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‘Raphael?’
Raphael continued to look down at the book in his hands.
‘Raphael?’
He turned the page with a little more aggression than was necessary.
‘Raphael?’
He stared at the same line on the page without reading it.
‘Raphael?’
‘Dios, what?’
Raphael looked up at Simon at last, sitting across from him. There was a comic book open in front of him and a goofy smile plastered across his face.
‘When you were a kid, did you ever play Simon Says?’
‘Please tell me you did not just bug me for ten minutes to ask about children’s games.’
There was a time when Simon would have been too intimidated by Raphael’s tone of voice to continue. The grin would have slipped from his face, his gaze flicking away from Raphael’s. But those times were long gone. Simon had since learned that, when it came to him, Raphael was all bark and no bite. If anything, Simon’s grin actually grew at Raphael’s response.
‘Did you though?’
Raphael returned his attention to his book, muttering a begrudging, ‘Yes. I did.’
‘Do you want to play it now?’
‘We are not children.’
In his peripheral vision, Raphael saw Simon shrug. He was paying more attention to Simon than the book his eyes were trained on. In recent months, he had become very adept at pretending to be paying attention to something else while actually being fully aware of Simon. Of Simon’s voice, Simon’s movements, Simon’s very presence. He found it difficult to focus on anything else.
‘You don’t have to be a kid to play a kid’s game,’ Simon insisted. He leaned over the small table between them, his hands clasped on top of the forgotten comic book. ‘If I said Simon says “stop being such a misery-guts”, you have to do it.’
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Raphael replied.
‘What about Simon says “stop being such a spoil sport?”’
‘Isn’t that essentially the same as the first one?’
Simon laughed. Raphael looked up from his book again. It was instinct. When Simon laughed, Raphael had to look at him. Had to see the way his eyes sparkled. The dimples stretching his cheeks.
‘Too clever for me. Okay, how about this one? Simon says, “Kiss me?”’
Raphael froze in the act of once again attempting to return to his book. His eyes were fixed on the page, and Simon had gone perfectly still. He could almost sense the tension in Simon’s body right now. He thought if he made one sudden move, Simon would bolt. Which was why when Raphael once again turned his gaze onto Simon, he did it slowly. Moving carefully, deliberately. Simon was still leaning across the table towards him. If Raphael moved forwards, they could meet halfway. He was still smiling, but there was a spark of worry in his eyes. Something else, too. Excitement. He had taken a risk and he was about to find out what the consequences were.
Raphael did not want to disappoint him.
He reached out across the table and gently ran his thumb over Simon’s cheek, before leaning over and pressing their lips together. It was a slow kiss. Soft and gentle. All the things Raphael had forgotten he was capable of. He laid himself open for Simon, vulnerable, and found that it didn’t frighten him. Maybe, for the first time in his life, he might be able to let his guard down around someone. To lower his defences and not have to worry about it.
It made perfect sense that Raphael had come to all of these realisations by way of Simon’s childish game.
‘You planned this, didn’t you?’ Raphael asked when they broke apart. He spoke softly, his face still just inches away from Simon’s. He was so close he could see all the individual shades of brown and gold in Simon’s eyes.
Simon gave him a shy smile and giggled, but didn’t look away. ‘Shut up.’
‘You didn’t say “Simon says”.’