“His shoulder,” scoffed Karl. “You touched his shoulder, and now you’re all a-flutter.”

Simon filled up his mom’s kettle and put it on the stove. “You make it sound so lame.”

“It’s his shoulder,” said Karl, getting down four coffee cups. “That’s a little lame.”

“I shouldn’t have done it. I really never should have touched him.”

“He’s gonna sue you for sexual harassment now.”

“Would you please be serious, just for a minute?” Simon asked. “I honestly don’t know what to do.”

While they waited for the water to boil, they leaned against the kitchen counter. Their parents’ house was quiet, this time of night, just the faint sound of the television coming from the den. Simon had managed to miss their family dinner night, staying late at work. He hadn’t even thought about it, until walking out of the Cray Building, then had rushed over to his parents’ house to find that everyone had already finished dinner and had moved on to dessert and coffee back in the den.

“I don’t get the obstacle here,” said Karl. “You like him. Tell him. He already knows, but one of you has to talk about it to kick things off.”

“Let me stop you right there,” Simon said. “I can’t talk to him about it, because nothing is allowed to happen between us.”

“What, because he’s a Cray? Dude, that fight at the quarry was over a decade ago—”

“No. I mean, yeah, that’s part of it, but not really. No, it’s that he needs me.”

“I bet he does. Needs you in the sack. Wait, gross, why did I say that? Now I need therapy again.”

“He needs me to help him at this job. Otherwise everybody’s going to think he’s just a rich layabout with no potential, and he’s going to lose his trust fund.”

“Cry me a fucking river,” said Karl. He folded a filter into the top of the pour-over pot and scooped coffee grounds into it. “People starving in the world, corporations taking all the political power, and you’re worried about a rich guy not getting rich quite fast enough?”

Simon had already thought about that. If only I had a trust fund that was under threat, he’d thought to himself. But that was a while ago.

“I seriously doubt all that money is going to be donated to your beloved proletariat if it doesn’t go to Evan,” he told his brother.

I wonder where the money is going, if it’s not going to Evan?

The kettle whistled, and he turned off the stove. “Whatever you think about the morality of things, he’s hurting, and something his father meant for him is being held back from him. What would you think if Dad died and left you his coin collection, but someone came along and took it away from you? You’d be mad, even though there are millions of people languishing in the world without coin collections of their own.”

Karl shook his head. “It’s not the same. But fine. You want to help your trillionaire buddy get richer, but you don’t want to admit that you want to jump his bones.”

“It’s his damn family. What do you think Ash and Callum would think, if Evan were dating one of our gang? What do you think his uncle would think, if literally the first thing Evan does when he starts his new job, is to start sleeping with his late dad’s assistant? They’d see it as the height of irresponsibility. Proof that he isn’t really trying to be serious, isn’t trying to fit into the Great Grand Cray Family.”

Karl was pouring the hot water over the grounds, not looking at him, seemingly studying the bubbling in the filter. He poured for a while and then said, “You’re not being honest with yourself.”

“What? I’m trying to be.”

“No. You’re really not. Listen to you. Your whole objection is, what if bad things happen to Rich Guy? I mean, seriously? If that were the only obstacle, I don’t think you’d care. There are a million answers to that. He could get a job somewhere else. He could hire a team of lawyers to fight for his money. He could do tons of things, if dating you created any problems. But there’s something else, isn’t there? Nothing to do with him. There’s something up with you.”

“Oh, please. There’s nothing wrong with me. I just care about what happens to him.”

“Can I point out, as your brother, as the person who has to see you wander off to bed in your jammies all alone every night, that there’s a reason you’re not finding anybody to date?”

Simon turned away. He really, really didn’t like thinking about this. It was like thinking of your own mortality, or the far future when the sun would swallow all the planets, something bigger than you, something inevitable.

“I know that,” he said to his brother. “I know there’s something wrong with me. All the more reason not to get into a relationship with Evan. Relationship? Listen to me, I sound like there’s anything serious between us at all.”

“Oh, god, you’re not going to make me drag this out of you, are you? I ought to just leave you in here to suffer, while I go to the den and eat another piece of cake. You’re not allowed to fucking mope over this.”

“Here’s the thing,” said Simon. “Evan is everything I’m not. He’s exciting, he’s confident, he’s sexy as hell—”

“Gross.”

“—and he’s too good for me. I just don’t attract guys like that, okay? I’m sure there is a nice boring office-worker somewhere out there for me, maybe someone who works at a stationery store, and we’ll grow old clipping stories out of nature magazines and pasting them into a scrapbook, and nothing will ever happen in our lives, and that will be fine. But Evan? I’m not in his league. He might feel some momentary attraction for me, sure, because I’m the only guy in the room, but I don’t think he could see me in quite the same way I see him.”

Karl groaned. “Jesus, you’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you? You’re going to make me give you compliments. This is really not what I signed up for when I was born into this family. But Simon, listen: You’re one of the cutest guys in town. I’m not saying that because it’s my own opinion; I think you look like you were dropped as a baby. Repeatedly. But, you know, friends and stuff, people have mentioned over the years, how cute you were. Some have gone so far as to say you were hot, although then I have to cut ties with them and never be their friend again, because ew. You’re a good listener. You’re a good friend. You go around helping people all the time.”

“Great, I’m Mother Theresa.”

“You moron, people like that. Generosity is attractive. Caring about people is attractive. And now you’ve got this crazy job that nobody quite understands, managing an archive deep beneath the earth? That makes you interesting too. And you worked for the biggest genius this town ever produced. And…ugh, do I really have to go on? You’re a catch, you idiot.”

The coffee cups were on the old tray they had been using since Simon was a little boy. Time to take them into the den.

“So you think I should just tell him.”

“I think you should tell him confidently,” said Karl. “You should tell him you like him, and let him know that’s a reward, let him know it’s rare, and that if he misses this opportunity, he’s going to die alone and unloved, because for all his money, he’s no Simon Bowden.”

Simon picked up the tray. He wasn’t sure what to think, mostly because all of this was coming from Karl, and your little brother wasn’t really supposed to be the source of romantic advice, in the great cosmic scheme. But what if he was right? What if all this time Simon had been thinking of himself as dull and unattractive, people had really been drawn to him? How many chances had he missed, because he thought nobody interesting could like him?

There was really only one way to test this theory. He was going to have to talk to Evan. Really talk, not just these hesitant things where they both got all hot and then backed away from one another.

What about his secrets? There kept being these points in their conversations where Evan clearly wanted to say something, but was holding himself back. What if they’re awful secrets? What if they’re something so terrible that I could never recover from hearing them?

That sounded like another defense mechanism, though. It wasn’t like Evan was going to turn out to be a serial killer or something.

No, there would be something else, something more mundane, but embarrassing if his family ever found out. Because clearly he didn’t want anyone to know.

But would it be something that meant they couldn’t be together?

Simon didn’t like secrets. As far as he knew, he didn’t have any.

While his parents talked to Karl, catching up on all the news since their last visit, Simon just sat with his coffee, deep in thought.

He’d have to talk to Evan. He would really have to.

He was so scared.