yeah. They were sort of metallic? Like an oil slick.” I could summon a memory of the shiny fabric between my fingers. “Or the wings of a beetle, you know? Except they had this... snake skin sort of texture?”

My face went hot. Good god, why was I admitting teenage me had lusted after PVC dragon trousers?

But Simon looked intrigued. “They sound deliciously over the top.”

They had been. The polar opposite of everything everyone thought I was. That had been why I’d wanted them so much. But that wasn’t what I was trying to tell him.

“Never wore them, did I?” I grimaced. “I hung onto them for so long. Stashed in a box under my bed, still wrapped up in the plastic bag I brought them home in, with the receipt on top. Because I was supposed to take them back – waste of money, see? But I never got round to it, and then when I left for uni, I took them with me, lugging them all over – from halls to my first flat share. London. Waiting for some grand invitation to bring them out.” I picked up a mug from a stack near the back of the table so Simon didn’t have to be my only focus. Which didn’t even work when I had to look at him for him to follow what I was saying.

“Did you get it?” he asked. “That grand invitation.”

How could he be so earnest about something as silly as that?

“No.” A lump wedged itself into the back of my throat and I swallowed hard to shift it. “I left it too long.”

“Oh, Ben.”

The mug I was holding had Yoda on it. Do, or fucking do not.

“I just—I felt stupid even owning them. They didn’t fit because I wasn’t sixteen anymore, and I’d found the gym hadn’t I? And everyone I met got off on the tracksuit and the accent, acting like I was a hard case. Because everybody knows only posh boys are really gay – and I’m only bi anyway, which means passing for straight’s supposed to be a bonus and⁠—”

Oh fuck. That was all out loud.

Peering at me over a line of dusty velvet jacket shoulders, Simon’s lips thinned. “People are idiots.”