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Simon kissed Ben’s wet eyes. “I hope to god those are happy tears, Ebeneezer.”
He whacked Simon with his good hand. “Don’t call me that!”
“Promise to stay with me forever and I won’t ever again. Probably.”
Ben huffed, but his heart soared with hope. It was too good to be believed. Simon himself was a fairy tale, but maybe, just maybe, Ben’s dreams might come true this one time.
“Come on! Is it yes or no? Answer the man! I’m all invested now!” Ben and Simon both looked to the neighboring curtained bed where that querulous demand had come from. “Don’t just leave me hanging here!”
“Yes,” Ben said, crying and giggling and feeling about as messy as a person could be and deciding he didn’t care. “But I don’t have to go home with you, Simon.You’remy home now. You. Just you.”
Simon, at last, kissed him deeply and thoroughly. “You’re my home, too.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” the man in the next bed said. “Mazel tov, kids. Now let me get some sleep, okay?”
“We need to get you a private room,” Simon said. “As soon as possible.” He held Ben’s good hand and they looked at each other in silence for a long time, each content to know the other was nearby. Then loud snores tore through the room. “Make that immediately. Let me see what I can do.”
“Okay,” Ben said, not caring where he slept, as long as Simon would be there when he woke up.
34
Simon Is There When Ben Wakes Up
Friday, December 22
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital
Park Ridge, IL
Getting a new room for Ben was surprisingly easy. Despite having gone into what she liked to call semi-retirement, Simon’s assistant was more than happy to, as she put it, make a few phone calls and get the ball rolling.
“You’ve been busy, haven’t you, sir?”
“Excuse me?”
She laughed. “You do know the whole world is speculating about your date the other night, right?”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Well,” Celia conceded, “perhaps not the entire world, but you have popped up on the gossip sites. You and your young beau. He’s a cutie, by the way.”
Simon had thought maybe his mother was exaggerating about the stir he’d been creating but perhaps he’d been wrong. “You know what Ben looks like?”
“There have been photos.”
“Oh my god,” Simon moaned.
“No, sir, they’re lovely, I promise. You two make an adorable couple. And I would like to be on the record as being right. Again.”
“I did not in any way take your advice. None of this was your doing. You get zero credit.”
“Spoilsport,” she said. “Bring him by sometime after the holidays. Naomi and I want to meet him.”
Simon sighed. “Just set something up and put it on my schedule.”
“Already done, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You could be less smug.”
