Reg, as it turned out, was not actually a boy, but a fighter jet. Evan learned this from the small jet’s breathless explanation, Reg’s arms out as wings, as he zipped in circles around the house making vroooooooowwwwww noises.

“I’ll show you who’s a plane!” said Evan, picking Reg up and tossing him into the air.

“I didn’t know jets could shriek like that,” said Maura, who looked a little jet-lagged herself, one shoe on the floor, one still on, rubbing her temples like she had a headache coming on.

“Pew pew pew!” said Reg, his guns blazing down at the massive T. Rex that Evan had become. Evan took the hit, grasping his shoulder with his mighty yet ineffectually small foreclaw, before collapsing to the ground.

“How is the new boss?” asked Evan from the floor.

“Exhausting,” said Maura. “You know these guys who have to make their mark when they show up someplace new? So he’s walking around all puffed up, talking about the changes we’re going to have to make, being really in my business at all times.”

“At least your new boss isn’t your evil uncle.”

“I don’t even have an uncle. And I don’t think my aunt Mildred would be as bad as this guy. At least there’d be a bowl of hard candy to eat, if she was the boss.”

“I like candy!” offered Reg.

Maura stared down at the boy. “Didn’t you ask me to cut up an apple for you the minute I walked in?”

“I like apples!”

“So why are you in here with me and Evan, instead of in the kitchen having your apple?”

“Vroooooooooom!” said Reg, hurtling himself out of the room.

She closed her eyes. “So much energy.”

Evan sat up on the floor. “I need some advice.”

“God, Evan, what trouble have you gotten into now?”

“None, really…at least, not yet. It’s coming, though.”

“What did you crash? How did you crash, I thought you were driving some old tank these days?”

“Surprisingly, this isn’t about a car or a boat or a seaplane. It’s about a boy.”

That got her eyes open. “A boy? Not that one I met.”

“That’s him. Simon.”

She leaned forward, her features animated. “Really? He seems so… So…”

“Handsome? Sexy? Smoldering?”

“I was going to say normal. Your guys are usually wealthy or neurotic or both.”

“I’m so into him, Maura. But…ugh.”

“Your family interfering?”

“How did you guess? Yes. I think they’re trying to push me away from him…and using some gross, sneaky methods to do it.”

He told her about yesterday’s meeting with Ash, and her eyes widened, then narrowed to a scowl.

“Simon slept with your dad?”

“No, no, of course he didn’t. I mean…I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have. I mean, I guess I don’t know.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No! How the hell do you ask someone a question like that? Hey, Simon, is there any chance my dearly departed father used to slip it to you while coming up with new lightbulb designs?”

“But you don’t believe it, certainly.”

“Of course I don’t. Maybe. No! Ash is just trying to get under my skin. I don’t think he even knows there’s something going on between Simon and me, he just wants to prevent anything. Maybe he’s trying to get me to hate Simon in advance, to drag me deeper into the family. I don’t know.”

She took off her other shoe, and pulled her legs underneath her in the chair. “Your family is so screwed up, Evan. Why would he do that?”

“Oh, god, I don’t even know. Ash has some personal grudge against Simon, all this stuff that happened back when they were teenagers. But like, if they hate him, why did they put me in his department?”

“Torture, I assume. But look, you like this guy, why are we talking about your family? Why should they matter? You do like him?”

Evan lay back on the floor. “Oh my god, Maura, you just don’t know. Every nerve ending in my body goes crazy when he—”

“I’m going to stop you right there, and remind you there’s a kid in the next room.”

“I’ve never felt this way about anybody before,” he said.

“So what’s the problem?”

He groaned. “You know what the problem is. My family holds the purse strings.”

That made her scoff. “What, so you’re going to give up a chance for love, so you can get back to your cars and parties?”

“No, you’re misunderstanding. They hold the purse strings for both of us. I’m not so worried about myself. I’ll figure things out. But I can’t let Simon get fired over me.”

“Which he would be, if Archie found out you were together?”

Evan nodded. “It’s a minefield. If I don’t do well enough on the presentation, Simon gets fired. If I don’t earn the trust fund back by my good behavior, Simon gets fired. I have to be responsible for him.”

“There’s something you don’t hear Evan Cray say every day.”

“That rhymed.”

“What?”

“The sensible thing to do would be for me to give him up, to keep him safe. Just tell him I’m not ready for a relationship.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult. If you’d asked me a month ago, I would’ve said you wouldn’t be ready for a relationship for decades. But giving him up? Seriously? Because of your asshole uncle?”

“I’m not saying I’m going to do that. I’m saying I feel like I’m cornered, and that’s the only option that saves Simon.”

“Jesus, Evan, how do you get yourself into these melodramatic situations? Nobody else I know runs into these kinds of things. Listen, this isn’t even a talk you should be having with me. You should be talking to him.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I know!” he said. “And I’m going to.”

* * *

“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “Are you busy? What’s all that noise?”

On the other end of the call there was music, raucous laughter, talking. Simon spoke loudly. “Evan! I thought you were spending the day with Reg!”

“I am. I did! I’m done. I thought we could…wait, where are you?”

“Rex and Pete were going out to dinner, and I tagged along,” he said. “We’re at The Rusty Nail.”

“The steakhouse?”

“We can’t all eat in gourmet restaurants in the city!” chided Simon.

Evan felt a flame of emotion burning in him like a candle, guttering and dancing. Was he…was he jealous? He smiled. He couldn’t believe it. He was jealous, and it was such a weirdly pleasant feeling, he wanted to laugh about it. Simon was spending time with friends, rather than him, and he didn’t like it! But he liked not liking it, which was about the most confusing sensation he’d ever felt. “I was hoping to get to see you tonight,” he said.

Simon whispered something into the phone, but with all the noise, Evan couldn’t hear.

“What was that?”

“I said,” but then he whispered it again.

“What?”

Loud, this time: “I said I was hoping to see you too!”

The sudden storm of laughter and hooting that followed, let Evan know why Simon had been whispering in the first place.

“Wait, wait, give me the phone,” said someone, and there was rustling. “Hello, is this Mr. Cray? Peter Luckey here. I’d like to know just what your intentions are with our young Simon. He is naive to the ways of the world—”

“Give it back!” said Simon in the background.

“—and we’re going to need all the sordid details to make sure you are treating him right!”

“Oh my god,” said Simon, sounding out of breath, “I swear, these guys. Anyway, yeah, how about I swing by your place after dinner?”

“Marvelous,” said Evan. “Don’t bring your friends.”

A delicious tension tightened the air as he waited for Simon to come. Evan paced. He rearranged the flowers on the table. He flipped through a magazine without seeing a word. He waited.

When the doorbell rang, he was at the door instantly.

“I missed you,” he said to Simon.

There was so much to say to him, so much to explain, but that was hard to do because all he wanted to do was kiss him. Simon had barely gotten out a word himself.

The second their lips met, every other concern in the world was put on hold. Evan’s fingers explored the now-familiar curve of the back of Simon’s head, while Simon’s hands slipped down the back of Evan’s pants, cupping his ass.

Evan’s heart might burst. His need for Simon was so urgent, after so brief an absence. Simon felt it too, clearly, from the passion in his kiss, from the strength of his arms pulling Evan close. It felt natural that they should shed their clothes, there in the entryway, making it only as far as the couch before tangling arms and legs, lips open and searching.

Did he and my dad do this?

Oh, goddamn. Evan stiffened. The distance suddenly between them might only have been an inch or two, but it might as well have been a mile. Simon looked up at him, a question in his eyes.

Fucking Ash. It was like he knew exactly how to poison things. It didn’t matter if the rumors were entirely false, once they were in Evan’s head, they were infecting everything.

“How was dinner?” he asked.

Somehow, Simon didn’t notice anything wrong, or if he did, he didn’t let on. “Insane. Pete was flirting with the waiter, Rex was trying to get him to calm down, and I wasn’t much company, since all I could think of was getting here to see you.”

Evan fell onto the couch. “I’m so glad to hear you were miserable without me! I was miserable without you!”

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day. Last night…I’m not sure what happened last night. You seemed a little distant, but then I didn’t want to bug you about it in case you needed some space, but then I didn’t really see you much today, and then—”

Evan put his finger over Simon’s lips. “Shh. I’m here.”

But was he? As much as he wanted to crawl all over Simon right now, Simon had a point. Last night had been awkward. All that talk about Evan’s dad! It was such a stupid thing to get hung up on, so obviously just something Ash had said to get under his skin.

He didn’t know how to ask about that, though. Maura had made it seem like the simplest conversation in the world, but it really wasn’t. How do you edge into a topic like that? Open with a joke?

Paging Dr. Freud, I think I’m developing a complex.

No. The straightforward route was better. Simon wasn’t going to fly off the handle. That was one of the things Evan liked so much about him, wasn’t it? He was level-headed. He was a grown-up.

“I need to ask you about something,” he said finally, trying to keep his voice light.

Simon gave him a nervous look, but Evan shook his head and kissed him again, very lightly.

“It’s this conversation with Ash yesterday. It’s so pointless, but I thought I should tell you about it. See—”

He was interrupted by both their phones ringing, simultaneously. His own, on the table, chiming and buzzing. Simon’s, quietly chirping away in his pocket.

They looked at each other.

“That’s weird,” said Simon. He pulled out his phone, and his face fell.

Evan looked down at his phone. Uncle Archie, said the caller ID.

“Oh,” he said. He quickly looked around the room, as though there might be cameras hidden in the corners.

“Should we answer?” asked Simon, his finger poised over the screen.

“God no!” said Evan. “He’s up to something.”

“Something involving both of us?” asked Simon. “How could that be? He doesn’t know about us. Nobody does.”

“Well, not nobody. Your friends clearly know we’re together.”

“Well, yeah,” said Simon. “Your friend Maura does too. You…you didn’t tell Ash, did you?”

“Of course not!” said Evan. Although he did tell me something about you. Damn it.

As they sat paralyzed, the calls went to voicemail.

“One of us should have answered,” said Evan. “Now it’s going to look like we’re avoiding him or something.”

Simon was still looking at his phone, tension tightening his features. “It makes me so nervous. I don’t want to lose my job! But I’m not good at keeping secrets, I’m really not. Who has secrets in real life, anyway?”

“Me, for one.”

“Well, yeah. But normal people?”

Evan batted him on the shoulder.

Simon said, “Everything between my friends is right out in the open. We talk about everything. My family’s the same way. But with you, the relationship is a secret, Reg is a secret, Archie apparently has some secret plot to ruin us all with this stupid presentation—”

“Which I have actually been working on, by the way,” said Evan.

“So what are we going to do?”

“Look, it’s okay. Nothing bad is going to happen to you,” said Evan. “I’ll protect you.”

Simon laughed. “Don’t you have that backwards? I’m the one protecting you. You’re the one in the most danger.”

“Pshaw, I’m a rich kid, I’ll make it through somehow. I just don’t want Archie to fire you and then have to have you sleeping on my sofa or something because you can’t afford rent.”

Simon lay back on the sofa. “That would be tragic. This thing is really uncomfortable.”

“I think I should call him,” Evan said.

“Archie?”

“Yeah. See what he wants, you know? Make everything seem very normal.”

“Yeah, it’s very normal when a boss calls you this late at night.”

“Maybe it is? I’ve never had a job before, I don’t know how it works with you plebs.”

Avoiding the sofa pillow Simon swung at his head, Evan got up with his phone and walked into the kitchen.

“Hey, sorry I missed you,” he said when Archie picked up.

“Hopefully you weren’t busy getting into trouble tonight,” said his uncle.

I wasn’t getting busy at all, thanks to your stupid son. “Just relaxing and thinking productive work-related thoughts.”

“Spare me the sarcasm, young man. The board asked me for an update about this presentation of yours, and I thought I would call you and see how close you are to finishing it.”

“It’s going pretty well. I’m waiting for a couple of quotes to come in, to finish things up.”

“Excellent, excellent. The board is eager to see it. You know how much hinges on this. On another topic, I was trying to call Simon Bowden this evening, but could not reach him. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”

Evan kept his tone level. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“I thought you two might have discussed your respective plans for the evening.”

He glanced back through the kitchen doorway at Simon, who was staring after him. The realization sank in. He knows. Archie knows all about us. Somehow.

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t trust himself to use more words than that.

“Hm. It’s a bit unusual, as Simon is very predictable in his movements. It’s one of the things your father counted on, always being able to reach him, no matter the time of day. You’re sure you don’t know where he is, and why he isn’t answering his phone?”

You old bastard. How did you find out? And why won’t you just come out with it?

“I can ask him tomorrow,” said Evan.

“Very well. In any case, I’d like to meet with you tomorrow, bright and early. Be at the office by seven. I’d like to get a preliminary view of this presentation.”

“Simon has been a big help there.”

“I’m sure he has, Evan. I’m sure he has.”

After the call had ended, he came back through into the living room. Simon looked stricken. “How bad was it?”

“We’re in trouble,” said Evan. “He knows.”

“Oh, Christ. What did he say?”

“It wasn’t what he said. It was how he said it. Something bad is going to happen tomorrow.”