Chapter 4

They are completely caught up in each other for the next week, giddy and thrilled. Simon sees Alisha every night, every moment they can manage together, and they text constantly the rest of the time. They ignore everyone and everything that isn't work or one another. One night, when Alisha texts him that she's going to work, along with some X-rated suggestions about what they might do after work, Simon finally takes a look at the stream of messages from their friends. Nathan's have taken on a frantic tone. Guiltily, before he goes to see Alisha in the pub that evening, he texts Nathan and Kelly to meet him there.

"I thought you were dead!" Nathan yells when he sees Simon. "I've been calling and calling and you never pick up anymore. I knew you weren't finishing with me all cold like that, and so I had to ask myself, 'What the fuck is he doing'? And you know what I came up with, you twat?"

"That I had a job and a new flat and possibly a girlfriend?" Simon says plainly, just to set up whatever Nathan will say.

"Of course not! That's not even remotely likely. I thought you were dead or kidnapped somewhere. Seriously mate, I checked the papers."

Kelly sits at the bar. "He did actually. When none of us had heard from you."

"It's only been a week," Simon frowns.

"That's the longest it's ever been!" Nathan wails.

"You working a lot?" Kelly asks.

"It's just a few days a week," he says like an apology. When Nathan stares at him blankly he adds, "I work at a film editing company. Remember?"

"Why'd you throw in that bit about a girlfriend if all the rest is true?" Nathan squints. "Is there another dead girl in your freezer?"

Just then, Alisha appears from the back with a crate of glasses. She and Simon exchange half-smiles before it occurs to Simon that maybe she doesn't want everyone to know. Maybe he is her boyfriend when they're alone, not in front of other people. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut.

But as soon as he thinks that, he also thinks, Kelly might be hearing this. Oh, sh—

"You and her?" Kelly exclaims. She doubletakes at Alisha, "You and him?"

"What?" Nathan yells.

Alisha shrugs, "Yeah."

"Yeah what?" Nathan demands.

"They're together," Kelly explains.

Nathan glares at Alisha and calls, "What's the password?"

"Monkey slut," she yells back, too loudly, so the bar silences for a minute. When everyone goes back to the usual drone she snarls, "Will everyone please stop thinking I'm a shapeshifter?"

It occurs to Simon that maybe he was subconsciously avoiding his friends because of what it might to do the tiny thing that was blooming between him and Alisha.

"Is there mind control involved?" Nathan demands of Alisha.

"No! We're just seeing each other, in a normal, no-powers-involved, like-each-other kind of way," Alisha exclaims.

Of course, Simon thinks, it's not a tiny little thing anymore. It's sort of a real thing. She likes him. She said so.

"There is nothing normal about you with him," says Nathan.

Thinking of about this real thing and about how she said she liked him brings those savored images fresh to his mind, all those late nights and afternoons watching Alisha.

"Don't talk about him that way," Alisha hisses.

Alisha naked, Alisha coming, Alisha saying how much he turns her own, Alisha's hands on him through his clothes, the feel of her body with just thin sheets between them, the smell of her. Alisha in vivid, explicit, specific detail. Simon replays in his mind a particularly inventive afternoon involving her vibrator and Alisha saying a stream of hot, dirty things to him. The sounds she'd made, her face as she came. He's so lost in it he barely hears Nathan talking over his thoughts.

"He's my close friend! I was worried when I thought he was dead. I care deeply for the little bastard, and even I know you with him doesn't make any—"

"Oi, that's disgusting!" Kelly interrupts, wrinkling her nose at Simon. "I don't want to hear that."

"What'd you think?" Alisha glares at him.

Simon sputters. "I didn't mean to. My mind just sort of wandered."

"Wandered to what?" Nathan demands hopefully. "What disgusting thing did it wander to?"

"That's private," Alisha snaps at him. "You can't go thinking about that in front of Kelly."

"Yeah mate, don't ever," Kelly gags.

"I'm sorry," Simon crumples.

"WHAT?" He turns to Simon, "Did you piss on her tits?"

"No," Simon says, horrified.

Nathan whines, "For the love of Jesus's ballsack, what?"

"You don't want to know," Kelly complains. "I'll never get that out me mind. Ugh."

"Somebody tell me!"

"They wank off in front of each other and it's dead filthy, yeah? Way worse than it was with her and Curtis."

"I wish we could switch powers," Nathan pouts at Kelly.

"Me too," she takes a long drink of her beer.

"It's not disgusting," Alisha interjects. "And it isn't public information. So stop reading our minds."

"Won't happen again, yeah? I don't need to know about that."

"No, you don't," Alisha wipes down the bar furiously.

"Tell me everything," Nathan begs Simon.

"You can tell him about it, or you can have a chance of actually doing it again," Alisha gives Simon a look he's already decided is never worth crossing.

"I'll never say a word. I wouldn't think about it in front of Kelly ever again. I just couldn't help it," he says in a rush.

"I can't believe it," Nathan cries. "I'm the one who didn't get any? Me? Weird kid gets with her, and I can't even have a go with you!" he says to Kelly, who makes a face. "You shagged a gorilla!" He puts his head on the bar. "The last woman I had sex with was eighty-two. I'm losing it."

"Maybe you never had it," Alisha suggests.

She's going to kill me, worries Simon.

"And you," she leans into Simon's ear, "can make it up to me later, so long as you don't think about it for the rest of the night."

Easier said than done, but he manages. Mostly.

"I'm happy for you, really," Kelly says an hour into the evening. "But I think I need to go home, take some showers. One for me, one for each of you," she waves a finger from Simon to Alisha.

"I wasn't thinking anything," Simon says, confused.

"Not you, mate," says Kelly. "That's wrong, that is," she says, and shakes her head.

Alisha looks admonished and excuses herself to get limes from the back. She definitely should not have thought about his mouth on her nipple through her shirt, his hands on her ass, that look in his eye, how it felt to be watched by him. And especially not what she had planned for later.

As soon as her shift is over, Alisha and Simon head out to a chorus of sexual harassment from Nathan. Curtis comes in as Nathan yells something about Simon's cock in Alisha's armpit.

"What's he on about?" Curtis asks.

"Your ex is doing filthy things with Barry!"

"How many free drinks did you give him?" he glares at Alisha.

"Two," she says firmly and decides to be honest. "Look, Simon and I have been seeing each other. There are no powers involved. We're going now. Goodnight."

"Wait a minute—" Curtis objects, but Alisha hurries by with a tight-lipped Simon close behind. She'll hear about it later from Curtis, but that could wait.

Back at Simon's flat, Alisha doesn't criticize his mental slip in front of their mind-reading friend. Instead, she takes off her coat and her boots, and lies down.

"What were you thinking about?" she asks.

"What you look like when you come," he answers. "Mostly. I'm sorry."

"It was going to come out eventually," she shrugs. "I couldn't keep my mind off you either."

"Yeah?" he smiles.

"Yeah." She wants to tell him she loves him. It's stupid, she thinks. It'll scare him maybe if she gets all feelings-y.

"I love it," he says shyly, "The way you look when you…"

"Touch myself?"

"And when you come. I didn't think you could be more beautiful, but you are."

She wants to call him cheesy, but instead, she looks down at the bedsheet between them. "Simon?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," he exhales. Finally, he thinks, I finally get to say it.

She smiles. A week later, she moves in.