Page 93 of Some Like It Hot

Just wonderful fucking memories.

An hour later, after I’ve done my best to support him, chatting with various people and encouraging them to donate what they see fit to, I’m resolved to make the most of the time I have left with Simon.

“You ready to head out?” he asks me.

“If you are, yes.”

“I’m more than ready.”

I look around for somewhere to set my empty beer bottle down.

Simon takes it out of my hand and does his magic trick, where all he does is lift and tilt the bottle and suddenly someone is taking it from him.

“My place for a drink?” he asks once we’re downstairs. “Or are you calling it a night?”

“I was thinking you could come to my place,” I tell him, loosening my tie. “If that’s okay with you.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Your place? I’d love to. I can open your cupboards and poke in your drawers and learn all your secrets.”

I laugh. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“I know. That’s what I love about you.”

He says it casually, but it punches me in the gut.

Damn it.

I’ve already fallen in love with him.

Twenty minutes later, I unlock my door and gesture for Simon to go in ahead of me.

“I don’t know why I expected a dog to bound to the door and greet us,” Simon says. “I guess you just seem like a dog lover.”

“I do love dogs. It’s just too hard with my schedule to have one right now. Maybe someday.” When I have a live-in partner. That’s who I need in my life in order to have a dog. That’s what I want for myself.

“I love dogs too,” he says. “Especially hounds. But I have the same issue. Not home enough.”

He looks around at my compact living space. “This is nice, Aidan.”

I have the upstairs unit of a brick duplex. I wouldn’t call myself any sort of expert on home design, but I don’t have secondhand furniture or a keg in my living room. I pride myself on living like a grown ass man, past my college curb-picked junk days.

“Thanks. It’s still a little messy from my brother staying here over his Christmas break from school. He didn’t want to stay with my mother because she still thinks he should come home at midnight. It offended her, but she’s working through it.” I toe off my shoes and offer to take Simon’s coat that he’s stripped off.

I hang up both our coats and note how he lines up his shoes under the bench, the shiny dress shoes sporting a damaging layer of Chicago snow slush. It makes me feel compelled to fix it.

“Do you want me to clean those off?” I ask.

“What?” He shoots me a look and unbuttons his suit jacket. “God, no. They’re only my twelfth best pair.” He gives me a wink.

I shake my head as I chuckle. “Half the time I can’t even tell if you’re serious or not.”

“I never joke about Italian shoes.”

He wanders into the living room and spends a few minutes cruising past my display of family photos and my grandfather’s military awards, which he bestowed on me because my grandmother was tired of dusting them. I don’t mind dusting, or any cleaning. It makes me feel productive.

“Is this you?” he asks, pointing to a picture of me and my little brother and sister dressed like ninja turtles for Halloween. “The green one.”

“Yep.”

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