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Chapter Text

On a hot day in the first week of June, Charlie Spring might have reconsidered acting like a total drama queen and kissing his best friend Elle Argent on the lips, if he’d known there’d be a divine set of bronze eyes watching them.

It’d been something Charlie and Elle had discussed the day before her arrival at Charlie’s family’s villa in Southern Spain. Charlie and Elle were best friends — they had been ever since Elle had been Charlie’s father’s summer intern two years ago — and they hadn’t seen one another in more than six months, as Charlie lived in Oxford and Elle lived in Edinburgh.

Charlie was in a giddy mood, having just arrived at the villa the previous day, and had been struck with the thought that he and Elle ought to make their reunion memorable.

Charlie (17.44): Omg, soooo! Idea incoming. Don’t say no immediately. Hear me out

Charlie (17.44): Let’s make tomorrow a super cinematic moment! When you get here, I mean. Olly can play some corny music out of a speaker, and I’ll run up to you all dramatic hahaha, Olly can film it, send it to Tao!

Charlie (17.45): It’ll make him feel included, poor sod

Elle (17.45): Omg I love it 😂

Elle (17.46): I’ll ask Tao to pick the song

Elle (17.46): He’s so jealous he can’t come to Spain. But I was like, I’m not saying no to this invitation just for your benefit!!

Charlie (17.46): I can’t believe I haven’t seen you for SIX months! And tomorrow…finally! Will be the best summer ever

Charlie (17.46): Doesn’t even matter if Dad picks another dud for the internship this year 

Charlie (17.46): I can just hang out with you instead 🥂

Elle (17.47): Hey, who you calling a dud?!!!

Charlie (17.48): In the 4 years he’s been doing this, trust me, you’ve been the only decent one 

Elle (17.49): It’s sooo so nice of your fam to let me return. Like, a whole month at the villa…! And I don’t even have to help Julio with his paperwork this time

Charlie (17.50): Ofc, they love you, they can’t wait to see you. Well, dad anyway. Mum won’t be here for another six weeks, she wanted to stay help Tori get settled in London

Charlie (17.50): Sucks to be Tori hehehe 😈

Elle (17.51): 🤭 

Elle (17.51): My flight lands 2pm so I’ll get to yours around 3.30 I guess? 

Charlie (17.52): Cool 

Charlie (17.52): I think the new intern gets here midday or so

Elle (17.53): What’s their name?

Charlie (17.53): Nicholas

Charlie (17.55): I made Dad promise not to pick anyone who’s going to break my heart this time lmao so he assured me he went out of his way to select someone appropriate 

Elle (17.57): Lol how did he manage to do that without asking discriminatory questions

Charlie (17.58): Apparently this Nicholas is a double exercise science and language major, and captain of his uni’s rugby team 🙄

Charlie (17.58) Clear the runway, Boeing A3Straighty80 coming in to land

Elle (17.59): Charlie, none of what you just said is relevant to someone’s orientation!! 

Charlie (17.59):

Charlie (18:00): So like hey, it could be a win-win, he might be decent eye candy but at least I can know from the get go he’s off limits

Charlie (18:00): I won’t have to torture myself like I did with Tomás last year!!!

Elle (18.01): Plz, you didn’t torture yourself

Elle (18.01): You told me that Tomás told you within three hours of arriving that he had a long term girlfriend

Charlie (18.02): And Elle, truly, it was the longest three hours of my life

* ゜* ゜*

Professor Julio Spring was a renowned linguistics expert. When Charlie was 11, Julio was invited to Oxford to take up residency as a linguistics professor in its esteemed language faculty. The Spring family all moved to Oxford and had been situated there ever since.

When Charlie was 16, Julio inherited his late parents’ holiday home — a formerly opulent, now somewhat run-down eighteenth century villa in a glorious Spanish town on the outskirts of Granada.

The villa was stunning, sprawling, even though it was well past its glory days. Julio and Jane frequently discussed the various improvements they’d make to it over the coming years. The villa was a large, two-story affair, filled with carved stone fireplaces, flocked period wallpaper, very fine Turkish rugs, bleached light from decades lying in the sweltering Spanish sun, toffee-timbered ceilings, terrazzo tiles, and a library stacked high with hundreds of dusty old books. It also had a rustic above ground lap pool, a large, splendid orange grove, and a court perfect for basketball or badminton.

Julio had conceived a program through Oxford to invite a promising penultimate year language major to spend the summer at the villa with them, in what became an informal, but highly sought-after summer internship. 

The conditions of the internship were as follows:

1. The student must attend a university other than Oxford, to avoid the risk of nepotism. 
2. The student must be of multidisciplinary academic background and/or be doing a double undergraduate degree — not just a language degree. There were frequently at least two or three additional guests at dinner each night, usually other academics, poets, philosophers in the like, as Julio, who was privately quite a reserved person, enjoyed having precocious individuals around to keep the conversation flowing.
3. The student was the Spring’s summer guest at the villa for two or three months, and enjoyed the full run of the house: meals, drinks, the works.
4. The student must spend three hours each weekday morning assisting Julio with his academic paperwork and correspondence, and in return, Julio would mentor them on any upcoming modules or essays they wished.

For the past four years, there had been a summer guest at the villa with the Spring family — first Anjali, then Ben, then Elle, and Tomás last year. 

Charlie was now 20, and was set to welcome his fifth summer guest to the villa.

This summer was a little different though. Tori had finished university the year before and had only just accepted a brand new job in London, and could not take three whole months off to come to the villa. Jane insisted on staying behind with Tori and helping her move into her new flat in London, and see that she was settled in her new job, even though she had her boyfriend Michael to help with all that — Jane refused to leave Tori to her own devices, and would be joining them later in the summer — which suited Charlie just fine, thank you very much.

* ゜* ゜*

The next day, the day of Elle’s arrival, Charlie and Olly were waiting eagerly by the large, open bay window of the villa, their heads hanging out in anticipation, when they heard the crunch of the gravelly rocks under the tyres of a taxi.

Olly, who had just turned 11, and who also loved Elle, was thrilled to have been given a job. He pressed play on Charlie’s Bluetooth speaker, stretching one arm out the window so it could be heard, holding his phone in his other hand to film the reunion.

Charlie ran to the adjoining front door, and flung it open dramatically, forcefully, so it knocked on its hinges. Elle was paying the taxi driver.

Charlie clutched his chest. “Elle! My beloved! You have returned!” he exclaimed, trying his best to sound sincere.

“Charlie, my one true love!” Elle said in a phoney high voice, rolling her eyes a little at him as she did so. 

Charlie saw a vague outline of another taxi behind Elle, but didn’t really register it as he jogged up to her.

Charlie wrapped his arms around his friend and gave her a tiny closed mouth kiss right beside her mouth.

“Ew, Charlie,” Elle muttered and wiped her cheek, before returning the hug properly. “I mean,” she increased her volume, “how did I go so long without true love’s kiss!”

The pair erupted in a fit of giggles, swaying back and forth as they hugged one another. 

Charlie turned to Olly and said with a thumbs up,

“All good, thanks Olly!”

“Hi Olly!” Elle shouted.

“Hi Elle!” Olly waved and stopped the music. Then he pointed behind Elle and Charlie. “And is that Nicholas?”

Charlie swivelled around to see a boy standing a few metres behind himself and Elle, as the taxi he had presumably just climbed out of drove away with Elle’s taxi.

The man had a look of amusement on his face which indicated he had just witnessed the whole embarrassing send up.

Charlie felt a sort of pristine beauty fizz through his entire body, a captivating sensation he’d never before experienced. 

This boy — Nicholas — his father’s summer intern — was somehow, inexplicably, lifted directly from Charlie’s most intimate fantasies.

He was tall, broad, big, with a soft round face that was somehow both masculine and baby-ish at the same time, with beautiful strawberry blonde hair which was almost — but not quite — ginger, and eyes which glinted like two precious gold coins. Charlie had a sudden onset daydream about what his muscular, freckled arms and freckled nose might look like lying on grey linen sheets, caught in a net of dappled morning light. Charlie craved to know what his eyes — currently squeezed tight and blinking against the bright sun — looked like when they rested softly on something Nicholas loved. 

But right now? 

Whatever slim vignette of the wide world that was backgrounding Nicholas — the resplendent early dusk lighting up the tips of the orange trees like clusters of red dwarf stars, and the burnished blue of the Spanish sky — it contracted and blurred and slipped away, as though Charlie had tears in his eyes, except that he didn’t.

Charlie felt his whole smile, all of his teeth, splash across his face like a large brush stroke of white paint. He could almost feel the dimples in his cheeks cracking open. 

“Hi,” Nicholas smiled, looking directly at Charlie.

“Hi,” Charlie, Elle and Olly replied in unison.

“Nicholas!” Julio bounded out of the front of the house. “Wonderful to meet you, my boy! Welcome, welcome, mi casa es tu casa, etcetera, etcetera. Have you met everyone? My sons, Charlie, and Olly over there in the window?” Julio shook Nicholas’s hand. 

“And Elle! My darling, how are you, love?” Julio kissed Elle on the cheek and she grinned at him. “It’s splendid to see you again, you look so well!”

“Hi, Julio! It’s so good to see you again!” Elle said.

“Hi, Professor Spring!” said Nicholas. “It’s great to meet you all. Please, call me Nick, everyone does.”

“Nick!” Julio said warmly. “Well, goodness me, you’re bigger than you were on the Zoom call!” Julio held his arms up, to indicate Nick’s imposing height. 

“Well, I couldn’t fit all of me on the screen, so…” Nick grinned.

“Delighted, delighted to meet you. Charlie, Charlie here will show you to your room. We were expecting you earlier?”

Charlie tentatively approached Nick and his father, ignoring the capital-L Look he knew Elle was giving him.

“Yes, I’m so sorry about that, my flight was delayed out of Heathrow. You didn’t get my text?” Nick said.

“Oh, I tend not to check my phone during siesta hours,” Julio replied. “This is a tradition you’ll soon learn from being here! And besides, we were remiss not to tell you to fly out of Luton, like Elle, there's always less trouble out of that airport when you come this way.”

“We could have caught the same taxi if we’d known!” Elle said.

“No harm done,” Nick said, returning Elle’s smile.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room,” Charlie said to Nick, trying to keep his voice steady. “Olly, you take Elle’s bags, be a gentleman like I taught you.” 

Charlie dared to step closer to Nick, and looked at him properly. His skin was absolute perfection. Charlie instantly started fretting that he’d get sunburned during his stay, and vowed to make sure Nick had access to enough sunscreen.

“I can take your bag,” Charlie said, trying not to sound as absurdly eager as he felt.

“Thank you!” Nick smiled radiantly at him and followed him through the front door.

Charlie led Nick up the stairs, while Olly took Elle’s bags to the downstairs bedroom, which she had specifically requested, as it had a glorious arched window overlooking the orange grove. She wished to make a series of paintings of it over the summer. 

Once upstairs, Charlie led Nick down to the very end of the wide hallway. Charlie opened the bedroom door and put Nick’s bag beside the bed. 

“Thank you so much, you didn’t have to carry my bag,” Nick smiled again at Charlie, his hands in his jeans pockets. 

“Oh, it’s okay, Dad likes us to make a show of welcoming guests properly.” 

The enclosed surroundings allowed Charlie a waft of Nick’s delicious cologne, which smelled something like blackberries and bay leaves and loveliness itself. 

“Um, so this is your room. I’m next door. We have to share the bathroom,” Charlie pointed at the adjoining en-suite, which had two doors on either side of the bathtub — one leading into Nick’s room, and the other leading into Charlie’s. 

“My room leads on to the balcony. Your room’s my only way out to the hallway, so, I have to walk through your room in the mornings, like, to get out, I mean.”

“So I guess I’ll have to sleep with my clothes on then,” Nick said with a jolly tone, pausing from stroking the spines of the books on the shelf to turn and look at Charlie. 

Charlie was so stunned by such a casual and flirty (?) remark that he didn’t respond how he really wanted to, which was to say something like, “feel free to sleep with your clothes off, there’ll be no complaints from me!” but instead said, “yeah, that’s probably for the best,” in his best gruff, normal ‘dude’ voice, not wishing to make Nick uncomfortable in his first five minutes at the villa with his overt gayness. 

Nick cleared his throat as though he was already embarrassed.

“I guess I should, um…” Nick began. 

“Oh yeah, of course, sorry, I’ll get out of your way. You must want to unpack and get settled. You’re probably exhausted. Maybe take a quick siesta? Dinner won’t be ready for ages. Esme will call out it’s ready, usually around nine p.m.? We’re on Spanish time, so we eat pretty late.”

“And Esme is…?”

“Oh, Esmerelda, she’s a lovely local lady, she comes every day for half a day while we’re here in the summer, and cooks and cleans the house. She’s worked for us since I was a little kid.”

“Oh, great! I’d like to meet her,” Nick said enthusiastically, sitting on the edge of his bed, testing the mattress.

“Oh, that’s…that’s very sweet,” Charlie couldn’t help but say, and he blushed a little, because, who was this guy? Requesting to meet their beloved old Spanish cook? Adorable. 

“I’ll introduce you to her. Elle and I can also show you around the house later. Um, yeah. Okay. Later!” 

Charlie shuffled out of the room before he said anything else awkward. He practically skipped down the stairs to Elle’s room for a debrief on this very interesting development. He also started planning on how and when he’d chastise his father for picking the most attractive language student in Britain without warning Charlie first.

Chapter Text

~Nick~

It would be a lie to say the first time I saw Charlie Spring was when I saw him kissing his girlfriend on the driveway of his family’s villa.

Two months prior, Professor Spring had given me a rundown of the household in our third Zoom interview together, at which point I assumed he had picked me for the internship. He had told me he had two sons, Oliver and Charlie — Charlie was about my age, he mentioned — and a daughter, Victoria, although Victoria wouldn’t be joining the family that summer, having just started a new job in London.

After I hung up with Professor Spring, I quickly jumped on Instagram to try and find him or his kids. I was pretty sure at this point I’d be spending the entire summer with this family, and, after our interviews, I already sort of knew and massively respected Professor Spring, so I was keen to see what these sons of his were like.

After some really very impressive stalking, I got there in the end. I had to trawl through the followers of the Oxford University Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages Facebook page, then a seriously shithouse Twitter feed, in order to firstly locate a very old account of Professor Spring’s, then finally find his Instagram page, which was your typical baby boomer account, with hardly any portraits or anything remotely interesting, mostly just pics of random objects like hiking boots sitting on a doormat and cappuccinos and his new Rolex.

There was one pic which caught my attention though — a photo from last Christmas, the family outside one of the lovely old Oxford buildings. Professor Spring had one arm around his daughter and the other around Charlie, beaming proudly. 

“Happy Christmas, love from the Springs,” the caption read. They were all wearing Christmas jumpers.

I zoomed in on Charlie’s face, taking care not to double tap. 

And like, wow.

Talk about a fall from heaven. 

I didn’t think I’d ever seen somebody so angelic and beautiful in my whole life. How is it possible to have all the little things you find attractive on loads of different people, cut and pasted like a collage onto the face of just one person? The black curly hair, the dark blue eyes like two evening storms, cheekbones that’d leave a paper cut, dimples (like, dimples, are you kidding me), and a lean frame, but lean in a way that suggested strength too.

Charlie was tagged in the photo, but his Instagram was private, which annoyed the shit out of me, but I could see his profile picture, which was taken side-on, from the waist up, his head slightly bent, a few loose tendrils of dark hair flopping on his forehead, a small smile which made his eyes scrunch up adorably in the corners, hovering a pair of drumsticks over what I could only assume was a drum or drum kit. 

God, don’t tell me he plays the drums? I actually gulped and grew hot at the thought. So I have a thing for musicians, okay, so what? Lots of people do.

His Insta bio was intriguing — so alluring — borderline intimidating really.

“Charlie | 20 | he/him

We were strangers for way too long

📍Oxford & somewhere in southern Spain”

I had to look it up. Joy Division lyrics. 

Ugh, just painfully cool.

My bio is:

“Nick!

Exercise/French major. 

❤️ Nellie #1 girl. Go Leeds RU!”

Embarrassing. What am I, 12? I really ought to change it. Maybe I should hire Charlie to help me.

Anyway, imagine my shattering disappointment when the first thing I see stepping out of the taxi at the villa is the cruel image of Charlie leaping into the arms of a stunning, long-legged woman, kissing her, and saying how he doesn’t know how he’s lived without her all this time.

This, from the very person whose photo had leapt out with the promises of instant affinities.

Fucking typical, I thought to myself. Charlie wouldn’t be the first straight guy I fell for, nor would he be the last, I guessed. I have such horrific instincts with these things and frequently misread signals. I miss signals when they’re directed towards me (I honestly can never tell if someone is flirting with me or just being nice), and also when I’m trying to make an impression (I have a habit of being clingy and annoying towards people who just want space — just ask my ex-girlfriend). 

Maybe that’s why it took me so long to even realise I’m bi? Because I just lack any sort of accurate sexuality radar, not just for other people, but for myself too? Is it symptomatic of being such a terribly late bloomer with everything, or do all non-straight people suffer with this ailment? Would reading people correctly come over time? Or is it more like common sense — you’re born with it, or without it?

It was in the middle of these thoughts that I realised I should probably stop staring at Charlie and his girlfriend like some crazy creep-o and introduce myself. 

Luckily, the younger brother, Oliver, rescued me by saying, “And is that Nicholas?”

Charlie and his girlfriend (I think Oliver had called her Elle or Belle or something) turned to face me, and of course I was already looking at Charlie, and he looked at me really properly for the first time. He hadn’t seen me in his rush to embrace Elle, and he looked kind of stunned, as though he hadn’t been expecting me, and I worried at the thought that maybe he thought that I’d be different, like more interesting or studious-looking, or cooler like him (my best friend Darcy always calls me a “basic bro”; I have to concede that my wardrobe is mostly made up of Adidas sweats). 

But, thankfully, Charlie’s look of surprise didn’t last long, and I was quickly rewarded with the kind of smile from the kind of face that people used to go to wars over.

“Hi,” I said, because I’m an idiot who can’t think of anything better to say, and I’m staring at him, at Charlie Spring, and Christ, how is he even more bloody beautiful than he was in his photos?

“Hi,” Charlie, Elle and Oliver replied in unison.

* ゜* ゜*

After Charlie had left after showing me to my room, I’d collapsed on the bed, cursing myself for making him uncomfortable by mentioning that because he needed to exit my room in order to access the hallway, I’d better sleep with my clothes on (I panicked okay, Tara and Darcy were going to have a fucking field day when I told them; not me threatening to get my kit off within the first five minutes of meeting Charlie). 

#NoChillNelson, that’s what they call me.

It was stinking hot and the bed was super comfortable, and I’d been in transit since leaving Leeds at like six AM that morning, so I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke hours later to the sound of a knocking door.

“We’re being called for dinner,” Charlie was saying, behind the closed door, and for a second I didn’t know where I was: what room I was in, or what country for that matter, or why I still had my shoes on?

“Oh, hmphh,” I made one of those still-sleepy noises, sitting upright in the bed. “Yep, I’ll be right down!”

There was a pause, and then another gentle knock. 

“Um, it’s Charlie.” 

Oh, what a cutie. Obviously it’s you, Charlie. 

“I’m sorry, but is it okay if I come in? I just want to grab a jumper and my phone charger from my room.”

“Oh, of course, come in, sorry!” I said hurriedly, and leapt out of bed. I started smoothing my hair, which was sticking up all over the place from my nap. 

The door opened slowly and Charlie walked in tentatively, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. I was all pink and patchy and flustered, with lines on my face where the pillow had left creases in my skin. Terrific. 

“Did you have a nice nap?” Charlie smiled, and walked towards the bathroom so he could enter his room. 

“Yeah, I did, thanks. I can’t believe I slept so long. Is it really nine o’clock already? It’s still so light out!” I spoke louder than I probably should have, to make sure Charlie could hear me from the next room. 

“Oh yeah, it’ll be light for a good hour or more still,” he called from his room, I could hear him shuffling around fetching things. “They do things differently in Spain. Is it your first time here?”

“Yep!”

“Well, like, we eat lunch around three o’clock, for example,” Charlie strode through the bathroom and back into my room, wearing a navy knitted jumper, and fiddling with his phone charger as he spoke. “Most of the shops shut over lunch for around two hours and don’t open at all on Sundays, not even the supermarket. The nightclub in town doesn’t actually open its doors until midnight.”

“Wow, that’s crazy! How cool! I hope it doesn’t take me too long to get used to things like that.”

“Ah, you’ll be just fine,” Charlie said. I got the impression he was a little emboldened by my enthusiastic tone, because he gave me a shy, sweet smile and continued speaking. “Want to know the reason why they do everything so late in Spain?”

“Sure! But, I do really need to piss, so talk to me through the door? I’m still listening,” I said, as I shut the bathroom door. 

This was probably quite an intimate request but, hey, I figured I’d be sharing a bathroom with this guy for the next three months, so we may as well get used to existing in close proximity in this manner. No point in delaying the inevitable. We were going to hear each other pissing, see each other’s spat out toothpaste in the sink, feel the drip of each other’s wet board shorts hanging over the shower door.

If Charlie minded, he didn’t let on. He spoke through the door to me:

“Well, Spain is actually in the completely wrong time zone to what it’s meant to be. In the 1940’s, Franco moved the clocks an hour forward, in an act of solidarity with Hitler. He’d run out of money fighting the civil war so it was basically the cheapest option to show his support for the Nazis. And even after the war ended, they never changed the clocks back. So Spain is in the same time zone as Germany and Poland and that, even though we’re meant to be the same as Portugal and Morocco. So, that’s why we do everything so late here! The sun’s not aligned properly with what we perceive it to be based on the clocks. Everything’s an hour later than it should be.”

“That’s amazing!” I shouted, washing my hands, then opened the bathroom door. I looked at Charlie squarely and smiled, wishing to convey my appreciation for his brain.

“It’s cool, hey?” Charlie returned my smile, and my heart fluttered. “And another fun fact,” he swung back and forth on his feet, “Spaniards are the most sleep-deprived people in the developed world. Could very well be related to the clock thing.”

“Do you know lots of fun facts, then?” I put my phone in my pocket and gestured to the door that we should head downstairs.

“Comes with the territory of having two academics for parents, and spending every summer here as a kid without a TV.”

We began walking side by side down the long, wide hallway.

“So you’re a proper little nerd then,” I smiled at him in what I hoped was an affectionate manner.

Charlie grinned, and, phew, he was not offended. 

It seems we had already graduated to bantering. 

“It’s a badge I wear with honour,” he said.

“What do you study?” 

“Latin and mathematics.”

“Jesus, that sounds intense! Are you at Oxford too, like your dad?”

“Uh, yeah,” Charlie seemed embarrassed by this, as though it wasn’t seriously badass that he was smart enough to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I felt like I was gaining IQ points via osmosis, just from standing near him.

“And I don’t find it intense at all. It’s brilliant, I love uni. I love the freedom of studying what you want. A million times better than grammar school.” He paused. “Um, so Dad told me you study exercise science, but what’s your language major?”

“French!”

“Oh,” was all Charlie said in response. I was walking behind him down the stairs but I somehow felt his eyes shift downwards. His voice seemed to catch. In disapproval? 

“You don’t like French?” I asked, flooded with self-consciousness.

“Oh French is…fine,” he replied in a flat tone. “It’s cool.”

Okay, so Charlie doesn’t like French. 

“What languages do you speak?” I ask, not wishing to dwell on my French-ness.

“Spanish, Latin, and a bit of English.”

“Ha, ha,” I pretended to laugh, but inside I actually was laughing.

“Sorry, bad linguistics joke. People are usually disappointed when I tell them what languages I speak — I think most of them think I might speak seven or eight, like Dad.”

“Eight?!” I knew Professor Spring spoke several languages but I did not know it was that many.

“Yep. English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Latin,” Charlie counted on his fingers, “and he’s almost finished learning German, which looks like an absolute mindfuck if you ask me.”

“Like Latin isn’t!” I scoffed.

“Latin is beautiful,” Charlie said the word slowly, purposefully, stretching out each syllable, and god, I loved his lilting voice; it was deeper than I’d been expecting. I wished he would call me beautiful. “Latin is clean, crisp, precise…it’s like the mathematics of languages.”

“You’re really not selling it to me,” I giggled, probably sounding like a lovestruck schoolgirl. He was just so charming. 

“Hello, you two!” Elle emerged from one of the downstairs rooms, and like, I’m sorry, I really am, I’m sure she’s lovely and everything, but my heart sank a little at the sight of her. 

“Hello you,” Charlie smiled, and they linked arms, and walked out the back door together, with me following.

We entered the warm evening air of the outdoors, where, situated close to the orange trees, was a large wooden table under an awning, covered with grape vines and strung with fairy lights. The table was fit to seat at least fifteen or twenty people, and had a motley assortment of chairs, dragged from what looked like all different rooms in the house. The tablecloth was vivid green and covered in peacocks. Some of the tableware was bronze, some pale blue porcelain. My mouth started watering at the sight of delicious salads, bread, and a huge tray of paella. The whole set up was all so eclectic and eccentric. I loved it. 

“Nick! You had a good siesta, I trust? I’m the same, travelling always takes it out of me too,” Professor Spring was seated at the head of the table, a glass of wine in his hand, and tapped me on the arm in a friendly manner as I walked behind him. “Here, sit beside me, you have some initiations to complete over dinner.”

“Initiations?” I repeated nervously.

“He’s only teasing you,” Olly piped up, as I took the seat in between him and his father. Charlie and Elle sat facing us on the other side of the table. “They’re not that bad at all. He does this every year.”

“Now Nick, most nights we have other guests joining us for dinner, but tonight is a rare night just for the Springs. You see this house is—”

“—This house is like a pit stop for the pretentious academic holidaying set,” Charlie interrupted his father, smiling. “Word’s gotten around that Dad has a big table and a generous spirit and there’s someone knocking at the door every other evening inviting themselves in to eat Esme’s food and ramble on at us about their thesis topic.”

“I like lively debates at this table, as you know. It’s good for you kids to hear a wide range of perspectives about this world. Every day is—”

“— an opportunity to learn,” Charlie and Oliver finished their father’s sentence in unison.

Everyone laughed, and I became aware of someone hovering at my side. Before I turned around, I saw Charlie’s face light up as he stared at the person.

“Ah, Esme!” Charlie said. “Este es Nick, el interno de papá este año. No habla español. Él pidió específicamente conocerte.”

I felt an invisible finger furiously pressing the bi panic button on my brain at the sound of Charlie speaking Spanish.

“Hola, Nick!” Esme exclaimed.

I stood up to greet her. Esme was a small, middle-aged woman, impeccably dressed. She put down a tray of mussels on the table, wiped her hands on her apron, and opened her arms for a hug, which I happily returned. 

“Hola, Esme! Cómo estás?” I said, in what was no doubt a very poor Spanish accent.

“Dios mío, qué estrella de cine !” Esme patted both my arms and beamed up at me — she was very short indeed. 

I turned helplessly to the table for a translation.

They were all laughing.

“Don’t tell him, Olly, it’ll go straight to his head,” Professor Spring instructed his son.

“¿Quieres vino blanco o tinto? O solo agua para ti? ” Esme asked me; she had not let go of my arm.

Ah, okay, that I understood. Maybe I’ll pick up Spanish sooner than I expect.

“Vino tinto, por favor, Esme.”

“Bueno,” Esme poured me a glass of red wine. “Que aproveche a todos.”

“Gracias, Esme! Adios, ciao!” everyone said.

“She won’t join us for dinner?” I asked, as Esme left the table.

“Esme comes every day around four and does some cleaning, prepares our dinner, then leaves when we sit down to eat,” Professor Spring explained, as everyone began piling up their plates with food. “We take turns clearing the table and washing the dishes when we’re done. Olly, you’re up tonight, son. Esme’s been a part of our family for many years. Sometimes she sits with us, but not often, she prefers to eat dinner at home with her husband.”

“This looks amazing,” I said eagerly, my eyes racing over all the food on my plate. I hadn’t eaten since my Bacon and Egg McMuffin meal at Heathrow at about ten hours earlier, and I started tucking in.

“Um, Nick, we haven’t prayed yet,” Charlie said in a hushed voice.

I already had a bread roll in my mouth. I felt my face turn as pink as the prawns in the paella.

“Oh…Oh, I’m so sorry…”

“I’m just screwing with you!” Charlie exclaimed, and burst out laughing, and so did everyone else. Professor Spring laughed so much he had to wipe a tear from his eye.

“You shoulda seen your face!” Olly giggled cheekily, rice flying off his fork in his excitement, and I got a feeling this kid and I would be good mates.

“Was that one of the initiations?” I resumed eating once my heartrate had returned to normal, and directed my question at Charlie.

“No, that one was special, just for you,” Charlie replied angelically, looking at me from over the top of his wine glass.

“No, I do the initiations,” said Professor Spring. “But firstly, so we’re all clear on the language level. Nick, you don’t speak much Spanish, do you?”

“What you heard me say to Esme before is the full extent of my knowledge!” I tried not to speak with my mouth full.

“Okay, no, that’s fine, it’s just good to know first up. So, we have Nick with French, Elle with French and some Spanish, Charlie with Latin and Spanish, and Olly with Spanish and Mandarin.”

“Mandarin?!” I looked at my table neighbour with a sizeable amount of admiration. 

Olly grinned at me. “Everyone in this family speaks European languages. I wanted to learn something different!”

“A noble mission, Olly,” his father said proudly.

“He’ll be CEO of a big company before any of us, that’s for certain,” added Elle.

“Good, right, that’s settled,” said Professor Spring. “So, Nick, the first task in the initiation is: in my pocket, I have several prompts for fairly complex topics. You are going to select one randomly and explain the topic to us in French, with no time to prepare your thoughts. I will grade you at the end.”

“So will I!” Elle piped up.

“So will Elle,” Professor Spring smiled at her.

“Okay, so, here we have it, here are the topics. Pick one, and once you read what it is, you have to start talking immediately — explain to us what the concept is — try and use advanced terminology where you’re able.” 

Professor Spring rummaged in his pocket and produced around a dozen small slips of paper, folded in half. He held out his hands and I picked one off the top of the pile.

I unfolded the paper.

“Constellations,” I read aloud.

“Go, quickly!” urged Olly.

“Um,” I flushed, and took a deep breath. 

I do like a challenge, it’s the sportsman in me.

“Une constellation est, eh bien, c'est un groupe d'étoiles dans notre ciel nocturne. Pendant des milliers d’années, les gens ont regardé les étoiles et imaginé ce qui existe au-delà de notre royaume sur terre. Les gens ont cartographié et enregistré des constellations dans les étoiles, qui sont généralement, euh, je suppose qu'il s'agit de motifs perçus ou de groupements d'étoiles qui dessinent le contour d'une forme. Les gens attribuent alors certaines significations à ces formes, parfois comme des signes astrologiques, ou des symboles autochtones… ou peut-être des figures mythologiques. Quand vous regardez une constellation, cela nous rappelle notre insignifiance et laisse l'univers grand ouvert à tant de mystère.” I drew breath, not really knowing where I had pulled that last bit from. Bit deeper than I’m used to, that’s for sure. I was pretty impressed with myself. 

“Bravo, Nick, bien expliqué. C'est une question délicate. Cependant, je suppose que vous êtes reconnaissant de ne pas avoir étudié l'économie de l'offre et de la demande. Constellations est au moins plus romantique. Elle?” Professor Spring invited Elle’s assessment.

“Magnifiquement réalisé, Nick. C'est agréable d'entendre votre interprétation du mystère que recèle le monde,” Elle smiled at me, then looked at Charlie.

“Charlie, Olly, it seems Nick is quite the poet.”

Charlie wasn’t looking at me, I noticed, and seemed to be concentrating an awful lot on his salad. He did say he wasn’t a fan of French, to be fair. 

“Okay, you’ve successfully completed the first of your two initiations. Flying colours,” said Professor Spring, making a mock sign of the cross over my head. “Now, the next one. We’ve never had an exercise science major at our table before. Please, tell us a little about what it involves? Then can you give us a practical demonstration of what you’re learning?”

I was not used to being the centre of attention in this way, especially on intellectual subjects. It made me feel so good, so important. I was feeling too buzzed to even be embarrassed. The red wine was helping with that too, I supposed.

“Sure! So, exercise science is all about the impact of exercise on the body. I think people think of exercise as a vanity thing, especially like young people. But it’s not just about pumping iron at the gym. Exercise is necessary for so many things, like, to help ill people manage chronic pain, or to help people recover post-surgery, or improve health outcomes for elderly people.”

“That sounds really interesting! I never thought of it in that way,” Elle said with a warm voice, and she seemed so genuine, and, okay, maybe I would have to learn to like her. I guess.

“Yeah, I love it. I don’t one hundred per cent know what sort of job I want to get after I’m finished, but there’s heaps of different options.”

“Can you personal train me while you’re here? My arms are like twigs,” Olly said, pointing at his decidedly twig-like arm.

“Did you not hear a word of what Nick just said, Olly?” Charlie rolled his eyes. “He literally just said exercise science isn’t about vanity. It’s about helping people recover from injury or manage chronic health conditions.”

“Well, practical application, Nick, that’s the next part of this task,” Professor Spring said.

“Yeah!” Elle continued excitedly. “Show us how Olly can get big arms!”

I laughed. “You’re seriously going to ask me to do a pull up with a stomach full of paella and red wine?”

“It’s part of the initiation! It’s all in the name of science,” Elle said, peering at Charlie for some reason, and he must have been tipsy like me because he had gotten all red.

“Christ, okay. Um, Olly, stand up, over here, there won’t be anything suitable for a proper pull up so let’s use the table here."

Olly leapt up and followed me to the far end of the table, and I started moving chairs out of the way. Charlie, Elle, and Professor Spring moved out of their seats to watch us.

“Okay, so, lie down under the table, facing up, with your legs straight out, in a way so your hands grip the edge of the table from underneath,” I instructed.

Olly moved himself into the position, but wasn’t quite tall enough to lie flat on the ground.

“Right, so hold on tight to the edge of the table and pull yourself up by your arms so that the top half of your body rises, with your feet remaining on the ground. Try and engage your core to help you, like really squeeze your belly, and exhale on your way up.”

Olly lifted himself about three centimetres off the ground before collapsing back onto the ground.

“That’s impossible! Don’t laugh, Charlie, it’s way harder than it looks!” Olly said to his brother, dusting himself off.

“In fairness, the table is too high for you. It’s easier when you’re taller. Here, look,” I jumped down to the ground and positioned myself under the table. I grabbed the edge of it and pulled myself up and down a couple of times using my arms. I don't mean to brag, but it was easy. 

Okay, so I was showing off a little, so sue me.

“Lucky us, free admission to the gun show,” Elle giggled, and I saw her poke Charlie in the ribs. Sigh. I’m a sucker for a compliment, and I had to admit it now, Elle was growing on me.

“Well Nick, this has been most enlightening,” Professor Spring laughed, as everyone shuffled back to their seats. As I stood up from the ground I caught Charlie’s eye and he quickly looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. I hope he didn’t think I was a total douchebag. 

We all sat down and finished our meals. Later, everyone began to disperse to go to bed, but I wasn’t tired after my long nap that afternoon. It was still so warm, so I decided to wander around the orange grove with my wine for a bit.

“Want to watch an episode of something before we go to bed?” I heard Elle say to Charlie.

“Yeah, definitely,” Charlie seemed to pause at the doorway to the house. “I’ll see you up there in a minute.”

“Okay,” Elle replied.

I made my way towards the grove, trying to push the thought of Elle and Charlie cuddling up in bed together out of my mind, and ended up under the lovely, rustic archway that showcased the entrance to the orange trees.

“Um, Nick?” 

I turned to see Charlie standing behind me. He looked a little nervous. The fairy lights atop the awning sparkled behind his head like a crown, or a halo.

“Um, so, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I was thinking, it might be a good idea if I gave you my phone number?” Charlie bit his lip and averted his gaze to the ground momentarily. “You’ll be in the study with Dad most mornings, and by the afternoon, we’re often already out bike riding or down at the lake or in town or something. There’s some neighbours we hang out with too in a big group, some days. Like, if you ever want to hang out in the afternoon, you can text me when you’re done helping Dad, and see where we are?”

Oh my god oh my god oh my god. 

“That’d be great,” I said, as coolly as I possibly could, as though what he had just suggested didn’t delight me to my core. 

Charlie wants to hang out with me?!

Why, why did he have to be straight, and have a girlfriend?! Why?! 

I was getting such… emotional vibes from him, I didn’t know how else to describe it. Like such an intensity of feeling. Straight guys aren’t normally like this! Or are they? Or was he just being normal? Ugh, I wished there was some way I could obtain a fucking clue. 

“Oh, cool,” Charlie smiled at me. “Here, give me your phone.”

Charlie typed his number into my phone and created a contact.

“There you go. Now, text me so I have your number too,” he handed me back my phone.

I clicked ‘message’ next to Charlie’s name and wrote: 

Nick (22.33): Hi :) 

Charlie got out his phone, and, whilst still standing in front of me, quickly typed his reply, which appeared on my screen, and I glanced down at the text,

Charlie (22.33): Hi :) 

and then I glanced back at Charlie, and he was smiling at me and I was smiling back, both of us holding our phones displaying the texts from one another, and then we were staring at each other, just for a moment, but for longer than I would have expected, and I felt a crackling spark of joy, camaraderie, affection, and every bright, precious thing, such that I had never felt.

I knew then that I was in serious danger with this totally off-limits, utterly unattainable boy.

Chapter Text

It had been five days since Nick and Elle had arrived at the villa, and Charlie’s central nervous system was shot to pieces.

That first night! That magical night! That first dinner with Nick, the one where Charlie had had to trial on-the-fly methods of actual physical self-restraint not to swoon over Nick at least a dozen times throughout the evening — from getting a glimpse of his sleep-creased face after he’d woken from his nap, to watching him show off those sinful arm muscles in his exercise demonstration, and listening to him describe constellations in French. (Nick’s voice changed when he spoke French, it became so melodic and light; Charlie had always had a massive thing for French guys but this was next-level love heart eyes emoji thanks to Nick’s deep, luscious voice and his perfect lips).

After Charlie had asked for Nick’s number, and Nick had smiled at him so prettily, not breaking the gaze for way longer than was normal between two bros/dudes/lads, Charlie practically flew to Elle’s bedroom; he was positive that there was some unspoken understanding between him and Nick, some spark. 

But these were only little baby signs so far — Nick appeared to be excruciatingly straight in almost every particular, and Charlie decided he needed to do some more digging. 

Charlie and Elle were lying in Elle’s bed together, not paying attention to an episode of New Girl playing on Elle’s laptop, and instead scrolling on their phones and chatting. Charlie had managed to locate Nick’s Instagram after filtering through the followers of the Leeds University Rugby Union team page.

“‘Nellie, number one girl,’” Charlie read from Nick’s bio to Elle. “‘Love heart emoji.’ Nellie? It kind of sounds like the name of a pet? Although it could be a girl, I suppose.”

“There are loads of photos of his dog,” Elle said, peering at Charlie’s phone.

“Okay, so might be the dog. Might not be…What else do we have here? Rugby…rugby…dog…rugby medal…birthday cake…rugby, fuck’s sake, do you think he plays rugby or what…oooh look, here are his friends. God, look at this bunch of fit lads. It’s like a convening of the UK Bicep Alliance.”

“Charlie,” Elle snorted.

“What? Look at them! They look intimidating as fuck. Far out, Nick’s drinking Guinness, yuck…Oh god, and here’s something about racing cars, snooze, how hetero is that…oh here’s him with two girls at a concert, they actually look like fun. But overall, not promising so far…Rugby…Coffee…Dog…Woah, hang on, what is that — oh my god, look!”

Charlie stopped scrolling on a photo of Nick, a close-up portrait. He was sitting down with his elbow on a table, striking a pose: his hand on one cheek, bicep flexing, smiling with his mouth closed, one corner of his lips ticked up like the Nike symbol, winking with one eye. He was wearing a sparkly sapphire blue tank top. He had a carefully applied rectangular stripe of silver glitter across his eyes. His fingernails were painted dark purple. 

Charlie gasped. 

“Holy fuck, what is that?!” 

“He’s wearing makeup?!” Elle’s voice was hushed in shock, and she grabbed the phone out of Charlie’s hands. “Oh Charlie, Charlie, this is good, this is verrrry good.”

“What date was it taken?” Charlie said, his head spinning. “Halloween? April Fool’s?”

“Neither! Seventh of August last year.”

“What’s the seventh of August?”

“Um…” Elle thought carefully. “I don’t think it’s anything! It’s nothing, right? It’s just a day!”

“It must be for a fancy dress party. Like a uni mixer?”

“Not during the summer break.”

“No, I guess not.” 

Charlie zoomed in on the photo, studying each of Nick’s golden freckles on the bridge of his nose, and his pouty, kissable lips, which had a few stray flecks of glitter stuck to them. 

“Fucking hell, he’s so bloody gorgeous, I’m going to kill Dad!”

Charlie threw his head back on his pillow in despair.

“Look at the caption,” said Elle. “‘Camera emoji, @tara_jones_xo.’”

“Click on her, what’s her story?”

Tara Jones’s profile, infuriatingly, was set to private. Her profile picture was two hands making the shape of a love heart in the shadows. Her bio was:

“Dancing my way around Leeds and the world 💃🏾

❤️ D.O.”

“Hmm, okay, ambiguous,” Charlie said. “But her partner is D.O., I guess, not N.N., so that’s something.”

“Like, at the very least, this tells us he’s not toxically masculine,” Elle pointed out.

“That’s true.” 

Charlie remained unconvinced. Who ever heard of a gay rugby player? 

“Anyway, look, here’s where we’re at,” Charlie began, relying on his penchant for logic and order to evaluate this situation objectively. “Nick only just arrived this afternoon. It’s been like six hours, and already I’ve asked for his number, then we had that little moment in front of the grove — I think it was a moment anyway — and he caught me staring at him on like fifty different occasions over dinner. I’ve done plenty already to show him I’m interested. I have to leave the rest up to him now.”

Elle scrunched up her face and made a noise indicating her disagreement.

“Elle, seriously, like, right now, I would say there’s a 98 per cent chance he’s straight. He gets one percentage point in his favour for the nail polish, and another for how long he was smiling at me in the grove. But, he’s probably straight, and he has to live with me for three months, and there’s no way I’m going to make him uncomfortable if he has to tiptoe around the house knowing I have a crush on him — it’s not fair on him.”

“You don’t want to like, drop it casually into the conversation that you’re gay? Or want me to?” asked Elle.

“No, definitely not, I don’t want to overwhelm him, and besides, look at me. Look at how I behaved towards him tonight — I’d say it’s already fairly fucking apparent that I’m gay. I don’t want to rub his face in it. Let’s just see how he goes over the next week, let him get settled into a routine with dad and everything, he’s here to ‘work’ after all, and go from there. Let’s reassess where we’re at in a week after we know him a bit better.”

* ゜* ゜*

“Daaa-aaa–aad,” Charlie burst into his father’s study first thing the following morning, the morning after Nick and Elle had arrived. He turned the word ‘Dad’ into three syllables like only children know how to do. 

Julio was pottering about his desk, tidying it in anticipation of Nick’s first morning officially interning with him.

“Chaa-aaar-les,” Julio mimicked him in response, throwing a broken stapler in the bin.

“Did I or did I not specifically ask you not to pick an intern who was going to distract me or break my heart!”

“I did Charlie, for pity’s sake!” Julio was bundling up papers, snapping rubber bands around them. “Oh, I suppose Nick can help with this later…” he muttered to himself, before continuing to say to Charlie, “what do you think I picked an exercise science major for? And a rugby player? Come on now, he’s unlikely to…Well, you know what I mean. He’s such a sporty, laddish sort of boy, isn’t he? You don’t like boys like that do you?”

Fucking spare me, thought Charlie.

“Dad, as much as it humiliates me to have to explain this to you, please be serious now. Do we need to get you an updated prescription for your glasses? The man’s a model!”

“You’re exaggerating, you really are,” said Julio, as if he had the first fucking clue what he was talking about. “Stop objectifying the poor lad. And how was I to know how tall he was from the Zoom call? I can hardly ask students their height and weight on the application now, can I?”

“And what was that stunt you pulled, getting him to ‘demonstrate’ his exercise degree last night?” Charlie flopped himself into Julio’s leather chair. “Frankly, the whole evening felt like one long send-up, but that part in particular felt like you were trolling me on purpose.”

“What’s trolling?” Julio furrowed his brow; he was a linguist, he liked hearing new words.

“Oh, never mind,” Charlie waved his hand. 

“I really did try my best, son. At the end of the day, he was by far the best person I interviewed. Maybe not as technically skilful as some other applicants, but we got along so well, and I was really wanting someone this year who’d be a nice, easy addition to the household, not someone prickly or disagreeable. I didn’t really want another moody Tomás, or a Ben — heaven help us.”

Charlie shuddered, as he always did, at the mention of Ben’s name.

“Well, I’m putting my foot down, I don’t care what you say, next year I’m being a part of the screening process. I can’t do this again, Dad!” Charlie whined.

“And you, mister,” Julio pointed an accusing finger at Charlie, who was getting up to leave, “if Nick does turn out to, you know, swing that way, there will be no hanky panky in this house — gay or straight!”

“Please don’t say hanky panky!”

“No hanky panky ‘til you’re married!” Julio called out the door at Charlie. 

“I’m leaving now! Already left!”

Nick spent almost the whole day with Julio, getting up to speed with everything the internship would entail, and also running Julio through his upcoming modules for which he wanted mentoring. 

Charlie didn’t see him until the evening. Charlie was sitting on the balcony adjoining his room, smoking with Elle. They were talking to Tao on FaceTime, and they heard the back door open downstairs, and watched as Nick exited the villa and strode towards the pool, wearing canary yellow board shorts, no shirt, his towel slung over his shoulder.

Elle and Charlie leaned forward in their chairs to ogle him properly.

“What are you two looking at?” Tao asked them through the iPhone screen.

“Nothing, honey,” Elle said, trying not to laugh. “A pretty bird just flew past.”

Later that night at dinner, with the dark violet Spanish sky hanging overhead like a velvet blanket, there were several guests joining them. Two Austrian economists, a South African physicist, and a Macedonian historian — all acquaintances of Julio’s who had come to dinner from their hotels in Granada or Motril. 

Julio made a round of introductions and clarified who spoke what languages, before saying:

“Well, it seems tonight we have the concept of lingua franca perfectly at play. Charlie, care to explain what we mean by this phrase?

Charlie cleared his throat amidst the sound of everyone scraping their cutlery along their plates. He was sitting next to Nick tonight and was experiencing sensory overload at the proximity: Nick’s cologne clashing with the freshwater of his evening swim, his arm almost brushing Charlie each time he reached to get his wine glass.

“A lingua franca is a language purposefully employed to allow communication between two people who share no common first language. For example, if an Austrian,” Charlie nodded at the Austrian guests, “and a Macedonian, say, want to have a conversation, they are most likely going to conduct the conversation in English — English being by far the most dominant lingua franca in the world.”

There was a murmur of fascination from the table. Nick was smiling at Charlie, and Charlie gave him a tiny sideways glance and smiled back, before peering downwards at his hands, flushed and ecstatic from Nick’s attention.

“Lingua franca plays on a social presumption that in most industries – travel, aviation, business, diplomacy, for example – English is going to be the shared common language amongst diverse groups of people,” Julio continued. “Ergo, when you are an English-speaking tourist travelling in a cosmopolitan city – whether you’re in Phnom Penh, or Lima, say – you will assume that the people you meet in the hotels or cafes or running the tour groups will also speak English.”

“We walk around ascribing so many labels and assumptions about people, don’t we?” posed Elle from the other side of the table, looking back and forth between Nick and Charlie.

* ゜* ゜*

The next morning, after breakfast, Charlie was sitting at the outside table with his coffee, headphones on, banging on the table and an overturned tin tray with his drumsticks. Charlie’s eyes flickered upwards and he saw Nick standing at the back door with his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, watching him. Nick’s hair was still wet from the shower. 

Charlie had had to creep past him earlier while he was still sleeping, and creep is the correct adjective indeed, as not only did Charlie prowl along the outer wall of the room like a jewellery thief in slow motion, to avoid waking Nick, but he had allowed himself to gaze upon Nick’s sweet little sleeping face for several seconds more than was probably ethically appropriate.

Charlie took his headphones off and smiled at Nick. 

“You play the drums?” Nick smiled back, somehow making the question sound like “good morning.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said shyly. 

“That’s so cool!” Nick’s voice was full of brightness and admiration.

Charlie nearly squeaked with delight. 

“Thanks,” was all he could manage by way of response. 

“What you were just playing was nice, can you play it again?”

Instead of acquiescing to Nick’s request, Charlie stood up and began walking into the house via the front entrance, where the parlour was situated. Even though he hadn’t gestured to Nick or told him he should follow, Nick seemed to pick up on the vibe Charlie was laying down, and followed him  wordlessly into the house. 

Charlie went into the parlour, where he kept the beat up old drum kit his parents purchased years ago from someone in town who no longer wanted them. They were pretty crappy quality but did the job to allow him to practise over the summer. 

Charlie sat on his stool, while Nick leant on the doorway of the parlour. Charlie began playing the beat he had been playing outside.

Sort of.

After a moment, Nick spoke. 

“That sounds different. Did you change it?” he asked, with a small arrow-shaped crease in the middle of his eyes indicating his concentration.

“Well, I changed it a little.”

“Why?”

“I just played it the way someone in 1920’s New Orleans might have played it.”

“Play that again,” Nick pointed to the window, indicating outside.

“Play what again?” Charlie tried to suffocate his smile.

“The thing you played outside.”

“Oh, you want me to play the thing I played outside?”

“Please?” Nick asked, pretending to sound annoyed, but it came out sweet as honey. 

“Ahh,” Charlie feigned a noise of sudden comprehension. 

Charlie played for a minute or so.  

“I can’t believe you changed it again! I have no musical ability but even I can tell it’s completely different!” Nick exclaimed, grinning and shaking his head. 

“I just played it as though someone from Metallica altered the New Orleans version,” Charlie gave Nick what he hoped was his most darling smile. 

“Why don’t you just play it how it was meant to be played?” Nick asked.

“It wasn’t ever really written for the drums. In fact, Art Blakey stole the melody from a rival jazz musician, and…”

“Forget I asked!” Nick said in a joking, exasperated tone, and turned to leave. As he exited the parlour, Charlie finally began playing it in the same way he had been playing it outside, and the sound of the music lulled Nick back into the room, and he sat on the edge of an armchair, watching Charlie with his arms folded and a small smile on his face. 

“It’s by Art Blakey, when he was very young,” Charlie explained to Nick, when he had finished. “Rumour has it, he dedicated it to his brother.”

What Charlie really meant was — it’s dedicated to you, Nick. This is a tiny gift I’m sending to you and only to you. 

He and Nick pondered one another for a moment, before Nick got up abruptly and said, he’d better have a bite to eat before starting up with Julio for the morning. 

Much later that day, a pleasant thought flashed through Charlie’s mind — were we flirting in drum?

* ゜* ゜*

That afternoon, Elle and Charlie were hanging out around the lake with some neighbours. The lake was a ten minutes’ walk from the villa, or a two minute bike ride, and was shallow and crystal clear, surrounded by long yellow and green reeds, with a very old log fence, a tire swing, and an abundance of pebbles to skip along the water. It was a popular place for families to bring their little toddlers to splash about in the mornings, and by early evening, there were often young people there hanging out, drinking, smoking weed, paddling, making out when it got dark.

Nick (15.03): Hey! I’m done helping your dad for today, where are you guys? :) 

Charlie (15.04): Down at the lake, some of the neighbours are here, come join! :) 

There this afternoon was Imogen, who also came every summer and stayed with her parents at a nearby villa, and her younger twin brothers, who were just a bit older than Olly and hung out with him constantly. Charlie was friends with Imogen — she was a sweet, fun girl, but they didn’t really keep in touch when they were back in England. 

There was also Natalia and Jose, a young couple whose families lived nearby, and who had just finished high school. Charlie had known and been friends with them for years. There was a bunch of other randoms that slipped in and out of the group, sometimes coming to the Spring villa with or without invitation, to use the basketball court or have a quick dip in the pool. It was all a pretty laissez-faire arrangement at the Springs’, especially when Jane wasn’t around.

Nick arrived riding the bike Julio had given him, Tori’s, and was shirtless and knee-deep in the water in minutes, splashing the cool water on his face and shoulders, before joining the group, who were all sitting in the shallowest end, wading aimlessly. Nick stretched his legs out in front of him, drinking the can of beer Natalia offered him.

Imogen, Charlie noted, took an instant shine to Nick (shock horror; anyone present with warm blood in their veins including a very straight Jose were hard at work not staring at Nick with his shirt off). She’d dyed her pale hair pink this year, and looked fantastic.

“Boys, don’t climb so high, Mum’ll kill me if one of you breaks another arm!” Imogen yelled at her twin brothers, who were worryingly high up a large tree with Olly.

“So Nick, where are you from in England?” Imogen returned her attention to Nick.

“I go to Leeds Uni, but I grew up in Rochester, in Kent.”

Charlie almost spat out his beer.

“Did you say Rochester?” 

“Yeah!”

“I grew up in Rochester,” Charlie said in disbelief.

“You’re joking!” Nick exclaimed.

“No! We lived there until I was 11. Where did you go to school?”

“Truham.”

“Fuck off! I was enrolled to go to Truham! I was literally due to start there like, a few months after Dad was offered the residency. We moved to Oxford right before the school year started. Tori had already been at Higgs for a year.”

“That is such a crazy coincidence,” Elle said. 

Nick looked dumbfounded. “I can’t believe we almost went to the same school!”

“Cute!” Imogen said, which was something she always said. 

“Jose, come, ven aquí, push me on the swing,” Natalia said, who didn’t have good enough English or context for the conversation.

“Nick, you come push me!” Imogen yelled.

Nick smiled at her, “okay!”

Charlie looked at Elle and rolled his eyes, I told you so. 

Charlie stood up to go get another drink. He started dragging his legs through the shallow water and emerged at the side of the lake. He stood there for a moment and hiked his elbow upwards, he felt a pinch near his shoulder blade.

Without warning, Nick was suddenly beside him, their board shorts wet and dripping onto the grass below. Nick was also getting another drink.

“Sore shoulder?” Nick asked.

Charlie rolled his arm around. “Yeah, I must have slept funny last night.”

“Here, let me have a look,” Nick extended his arm to touch Charlie, and Charlie must have given him a look of pure alarm, because Nick laughed and said, “trust me, I’m about to be a physiotherapist, I won’t hurt you.”

Charlie looked at him and nodded, and Nick stood slightly behind Charlie, and used two hands to gently massage Charlie’s right shoulder, working his way around the curve of the shoulder blade and pressing his fingers into where Charlie’s neck met his shoulder, with precision firmness, which was also at once incredibly soft, and Charlie could only thank the gay gods that he was facing away from Nick, who would be unable to see the small smile and incredibly quiet gasp that emitted from Charlie’s mouth at Nick’s touch.

“You’re stressed, you should relax more,” Nick said, in perhaps the most casual, conversational voice Charlie had ever heard, like he was commenting on the fine weather to an elderly relative.

“I am relaxed,” protested Charlie, who was perhaps, at that moment, the least relaxed he had ever been in his twenty years on this green earth.

It only lasted fifteen seconds or so before Nick pulled away.

Charlie almost said, “don’t stop.”

“I’ll show you some stretches later, to help with the tension,” Nick cleared his throat, and Charlie was distressed to see he was already getting a bit sunburned on his face, even though he smelled strongly of sunscreen. Then Nick jogged towards Natalia, Jose and Imogen at the swing.

Charlie turned to Elle, who was sitting with her legs dangling in the water, and she shook her head at him, wide-eyed, and shrugged.

He shrugged back.

* ゜* ゜*

Later that evening, after a dinner where barely anyone could get a word in edgewise thanks to the Welsh philosophy lecturer who gabbled on at them about moral relativism for an hour and a half, Charlie watched an episode of New Girl with Elle in her bedroom before heading back upstairs to his room once she fell asleep.

Nick had the door ajar, as he always did, and Charlie was thankful that he had so quickly picked up on the specificities of the whole ‘shared hallway door’ arrangement, which had often proved so awkward with other interns. He was, Charlie had learned, a good bathroom neighbour too, tidy and courteous, his only bad habit being he hung his wet board shorts from the shower door, and Charlie made a mental note to offer to put them on the balcony railing with his.

Charlie didn’t know if Nick was awake or asleep; he didn’t want to knock and wake him, but he also didn’t want to enter Nick’s room without knocking either, so he kind of hovered at the doorway for a moment, trying to think back to how he’d approached similar situations with Tomás last year, when the problem was solved for him by Nick saying,

“Charlie? You can come in, I’m awake.”

Charlie walked into Nick’s room, where he was sitting upright on his bed with his laptop on his legs, some papers spread out on the bedspread, wearing a black tank top and red and blue striped pyjama shorts. 

“Hi,” Charlie said, smiling.

“Hi,” Nick returned his smile.

“Sorry about Mr. Moral Relativism at dinner tonight,” Charlie said, putting his hands in his pockets. “The guests can sometimes be a real bore. Tori calls it ‘dinner drudgery.’”

Nick laughed. “Tori sounds great. And nah, it wasn’t so bad. It’s awesome learning from so many different people.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Charlie felt stupid. He wanted to say something but didn’t know what. So he found himself blurting out,

“Do you run?”

“Do I run?” Nick repeated, looking amused. “Ah, yeah, I run. I mean, I’m not that fast, but I try go for a jog a few times a week. Especially when I don’t have my weights with me.”

“I go most mornings, before breakfast. If you ever wanted to come. With me, I mean. There’s a great track to follow in some woods nearby, I can show you.”

“Elle doesn’t go with you?” Nick asked.

Charlie screwed up his face. “Elle? No, she hates running.”

“Oh,” Nick seemed to think carefully about his answer. “Yeah, that would be great, running would be great. But I bet you’re really fast though, and you can’t laugh at me for being slow.”

“Well, that’ll just be because you’re old.”

“I’m only a year and a half older than you!”

“Okay, old man.”

Nick laughed. “So what time tomorrow?”

“Like, eight-thirty maybe? Dad won’t expect you until ten or so. Does that work?”

“Ugh, yeah. Yeah, it’s a…” Nick seemed to choke on his next word. “It’s a date.”

Charlie blushed, but tried not to overthink it. That was just something people said. People said that to friends, or to parents, or neighbours. Let’s go to the supermarket in the morning, it’s a date. Let me drop your mail around at four, it’s a date.

“Cool,” said Charlie, trying to still his clamouring heart. “Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Charlie,” Nick said, and Charlie tried to firm his leg muscles, god, the way Nick said his name was too much for him to handle. 

Charlie shut the bathroom door connecting to Nick’s room, and got in the shower. 

As the water fell down around him, and as he stood in the same spot that Nick, naked, had been standing probably only half an hour or so before him, trying not to think about what that meant, trying not to think about what Nick looked like or thought about or did in the shower, touching the tap handles that Nick had just turned on, and then off again, and flicking off the cap of Nick’s body lotion, which he inhaled deeply, it smelled out-of-this-world, just like Nick, and Charlie wondered if jerking off in here was now totally inappropriate and obtrusive, or if it was the most natural thing in the world, because he was definitely, definitely getting some kind of something from Nick, and it was driving him insane, and as he knocked his head against the cool blue tiles, taking his dick in his hand, wishing it was Nick's hand or Nick's mouth instead, the only thing echoing in the deep recesses of his mind the hushed, secret whisper in his heart:

It’sadateit’sadateit’sadateit’sadateit’sadate

* ゜* ゜*

Two more days passed without much incident, and god, wouldn’t this whole torturous situation be slightly fucking easier if Nick deigned to keep his shirt on for more than ten consecutive minutes each day. Charlie would be wandering about the house or the garden, going unsuspectingly about his day, and suddenly be confronted with a sighting of a wild Nick Nelson – the pretty bird, Elle had called him – his constant state of shirtlessness never quite ceasing to shock and amaze and arouse Charlie no matter how many times he was blessed with the image. 

Charlie had never ever seen somebody so comfortable with their body. And this was a Spanish summer after all, so it’s not like people were super clothed or anything as a default. With almost every day reaching at least 34 or 35 degrees Celsius, most girls walked around in tiny swimming costumes and light cotton dresses, and most boys had their shirts off at least part of the day, and everyone was shoeless, so it’s not like there was any lack of skin assaulting one’s senses around the clock. Even Charlie had had to outgrow any teenage insecurities about his body, and learn to ignore the few lines of light scars on his upper arms, out of the pure need for convenience; it was simply too hot and too bothersome to wear a shirt in the hottest parts of the day, so he had to swallow his anxiety and just get on with it.

But there was something about the way Nick walked, and moved, and stretched, that portrayed an absolute sense of confidence and ease, one that Charlie envied, and soon the wide curves of Nick’s pecs and his slightly soft, toned stomach became a familiar sight to whomever was around, be they university chancellor or local politician or old man who delivered fresh milk and fish, or, on a daily basis, a very flustered Charlie.

There was always some slight variation on the shirtless theme too, as such that Charlie felt he should be recording the sightings in some kind of logbook, like a horny ornithologist (hornithologist? Elle thought it was funny). 

Saturday, 10th of June, 35 degrees Celsius, conditions: fine

Spotted 8.30am – outdoor table underneath jasmine tree – Nick eating Esme’s bocadillo de tortilla in short sleeve linen shirt, buttons undone to the navel (noteable; a rare Nick Nelson; threatened species; predicted extinction time frame for said linen shirt: thirty-five minutes. Discarded remains will fossilise at side of pool.)

Spotted 12.30pm – swimming in pool – Nick emerges from the water up the terracotta steps, soaking wet, no shirt, crimson board shorts clinging to sinful thighs (common, garden variety species: Nicholus sexgodus nelsonus)

Spotted 4.45pm – basketball court – Nick playing five-a-side with Olly and other neighbours, t-shirt tucked into the back of the waistband of grey Adidas shorts (approach with caution; sweaty, swoops when provoked)

Spotted 10.55pm – Nick’s bed – Nick perched on pillows displaying brightly coloured striped pyjama shorts, no shirt, headphones in, hands behind head, biceps on show, giving a sweet smile, nod, and wave to say goodnight (high secretion of pheromones; only sighted in mating season)

Nick was getting along exceedingly well with Julio, by all accounts, whom he had now switched from calling ‘Professor Spring’ to ‘Pro,’ which Julio publicly claimed to dislike, but Charlie could tell he secretly enjoyed, because Nick was just so effortlessly charming and likeable, and everyone thought so, and any begrudging emotion directed towards him was either short-lived, or feigned, or both. Nick quickly became popular with the locals, Imogen especially, and Natalia and Jose invited him to their house to watch a rugby game one afternoon, and Charlie was too happy for him to even feel any jealousy. 

Tuesday was a very rare rainy and windy afternoon. Elle was doing her paintings in her room, and Charlie was wandering around the house looking for a particular book of his, when he heard laughter peal out from the kitchen, it was Nick and Esme, he gravitated towards the laugher naturally, and stood in the doorway of the old, antique kitchen, with its high white ceilings and brown tiles and vintage orange enamel pans.

Esme was speaking to Nick in Spanish, and he was listening attentively, as they stood over the stove, watching a small pan carefully. Charlie smelled the familiar scent of burning caramel.

“Well, isn’t this a sight,” Charlie smiled at Esme, who was like a second mother to him.

“¡Charlie! Hola hijo. Estamos haciendo crema catalana. Estaba empezando cuando entró Nick, creo que quiere ayudarme. Es un buen chico. Toma, Nick, sigue revolviendo, así, no dejes que se oscurezca demasiado o tendremos que empezar de nuevo,” Esme was motioning to Nick with the wooden spoon, and he seemed to understand her meaning, and stirred in a continuous motion, only briefly looking up from his task — not to burn the caramel, the central ingredient to the dish, which even Charlie knew was the most important step of the whole crema catalana whole process, and therefore what a big deal it was for Esme to entrust it to him — to give Charlie a little grin and glance from beneath his fans of fair lashes.

“Os veis encantadores aquí juntos,” Charlie said. “You two look lovely in here together,” he translated into English for Nick’s benefit.

Nick smiled, not taking his eyes off the caramel.

“Después de esto, Nick, tenemos que pelar los limones y las naranjas para usarlos en la infusión de la mezcla de leche. Y canela. ¿Charlie, puedes sacar la canela del armario, por favor?” Esme said, and Charlie moved to the cupboard, happy to have been roped into helping.

“Lemons? Oranges?” Nick guessed.

“Muy bien, Nick, limones, naranjas, good, good, hablará español antes de que acabe el verano,” Esme smiled at him and patted his arm, saying the last part to Charlie.

“I know, Esme, he’s very smart. Muy listo.”

“Qué joven tan amigable y amable es. Él vino aquí y estaba tan interesado en lo que estaba haciendo que no sabía lo que estaba diciendo, por supuesto, pero me di cuenta de que me estaba preguntando qué estaba haciendo, para qué servían los ingredientes, y me agradeció por todas las cenas que he preparado. Nadie viene aquí a verme, excepto tú a veces, Charlie. Este, Nick, me recuerda a mi hijo. Estoy seguro de que su madre está muy orgullosa de él,” Esme said.

Charlie felt a lump in his throat. He felt close to tears at the mention of Esme’s son. He also felt a sense of supreme gratitude and validation that Esme, whom he trusted with his life, also saw in Nick what Charlie saw in him, which was his utter and infinite goodness and sweetness.

“What is she saying?” Nick asked, oblivious to the emotion rising in the room due to what Esme had just said, as Esme, ever-practical, bundled him out of the way to take the caramel off the heat. It was done now, and she thrust a peeler and a lemon into his hand, silently motioning to him how she wanted it done.

“Sh-she said,” Charlie stammered; he was feeling so sentimental at the scene before him, “she said you’re a very friendly and kind young man. And that you remind her of her son — her son died many years ago. And th-that, your mother must be very proud of you.”

Nick looked at Esme fondly, and Charlie saw that a tear had now sprung up in his eye, and he reached down to Esme to hug her. He glanced up at Charlie and Charlie nodded at him, beaming, a silent thank you for the gift of reminding Charlie’s beloved Esme of her beloved lost son.

* ゜* ゜*

After that interlude in the kitchen, and the evening that followed, where everyone around the table praised Nick’s crema catalanas, and Charlie was at a loss to explain why, Nick all of a sudden became totally unavailable and avoidant. If the first six or so days of his stay had signalled the promise of intimacy, of a friendship or something — Charlie dared not hope — more, then the two or three days following that rang out excessively of distance and coldness. 

Out of nowhere, without any explanation or warning, the closeness that had just been on the cusp of blooming between them snapped back shut, like a sunflower in a storm.

Nick started making excuses as to why he didn’t want to join Charlie on a morning run anymore. He stopped texting to see where Charlie and the others were after he was finished up with Julio in the mornings. He spent time training Olly, playing basketball with the younger kids, or in the kitchen with Esme, but mostly just lying by the pool reading or playing with his phone, or studying in his room. He declined an invitation to go into town to the local nightclub, which bitterly disappointed Charlie, and didn’t even want to sit with the neighbourhood gang and smoke weed in the orange grove one particularly sultry midnight evening, when the cool breeze didn’t waft through the villa until around four in the morning, and Charlie was lying awake in bed, tossing and turning, wondering what he had done so wrong for Nick to back away so quickly.

Had he been too much? Too intense? Had Nick grown suspicious of Charlie’s feelings and decided to distance himself, for the good of them both? Or did he simply not like Charlie the more he learned about him? Charlie knew he could be brittle or pretentious sometimes, and was no match for Nick’s sunny disposition or winning style. That Nick had abandoned their friendship so quickly wounded him deeply. Charlie lay in his bed after coming in from the orange grove, high as fuck, drunk, feeling some kind of fire lit within him at the thought of Nick also lying in his bed, just a few short metres from him, maybe in the same sheets that Esme had washed and re-laid from Charlie’s bed and onto Nick’s earlier that day, and a fear, like panic, enveloped him, and a heat that could have consumed him right up, and he felt a punch to the gut in the knowledge that Nick would never knock on Charlie’s door, or enter his room, and it wounded him, wounded him. Sometimes, Charlie thought he heard a sound, like a shuffling in the bathroom late at night, the only thing separating him and Nick a flimsy wooden door and any clothes they were wearing, but clothes could easily be removed, and doors could easily be opened, but the sounds were probably just in a dream, but then, the idea of Nick ever coming into his room would be more than just a dream.

One morning, early, around eight or nine days after Nick had first arrived, and two days into the new and unexplained distance between them, Charlie became aware of the sound of the bathroom door - the door leading to his bedroom - being gently closed from the inside of the bathroom.

His eyelids fluttered momentarily to see Nick slowly closing the door so as not to wake them.

He and Elle had fallen asleep the night before watching The Tree of Life, which was dull as ditchwater. The next movie they watched would not be a Tao recommendation, that’s for sure. 

Once the door was shut, Charlie heard the sound of Nick turning on the shower. He removed his arm from where it had accidentally draped over Elle's stomach, and then fell back asleep.

It was another rainy day.

Chapter Text

~Nick~

I was experiencing versions of myself that I had never before encountered during my first week in Spain.

It was such a sensuous, sumptuous place — one that lit up all my senses. 

All the surfaces were interesting to the touch, and I found my hands lingering on surfaces unexpectedly — from the salmon-coloured terracotta buildings in the town plaza, to the slick, Arabian tiles patterned throughout Springs’ villa, lacquered in duck egg blue or violet or mustard, or the diamond clear water of the lake, where I’d hover my hand a millimetre above the surface, then tap it gently, watching the ripples extend to the log fence surrounding it. And the sounds — the persistent thrum of cicadas, the twittering of unfamiliar birdsong, the peal of church bells on Saturdays and Sundays. The air was scented with orange blossom and black coffee, and fragrant wild rosemary which grew in untamed bunches along the bike track to the lake.

And the heat! The heat was three-dimensional; it soaked into the pores of my skin, sometimes so thick it made it hard to breathe, due to a dry, windless heat, and it wasn’t until the late evening, around 10 o’clock or even later, as we were finishing eating up Esme’s dinners of salty cod croquettes, fried potatoes in tomato salsa, and fresh salads made of grapefruit and goats cheese and cucumbers, that a cool breeze would finally come roaring through, rustling through the glossy leaves of the orange grove, and we’d all breathe fully for the first time since sunrise. 

Then, of course, there was the endless proximity to Charlie, who was overrepresented in the reasons for my newfound hyper-sensitivity to my own emotions. Every minute I spent with him, or every gaze I allowed myself in his direction, I found myself liking him more and more, and it was starting to consume me. He was such an intelligent, funny, cheeky, kind, gentle guy. Sometimes I felt like he saw right through me, like he was reading my mind. Other times I just felt like we’d known each other a really, really long time. 

Like, for example, one afternoon, on my fourth or so day at the villa, Elle, Charlie and I were lounging by the pool in the late afternoon. Elle was lying under the pomelo tree, listening to music with her headphones in. Charlie was waist deep in the pool, leaning on the edge with his elbows, his sunglasses on, reading a book called On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. 

Not you, Charlie, I thought. You’re eternally gorgeous. 

I was swimming some lazy laps, back and forth and back again past him, occasionally stopping at one end of the pool to wipe my hands on my towel and read a few pages of my own book, some murder mystery I’d bought at the airport under a display that had said “Fab Holiday Reads;” in other words, a book that probably made me look like a complete knucklehead. I made a mental note to ask Pro if he could recommend something better from his library. 

Charlie and I hadn’t exchanged a word in the hour we’d been at the pool. There was no need to. It wasn’t awkward or anything. The opposite, if anything. To me, we could co-exist as comfortably in silence as we did when talking.

I got out of the pool and walked over to one of the lounges with my book, taking a swig from the freshly squeezed orange juice I’d brought down from the kitchen in an old milk bottle. I stretched myself out on the lounge, fanning my book out on my chest. I was close to dozing off when I heard Elle say,

“The light’s just where I want it now, I’m going to head inside to work on my painting.”

“Cool, see you later,” Charlie replied.  

“See you, Nick. I haven’t forgotten about checking that passé composé excerpt for you, by the way. I’ll slip it under your door before you meet with Julio tomorrow.” She smiled at me.

“Thanks so much, Elle, I really appreciate it! See you later,” I replied. 

I wished I could dislike Elle, but she was, inconveniently, absolutely lovely. There was no point in pretending otherwise. At least I’d never heard her and Charlie having sex, that was something to be grateful for, I supposed.

As Elle walked away, Charlie said to me,

“Were you asleep?”

“Almost.”

“Listen to this,” he held his book closer to his face and raised his voice slightly so I might hear better. “‘Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.’ ” Charlie turned the book to study the cover. “Far out, this book is amazing.”

“Hmmm,” I said, meditating perhaps more on the sound of Charlie’s voice than on the words themselves. “That’s pretty. I don’t really understand it. But I like it.”

“You don’t always have to understand something to know you like it,” Charlie said, because he always said cool shit like that. 

“What are you doing?” he asked me a moment later, putting his book down.

“Reading,” I lied. 

“No you’re not.”

How quickly he unspooled and knew me. 

“Thinking, then.”

“What are you thinking about?” He had a hint, a tick of a smile on his face, and if I could see his eyes behind his sunglasses, I’m sure they’d be dazzling.

I was dying to tell him. 

“It’s private,” I said. Because it was. It involved my mouth and his skin and my hands and certain sounds I’d like to hear escaping from a slim, wet, dark gap in his lips. 

“So you’re not going to tell me what’s in that handsome head of yours?” 

Handsome?! This caught me off guard. So much so that it practically gave me whiplash. Charlie thought I was handsome? Or was he just teasing me? I flipped through a quick mental Rolodex of all my interactions with all of my straight guy friends over the years — had any of them ever called me ‘handsome?’ They tease me sometimes about being ‘a sexy beast’ and wolf whistle at me in the changing room occasionally, but that’s just them being dicks. 

This was different, I was sure of it. 

But how could it be? Charlie had a girlfriend. 

I tried not to portray the extent of my present psychological distress by instead continuing to be evasive. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“He’s not going to tell me,” Charlie said, to the air, to no-one, as if there was someone else there. I loved this — how unreal he was, how unlike anyone I’d ever met before. 

I was about to change the subject and ask him how long he and Elle had been together, when we were disturbed by Natalia, Jose, and Imogen, who joined us at the pool for the remainder of the afternoon. 

* ゜* ゜*

On my fifth day there, I accidentally woke Charlie when I kicked the small bin on the bathroom floor, still sleepy as I brushed my teeth. It was made of metal and clanged against the tiles. I swore and heard Charlie groan, then what sounded like him dropping his phone on the floor. Maybe he fell asleep with it on top of the blankets like I did sometimes.

“Sorry,” I peeped, quiet enough so that if he was somehow still asleep, he mightn’t hear me.

“Good morning,” he replied in a muffled voice. “Open the door, I’m awake, you can apologise to my face.” 

This was new. I had not been permitted this yet. My heart leapt into my throat.

I spat out my toothpaste and wiped my mouth, before opening the door. Charlie was lying in bed on his back, under a blanket. His hair was fluffy from his sleep. His room was, predictably, absolutely littered with books, sheets of music, what looked like some drawings of Elle’s. 

“You know, next time,” he sat up in his bed and pulled his knees to his chest. His yellow and white striped pyjama top was so bloody cute. “Next time, I prefer a symphony of stringed instruments to wake me up. Or maybe a hot coffee placed on the bedside table. Unfortunately, bins being kicked by giant rugby idiots doesn’t crack the top ten.”

How could he possibly make the phrase ‘giant rugby idiot’ sound like an endearment? He may as well have said "sweetheart." Had he meant to? Or was he just this warm and affectionate with everyone? My nerves were already being run ragged trying to understand this boy’s meaning, and it was only eight fucking fifteen in the morning.

“Well, now I know for next time. Symphony. Coffee. Consider it done.”

“We running this morning?” he asked. “Well, maybe ‘run’ is a strong phrase for you. I run, you sort of lightly jog and get really puffed out immediately.”

I pointed at him and narrowed my eyes. “Oh, it is on this morning, Spring. Tie your shoelaces tightly, wear your lucky boxers, you’re going to need them.”

He grinned and I grinned back and as I left his room I tried really, really hard not to think about what it would be like to get in that bed beside him.

This was becoming an even bigger problem as the days went by. What was I going to do? 

* ゜* ゜*

“Nick!” Pro said to me as I entered the study later that morning, rubbing his hands together in glee. “We’re not cataloguing today. New plan, someone at La Alhambra archives has called and needs some advice about a translation in a newly discovered text. How do you fancy a drive to Granada? You’ve not been yet, have you?”

“No, not yet!” I replied excitedly. Granada was the closest major city to where we were, just over an hour’s drive away, and I’d been itching to get there. Charlie had mentioned something about going clubbing there one night. La Alhambra, or The Alhambra, was the main attraction of the city — a massive fourteenth century palace on top of a huge hill.

“Want to go?”

“Obviously!”

“Well then, let’s hop in the car and get going. I told them we’d be there by eleven. I’ll just ask the kids if they want to come along too, you can come have a peek in the archival rooms with me and then have a wander around the palace grounds. I’m sure they’ll give you a free ticket.” Julio exited the study and yelled throughout the house, “Charlie! Olly! Elle! Hey, kids! Who’s awake? Nick and I are driving to La Alhambra . You have precisely cinco minutos to decide if you want to come with us or not!”

Pro’s phone dinged almost immediately. 

“It’s Olly,” he read off his phone. “He says he’s going to the twins’ place today to play Mario Kart.” Pro scoffed disbelievingly. “Kids! Imagine! Given a choice to visit a World Heritage listed fortress, a marvel of the Spanish Renaissance, and you choose the Nintendo!”

Charlie stuck his head out of Elle’s room.

“When are you guys leaving?” he asked his father.

“I’m starting the car in five minutes — be there or be square,” Pro was already packing his laptop and some textbooks into a backpack.

“Five minutes,” Charlie spoke back into the room to Elle, then said back to us, “I’ll come, Elle doesn’t want to though, she’s still in bed.”

So then, exactly five minutes later, Charlie and I are sitting in the back seat of Pro’s car, and he’s driving, and Abel, the gardener, is in the front passenger seat, as he’d requested to accompany us when he saw us getting in the car. Abel needed to get something at a department store in the city, Pro explained.

Pro and Abel were nattering away in Spanish in the front seats, while Charlie and I sat, a bit awkwardly I must admit, in the back seat. He was bouncing his leg up and down. I felt like I was so warm that I was deflecting the car’s air conditioning right back into the vents, and I just sat there broiling, trying to think of something to say.

After twenty or so minutes of this uncharacteristically brutal silence between us, Charlie tapped the back of my hand with two fingers, and when I glanced at him, he was looking right into my eyes, and sort of rested his palm on the top of my outstretched hand, and gave it a little squeeze. He indicated with his other hand out his window,

“Look,” he said, turning his eyes out his window. “On that hillside, there — all those small white structures built into the earth. That’s a cemetery.”

I bent my head so that I could better look out of Charlie’s window. It was amazing, like a small city, thousands of whitewashed stone boxes outlined with red bricks, presumably filled with coffins, built right into the face of the cliffside.

“Woah!” I exclaimed. “Why do you think they built it all the way up there?” I asked, not really expecting a response.

“When Granada was becoming industrialised during the 19th century, there was a huge population boom, and they started running out of places to bury people,” Charlie spoke like he was reading from an encyclopaedia. “They chose up there so it didn’t put any pressure on the housing developments.”

I gawped at him, allowing myself the pleasure of gazing openly at his lovely face, those eyes a shade of dark blue that I don’t think any other person in the world possessed.

“Is there anything you don’t know?” I asked, sincerely hoping my admiration was evident.

Charlie let go of my hand. It had felt so at home atop mine, that I hadn’t realised how long he had rested it there. The loss of his hand left a mark like he had burned me.

“I know nothing, Nick,” he looked out his window and spoke softly. “Not about the things that really matter, anyway.”

As I tried and failed to formulate a response to that, we were plunged once again into silence. I played on my phone the rest of the car journey.

But the afternoon at The Alhambra was magic, something I knew I’d never forget my whole life. Charlie and I were invited to don white cloth gloves and explore some of the priceless documents in the archival room beneath the palace, while Pro discussed a complex seventeenth century Catalan text with some important looking people in black clothes. After a while, the conversation extended beyond mine and Charlie's grasp, and we were given lanyards to explore the palace freely.

We slowly dragged our feet in lockstep from glorious room to glorious room, luxuriating in the sensation of the cool tiles, listening to the pitter patter of the expansive water feature in the centre of the grounds, with a surface so clear and blue that reflected the palace back in it like a mirror, and admiring the cream stone walls, imprinted with ancient Islamic inscriptions of beauty and spirituality.

Apparently, it had been designed to be a heaven on earth.

And as Charlie stood silently contemplating the view of the city below, surrounded by dark green forest, it’s buildings all pristine white with brown roofs, I couldn’t help it, I got out my phone and said to him, “smile,” and he turned around to me and his face gifted me with the smile I’d requested, and I took the photo, and yeah, they were right, this was heaven on earth.

* ゜* ゜*

I’m not proud of it, but the day after we went to The Alhambra, when we made the crema catalanas with Esme, and Charlie gave me such a pretty look as to almost kill me as I hugged Esme, I had to do something. It was starting to become too much.

I’m not proud of it, but I spent the next two days avoiding him.

But this was also not a sustainable approach. I was miserable. I needed some advice.

I biked into town and sat on the steps of a fountain in the plaza, so that I could be assured of some privacy, and FaceTimed Tara and Darcy at our arranged time.

“Hey Nick!” they said, and I was rushed with happiness at seeing their smiling faces.

“Hey Tee, hey Dee,” I replied, wishing I could hug them. “How are you, what have you been up to?”

“We’re good! Just slaving away at work, you know, the café is sooo busy during the—” Tara began

“—we’re doing shithouse actually, not all of us get to freeload off an Oxford scholar in paradise for three months!” Darcy interrupted.

“I’m not freeloading, I’m interning.” I sounded fake even to me.

“Hmm, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Actually, I’m not sleeping. It’s so hot here, it’s scrambling my brain. And with my room right next to Charlie’s, just that tiny bathroom between us, ugh, guys, I’m really not coping at all.”

“Did you try what we suggested on Wednesday?” Tara asked.

“You mean, avoiding him?” I squinted in shame at the thought. “Hiding from him? Retreating into a pit of despair? Yep, tried all that.”

“You’re such a drama queen, Nicky. And we didn’t suggest any of that! We suggested repressing, not retreating. Totally different,” Darcy clarified. “Repression is a very normal, very unhealthy part of the gay experience. It's a rite of passage.”

“Nick, it’s the curse of queer people — we fall for our friends, whether they’re new friends or old friends, all the time,” Tara added. “And like, I’ve been thinking about this heaps this week, since you’ve been texting us about it, and like, you’re not exactly a one night stand kind of guy. You obviously really like Charlie’s personality, and like being around him. That’s what a friend is. It’s just been complicated by the fact you’re attracted to him too.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Darcy piped up.

“If what you liked about him was purely physical, you’d just be frustrated about not getting it off with him, and move on to some other Spanish matador at la discoteca tonight,” Tara shimmied her shoulders mockingly.

“Or matadora,” Darcy said, in complete seriousness.

“Or matadora,” Tara echoed, and then frowned at her girlfriend. “I don’t actually think that’s a thing, Darcy.”

“Well, if it’s not, it should be! Why shouldn’t there be girl matadors, too? What kind of a feminist do you call yourself? You think women aren’t tough enough to be gored by bulls?”

“Dee, please,” I took my sunglasses off and rubbed my eyes. “Focus!”

“And for the record, the only reason I’m not forcing you to declare your very obvious love for Charlie to his face is because he has this girlfriend. And we have to respect ‘boundaries.’ Because of ‘society,’” Darcy made twin quotation marks with her fingers as if to indicate her disapproval of the two concepts.

“Yes, Darcy — because of society. Obviously, if he was single, and I had suspicions he was gay or bi, I’d say something,” I said, sighing.

“I don’t know, I could kinda see a Nick Nelson homewrecker era!” Darcy yelped, grinning like the sicko she was.

“Darcy. The man’s in distress. Stop joking around.”

“He loves me!”

“That’s fair, it’s true, I do love her,” I confirmed to Tara. 

“You’re a sweetie,” Tara smiled. “Seriously though, do you think you’ll have a go at being friends with Charlie again? Don’t retreat. Just repress. For now. It sounds like a joke but we’re actually not joking. We’ve all gotta do it sometimes. And hopefully you just get over him and enjoy being his friend.”

“I get that, I do,” I took a really deep breath, “and I could probably just deal with it and get over it if I just didn’t pick up on these, like, seriously intense vibes from him most of the time. Like, we keep having these moments . What I’ve been texting you about, like, the drumming and the morning jogs and when he grabbed my hand and making dessert and sometimes I just catch him looking at me and smiling and I just feel this surge of warmth, sometimes it’s so much, like I feel like I’ll fall over if I move or break the spell or something. Honestly, I know my track record is, like, appalling when it comes to stuff like this, but if my mind is just playing tricks on me, and I’m wrong, I don’t know if I can ever trust it again!”

“Nick,” was all Tara said, but the way she said it was like she had put three red love heart emojis next to my name.

“You haven’t even sent us a photo of him! I’m dying to see him,” Darcy said.

“Oooh, yes, yes, send one on the chat, please!”

“Okay, okay.” I probably should have put up more of a fight; I didn’t really want to send them a photo of Charlie, but I knew if I didn’t they’d just harass me endlessly until I did, and I was too hot and tired and sad to argue with them.

“I just sent one,” I said. “I don’t have any actual proper photos of him. All I have is like candid shots of the group of people we’ve been hanging out with at the lake and stuff.”

I didn’t want to send them the one I had taken of him at The Alhambra. That one was just for me. It felt like a secret I wasn’t yet ready to whisper. 

“Why don’t you follow him on Insta?” Darcy demanded.

“Because he hasn’t followed me yet! I don’t want to be weird.”

“It’s too late for that, Nicky babe.”

“Ah, here’s the photo, it’s come through,” the screen froze momentarily while Tara and Darcy looked at the photo. “Which one is he?”

“He’s in the foreground. The one in the navy board shorts with the white stripes on the side, and the black square-framed sunglasses. On the left. He’s leaning against a rock, sort of looking down at his phone.” As I said this, I realised it betrayed the incontrovertible fact that I’d looked at the photo one thousand times, and what’s more, seared it on the side of my brain with an internal branding iron.

“Oh, he’s cute!” Darcy exclaimed. “Sort of like a discount Timothée Chalamet.”

“Um, excusez-moi,” I was offended on about nineteen different levels and in two languages, “but Timothée Chalamet is a discount Charlie Spring, thank you very much.”

“Oh, you’re down like that,” Darcy laughed. “Okay, I see how it is. Thanks for clarifying the extent to which you have it bad for this guy, I didn’t realise we were at, like, Twilight levels of pining.”

“Oooh,” I clutched my heart like I’d been injured. “Call the police, shots fired!”

We all laughed. Talking to Tara and Darcy always, always made me feel better.

I heard a ringing doorbell in the background. 

“Nick, our UberEats has just arrived,” Tara said. “But like, quickly, I really don’t think you’re doing you or Charlie any favours by avoiding him. I can see from here how totally depressed you look, and you were really happy last week when you were spending time with him. Just be his friend. You’re not there forever, and I think you’ll have a much better summer if you have a friend to spend it with.”

* ゜* ゜*

Be his friend. 

Be Charlie’s friend. 

I could do that. I could be his friend. I had friends. 

Having friends was nice. People enjoyed having friends to hang out with and tell jokes to and whinge at. 

Charlie could be my friend. I guess. 

Ultimately, I found myself in a situation where I’d rather make an earnest effort at being his friend and suffer silently at not being something more, than lose him from my life completely. When faced with a choice of some Charlie or no Charlie — when even though all I wanted in the whole world was all Charlie — I’d choose the some Charlie option, hands down. 

I’d barely spoken to him in two days by this point. Earlier that morning, when I’d shut the bathroom door as quietly as I could not so as not to wake him and Elle, that’d been the only glimpse I’d had of him all day. I’d quickly showered and eaten breakfast alone in the kitchen, before spending most of the day with Pro, then going to Imogen’s house with Olly, where the three of us and Imogen’s twin brothers watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle because it was raining.

So it was around 8pm when I finally saw him, and I had to stop my muscles and organs from charging out of the cage of my skin, so strong was my urge to embrace him. I’d never hugged him, and the thing is, it’s a bit weird but I really love hugging people, and I couldn’t shake this feeling that I’d really, really, really love to hug Charlie,  if I ever got the chance. He just looked so cuddly. 

Both the bathroom doors were open, and when I stood at the bathroom entrance in my room, I could look straight through the bathroom and through Charlie’s room and onto the balcony doors, which held him like a frame, as he stood on the far edge of the balcony, leaning on the railing with his elbows bent, and I could see small plumes of smoke above his head, as he smoked in solitude, looking out over the orange grove. 

Fuck. I could only see him from behind and already I was starting to sweat. This “friends” thing was going to be a bloody nightmare. God, and I still had like ten and a half weeks to go at this godforsaken place. 

But I was determined to give it a try. 

“Hey, Charlie,” I called out, and it hit me that I’d missed the sound of his name in my mouth these past two days, how it felt, how it sang from my throat as I extended the ‘ar’ sound, how the tip of my tongue licked the back of my two front teeth as it fell downwards on the second syllable. “Chaar-lie.” I loved his name. I loved it because it was his, and when I said it, I felt I had a small part of him with me. 

Charlie turned quickly, he was surprised to hear from me, presumably, I had, after all, been actively avoiding him for two days now — no mean feat given our close quarters. 

“Hey, Nick,” he replied, and it sounded as though his voice caught a little, but his tone was sunny. 

“Want a smoke? Come and join me.”

I walked through the bathroom and through Charlie’s bedroom, where I had never been invited before, and on to the balcony with him. 

“Here,” he passed me the joint. I hadn’t smoked in ages, it’s not really my fave, but I wasn’t about to refuse him anything.

“Thanks,” I took it off him and had a drag, trying not to cough like a little bitch. 

Charlie smirked at me, once again, I was behaving totally transparently despite my efforts to be enigmatic.

“Your dad doesn’t care if you smoke weed?”

“Oh, he cares very much,” Charlie took the joint off me and our fingers brushed together lightly. “But, he lost his sense of smell when he had COVID. And mum’s not here, so it’s free game, really,” he blew the smoke out expertly.

“I hardly ever really do it though, only sometimes when I’m here in the summer. Natalia hooks me up.”

“Cool,” I said, like some kind of tween.

I thought he might ask me why I’d been avoiding him, but he didn’t. Perhaps he’d not even noticed. After all, there was no reason why he should be impacted by my peculiar behaviour. 

We smoked in silence for a few moments more.

“So, it’s Friday, are you doing anything tonight?” I asked, actively angling for an invite to whatever was going down.

“Yeah! Yeah, actually, after dinner. Jose’s going to drive us to town and to go to the club. D-do you want to come with us?” he sounded very uncertain, bless him.

“Yeah, definitely! That sounds great.”

“Yay!” Charlie said brightly, like I’d given him some gift, and it was all I could do from grabbing his sweet face and kissing that little sound from his mouth. I wanted to run my fingertips up the length of his silky arms and feel him shiver underneath me. I wanted to press his chest against mine. I wanted to trace the black butterfly wings of his eyelashes with my thumb from one end to the other. 

“I mean,” his voice dropped and slowed slightly, “I’m so excited you’re coming tonight, it’s such a fun place! I hope you like it. Don’t be misled by the term ‘nightclub.’ It’s just the local place to dance in town. Loads of old people go there to dance too, you’ll see them, doing their flamenco and everything, and it’s half inside, half outdoors, and super casual, like, most people just wear their pool clothes, and some people don’t even bother with shoes. So you don’t have to get dressed up or anything. Next week, we’re going to get the bus to Granada and go to a proper nightclub, like the type of place where you pay more than a euro fifty for a drink, and shoes are requisite.” 

I was smiling at him like a fool. Whether I was dizzy from the joint or from the smile he was giving me in return, I'm not too sure.

Either way, it was going to be a good night.

Chapter Text

~Nick~

Charlie was right — nightclub wasn’t exactly the right term for the place we went to that night.

After I’d manned up and actually spoken to Charlie for the first time in two days, it was as though we had never stopped, and we smoked and chatted on his balcony for another half hour or so. Then we were being called for dinner, during which I indulged in far too much red wine, probably totally embarrassing myself in front of Pro. (I’m pretty sure, as we were leaving the table to go into town, he said something to Charlie in Spanish about not wanting to have to call my mum in the morning and tell her her son was missing. Bless.)

Imogen, Jose, and Natalia were also at dinner, along with a very rambunctious American arts professor and her girlfriend. The professor spoke in a very loud voice for a very long time about technofeminism, and laughed in my face when I tried to ask her about her college’s gridiron team. She was awesome – we got along like a house on fire. She seemed to be having the time of her life, and at the end of the meal, asked Pro if he had any gin, which he did, and she made me do a shot of straight gin, and then another, which was feral, and so by the time midnight grew closer, and we piled into Jose’s car for the short drive into town, I was well and truly sloshed before we even arrived at the nightclub. If we’d been in England, I would have definitely been refused entry, but this is Spain, and they do things differently in Spain, as Charlie had told me on my first night here, and I was welcomed by the owners, whom Natalia and Jose knew, as though I was a long lost relative. 

It wasn’t really a nightclub, as I mentioned already. It was just a place where dancing was happening, with a small, suffocatingly hot room containing a DJ, who was cranking out some seriously intense and loud house music, with some crappy purple and blue lights, all-black walls, and a disco ball missing half its little mirrors. 

There was a much larger outdoor area, with another, larger dancefloor, where the bar was situated, and this was much nicer, as the DJ there was playing pop songs, and there were loads of old people and even some children dancing (at this hour!), and others drinking and chatting on the very slapdash assortment of plastic chairs and tables around the dancefloor. 

We went to the outdoor area first, and I purchased a round of drinks for everyone, for a grand total cost of eight euros, which astounded me, and they gave us little bowls of olives and chorizo and marinated feta cheese smeared on slices of baguette bread, for free. Just for ordering drinks. Drinks which cost next to nothing. 

Spain. What a country. 10/10, no notes.

We spent an hour or two (or three? I really don’t know) talking shit and drinking and eating tapas and chatting to random people who weren’t used to seeing tourists in town, and this lady grabbed me and tried to teach me some flamenco moves, which was just plain embarrassing for everyone involved, and then Natalia made fun of me because I was getting all sappy about seeing these two old couples swaying back and forth on the dancefloor at like 2am, as though it was an afternoon wedding, and look, I just thought it was really sweet, okay? 

We decided to check out the indoor dance floor for a bit, and we were all dancing, me with Imogen, Natalia with Jose, Charlie with Elle, and Charlie and I were sort of facing away from one another, and I could feel heat radiating from his back, which was just inches from mine, and I thought that if we turned around, we could instead dance with each other, and it would be easy, and no-one would mind, least of all me.

Natalia and Elle peeled away from the group to go to the loos together, in that bewildering, conspiratorial way girls do sometimes, then Jose began dancing with Imogen, and I was faced, after what seemed like hours, with Charlie in front of me, just me and Charlie, and I’m just so clunky and awkward and a god-awful dancer and I was so drunk that I felt like I had pins and needles in my face and a little grenade inside my head exploded and I freaked out and just…

“You love Elle, don’t you?” I shouted at Charlie. 

God, here we go.

“Huh? Of course I love Elle,” he yelled back.

The music seemed to get even louder all of a sudden. Some people near us started jeering at something.

“I’m so sad you’re straight!” 

There. It just fell out of me. I instantly regretted it. Not just what I’d said — what I’d said was fine, what I’d said was the truth, and honestly, I should have said it days ago — but I regretted the context in which I’d said it. It was so deafeningly loud inside the club, and we were standing right next to a speaker. Hardly the environment for a revealing conversation. #NoChillNelson, that’s what they call me.

“You’re so sad I’m what?” Charlie shouted and leaned in a little closer.

I almost chickened out but I found myself repeating: “Straight!” in a little bit of a quieter voice. Hopefully Charlie was drunk too and wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow anyway.

“Straight?” 

“Yeah!”

“What are you on about?” He narrowed his eyes and tipped his head adorably, as though trying to comprehend me better. “That makes no sense. You’re drunk! Go get some water!”

“Nick!” It was Imogen, tugging at my sleeve. “Dance with meeeee! Then we’re doing shots with Natalia and Jose! Charlie, Charlie, Natalia said Elle said she’s feeling ill and wants to go home!”

Charlie disappeared. 

I was at a total loss of what to make of his reaction. 

I thought I’d made perfect sense? Was it possible I was even drunker than I realised? Had I accidentally said it in French? Surely not. Although, that had been happening to me over the last year or so, especially during the uni term — I’d get the languages mixed up unexpectedly.

I danced for a little while with Imogen (I say ‘dance,’ I was just kind of bouncing up and down from one foot to another and trying not to fall over). Luckily, Imogen wasn’t that much better than me, truth be told — she was just flailing about with her eyes closed and her fingers pointing upwards, shouting “woop woop” every few moments or so. Bless.

“Want to do chupitos, Nick and Imogen?” Jose said after a while.

“What are they?” I asked, although fuck knows why I bothered asking, he could have been offering me LSD at this point and I probably would’ve said yes, I was that shitfaced. 

“Shots!” Imogen replied, and was already pushing me towards the bar, which I staggered towards with all the elegance and grace of a newborn elephant.

Jose ordered the drinks, and the bartender lined them up on the bar one by one, and Imogen started giggling, wide-eyed like a maniac, looking at all the glasses; it was truly a disturbing amount of alcohol really, and I found myself staring down five shots of anonymous clear liquid.

Fuck it. Time to get royally pissed. I was young, I was in Spain, it was summer. And at a euro fifty per drink, why not?

“Woo!” I screamed as loudly as I could, as I downed my last shot, and shouted, “I’m bisexual, bilingual, and ready to mingle!”

I saw Elle staring at me, bug-eyed. 

~Charlie~

Charlie was over the moon when Nick had approached him earlier that evening. 

At the sound of Nick calling his name, he was so bloody relieved that he’d almost sobbed. He’d been standing on the balcony alone, giving himself mental pep talks and failing, trying to figure out how to move forward with piecing his heart back together.

But Charlie didn’t sob; he managed to keep it together long enough to get through some casual chatting with Nick on the balcony, get through dinner unscathed (although Nick was extremely drunk before they’d even arrived at the club — Julio reminded him that if anything happened to Nick, Oxford would be up for an insurance claim, and urged Charlie to get him home in one piece), and accepted a drink from Nick before they all sat at one of the crappy plastic tables near the outdoor dance floor.

A lapse of many hours passed, a whirlwind of drinks and cigarettes and dancing, and it was nearing three o’clock in the morning when Charlie found himself face to face with Nick on the dancefloor, their other friends absent and scattered around the nightclub. 

They were staring at each other, as people danced around them, jostling close to them, bumping them, and a cloud of purple light ran over Nick’s face and arms as he gave Charlie an intense gaze that almost made Charlie’s lungs collapse.

“You love Elle, don’t you?” Nick shouted to be heard above the din.

That was the last thing Charlie expected him to say.

“Huh? Of course I love Elle.”

Nick nodded, not smiling. 

The music changed suddenly, growing even louder, a thumping house beat, filling all four corners of the bar with noise and sound and chaos. A group of people nearby jeered at something.

“I’m so sad you’re eight!” Nick shouted at Charlie.

“You’re so sad I’m what?” Charlie leaned in closer so that he might hear Nick better, and he was a centimetre away from grabbing his shirt collar and pulling him in for a kiss, but something, some small thing, held him back.

“Eight!” Nick repeated.

“Eight?”

“Yeah!”

“What are you on about? That makes no sense. You’re drunk! Go get some water!”

“Nick!” Imogen materialised at Nick’s side. “Dance with meeee! Then we’re doing shots with Natalia and Jose! Charlie, Charlie, Natalia said Elle said she’s feeling ill and wants to go home!”

“For fuck’s sake,” Charlie muttered to Imogen. “Where is she?”

“Loos!”

Charlie left to go find Elle, pouring over what Nick had just said.

Why had he told me he was sad I was eight? Or did he say he was sad that I ate? Who would have picked Mr. Health Outcomes of Exercise for such a messy drunk. 

It took Charlie a solid ten minutes to locate Elle, who had been sick in the bathroom, but appeared to have gotten it out of her system now, as she was bounding over to Charlie like a racehorse. 

“Charlie! Oh my god!” Elle grabbed Charlie and hauled him outside so that they could speak properly. “You will never believe what I just heard Nick say at the bar!”

“Oh god,” Charlie rolled his eyes. “What is it now? He’s being so weird tonight. Not to mention he’s completely legless.”

“Shh, shh!” Elle’s eyes were sparkling like Christmas trees. “Let me talk! You’re going to die! I was at the bar, waiting to be served, and he and Imogen did a line of shots, and he had like, five, and at the end of it, he shouted, ‘I’m bisexual, bilingual, and ready to mingle!’ and Imogen laughed and Natalia and Jose and everyone slapped him on the back, like it was nothing, like it wasn’t a shock to them at all!”

Several of Charlie’s brain synapses started sparking like firecrackers.

“Sorry, who said that?” he asked.

“Nick! Charlie, Nick!”

“You mean Nick Nick? Our Nick? Nick Nelson? That man over there?” Charlie pointed to Nick, who was now on the edge of the outdoor dance floor with a bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, speaking animatedly to Jose. “The one with arms like a lumberjack?”

“Charlie, I swear to god I heard him correctly. He shouted it at the top of his lungs, clear as day.”

“And he said…? Wait, say it again?”

“He said: ‘I’m bisexual, bilingual, and ready to mingle.’”

“Holy fuck!” Charlie allowed his mouth to finally drop open in shock. “You’re sure?”

“Charlie! Stop! I’m positive!” 

“Quick, come with me,” Charlie grabbed Elle’s hand and led her away towards the exit of the nightclub. He could feel Nick’s eyes following them.

“Phone, phone,” Charlie fumbled with his phone in his pocket. “Instagram. Where’s that bloody photo of him? The one with the nail polish and shit!” Charlie stood near the bins with Elle and scrolled desperately through Nick’s feed. “Here, here. The date, what date did he upload it?”

“August seventh last year,” Elle peered at the photo of Nick with the sparkly blue tank top and silver glitter on his eyes. “Why?”

“Hang on, I’m checking something.” 

Charlie typed his search into Google. 

He gasped.

“August seventh?! Holy fucking shit. August seventh, look!” he held up his phone to show Elle.

“Leeds Pride, 2022! August seventh was the date of last year’s Leeds Pride! Elle, he was dressed up for a fucking Pride parade! Not a practical joke, not for Halloween! He’s fucking queer! I knew it! I knew I couldn’t be misreading this whole thing!”

“Holy shit, Charlie!"

“I know, right! Oh my god! Look, the comments, argh, we’re fucking idiots and didn’t look at the goddamn comments, like twenty people commented with rainbow emojis and rainbow flags and shit. Look!”

@smithy_otis – looking fine, brother! Bye, bi, have fun at Pride! 🌈

@darcy_the_egg – how come you have time to like both men and women but won’t return my texts?

@harry_greeno – gay! 🍆 😉

“Oh my god, Elle. Oh my god.”

“Charlie! Calm down, you’re, like, hyperventilating.”

“I’m not, I’m not, it’s just,” Charlie exhaled heavily, “wh-why hasn’t he like, spoken to me about this? Elle, he actually mustn’t like me, like, at all. I’ve tried flirting with him, like, a hundred times, and if anything, he’s been avoiding me more and more as the days go on. Like, it felt like maybe he liked me back in those first few days, but not recently. He must just, not be interested. I can’t assume that just because he’s bi and single, that he’s going to go for the closest gay boy. I mean, look at him. Look at…me,” Charlie’s eyes cast downwards and he rubbed his toe into the ground.

“Charlie, I really think you’re wrong!” Elle exclaimed. “I’ve picked up on so many vibes from him towards you!”

“Sometimes I do too, but sometimes not! I don’t know, it’s so confusing. He seems like a pretty confident person. Surely he would have said something to me by now if he liked me?”

Elle actually stamped her foot in frustration. “Charlie, enough! I’m not going to have you making any more assumptions about this situation! You need to grow up and speak to him like an adult! I’ve had it up to here with you moping around the last two days. You have new information now, and it’s time to act on it!”

“I know, I know, of course you’re right, you’re always right about everything,” Charlie conceded. “But look at the state of him,” Charlie indicated to Nick, who, along with Jose, had taken his shoes off and was eagerly setting up a game of limbo with a string of fairy lights, “he’s an absolute disaster right now, I can’t speak to him about anything serious tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah, I suppose. We should get him home,” Elle gave Nick a sideways glance as he started threatening to take his shirt off, loudly encouraged by Imogen and Natalia. 

“Yep, agreed. Let’s get him home, put him to sleep, and I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Charlie, it’s 3.30am,” Elle said. “Tomorrow is today.”

Charlie groaned audibly. 

“Oh god, this is going to end badly, I just know it,” he said.

Elle and Charlie approached Nick, gingerly, as if not to startle him.

“Alrighty, pisshead, time to get you home,” Charlie said gently.

Nick grinned at him as though Charlie was the first person he’d seen in days. “I’m at home with the Springs in summer! It’s the Spring summer house, no winters allowed!”

Elle coughed back a laugh behind one hand as Charlie turned to her in slow motion and rolled his eyes extravagantly. 

“That’s right, time to go to the Spring summer house.”

Nick acquiesced easily enough. “Let’s do this again tomorrow night, everyone, yeah?” he bellowed to precisely no one. Jose and Natalia were making out near the bar and the remaining limbo players had also dispersed. 

“Cool, everyone good with same time tomorrow?” Nick continued talking as though someone had answered him. “Yep, cool, text me if you need the address.”

Nick stumbled over his own shoes as he motioned to leave. 

“Why are my feet all the way over there?” He spoke in a sad, defeated voice, pointing at his black Vans, and looked at Charlie helplessly. 

Elle was clutching her sides in laughter by this point, and Charlie, who, although drunk and a little bit high, was by far the most sober of the three of them, knew he had two delicate lives in his hands at this point. 

“Elle, you sit there, sit down, Nick, you sit next to her, put your shoes on, then we’re leaving.”

Nick and Elle sat on the floor like two schoolchildren. 

“You’re so pretty,” Nick said dopily to Elle, as he unfolded the giant stilts he called legs to begin putting his shoes on.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Shirtless Wonder,” replied Elle, who was somehow twisting her body into a position beyond sitting, looking as though she might keep sinking into the floor and be absorbed into the earth’s crust. 

“Oh, yeah, you’re pretty too, Elle,” said Nick, like an afterthought, and suddenly Charlie realised that Nick had been in fact looking at him the entire time, “Char, my feet aren’t going on, can you help me, please?” he hiccupped. 

Charlie's mental stability, already in a fragile state, was starting to be positively pulverised. Had Nick just called him pretty? Char?! What the fuck? He was in no aspect sober enough to deal with this.

“Okay, okay, here, give me your foot, you big lout,” Charlie put Nick’s shoes on and led him and Elle out of the club.

In the taxi ride home, Elle and Nick bickered in increasingly hysterical voices about whether Matt Smith or David Tennant was the superior Doctor on Doctor Who, a show Charlie hadn’t really watched, so he sat in silence listen to them argue, his stomach churning with what the night had uncovered. 

Charlie snuck them in via the kitchen so as not to disturb Julio or Olly. 

“Nick, you sit here,” he manhandled Nick into one of the kitchen stools, “and Elle, you come with me, we’ll get you into your bed first. Nick, I’ll be back in three minutes. Don’t touch anything!”

Nick gave a goofy smile with scrunched up eyes and two thumbs up. 

Charlie quickly filled up Elle’s water bottle and deposited her in her bed, before returning to Nick in the kitchen. He was still sitting on the stool, his head resting on the bench on his arms. 

“Come on, bedtime for you.”

“Hmphh,” Nick said, his head snapping backwards, and he shuffled behind Charlie up the stairs. 

“Char,” he yelled. “I’m sorry for — “

“Shhh, not so loud, okay? You’ll wake Dad.”

“Who?”

“Pro, Nick. You’ll wake Pro.”

“Oh, Pro,” Nick tapped the side of his head and then put his finger to his lips. 

“I am sorry though,” Nick said as he and Charlie entered Nick’s room, and Nick continued walking to the bathroom, undoing his zipper without shutting the door, and took a piss. 

Charlie sat down on the desk chair and gave Nick his privacy. Charlie heard him washing his hands.

“What are you sorry for, lovely?” Charlie said, loud enough so that he may be heard in the bathroom. 

On balance of probability, Nick wouldn’t remember this tomorrow (today), and if Charlie only got to call Nick lovely once, well, he took his chance. 

Nick shuffled into the bedroom like he had skis on.

“Lovely?” Nick’s eyes were soft as he posed the word like a question, gazing at Charlie. He quickly kept talking before Charlie could answer. “I’ve been an idiot. A classic idiot.”

“Nick. It’s fine. It’s okay. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I mean, today. We’ll talk about it later, okay? You need to get some sleep now.”

Nick sighed in resignation. “Alright, if you say so.”

“I say so.”

Nick sat on the edge of his bed and pushed his shoes off. Then he wiggled out of his jeans and stood up to throw his blanket off the bed. Charlie had seen Nick’s legs a lot in board shorts, but boxers were new. Charlie gulped. Nick’s thighs looked like they could crack open a watermelon. 

Nick climbed under the blanket in his shirt and boxers. He fussed around for a moment getting comfortable, and closed his eyes. Charlie saw he looked rather green. 

“I’ll be right back.”

Charlie returned with a plastic bowl from the kitchen and a glass of water, which he put on Nick’s bedside table. He plugged Nick’s phone in for him, and saw that his wallpaper was a photo of him, his dog, and what Charlie presumed was his mother. 

How was Nick so pure? Charlie’s heart twisted like someone was squeezing it with two hands. 

Charlie reached down and held Nick’s hand on an impulse. 

“Thank you,” Nick peeped in a quiet, whisper sweet voice, his face burrowed in his pillow. 

Charlie wrenched his hand away, even though it hurt him to do so. 

He hesitated for a minute before saying,

“Nick? You know I like you, so much, don’t you? So, so much.”

The only response Charlie received was the deep breathing of Nick, fast asleep. 

Today , Charlie vowed to himself as he shut the bathroom door and walked into his bedroom. I’m going to tell him how I feel about him today. 

* ゜* ゜*

Charlie, Nick, and Elle all slept until about two in the afternoon. 

When he woke up, Charlie snuck out of Nick’s room, passing the older boy, who looked like he hadn’t moved a solitary inch since four that morning, and crept downstairs, hoping to avoid his father’s admonishment.

Charlie made himself a pan con tomate, a triple shot coffee, and took two paracetamols out of the cupboard, and walked outside to eat.

He thought very, very carefully about how he was going to approach the evening. He felt it would be weird to just blurt out he liked Nick, given he was still unsure of Nick’s feelings towards him, and they still had the rest of the summer to live side by side, and it would be even weirder or perhaps just plain vulgar to tell Nick explicitly he was gay (he realised he had not ever actually confirmed this in Nick’s presence, instead relying on it being obvious, and that this perhaps would go a way to clearing the air between them). 

Charlie sat under the jasmine tree for a good hour, marinating in the sun, and came up with a solution. It wasn't perfect, but it'd do.

* ゜* ゜*

Nick didn’t surface until almost dinner time. The fourteen hours’ sleep had seemed to do him some good, and he ate his dinner with gusto (not that that was unusual), and quietly listened to the table conversation, which was dominated by a visiting geologist and his young family.

It was Elle’s turn to wash up after dinner, and before she headed inside, she glared at Charlie and motioned towards Nick aggressively, indicating to Charlie that he needed to go speak to Nick now.

“Nick,” Charlie said, mustering up every ounce of courage within him, as they were standing up from the table. “Want to have a cigarette in the orange grove with me?”

Nick looked surprised, but pleased.

“Ah, yeah. That’d be great.”

They walked in silence the short distance to the grove. Charlie sat down under one of the orange trees, and Nick also sat under the same tree, in a way that he was next to Charlie, but not quite near him, the roots of the tree separating them. They sat with their knees up, facing outward to the grove in different directions.

“How you feeling after last night?” Nick broke the silence first.

“I should be asking you that. You’re the one that lost his shoes and tried to learn how to flamenco.”

Nick groaned and laughed a little. “I don’t think I’ve been that drunk, like, ever.”

“Well, no harm done.”

“No, thanks to you. Thanks for getting me home.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did I…” Nick hesitated. “Did I say anything dumb?”

Charlie laughed. “No more than usual.”

“You’re such a bully!” Nick laughed back.

“You like me,” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” was all Nick said in response, and Charlie’s heartbeat started thrumming like the cicada wings they heard throughout the grove.

Okay, thought Charlie. This is it. Now or never. Time to bring out the big guns. 

“Yesterday, I was reading a sixteenth century French romance. Translated into Spanish.”

“Oh yeah? I thought you didn’t like French?”

Charlie scoffed. “Where on earth did you get that?”

“Oh…I-I dunno, I just…thought you didn’t like it.”

“Ah, definitely not. French is a beautiful language. It’s my favourite language, by quite a margin, actually.”

Nick hummed, nodding.

“Anyway, in this one story, there’s a young knight hopelessly in love with a princess. A friendship blossoms between them. But despite that friendship, or perhaps because of that friendship, the knight finds that when he’s around the princess, he becomes so overwhelmed and…speechless, that he’s totally unable to bring up the subject of his love. Then one day he asks her, point blank — es mejor hablar o morir — is it better to speak, or to die?”

There was a long and loaded silence. Charlie was trying hard to remember to breathe.

“What does she say?” Nick asked quietly.

“Better to speak, she says,” Charlie replied. “But she’s on her guard. She senses a trap somehow.”

Another heavy silence. An owl hooted.

“So does he speak?” Nick seemed to be straining to ask the question. He was looking up at the clouds, wafting like sugardust around the stars. The soft moonlight made him look like an angel. 

“Nope,” replied Charlie, his fear shimmering thickly around him like heat. “He fudges.”

“That figures. He’s French.”

After a moment, Nick stood up abruptly, gave Charlie a pained look and shook his head, and started walking back to the house. 

Okay, I’ve laid it all out now. If that didn’t make an impression on him, nothing will. He just doesn’t like me — simple as that. Time to get over him. 

Charlie stood up and watched Nick walk away. He turned towards the tree and rested his head against it.

He was just about to head inside and cry himself to sleep when he heard branches rustling nearby, as Nick shoved some out of the way to step back into Charlie’s vision. 

“Is there something you want to talk about, Charlie?” Nick stood squarely in front of Charlie and folded his arms. “‘Cause I’m not good with riddles. If you want to say something to me, just say it. Don’t dress it up in a fairytale.”

“Why are you being such a dick?” Charlie didn’t mean this, but said it anyway as a knee-jerk defense mechanism. 

“Why are you being so weird and evasive?” Nick shot back.

“I’ll tell you why.” Charlie stepped closer to Nick, there was only half an arm length between them now. “Because I can’t cope with not knowing where I stand with you. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or make any presumptions, but if I don’t say something, I’m going to go crazy. Why didn’t you tell me you’re bi? Why did you start avoiding me on Thursday? If you don’t like me, or if you have a problem with me or something, it’s probably best we draw a line in it now, maybe move you to another room or something, because we have to spend the rest of the summer together, whether you like it or not!”

Nick gawped at him.

Charlie’s phone chose that moment to vibrate and ding expressively, the sound ringing out in the dead of the orange grove. Charlie would have ignored it, but after a moment, it vibrated again, and again, and again, someone was sending him an annoying succession of messages, and he became so frustrated he pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped left to clear the notifications, it was just Natalia, and he clicked his phone to silent.

Charlie was about to put the phone back in his pocket when he felt Nick’s hand reach for his wrist to stop him. 

Charlie looked up at Nick and saw Nick was looking down at Charlie’s lock screen, which was pale pink, with the phrase ‘gay panic’ stretched across the wallpaper in purple lettering.

Nick let go of Charlie’s wrist and stared at the phone screen for another few seconds, where Charlie was still holding it out, as though it was placed on an invisible table.

Nick then looked at Charlie, and they locked eyes, and then Nick pointed to Charlie’s screen.

“What is that?”

Chapter Text

“What is that?” Nick said.

“What is what?” Charlie stared up at the taller boy, blinking innocently, and saw Nick was frowning in concentration.

“That,” Nick pointed to the lock screen. “On your phone. What’s ‘gay panic?’”

“What do you mean?” 

“Why does your phone say 'gay panic?'”

Charlie was baffled; he rummaged in his mind for an explanation. “It’s like…a meme, I guess? Like, you know, when you’re gay. And panicking.”

“Who’s gay?” Nick demanded.

Charlie had no idea why Nick kept saying the word as though he didn’t know what it meant.

“Um… me.” Charlie’s chin dipped downwards a little as he glanced at Nick from under his eyelashes for additional emphasis.

“Gay, as in…?” Nick waved his hand, inviting Charlie to expand.

“Um…” Okay. He’s just fucking with me now. “Gay as in, gay for…men?”

Nick folded his arms and deepened his frown. He drew a sharp intake of breath and suddenly looked incredibly stressed out. 

“Is that a question or a statement?” Nick asked. “‘Cause you don’t sound very sure!”

“Ugh, um.”

Charlie turned his head from side to side, looking around for a hidden camera. Was he being Punk’d right now?

“Look, honestly, I don’t even know anymore. Sorry, what is it exactly that you’re not understanding?”

“Are you saying you’re gay? Are you single?” Nick’s voice raised on the last word, and Charlie noticed his chest and the top of his neck were becoming mottled and blotchy in pink and white.

“Yes! I’m gay, and I’m single!”

Charlie could not actually believe he was having to confirm this aloud.

What was Nick playing at?

“I…” Nick ran his hand through his hair and tipped his head back towards the stars. “What the fuck?!”

“What do you mean, ‘what the fuck?’ How did you not know this? Why are you so shocked?” Charlie felt all his defensive armour start to layer up around himself, trying to steel himself and keep his mouth closed and his gaze steady, even though he was beyond flummoxed and close to a total mental shut down.

“I thought…” Nick started pacing back and forth, and rubbed his forehead with one hand, as though trying to soothe a headache. 

“Oh my god. I thought, you and Elle…?”

“Huh?!” Charlie made an unattractive sound with his mouth as he guffawed at Nick’s deranged question. He didn’t even realise what Nick fully meant until a few seconds later when a frenzied thought wrestled its way into the brainstem at the top of his spinal cord, and shot shockwaves through every neuron in his body.

“Oh,” Charlie’s voice dropped several octaves. “Oh my god. Please don’t… please don't tell me you've been hanging on to that ridiculous greeting between me and Elle the day you arrived as some sort of evidence that we’re in a relationship!” He tried to pack as much distaste into the word ‘relationship’ as he possibly could.

Nick tossed his arms in the air, his palms facing flat up to the sky, his voice higher than normal, as his words twisted out of his half-closed throat. “How could I not?! It was like…stamped and sealed police-grade evidence! You kissed her, and said she was your true love, and you’ve been joined at the hip since the first moment I got here!”

“Oh, this is some serious bullshit.” Charlie was trying to work backwards from Nick's assertion; he felt like that gif where that man has graphics of complex mathematical equations flying around his head. “That was a joke. Her boyfriend, Elle’s boyfriend, no, don’t look at me like that, not me, her actual boyfriend who lives with her in Edinburgh and who’s been with her for, like, five fucking years or something, is a huge film buff, and we thought it’d be funny to film our reunion, and set it to music, and then Olly did it up in iMovie, and sent it to Tao.”

“Tao?”

“Tao...Elle’s boyfriend.” 

“But your family,” Charlie could see Nick grabbing listlessly from the far reaches of his mind. “Your family loves her so much…And…and she sleeps in the same bed as you!”

“You can’t be serious! She’s my best friend! Sometimes we watch a movie together after dinner! And then we fall asleep! Just…sleeping!”

“And at the nightclub, I told you, I said to your face, I said, ‘I’m so sad you’re straight,’ and you didn’t correct me!”

“That’s what you said?! I didn’t hear you! I thought you said you were sad I was eight! Or that I ate or some shit,” Charlie was speaking rapidly, “I didn’t know what the hell you were on about! And you were so drunk that there was no point trying to clarify anything with you!” 

“Woah, wait,” Nick lifted up his hands in a ‘hold your horses’ gesture. “Let me get this straight—”

“—Just so we’re clear, there’s nothing straight about either of us, Nick.”

“So you’re single,” Nick spoke slowly, like he was reading from a page in an unfamiliar language. “And you’re gay. You’re interested in men?” 

Charlie lost his shit.

“W-what is this, why do I feel like I’m being gaslighted here? Am I in some kind of a simulation?” Charlie stepped over and tapped his phone on the closest tree. “Is this thing made of cardboard, are we on a set right now? Is that moon just a spotlight? Did they hire you from GorgeousTVExtras.com?”

Nick had the absolute audacity to let one of his brilliant smiles creep onto his face at that moment, and Charlie doubled down on his hysteria at the mere sight of it.

“Surely it’s not that unnoticeable that I’m gay? The bullies at my high school would beg to differ, that’s for sure. What do you want me to do, Nick, eat a unicorn and vomit rainbows? Should I catch a bus to Granada and get ‘homo’ tattooed on my forehead? So it’s a little fucking clearer for you brainless bi boys?”

“Charlie, hang on—” Nick tried to sound firm but his gaze was the softest ever, and he still had the nerve to be smiling.

But it was too late; the floodgates had already opened.

“I assure you, I’m a flaming homosexual, you won’t find any gayer in continental Europe! H-how many languages do you need me to say this in before it computes for you? I can do Spanish, Latin? Hm? I could probably just about manage it in some truly terrible Italian, if you like? Hey Siri,” Charlie held up his phone to his face, “translate ‘I love sucking dick’ into French, please!”

Beep beep. 

“In French, I love sucking — ”

“God, Siri, shut up,” Charlie locked his phone aggressively before Siri could finish. 

Then Charlie took a shaky breath, realising how peevish and unhinged he must have just sounded.

“I’m just…” Nick looked as though he was having trouble knowing what to do with his arms. He folded them and spoke in a voice that suggested he was having trouble keeping himself steady.

“I’m sorry, I’m just shocked. I believe you. I do. It’s just, it's hard to wrap my head around this quickly. I’ve spent the last ten days torturing myself, thinking I had no shot with you.”

Charlie spluttered, “you were…you were what? I thought you were avoiding me because you didn’t like me!”

“I was avoiding you because I thought you had a girlfriend, and I wanted to keep my distance!”

There was a long pause. Charlie felt currents of supercharged electricity travelling around an invisible circuit board, threading through the two of them. 

“So…you like me?” Charlie permitted himself a murmur of a smile, and a blush roared through his cheeks. His heart was thumping frenetically in his chest.

“Yes!” Nick exclaimed emphatically, stepping towards Charlie, his voice full of light. “Obviously! Charlie…I like you so much! I’m…god, I’m kind of obsessed with you, okay?”

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck omg omg omg omg dhsjfnskjshcnkkdn

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Charlie’s brain flatlined. 

His mouth fell open in shock, then he grinned, and dipped his head in pleasure and disbelief at what Nick had just said. 

He rebooted as quickly as he could, and applied a new filter to his reality.

Nick was gazing at him with such a blaze of affection, such that Charlie was flooded with memories of how often Nick had given him similar looks over the past ten days.

Okay, so they’d both been idiots.

Charlie was a millisecond away from saying “I like you too. I’m obsessed with you too.” He felt the words firm up in his mouth, ready to leap out from his throat, ready to maybe even leap into Nick’s arms, but some flash of mischief held him back — some primal desire to stretch this nirvanic feeling out as long as he possibly could before giving in to the inevitable, blissful gratification of exchanging sweet words with Nick, being kissed by Nick, being touched by Nick. 

He’d tell Nick he liked him, soon. He’d kiss him soon. He’d touch him soon. And Nick would kiss and touch him back — Charlie’s blood turned icy at the thought.

But first, the matter at hand.

How often in his life was he going to have a man like Nick Nelson — who had just said he was obsessed with Charlie — behave like putty in his hands? 

Charlie had been denied power in every relationship or sexual interaction he’d had over the past four years. What’s more, he was annoyed at Nick for being so clueless, and so worked up from their confrontation and in particular, his own hysterical outburst, that he felt this wasn’t the right time for their kiss. 

When he kissed Nick for the first time, he wanted it to be special. More special than in the middle of Charlie losing his shit at Nick and Nick looking like he was about to pass out. 

So then.

So Charlie said and did something he never would have believed himself capable of saying or doing, until the very moment he said and did it.

“Oh, this is too much,” Charlie said, to himself more than to Nick. Then he smiled.

“Nicholas, darling, I hope you’re paying good attention to me,” Charlie used his sweetest voice, and stepped forward so he was closer to Nick than he’d ever been before.

He was watching Nick intently, his eyes flickering all over Nick's lovely face, and he saw Nick viscerally react to being called ‘darling,’ which was exactly what Charlie had wanted.

“Okay,” Nick confirmed, his Adam's apple bouncing as he swallowed thickly, and tensed his jawline. His eyes were dark, lit only by the silver stars. Charlie felt the energy emitting from him; he was quivering with anticipation. 

“Well, because, and please, please do not misinterpret me, Nick: not only am I interested in men — but I’m especially interested in tall, muscular…” Charlie spoke slowly, stretching out each individual word, and trailed off, and squeezed Nick’s elbows, running his hands up the length of his arms, giddy at the sensation of the warm skin and coarse blonde hair, of touching where he had been craving to touch; Charlie lingered on Nick’s biceps, pressing his fingers into them with purpose as he travelled upwards to Nick’s shoulders,

“…strawberry blonde, French men…” when Charlie was done with Nick’s arms, he brushed Nick’s fringe back as he trailed off his words yet again; Nick’s mouth had dropped open now, and his breathing was laboured, and the look he was giving Charlie, right into the depths of his eyes, was of an intensity Charlie had never experienced before,

“…who have freckles…” Charlie used two fingers to trace the line of freckles from one of Nick’s cheekbones, underneath his eye, slowly across his nose, to his other cheekbone,

“…and lovely stomachs…” Charlie slid his right hand down Nick’s side, feeling each stitch of cotton in Nick’s shirt underneath his fingers, and then, in a way that was agony for them both, crept his hand, millimetre by millimetre, under the hem of Nick’s t-shirt, then pressed his fingers into Nick’s skin, dragging his flat palm back and forth across the space between Nick’s belly button and the waistband of his board shorts, and Nick gasped and lurched forward, practically folding in half as his stomach tensed unbearably underneath Charlie’s touch; he had to put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder to steady himself, and Charlie felt Nick stroke the place between his neck and his shoulder with his thumb, and felt Nick’s breath tickle his ear as their faces brushed together, Nick groaned softly,

“…and really soft, beautiful mouths.” Charlie kept one hand on Nick’s lower stomach, and used his other hand to cup Nick’s jaw. Then he used his thumb to press against Nick’s pouty bottom lip and drag it downwards, and Charlie stared at the pink mouth, stunned by its softness and its warmth and its wetness, and levitated at the thought of what he’d be doing with and to that mouth very soon.

After a moment standing like this, in which the world fell away around them, and it was just the two of them, deliciously and silently trapped in a cartoon dream bubble, Charlie withdrew his hands from Nick, smiled, and folded his arms triumphantly.

“I…I…” 

Charlie had rendered Nick Nelson speechless, and he grinned maniacally in that knowledge, trying very hard to wrestle down the thought in his mind that Nick might — very soon — do something similar to him.

“Oh my god,” Nick found his voice after a moment, but remained standing with his hands limply at his sides like a big handsome scarecrow. “Fucking hell, Charlie.”

“Right,” Charlie inhaled and exhaled properly for what felt like the first time in half an hour. “Okay. There you go, baby. So, now that we understand each other…”

“Mmmm, yeah?” Nick could barely speak, but leaned forward in anticipation, staring hungrily at Charlie’s mouth.

“Don’t take this as a signal that I’m just going to fall into bed with you. First, you’re going to have to seduce me.”

Chapter Text

~Nick~

~Charlie~

After Charlie walked away from Nick in the orange grove, his ears were ringing. He was sweating. His organs were drowning in pools of adrenaline.

He could barely believe what had just happened. 

Where did that come from?! He’d never said anything remotely like that in his life! 

‘Seduce me?!’ 

If he didn’t feel so absolutely incredible and like he was floating on air, he’d be a bit embarrassed, truth be told. Who did he think he was? Julia Roberts in a nineties rom com?

Charlie made a beeline for Elle’s room, having made up his mind that he’d sleep in there tonight. There was no way he was going anywhere near Nick until at least the next morning. Sleeping just one room apart would be torture for them both after that discussion, Charlie figured. He knew he’d never sleep a wink if he spent the night in his own room; he’d have one eye open all night, waiting to hear the brush of the bathroom door sliding open.

No. That’s settled then.

Sleep tonight. 

Fun tomorrow.

* ゜* ゜*

The next morning, Charlie skulked into the kitchen, his ears twitching like a cat, trying to detect any signs of life. 

Elle had already been half asleep when he went into her room the previous night, so he’d just fallen asleep beside her (well, after staring at the ceiling for an hour, trying to calm his buzzing nervous system) and when Charlie woke in the morning, she had already woken up and left the room. Charlie crawled to the arched window of Elle’s room, which overlooked the orange grove, and from it, he could view a slice of the outdoor table under the jasmine tree, where he saw Julio, Olly, Elle, and Nick, eating breakfast and drinking coffee.

Charlie bolted upstairs, and, as quickly as he could, so as to trap Nick in position. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, changed his clothes, fixed his hair, changed his Instagram bio, followed Nick on Instagram, and ran back downstairs.

Charlie lingered for a moment in the kitchen, making sure all four of them were still sitting outside. They were. He threw open the back door and strode confidently towards the table. 

Nick looked up and saw him approaching, ran his eyes down him head to toe, and coughed expressively, almost choking on his coffee. 

“Good morning, everyone!” Charlie said, as brightly as he could. 

Charlie was wearing his black t-shirt that said ‘Love is Love’ in glittery lettering, with ‘Oxford LGBTQ+ Society’ overlaid on a rainbow flag underneath.

Charlie smiled sunnily at Nick, pausing behind his chair for a moment so that Nick might better observe his shirt.

“How’d you sleep, Nick?” Charlie asked pointedly, and sat down.

Nick’s smile ticked up in just one corner. He crossed his arms, sat right back in his chair, and shook his head at Charlie. Nick’s eyes were shining. His mouth was a bright smirk that seemed to whisper, you cheeky little bastard.

“Very well, thank you,” Nick replied, though somehow Charlie didn’t quite believe him. Nick’s hair looked like spun gold in the morning sunlight. “How did you sleep, Charlie?” 

“Perfectly, thank you,” Charlie lied, pouring himself a coffee, and motioned for Olly to pass him the jam. 

“So I realised this morning that we don’t follow each other on Instagram!” Charlie said in a faux chummy voice, spreading jam on some toast. “So weird. I just followed you. My profile’s private, but you can follow me if you want. I think I can trust you. You seem like a straight up-and-down kinda guy.” 

Charlie gave Nick his very best wink and bit into his toast.

Nick couldn’t tear his eyes away from Charlie. He ran his tongue along the bottom ridges of his top row of teeth, still shaking his head, arms folded, grinning like a wolf.

“Charlie,” interrupted Olly, “Mr. Heaney said we can try his canoe in the lake today. But we’ll need more of us to drag it down there from their house. Can you come help us?” 

“A canoe?” Charlie turned to look at his brother, and scrunched up his nose. “I don’t know, sounds like you need some big, strong arms for something like that. Why don’t you take Nick?”

Nick’s face lit up in embarrassment. He glanced at Julio, as though expecting Julio to look disapproving or annoyed, but Julio wasn’t listening; he was busy reading the newspaper.

“We want to go this mornnnnning though,” Olly whinged. “Nick’ll be in with Dad.”

“We can go with them, Charlie,” said Elle, who sensed something was awry; she kept giving Charlie quizzical looks over her glass of orange juice. “If Imogen’s there too, we’ll be able to push the canoe all together.”

While this was being discussed, Charlie saw Nick peeking at his phone underneath the table, and knew that he was looking at Charlie’s Instagram profile, because Nick glanced up at him beneath his lashes and smirked at him again, making an adorable sound of amusement, and Charlie’s phone dinged with his Insta notification noise, which was no doubt Nick’s request to follow him back.

Just fifteen minutes ago, at the top of the stairwell, Charlie had changed his Insta bio to:

“Just a straight-up gay boy

Single, trilingual, and ready to mingle!

President, Oxford LGTBQ+ Soc

🦄🦄🦄🌈🌈🌈”

“Nick,” Julio chose that opportune moment to speak, “we’re cataloguing the stylistics coursework and third year assessments for French and Portuguese today.”

“Hmm, what? Sorry, Pro, what’d you say?” Nick was still looking down at his phone as Julio spoke to him. Nick’s face was chalk white except for the two bright pink spots on his cheeks.

“Never mind,” said Julio, shaking his newspaper. “Let’s just get started at ten.”

“You’re the President?” Nick gave Charlie a look that was halfway between a grimace and a smile.

Charlie ignored him. 

“How’s that boyfriend of yours going, Elle?” Charlie turned to Elle, sipping his coffee.

“He’s good, thanks!” Elle said, who remained unaware of the varied mechanisms by which Charlie was currently tormenting Nick. “He should be getting back from visiting his mum today, it sounds like they had a lovely time. Poor Tao, he’s really missing me!”

“Of course he’s missing you,” replied Charlie, rolling a pomelo around near his plate. “Tao is desperately in love with you. It would be so great to have him at the house next year. Dad, Elle’s boyfriend Tao can come for a week or two next year, can’t he?”

“Absolutely he can!” Julio replied jollily. “As long as Mum’s fine with it.” 

“I’ll see you in the study in a moment, Pro,” Nick leapt up out of his chair like he’d been stuck with a pin and practically jogged back into the house.

“Let’s go to the twins’ place now, guys!” Olly demanded Charlie and Elle.

“I’m ready!” replied Elle, finishing the last of her coffee.

“In a minute, Ol, hang on. Just need to brush my teeth,” Charlie said.

Charlie walked into the house and made his way to the study.

Nick was sitting in the scuffed-up, dove grey armchair in the corner of Julio’s study, large piles of textbooks and hundreds of leaves of paper surrounding him like skyscrapers, or palm trees. He had his head in his hands. Julio’s study smelled of ink and old tea leaves.

“Alright?” Charlie walked in and sat on his father’s desk.

Nick took his hands away from his face, placed them under his chin, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees to face Charlie.

“Yeah, cheers for that, Charlie,” Nick looked like he was trying not to smile, but was smiling anyway. “Message received, loud and clear. You do realise that a stunt like that might’ve been useful to me a week and a half ago.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been mistaken for straight before,” Charlie picked up a book of Keats poetry translated into German on Julio’s desk, fanned through the pages, before tossing it on top of another pile. “Frankly, I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” Nick asked. 

“I have only just begun enjoying myself, Nicholas,” Charlie replied, pushing himself off the top of the desk. Charlie walked towards Nick, who was still sitting in the armchair, and lowered himself to the floor on his knees in front of him.

Nick looked 50% terrified, 50% exhilarated, and 100% flustered. He glanced at the door, as if expecting Julio to walk in at any second, which he very well might do. 

Charlie placed his hands on Nick’s knees, and felt a rush of excitement at how warm, firm, and hairy Nick’s legs were.

“What I don’t get is,” Charlie rubbed Nick’s knees a little, and stared at Nick’s chest, which was starting to heave up and down, “why you didn’t question, like, even once, why you never saw me and Elle kiss, or hold hands, or talk about being a couple, or do anything remotely couple-y?”

“I know,” Nick sighed; his breathing had slowed right down. He hesitated slightly before gently placing his hands on top of Charlie’s and squeezing them. Nick started stroking Charlie’s fingers with his own. Charlie tried not to gasp like a lovesick fool. “I’m an idiot.”

“And you didn’t get suspicious when you never heard us having sex?” 

Just saying the word ‘sex’ aloud to Nick made Charlie’s dick twitch.

“I don’t knoooow,” Nick withdrew his hands from Charlie’s and placed them over his face again, and threw his head backwards in disgust with himself. He leaned forward again and put his hands back over Charlie’s, grasping his fingers. “I just thought you were being quiet!” 

Charlie looked up into Nick’s face, lifting his eyelashes slowly and purposefully. He gazed at Nick’s mouth, then back into his eyes.

“I’m not quiet, Nick.”

Nick’s breath caught in the back of his throat like he’d swallowed an insect, and his eyes clouded over with darkness.

Charlie beamed. He stood up abruptly, patting Nick’s knees casually as he did so.

“Okay, well, have fun cataloguing the Portuguese stylistics coursework with Dad!”

He walked into the hallway, passing Julio on the way, leaving Nick melted in the armchair.

* ゜* ゜*

Much later that afternoon, Charlie and Elle were down at the swimming pool with Olly and the twins and a few other neighbourhood kids. It was a stiflingly hot day, and Charlie could see the visible waves of heat emanating from the ground, where he and Elle were lying on their towels with their books under the pomelo tree, watching the kids play a very chaotic game of water polo.

Charlie had his book open in front of him. He’d read the same page about twenty-five times.

He had no idea what Nick’s next move would be. 

But he knew for sure the ball was in Nick’s court now. (Charlie usually hated sports analogies but supposed he could make an exception if The Rugby Lad was involved). 

Charlie felt a little guilty about ambushing Nick in the study like that, particularly since he’d been the one who requested Nick seduce him, but it was just too pleasurable and frankly too bloody easy to get Nick so worked up, and Charlie couldn’t help himself that the opportunity to do so had presented itself so perfectly.

“It’s too hot,” Charlie announced, and stood up, tossing his towel over his shoulder, picking up his shirt and his book, and started heading back towards the house. “I’m going to take a nap. See you at dinner.”

Elle waved at him, headphones still in, fanning herself with her new Spanish folding fan. 

Charlie meandered up to the house, through the grove, absentmindedly plucking a lustrous-looking orange off one of the trees, watching the glossy green leaves bounce on the branch as he released it, and continued walking past the outdoor table, where a few odd breakfast dishes were congealing with jam and sticky orange juice, attracting flies, and entered the house via the back door, walking down the echoing marble hallway, and up the stairs.

Nick was nowhere to be seen. The study door was closed. Charlie figured he must still be in there with Julio. Some days, Julio only took an hour or two of Nick’s time, but occasionally, Nick was in there almost all day, sometimes until five or so, especially if Nick wanted Julio’s help on some specific part of his summer e-modules.

Charlie walked back downstairs and outside, piled up the dirty plates, and took them into the kitchen, where he found Esme. 

“Hola Esme,” Charlie smiled at her, and put the dishes in the sink. “¿Has visto a Nick o a mi papá esta tarde?”

“Charlie, eres un buen chico, gracias por traer esos platos. Julio estuvo aquí hace unas horas, se preparó un sándwich de jamón y dijo que bajaría al lago a nadar. No he visto a Nick en todo el día, lo siento mi amor. Ayer dijo que quería aprender cómo hago el pastel de tres leches. ¿Quieres hacerlo con nosotros? Podemos hacerlo mañana. Está aprendiendo español rápidamente, tal como sabía que lo haría,” Esme replied. She patted Charlie on the head before extracting a large sea bass from the fridge to scale, gut, and stuff full of garlic and parsley and thin slices of lemon. There were going to be four guests at dinner tonight, Julio had mentioned earlier. Charlie blew Esme a kiss on his way out and said he’d love to make tres leches cake with her and Nick.

Charlie walked back upstairs, and caught a scent of Nick’s blackberry and bay leaf cologne as he walked through Nick’s room, which he inhaled like some kind of addict, then went through the bathroom, finally reaching his own bedroom, where he drew the curtains to keep the heat out, tossed his towel and shirt over the wardrobe door, and lay down in bed in his board shorts, half propped up on his pillow. 

He started peeling the orange he’d brought with him from outside, dropping the bits of skin into yesterday’s tea cup on his bedside table.

Charlie was startled by a presence at the bathroom door. 

It was Nick, of course. 

He must have been lurking in one of the upstairs rooms, waiting for Charlie to return to the house. Nick was leaning on the bathroom door frame, with no shirt on, his hands in his board shorts pockets — his short, bright red board shorts — and he swung one leg over the other, crossing them, in a very casual pose which accentuated the upside down triangle shape of his upper body. 

Charlie dropped the orange on the bedside table.

“Hey,” Nick said, hovering in the magical, mystical threshold between the bathroom and Charlie’s bedroom, a threshold which now, all of a sudden, represented the before and the after of Nick and Charlie being together in some physical way. So Charlie assumed.

Once Nick crossed it, they’d be in uncharted territory.

And Charlie couldn’t shake this feeling that once that happened, there’d be no going back, for either of them.

It thrilled him.

“Hey,” Charlie replied, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

The sight of Nick shirtless, almost almost in his room, while Charlie was shirtless too, lying on the bed, ready for him, was enough to drain Charlie’s lungs of all oxygen, and immediately mentally relinquish his power trips of earlier that morning and the previous night. 

He was ready for Nick to have his turn. He willed Nick to be confident enough to see it through. 

To seduce him.

“Can I come in?” Nick asked, almost bashfully, as if it was a question that even needed asking.

Charlie nodded.

“I’ve been wanting you to come in here for ages,” Charlie admitted, as Nick closed the bathroom door behind him, and even the simple act of Nick closing the door sent flutters of pleasure throughout Charlie — whatever Nick was about to say or do, he was going to do it in private — and Nick strode over, his hands still in his pockets. 

Nick hovered at the side of Charlie’s bed, and ran his eyes up and down and up again over Charlie’s whole body.

Charlie was too ecstatic to even feel self-conscious.  

“Hmm,” Nick hummed, nodding slowly. “So have I.”

“Yeah?” Charlie was unsure.

“Yep. From the first moment I saw you, Charlie.”

“That’s a lie.”

Nick smiled his most beautiful smile. “I assure you, it’s not.”

Nick put one knee on the bed, as Charlie tensed at the sensation of the mattress dipping and creaking under Nick’s weight.

Nick bent forwards and put his palms on the sheets near Charlie. He still only had one knee on the bed. He said quietly, “now, I know you love to talk. But do you think, for this next bit, you could let me do the talking?”

“Okay,” Charlie exhaled in a breathy voice.

“And by talking, I mean…” Nick put his other knee on the bed and stretched his legs out, laying down beside Charlie so their bodies were lined up. Charlie was on his back, but Nick remained on his side, and he propped himself up with his elbow, resting his head in his left hand, leaving his right hand free, in such a way that he was positioned just above Charlie’s head, and could look down at him, with Charlie’s body spread underneath him “...my hands will do the talking. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Charlie broke the land speed record for answering a question.

“Don’t get too excited. You said I had to earn my time in bed with you,” Nick started stroking the soft cotton bedsheet right next to Charlie’s side, not touching Charlie, but only millimetres away, close enough Charlie could feel the heat coming off him. Charlie was close to Nick’s chest, so close that he could see Nick’s freckles dancing across the sun-soaked skin of his collarbone, and see the soft ridges of his stomach muscles. 

“And I take that request very seriously, you know. So this is just a little preview.”

“Oh god Nick, fuck that, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it at all, you can do wh— ”

“Shhh,” hushed Nick. “No talking. Just relax, baby. Just enjoy yourself,” he smirked, echoing Charlie’s words from earlier that morning; he couldn’t help teasing Charlie even in this erotic moment. 

Charlie visibly shuddered at being called ‘baby.’ Relax?! That was a laugh. Charlie was doubtful he was even going to survive whatever happened next.

Nick, using just one hand, while propped up on his elbow, gazed down affectionately at Charlie, and began, in an excruciating and exquisite tease, tracing the edges and curves of Charlie’s body. 

Nick started with Charlie’s jawbone, trailing his finger down the length of it, brushing Charlie’s lips with his thumb, then his fingers grazed down Charlie’s throat, along the sharp line of his collarbone, and back again, and around to the back of his neck, until Nick buried his fingers in the soft curly hair at the nape of Charlie’s neck, massaging that area for a moment or so, as Charlie exhaled raggedly, realising he’d been holding his breath since Nick had entered the room, and he opened his eyes too and looked at Nick properly, afraid before this point that the opening of eyes might bring an end to this dream, but instead, all he saw was Nick gazing at him adoringly, alternating between studying Charlie’s face, and looking down to wherever his hand was presently exploring. 

Charlie reached up and caressed Nick’s face, and ran his hand down Nick’s neck, squeezing his shoulder, then his bicep. Nick, who had looked quite serious until this point, as though in deep concentration, smiled radiantly at Charlie, who smiled back at him, and Nick removed Charlie’s hand and placed it back against Charlie’s side.

Nick then started the journey down Charlie’s arm at his shoulder. 

Nick used the flat of his palm now, his hand so large that his thumb and pointer finger almost touched each other when wrapped around Charlie’s upper arm, and he skimmed his hand down the length of Charlie’s arm, which was soft and tanned and delicately muscled. He ran his hand over Charlie’s scars, and Charlie was watching him closely, but Nick didn’t even flinch. By the time Nick had gotten to the end of Charlie’s arm, he floated his hand above Charlie’s stomach, and Charlie knew he was about to be in catastrophic danger, and whatever illusion he’d portrayed of self-control up until this point was about to be completely obliterated. 

Charlie gasped when Nick pressed his hand into the middle of his stomach, gliding up and down and up and down between the bottom of Charlie’s rib cage and the waistband of his board shorts, and Nick himself now was breathing heavily too. Charlie was surprised Nick couldn’t see the outline of his heart jumping up and almost bursting out of the skin on Charlie’s chest like a cartoon rabbit, as Nick started stroking Charlie’s stomach from hipbone to hipbone, and Charlie let a few small “ohs” from his mouth as they both moved their eyes in sync, switching between watching Nick’s hand to looking at each other intensely in the eyes. 

Nick hooked his finger a centimetre underneath Charlie’s waistband and slid it back and forth, and it was all Charlie could do from begging him, pleading him, to go down further. 

“Mon dieu, je veux te faire plus, comment vais-je m'en sortir? Tu me tues déjà. You are gorgeous,” Nick groaned, his voice deep and thick with desire. “ Absolument céleste, just heavenly, darling.”

“Oh god, Nick, don’t speak to me in French if you don’t want me to — ”

“Shhh,” Nick stroked Charlie’s lips for a moment and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he continued, his voice shaking. “My hands have said what they wanted to say. For now, anyway. So. You okay if my mouth does some talking now?”

Those are the words they’re going to have to etch on my tombstone, thought Charlie, as he nodded, and Nick leant down, grabbing Charlie’s waist with one hand, pulling Charlie closer to him, and nuzzled into Charlie’s neck, lying flat beside him now, freeing up both his hands for exploring, breathing heavily near Charlie’s ear. Nick began kissing Charlie’s neck, right where his jawbone jutted out underneath his ear, scraping his teeth near Charlie’s earlobe. Nick’s lips were just as soft as Charlie had dreamed they would be. Charlie gasped outrageously. Nick was dragging his hand back and forth across the slightly protruding ribs at the bottom of Charlie’s ribcage, dancing downwards, gliding over the silky softness of Charlie’s stomach, while he pressed firm kisses and purringly soft bites into Charlie’s neck. Charlie’s hands were exploring Nick’s back and back of his neck, and he pressed Nick closer to him, luxuriating in the sensation of Nick’s strong arm draped over him diagonally, as Nick’s hand rubbed Charlie’s waist.

Charlie was full on moaning now, wholly powerless to stop the noises that escaped his throat and his mouth.

“Mmm, you were right,” Nick murmured, and Charlie could feel Nick’s smile ticking upwards across the skin of Charlie’s throat, where his mouth was at work. He still had one hand on Charlie’s stomach and the other massaging the hair at the back of Charlie’s head. “You’re not quiet, are you? And this is just the preview, baby. I can’t wait to hear what you sound like while I suck you off.”

“Oh, Christ, fucking hell, Nick,” Charlie gasped. Charlie threaded his fingers through Nick’s hair and tugged on it a little, and Nick did the same back to Charlie, and they both keened a little.

Charlie could feel Nick’s erection pressed against his hip. Charlie’s own erection was straining and rock hard, and he was deteriorating knowing Nick was not going to touch him there this evening.

As if reading Charlie’s mind, Nick began his descent, pressing long and slow, smacking kisses at short intervals down Charlie’s sternum, then over each of his ribs, and finally his stomach, where he repositioned himself to grab Charlie’s waist with both his big bear hands, and he kissed Charlie’s stomach forcibly, inhaling heavily, as if wishing to absorb all of Charlie in the kisses, and make an imprint on his mind of what Charlie felt like and tasted like and smelled like in this soft, hollow area around his belly. 

After a minute or so of this delicious torture, Nick sat up a little and looked at Charlie from this new position. Charlie raised himself on his elbows to better look at Nick, too. 

Nick pulled Charlie up by the wrists so he was seated; they were now sitting facing each other on the bed. Nick took Charlie’s right hand in his own, where he pulled out Charlie’s first two fingers until they were outstretched, then he looked at Charlie from beneath his sandy eyelashes and opened his mouth and put Charlie’s fingers in, sucking on them.

Charlie was close to a total spontaneous combustion. He could not believe that anything that was happening or had happened in the last fifteen minutes was real. Much like Nick had done yesterday in the grove, Charlie felt himself folding forward, as his muscles wavered and went into shut down from the rushing influx of adrenaline and desire.

“You taste like oranges,” Nick whispered, the tips of Charlie’s fingers slow-dancing across Nick’s teeth and tip of his tongue.

“Nick." Charlie could have screamed as Nick licked his fingers. “You’re — oh my god, Nick, you’re killing me. Will you please kiss me already?”

Nick took Charlie’s fingers out of his mouth and held the hand in his own.

“Not here,” Nick pressed his finger on Charlie’s lips. “This, I’m gonna leave for later.”

“When?” Charlie asked desperately.

“I’ll tell you soon,” Nick let go of Charlie’s hand, and stood up off the bed, and Charlie could see his erection through his red board shorts. Charlie’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull at the sight of it.

“Think you can stay in here until I tell you?” Nick asked sweetly.

Charlie gulped and nodded, not knowing what Nick meant, not caring, only knowing that he’d do anything — anything — Nick asked of him.

Before Nick opened the bathroom door to leave, he turned around and gave Charlie one last look and gorgeous smile.

* ゜* ゜*

It was now about an hour after Nick had left Charlie’s room, and Charlie had jerked off twice in that time, once in bed, immediately after Nick had left, hoping Nick was in his room and could hear him, and had just finished another round in the shower, and was lying on his bed in his towel, when he heard a rustling in the hallway. 

He sat bolt upright in bed.

“Charlie!”

Dammit, it was only Olly. 

“You in there?” Olly yelled.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

Olly trampled through Nick’s empty room, through the bathroom, and stood at the end of Charlie’s bed. He tossed an envelope at Charlie’s feet.

“Put some clothes on, weirdo,” Olly said.

“What’s that?” Charlie pointed at the envelope.

“Nick said he’d be my personal trainer for the rest of the summer if I swore on my life I’d bring this to you without opening it. At seven o’clock, he said,” Olly cocked his head at the clock on the wall behind him for emphasis. It was precisely seven o’clock.

Charlie wheezed, and laser beamed his eyes towards the envelope.

“What is it?” Olly asked, oblivious to Charlie’s anguish. 

“I don’t, I’m not…Just, just go away, Olly!” Charlie exclaimed, more forcibly than he was expecting, and lunged at the envelope.

“Jeez, don’t get your knickers in a twist. What’s in the envelope? Is it a love letter? Are you and Nick in luuuuurve?” Olly grabbed Charlie’s foot and shook it playfully.

“Piss off, Olly!” Charlie squeaked.

“If you are in love, I’m telling Dad.”

“Homophobia! Don’t you dare!”

“So you are in love?!”

“No! Of course not! Get out, get out now! Or I’ll tell Dad I saw you smoking vapes with the twins on Friday!”

Olly gasped. “You would never.”

“If you ever bring up this envelope again, to me or to Nick, or any rubbish about love, I will tell Dad about the smoking immediately. Don’t make me come good on that threat!”

Olly narrowed his eyes at Charlie and stomped out of his room.

Charlie tore open the envelope with trembling hands.

Chapter Text

Dear Charlie,

I’ve never written anyone a letter before. Except birthday cards and stuff. Is a letter sufficiently seductive? I’m so out of my depth it’s not funny. I had to Google it, you know. I literally typed it into Google — how to seduce someone. (I can hear you laughing.) 

Almost all the suggestions were unhelpful. Remind me to tell you some of the choice ones later. Although, some people on Reddit suggested a letter. I’m not so sure. Doesn’t seem sexy enough. But it’s romantic, right? (??). Look I’m willing to try anything at this point. 

And besides, if everything goes according to my plan, by the time you’re reading this, this is actually the second thing I’ve tried with you ;)

Seriously though. I don’t know where to start. I’ve spent all afternoon trying to make sense of the massive jumble of words in my brain, trying to untangle English from French and back to English and find the right words to apply them to reality somehow. I know words hold so much meaning, but I still can’t arrange them to say what I need them to say.

It’s like in the movies, Charlie — right now I’m staring at a literal bin full of crumpled up letters that I started and hated and threw away.

I think it’s because, if I really think hard about it, it’s because the stakes feel so high. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before — like my insides are on fire, like you could hurt me so easily. I feel so much for you already, and this is even before we’ve had any firsts.

I want a first kiss with you. I want a first date with you, so I can listen to you talk, and watch your lovely face, and not be scared that I’ll betray myself to you. I want a first night in bed with you so you can let me worship your body with mine.

And because I’m not that smart with these things (as evident from my reliance on our friend Dr Google) I had to go to the study for some inspiration. I sat for two hours this afternoon flicking through random books trying to find something I could use. And somehow I found this — there’s a mark you made on the first page corner of the novel that says ‘Charlie Spring, Hamlet 5,’ so I know it’s yours, and therefore it’s perfect, and you’d underlined this passage twice in pencil,

~ How odd, that I can have all this inside of me, and to you, it’s just words ~

Charlie — maybe it’s the heat or all those f***ing orange trees or the twinkly lights of this stupid romantic place but I’m just going to come out with it and ask you:

Is this letter — or any of what’s happening between us — just words to you?

If it’s not…if it’s more than words — if you come to the grove after dinner tonight, I’ll kiss you if you let me. 

Nick x

* ゜* ゜*

After he heard Esme calling them for dinner, Charlie held his breath when he opened the bathroom door leading into Nick’s room. He was quite sure Nick wasn’t in there — Charlie hadn’t heard a sound for the past two hours — but he wasn’t absolutely certain.

As suspected, Nick’s room was empty. 

Charlie made his way downstairs, and passed the living room, where Olly was lying on the couch, playing with his phone. 

Charlie crept up to Olly silently and snatched the phone out of his hands.

“Hey!” Olly objected, and swiped forward for his phone. 

“Earlier,” Charlie began, holding the phone up above his head, narrowing his eyes at his brother. “Before, when you brought me that envelope, you asked me if there was a love letter in there. Why? Why did you say that?”

“You told me not to bring that up again!” Olly protested, leaping up to grab his phone. “Give me back my phone, you dick!”

“Don’t throw our agreement back in my face,” Charlie sidestepped Olly and held his phone over the fish tank as if he was going to dunk it in there.

Olly glared at Charlie in that fake way brothers do when they pretend they hate each other.

“What do you mean, why did I say that?” Olly asked, flopping back on the couch defeatedly.

“I mean, why did you assume it was a love letter? What made you jump to that conclusion? It could have been anything, so why did you say a love letter?”

“I don’t know! And yuck, if it was, please spare me the gory details, I don’t want to know what’s going on in your personal life,” Olly said with disgust; he was still just young enough to buy into the whole girl germs/boy germs/love is gross mindset. “I only meant because you and Nick seem, like, close, I guess, and into each other and stuff. I’ve seen you making eyes at each other. Plus, Nick is so cool. You could do a lot worse for a boyfriend.”

The word made neurons fire from all directions in Charlie’s brain. 

“Who said anything about boyfriends?” Charlie was shocked. “So, you know Nick is bi?”

“Ughhh, yeaaaah,” Olly dragged his words like Charlie had said the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. 

“How long have you known that?”

“I dunno. A week?”

“A week…!” Charlie sputtered incredulously. “How did you find out?”

“He told us.”

“He told you? Wait, who’s ‘us?’”

“I dunno, like he mentioned it while we were playing basketball. Like to me, Adam, Jack, Javier, Bruno, Guillermo, Claudia, Katerina…”

Charlie interrupted him before Olly could list every person in the entire local village. “You’re fucking kidding me. Even Guillermo knew before me?!”

Guillermo, who spoke precisely ten words each entire summer, who lived glued to his Nintendo Switch, even when he was in the pool.

“Did you not know?” Olly could barely hide his derision. 

“No , Ol-iv-er, I did not know!” Charlie spat back, throwing Olly’s phone back at him in revulsion. “And in future, if you befriend any fit rugby lads who tell you they’re bisexual, you’re to come to my room or text me or send a carrier pigeon or whatever it takes to communicate that message to me! God, Olly! Useless!” 

“And you’re dreaming if you think I’m going to be some go-between messenger boy for you and Nick for the next two months!” Olly yelled as Charlie exited the room. “That was a once off! Unless we’re talking a sizeable cash payment! Paid in advance!”

Charlie walked outside and saw the dinner drudgery guests had already arrived, and were standing having drinks with Julio at the entrance to the grove, while Elle and Nick were seated at the table, chatting. Charlie had told Elle about his and Nick’s conversation in the grove the night before, but hadn’t had a chance to tell her about what had happened in the bedroom or the letter yet, and tried beaming a subliminal message to her to say cool things about him to Nick.

Everyone was dressed a little more formally for dinner tonight, at Julio’s request. Tonight’s guests were important, Julio had said, and included the Head of the Academic Division for Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences at Oxford, Professor Richards. Charlie knew Julio wanted Charlie to make a good impression on the Professor. The other guests were local dignitaries.

Charlie was wearing short beige linen shorts with a soft knitted shirt, very pale pink, with white piping around the collar. Nick was wearing a white t-shirt with a thin chambray shirt unbuttoned over the top, which seemed a size too small for him on purpose. 

Charlie was standing still at the edge of the garden, admiring Nick, his face, his arms, his mouth, which two hours earlier had been pressed against his stomach and had had Charlie’s fingers in it, and his soft copper eyes, which had not yet seen Charlie at the back door.

“Charlie!” Julio shouted. “Come here, I want you to meet Professor Richards.”

Nick heard this and wrenched his attention away from Elle at the sound of Charlie’s name, and his eyes skimmed the garden, and he found Charlie, they locked eyes, and Charlie felt every pore of his skin, all his fingers and toes and blood vessels, erupt in fire. Nick smiled at him in such a way that made Charlie’s knees wobble. 

I’m actually going to kiss this man tonight. 

This is going to be the longest dinner of my life.

Charlie gave Nick a little wave and big smile and moved begrudgingly to join his father.

“Professor Richards, this is my son, Charlie,” Julio patted Charlie on the back. “He’s a third year mathematics and Latin major. I thought you two should meet. Charlie, if you ever decide you want to do a PHD in maths, this is the man you need to get to know.”

“Nice to meet you,” Charlie shook Professor Richards’ hand. 

“And you, Charlie,” Professor Richards replied unsmilingly.

Esme clapped her hands.“¡Está listo! ¡Todos vengan y tomen asiento antes de que el pescado se enfríe!” she yelled.

Charlie sat down beside Nick, and without even thinking about it, shuffled his chair a few inches to the side, in order to be closer to him. Nick saw him do this and beamed at him, his eyes sparkling. Charlie practically felt his pupils turn love-heart shaped as he returned Nick’s smile and deep gaze. 

There was a round of profuse thanks and gracias to Esme for the spread of food, and everyone began piling up their plates.

As the dinner conversation began, something dull about a potential move to a three-semester per year model at Oxford, Charlie forced himself to eat a few bites of his meal, although he wasn’t hungry in the slightest. His stomach was drenched in what felt like acid, his throat felt like it had been scooped out out with a spoon, his heart was beating erratically, he was disintegrating at the proximity to Nick, overcome with his very Nick-ness, which was inflamed in warmth, Nick’s intoxicating, manly smell, and the look of him in something other than board shorts or Adidas sweats, which Charlie had never seen before; Nick looked so incredibly handsome, and Charlie’s mind was in total overdrive at the possibilities of what tonight and the next night and the next night and all the nights for the rest of the summer might entail with him and Nick and their beds and their hands and their mouths and their…

Then, abruptly, without any warning, without having even barely moved, Charlie felt Nick’s fingertips brush against his own under the table. Charlie had his wine glass in his right hand and had put his fork down for a moment, resting his left hand by his side, and Nick had swooped on his opportunity.

Nick had swapped to eating with his fork in his left hand, his eyes fixed on the table and the guests, nodding along politely to whomever was talking, as though he wasn’t, at that present moment, grazing his fingertips down Charlie’s open palm, then moving his thumb to press the back of Charlie’s hand, or trailing his pointer finger around in a spiral, feeling all the way around the bumps of Charlie’s knuckles, his fingernails, the hair on the top of his wrist, in such a way that knocked the oxygen out of Charlie’s lungs and sent rippling shudders through his body. 

“This okay?” Nick murmured, still facing ahead, but dipping his eyes into their corners towards Charlie, and so quietly that Charlie barely heard him. 

“Don’t stop,” Charlie replied, also looking straight ahead, in a voice just above a whisper. You’ll kill me if you stop, was what he would have said if they’d been alone. It had been what he’d longed to say to Nick the day by the lake when Nick had massaged his shoulder. 

In addition to his verbal consent, Charlie, in what somehow felt like one of the most sexually-charged things he’d ever done or experienced in his life, began stroking Nick’s hand in return, ever so slowly, raking his nails against Nick’s palm, caressing the hairs on his hand with the pads of his fingertips, and the beautiful, sensual feeling of it all, bow-tied in such illicit secrecy, left both of them painfully holding their breaths. 

“So, Charlie, how are you finding the new third year courses we’ve introduced this year?” Professor Richards asked from across the table. “We threw in a few curveballs for you in the noncommutative geometry module in particular. We’re keen to get as much feedback as possible to see if it’s worthwhile doing again next year or not.”

“It’s, um, ugh, geometry, it’s…maths,” Charlie fumbled, as Nick, still looking gunbarrel ahead of him towards the Professor, interlocked his and Charlie’s fingers and squeezed their hands forcefully together, before releasing the grip a few seconds later and gliding his fingers, feather-lightly, up Charlie’s forearm. “It’s a module in the — ” Nick dragged his fingers back down Charlie’s forearm, “— module in the, um, maths course.”

“Charlie,” Julio frowned at his dithering son, and shifted in his seat. “Why don’t you tell Professor Richards what you were saying at dinner the other night, about the intersection between maths and quantum physics in undergraduate studies? Charlie has some interesting perspectives on this.”

Nick placed his hand on Charlie’s knee.

“Knee!” Charlie blurted out.

“I beg your pardon?” Professor Richards asked, looking at Julio, hopeful for a translation.

Nick began sliding his hand, very, very, very slowly from Charlie’s knee and up the length of his leg. 

“Oh, um, I mean,” Charlie’s cheeks were two stripes of flame; he was convinced the table was made of glass and everyone could currently see what was happening, and what was happening was Nick’s warm hand going up, up, up, up, up Charlie’s thigh at glacial pace. “Yeah, it’s like, ah, that thing, that course you just said, I mean, it arises in string theory, and I don’t know that maths majors are sort of, like, essentially, like, they’re probably too dumb for string theory, like as a sort of a side concept…”

Nick paused when he got to the hem of Charlie’s shorts, and started stroking back and forth underneath the fabric. 

Charlie started to sweat.

“Too dumb?” Professor Richards frowned again. “The mathematics undergraduates at Oxford are too dumb?”

“I think what Charlie is trying to say,” Julio shot Charlie a set of dagger eyes. “Is that the noncommutative geometry module is forced to introduce string theory conceptually, and it’s too complex a notion to grasp as a mere companion piece to the geometry. It requires its own module, Charlie was explaining, which then is reaching too far into physics, and distracts from core mathematics. Isn’t that what you were saying, Charlie?”

“That’s what I was saying. That is what I said,” Charlie repeated robotically, as Nick slid his hand under Charlie’s shorts, pushing up the fabric as he went further up Charlie’s thigh.

Charlie gasped.

“Are you alright, Charlie?” Julio asked, his look switching from annoyed to concerned. 

“Yeah, yep,” Charlie wheezed as Nick’s had reached his boxers, and he placed two fingers underneath the fabric, a centimetre or so from Charlie’s erect dick.

“Sorry about my son, Professor,” Julio turned to his guest, apologising to him, as Charlie squirmed underneath Nick’s touch. Nick slid his hand out slowly and put it back on the table, picking up his knife, and began slicing his chicken. “Charlie is usually quite chatty and has even, on occasion, been complimented on his intellect. I’m not sure why he’s showcasing his stunned mullet routine tonight.”

“It’s the heat,” said Professor Richards, giving Charlie a major side-eye. “The heat addles the brain.”

Humourless old sod, Charlie thought, as he poured himself a glass of iced water to try and calm himself down.

“It certainly does,” Nick piped up, somehow having almost finished an entire plate of food in this process, and betraying nothing in his expression except a very pink sheen across his face. “I think the heat makes us behave abnormally.”

“Have you done anything abnormal this week, Charlie?” Olly smirked at his brother from across the table.

He knows, was the panicked thought that flashed through Charlie’s mind, but of course he didn’t; Olly was just winding him up as usual. 

“No,” Charlie reached for his wine glass with a quivering hand. He drank a huge gulp. “Have you done anything in this smoking hot heat, Olly?” he emphasised, reminding Olly of the piece of blackmail he had at his disposal.

Olly scowled at Charlie. “No!” 

“It’s so hot it practically vape-ourises you, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up, Charlie!”

“Boys, please, what’s gotten into you two tonight?” Julio asked.

Mercifully, one of the other guests, someone or other from the mayor’s office, switched the conversation to Spanish, something about this year’s wheat harvest, and Charlie slowly turned his eyes to Nick, who was sitting back in his chair, supremely satisfied with his handiwork (har har, thought Charlie to himself), holding his wine, looking like the king of the castle. 

Elle was saying something to Charlie about their planned trip to Granada that weekend, but Charlie, guiltily, was not listening to her, he was just aware of each movement of his eyes, and the beckoning glances Nick was giving him to make eye contact, and Charlie finally allowed himself to lift up his lashes and peek sideways at Nick, who was smiling warmly at him, with such soft and affectionate eyes, that Charlie, as much as he was tempted to stick his middle finger up at Nick, absolutely could not, and returned the smile and giggled a little, a bit embarrassed, and so, so gone for him.

With the promise of a kiss hanging over their heads, neither of them knew how they’d make it to the end of this interminable meal.

* ゜* ゜*

At long last, dinner was over, and after an obligatory group tour of the orange grove, during which Charlie wished to tell all the guests to piss right off back to their fancy houses and hotels so he and Nick could finally be alone, everyone shuffled to the front of the house to say their farewells.

Nick and Charlie walked side by side towards the front of the house, with Elle and Olly chatting in front of them.

“I hate you,” Charlie whispered to Nick, his eyes smiling.

Nick stopped in his tracks, causing Charlie to stop right beside him.

“No, you like me!” Nick’s voice was full of teasing and humour, and he grinned at Charlie.

Charlie scrunched up his nose at him and shook his head a little. “I really don’t.”

They paused for a moment to scan each other’s faces, openly, blissfully, before they continued walking.

“If I don’t get accepted into this maths PHD program, you’ll have to answer to Dad,” Charlie said.

“Do you want to do a PHD in noncommunication geometry?” Nick asked, surprised.

“No,” Charlie could not hide his smile. “I definitely don’t. I don’t want to do a PHD at all. But that’s something I’ll need to break to my parents another time. And it’s noncommutative geometry, rugby lad.”

“Hey, gay nerd,” Nick retorted, “you’re the one who just made a total arse of yourself in front of Mr Head Honcho of Maths at Oxford. You’re in no position to be correcting me on my pronunciation.”

“Nick, I’m the son of a linguistics professor, literally all I do is correct people’s pronunciation,” Charlie laughed.

“Boys! Come and say goodbye to the guests!” Julio called.

Nick stood beside Charlie as Charlie waved languidly at the guests, who were getting into their cars. Charlie was smiling widely as he waved, while mumbling under his breath, “about fucking time! Sure you don’t want to stay until Christmas? I think there’s one bottle of wine left in the house you didn’t open, you greedy pissheads?” and raising his voice immediately after to yell “goodbye, thanks for coming, nice to meet you!” and Nick couldn’t stop laughing.

* ゜* ゜*

Close to one in the morning, when everyone else finally adjourned inside to go to bed, Nick and Charlie were left sitting at the outside table. Charlie could no longer hide his impatience.

“Shall we…?” he asked, tipping his head towards the grove.

Nick laughed gently. “Keen are we?”

“Um, that was the longest dinner of my entire life!” Charlie didn’t mind admitting, as they stood and walked towards the orange trees, which rustled softly in the night-time breeze, bathed in the pearly starlight and the deep purply-blue of the Spanish sky. Charlie reached down for Nick’s hand as they entered the grove, and Nick lifted up Charlie’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. Charlie almost fainted. He led them to a small wooden bench underneath one of the trees.

“So do you still hate me?” Nick asked, as they sat down, still holding hands. They were stroking each other’s fingers. Their eyes met, wide and hungry.

“No,” Charlie’s answer came out as an exhale rather than a word. “No…Nick, I like you so much.”

“Do you?” Nick tightened his grip on Charlie’s hand, and looked like he might cry.

“Why are you so surprised?” Charlie brushed Nick’s fringe back, and Nick closed his eyes at the sensation.

“I just…I dunno…You hadn’t actually said that to me yet. I wasn’t actually sure. Like, last night…god, was that just last night? Last night, you just told me you liked tall, blonde, French men. You didn’t actually say you liked me.”

“You are so cute,” Charlie giggled. “What on earth did you think I meant?”

“I knew what you meant,” Nick blushed. “But it’s still nice to hear it. Hear it in words, I mean. Can you…can you say it again?”

He sounded so meek and sweet, Charlie’s heart twinged at the thought that Nick had ever been even slightly uncertain about how much Charlie felt for him.

“I like you so, so much, Nick,” Charlie said again, and he would have said it a thousand times if Nick wanted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were waiting for me to say that.” Charlie hesitated, and almost didn’t say the next part, but went ahead anyway. “Truthfully, I’m not one hundred percent sure how to act around you. You’re-you’re the only boy I’ve ever liked who’s been nice to me.”

“Wh-what?”

“Yeah…sorry, don’t want to kill the moment or anything. But yeah. I’ll tell you about it another time, it doesn’t matter now.”

Nick moved his hands up to the nape of Charlie’s neck, as he had done that afternoon, and threaded his fingers through Charlie’s hair there. Charlie felt the heat turn up instantly. They started looking at each other’s mouths. Okay.

“And, actually, you’re wrong, I have told you I liked you before,” Charlie said, as their faces drew closer. “Except, you were asleep.”

“After the nightclub?” Nick guessed. 

“Yeah,” their foreheads touched together.

“I thought I dreamed that,” Nick whispered.

“You weren’t dreaming, Nick,” Charlie whispered back.

“Mmm, I think I am now, though,” replied Nick, leaning in, closing his eyes, as he kissed Charlie on the lips, chaste and gently at first, and Charlie kept his eyes open for just a second, because he wanted to be sure he really believed what was happening, that this completely gorgeous, kind, sweet guy was kissing him, and Charlie closed his eyes too and moved his mouth to deepen the kiss, and they breathed into it together. Nick’s hands cupped Charlie’s face, and Charlie squeezed Nick’s arms, as they opened their mouths and licked further into each other, exploring each other's tongues. It was the most divine kiss Charlie had ever had in his life. He was awash with lust. He felt like there were bright sparks shooting out around them as they pressed their fingers into each other's skin, kissing ever more deeply as each moment passed.

When they broke apart, they were smiling, completely flushed, almost shy, before Nick drew Charlie in closer to him by the waist, and Charlie looked at Nick’s mouth again, then flitted up to his eyes, and Charlie said, “come here,” except when he opened his mouth, no sound came out, because he was hollowed out from desire, so all Nick saw was Charlie mouthing “come here,” with a smile on his lips, as they leaned in to kiss each other again. 

“You free tomorrow?” Nick asked, after a minute. 

“Yeah,” Charlie smiled. “Why?”

“Will you go on a date with me?”

Chapter Text

🏳️‍🌈Queerly Beloved🏳️‍🌈

Nick (08:55): Soooo…we kissed

Dee (08:57): (One voice note attached, 13 seconds)

Nick (08:59): God Darcy

Nick (08:59): You’re lucky my volume was turned way down for that

Nick (08:59): I really don’t think you should scream like that this early

Nick (08:59): Your neighbours will think you’re drowning a baby donkey in your bath

Dee (09:00): SPILL THE TEA BESTIE

Nick (09:02): So I wrote the letter, as mentioned yday afternoon, and got his brother to deliver it to him and then we had to wait until literally 1am until all the dinner party guests went home…brutal…and we just went to the orange grove, and yeah :) 

Nick (09:02): He told me he likes me back!!!

Dee (09:03): 

Tee (09:03): OMG lol Darcy

Tee (09:03): I’m sooo happy for you Nick, that sounds so romantic!!!

Nick (09:04): @Tee❤️ @Dee🖕

Dee (09:04): Did you DO THE DEED

Tee (09:04): 👀

Nick (09:04): I don’t kiss and tell

Tee (09:05): Nick you literally just told us you kissed him

Nick (09:06): Well then I don’t have sex and tell

Nick (09:07): (We did not)

Dee (09:07): Disappointing

Nick (09:08): Soon. I don’t want to massively rush it

Nick (09:08): I like him way too much to mess this up

Nick (09:08): Plus I’m nervous as hell. He’s so confident, and smart, it’s seriously intimidating. PLUS I don’t know details but I get the impression he’s not had great previous experiences with guys/boyfriends etc. 

Nick (09:08): So I want to make sure I treat him well. He deserves to be treated so well

Dee (09:08): 🚨🚨🚨 Sound the alarm, we have our first appearance of the B word!!!

Tee (09:08): 🥲 That is so sweet Nick

Dee (09:08): Yes, annoying for the gay agenda, but sweet

* ゜* ゜*

Charlie (09:08): You up? x

* ゜* ゜*

🏳️‍🌈Queerly Beloved🏳️‍🌈

Nick (09:09): Omg omg omg SOS

Nick (09:09): Charlie just texted me asking if I’m up

Dee (09:09): NOT THE U UP TEXT

Dee (09:09): IT’S 8AM

Tee (09:09): 😂😂😂

Dee (09:09): Oh, I like this person

Nick (09:09): What do I say??? 

Dee (09:09): You take a photo of your dick, send it to him, write ‘I’ve been UP for ages ;) ;)’ and haul your ass into that blessed shared bedroom/bathroom arrangement you’re masquerading as an ‘internship’ 

Dee (09:09): You know, the thing that most horny singles on their summer vacay would sell their own mother for

Nick (09:10): YOU ARE SO UNHELPFUL

Nick (09:10): Afjadsfkjsfjh I need to text him back before he realises I’m overthinking it

* ゜* ゜*

Nick (09:10): Hey :) Yep, I’m up. Are you? x

Charlie (09:10): How else would I have texted you x

* ゜* ゜*

🏳️‍🌈Queerly Beloved🏳️‍🌈

Nick (09:11): Guys help I’ve already fucked it up

Tee (09:11): You’re such a disaster, Nick

Tee (09:11): Stop panicking and just see what he wants

Tee (09:11): We have to get ready for work

Dee (09:11): I’m telling you it’s an open invitation for a dick pic followed by morning sex

Dee (09:11): Like, you do realise the obstacle most people face in sleeping with someone is getting that person to come back to their house

Dee (09:11): You already have that problem solved for you

Dee (09:11): Hurry along now petal, some of us have to work

Nick (09:11): Once again thank you both for your infinite wisdom

* ゜* ゜*

Nick (09:12): Haha true… 🙈

Charlie (09:12): I’m just messing with you ;) 

Charlie (09:12): Do you want to come into my room for a little morning cuddle? :) x

Oh god oh god oh god.

A cuddle?!

Did I want to go into Charlie’s room for a little morning cuddle?

Hell yes I wanted to go into Charlie’s room for a little morning cuddle.

Last night, we kissed for a while in the grove before realising how late it was, and meandered back to the house. Once we were upstairs, it was a tiny bit awkward and tense for a moment while Charlie and I sort of skirted around what the next step might be (i.e., did we just go back to sleeping in our own beds as normal, which was kind of what I wanted to do to be honest, as tempting as it was to just say to hell with it and ravish him; I was too much of a nervous wreck for that though).

So we hugged instead, our first hug ever, which was amazing, and just as I’d hoped it would be; all my suspicions were confirmed that I would love hugging Charlie. And then he looked at me so sweetly and said “goodnight” and went into his room, closing the bathroom door behind him, and part of me wanted to call him back but the other part thought, no, this is good, we have all summer and he’s not going anywhere (I hoped), plus it’s almost two in the morning and let’s just get some sleep.

Still, enough reminiscing, Nelson. No time to lose. I didn’t want Charlie to think I was sitting on my bed freaking out about going into his room (which is precisely what I was doing). 

I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. I was, as per usual first thing in the morning, a dishevelled mess — that Zara express delivery I placed yesterday, which included, amongst other things, new sleeping shorts, couldn’t arrive fast enough. I sincerely hoped Charlie never found out that I panic-ordered about €200 worth of new clothes after I found out he was gay and realised I had an actual chance with him. I didn’t want to continue to exist in his orbit in nothing but grey sweat shorts and swimming costumes. For pyjamas, all I had brought with me from home was my old red and blue striped shorts, which looked like something my grandpa might wear, and a few tatty tank tops — really not good enough for someone so stylish as Charlie.

I contemplated taking my top off, as I got the impression Charlie liked me shirtless, but fretted that might be going too far, considering I fully intended just to cuddle Charlie — I meant what I said to Tara and Darcy about not rushing things with him. 

However difficult that might be.

Sigh. 

I willed my dick to behave itself. 

“Don’t go rogue on me, buddy,” I whispered to it. “It’s just a cuddle. Don’t embarrass me, alright?”

Christ, I’m standing in my room asking my own dick not to get hard. As if I could get any more embarrassing. 

I left my top on — it’s not like Charlie had invited me in for a blow job or anything — and I walked into the bathroom, quickly squeezed some toothpaste onto my brush, and brushed like crazy for ten seconds before rinsing. The old taps and ancient pipes rattled and screeched like a fucking full-sized orchestra and I kicked that goddamned metal bin on the floor again. Truly, my subtlety knows no bounds.

I slid open the bathroom door to Charlie’s room.

“Good morning handsome,” Charlie beamed at me, halfway sitting up on his pillows, and far out, what on earth had I even been stressing about? How lucky was I that this absolute cutie wanted to cuddle me!

“Good morning beautiful,” I smiled, trying not to sound as giddy as I felt. 

As I shuffled into the bed, Charlie held out both his arms, and, oh my god, I think he was indicating he wanted to cuddle me? Like, him as the big spoon type-situation? I almost died. I’m usually the one hugging other people by a default because I’m the larger one. I love being hugged, but not that many people have hugged me like this before. Maybe no-one ever, now that I think about it?!

I gratefully and happily wrapped my arms around Charlie’s slim waist and put my head on his chest (he was wearing a shirt too, phew, at least I made the right call there) and he looped his arms around my shoulders, and used his thumb to stroke my arms. His chin sort of rested on my head.

It was still early, and not too hot yet, and the feeling of being in bed with him with his warm soft arms wrapped around me was nothing short of glorious. The balcony door was open halfway and the thin curtain was billowing in and out with the rhythm of the breeze.

“How did you sleep?” Charlie asked, his voice a low hum. 

“I didn’t fall asleep ‘til like, three,” I admitted. “I was pretty buzzed.”

“Yeah, same.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Stop fishing for compliments,” I could hear him smiling.

“Is it that obvious?”

Charlie was stroking my back. It felt lovely. I snuggled in closer to him. God, he smelled fantastic. I truly felt like I could die here and not even be sad about it.

“So,” Charlie said, and I sensed that edge of mischief in his voice that I had become so familiar with already. “We kissed goodnight last night. How do you feel about introducing a good morning kiss to our schedule?”

I wrenched my head off his chest and glanced up at him. “Schedule?”

“I plan on kissing you many times per day,” Charlie was beaming down at me. “Got to space them out though. I don’t want you to think I’m obsessed with you or anything.”

“Ha, ha,” I pretend laughed. “I was waiting for you to make fun of me about that.”

“Hey, I’m kidding,” he said in a gentler tone, and my heart fluttered. “It was the sweetest thing ever. And let the record show that I feel the same way about you.”

I gulped. “Really?”

He squeezed me tighter. “Just a little bit.”

That was enough for me. I’d take ‘a little bit.’ If Charlie Spring was ‘just a little bit’ obsessed with me, then I was already winning. I looked back up at Charlie and at that divine mouth of his, which frankly I could hardly wait to have wrapped around my—

I cleared my throat before my thoughts ran away with me and figured I had better answer him. “A good morning kiss sounds…good—”

“—morning,” Charlie interrupted, and we kissed, like a really sweet kiss, just a quick one, and we were both kind of smiling as we did it. I think I could taste that he’d already brushed his teeth too, maybe? 

We pondered each other for a moment afterwards and I nestled back into his chest. I was running my hand up and down Charlie’s side, trying not to make it sexual or anything, but god, that wasn’t easy; I could already feel some tell-tale signs, like my throat drying out, and my heartbeat getting all uneven. 

I shifted my hips to make sure they weren’t touching Charlie. I didn’t trust my dick not one bit to behave, despite my prior warnings.

“So,” Charlie said again, and traced my collarbone with his finger. “I refrained from Googling it myself, even though I was very curious. What were some of the other seduction techniques you researched on Tuesday night?”

“Well,” I smiled, because I pretty much was always smiling when I was around Charlie, “Wikihow actually had some very enlightening tips.”

“Wikihow!” Charlie burst out laughing. “I thought at least you might have consulted GQ or Cosmopolitan or something. Wikihow,” he repeated, giggling and shaking his head.

“Hey, it wasn’t all bad!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“You weren’t complaining yesterday,” I felt my voice drop at the memory of it, of Charlie spread out underneath me on the bed while I ran my hands all over him and kissed him and had his fingers in my mouth, and the way he moved and breathed and sounded, a memory I knew I’d be replaying in my head for a very, very long time to come.

“Oooh, touché,” Charlie’s voice dropped to match mine, and he started deepening the pressure of stroking my arms. I gripped his waist tighter in return. “Somehow, I don’t think Wikihow can teach anyone how to use their hands like that.”

I pulled him down for a kiss before breaking away and continuing, “well, let me think…tips on seduction. Umm…so, some were downright ridiculous. Something about ‘make him a cocktail using pomegranate juice,’ because apparently pomegranates boost a man’s sex drive.”

Charlie’s chest was shaking with laughter.

“Oh my god! Well, good thing we’re in Spain, it’s like, literally the national fruit here!”

“Is it?” I laughed. “Yeah, and totally obvious stuff, like ‘make eye contact with him.’ Thanks, genius. I thought I should probably seduce someone while staring at my feet. Actually, the problem with most of the articles was that they were written to give advice to women wanting to seduce a man, or vice versa.”

“How homophobic!”

“I know, right? So that cancelled out a lot of the ideas. I can hardly wear lingerie or dress to accentuate my curves, can I?”

“You could try! I wouldn’t mind.”

“Hilarious.”

“Okay, so it sounds like there were a lot of shitty tips. But, you did a really, really good job in here with me yesterday. And at dinner last night. And I don’t know if I actually mentioned it yet, but I loved the letter too. Like, I really loved it. So you must have read something useful.”

I took a deep breath.

“Well,” I dragged the word out. “They said body language was important.”

“Yeah?” Charlie sounded like he was holding his breath, which he’d done a lot while I was touching him yesterday, and it was becoming more difficult by the second to prevent all the blood in my body rushing southbound towards my dick.

“Yep,” I confirmed, the sound and feeling of Charlie’s breath changing giving me the confidence to continue. I shuffled upwards so our heads were more evenly positioned. 

“‘Don’t be afraid to use your body to flirt,’ it said. According to Wikihow, you should touch his arm,” I said, skimming my hand from Charlie’s shoulder to his wrist like I had done yesterday, and god, how did something so simple like that elicit such a reaction from him, he seemed to genuinely become breathless, and it was amazing, how on earth was I ever going to get through making love to this guy properly without losing my mind, “or try and hold his hand,” I interlaced our fingers together, trying not to get ahead of myself, “or tug at his hair,” with my left hand, I reached around and pulled on his hair, that fantastic curly hair, lightly but also kind of roughly at the same time.

“What else did it say?”

“It said to kiss his erogenous zones…Hey hey, linguistics nerd, how’s that for a word?”

“Never heard it before,” Charlie said, feigning ignorance; he was threading his fingers through my hair now in return, and it felt unbelievable — I had to remember to tell him to pull it when I was sucking his cock later. “Maybe you could show me what it means?”

“You are such a cheeky bastard, you know that?” I tried teasing but I was getting dizzy from how horny I was and, damn it, I was getting hard. “Alors tu veux que je te montre où se trouvent les zones érogènes? Comment vais-je résister à te faire l'amour quand tu me demandes des choses comme ça?”

“Nick, no me hables en francés a menos que quieras que te folle aquí y ahora."

I had no idea what he said but the way he said it, I knew I was in serious trouble.

“I believe when we talk about kissing the erogenous zones we mean kissing the sensitive areas…the earlobes, the neck,” ah, fuck it, I couldn’t help myself, this boy was going to be the death of me, I started kissing him all over his gorgeous silky skin, his throat, under his ears, his delicious mouth, his jaw, I wanted desperately to bite him and mark him but it was so inappropriate in this heat, he wouldn’t have been able to hide it with anything, and we were living with his dad after all for goodness sake, but god, the feeling of him writhing next to me and gripping my arms tighter and starting with those sexy little moans when I’d barely even done a fraction of what I wanted to do to him yet…

“Wh-what else?” Charlie gasped.

I wanted to keep going more than anything, but it was just not the right time. I had to go start work with Pro in like, a few minutes.

“That’s as far as I read,” I sighed, tearing myself off him, hating myself and hating my stupid internship and hating the whole institution of higher education and everything it represented. “The rest was just intuition.”

“You’re such a tease!” Charlie threw his head back, but I felt he didn’t really mind.

We chatted for another twenty minutes or so. I felt my limbs getting a bit numb and knew Charlie’s would be too, particularly as I was probably squashing him, but neither of us wanted to move, I think, like we might have broken whatever spell had settled down around us.

“I need to go downstairs soon,” I said, extremely reluctantly.

“Hmm, no,” Charlie grumbled, and tightened his grip around my arms and shoulders.

“Your dad will be annoyed if I’m late.” 

Charlie smiled and kissed me. Somehow each of our kisses was better than the last. 

I broke away from the kiss, grinning. “I see what you’re doing!”

“Argh!” Charlie scrunched up his nose and made an adorable sound of pretend frustration. “My plan’s been foiled.”

I stood up off the bed, checking the clock again, realising I had precisely five minutes to get dressed and have something to eat before a long day of formulating first year conjugation exercises with Pro.

“So, what are we doing for our date today?” Charlie asked, stretching his arms.

“It’s a surprise!”

I could see Charlie’s feet wiggling under the blanket with glee. “Oh my gosh! Yay! What…what should I wear?”

“You don’t need to wear anything special. Just what you normally wear.”

“But what if it’s not right for what we’re doing?” Charlie actually looked nervous, bless him.

“You’ll look great. You always…you always look really cute.”

Charlie blushed and dipped his head down in that beautiful way he does sometimes, and tossed the blanket off of himself, bounding across the bed on his knees, and leapt into my arms, burying his head in my neck, and I did the same back to him, and he kind of tugged me backwards and we fell back onto the bed, and before I knew it we were kissing again, but this is the first time we’d done it like this, lying down, with me on top of him, and it felt so good, too too good, and I rolled our hips together and groaned, and over the sounds of our deepening, quickening breaths and our lips smacking together as we pulled in and out of the kiss with our tongues, I could hear the fucking clock on Charlie’s wall ticking, counting me down to my doom, and it took every solitary ounce of self-control in me to wrench my face away from Charlie’s and say,

“I’m sorry, but I really have to get ready and go downstairs!” 

Charlie sighed and smiled. “I knoooow. If you must. Text me when you’re done?”

“Okay,” I replied, before diving back down for one last kiss, which was deep and greedy and intense and left both of us with heaving chests.

I had a feeling this was going to be a very, very long day.

* ゜* ゜*

Thankfully, Pro only needed me for around three hours, so I was done helping him by about one o’clock, and Charlie and I were in the car on the way to our date by two.

So, the date, then. It wasn’t anything super fancy. I hadn’t had time to organise much of anything, and we were in a remote Spanish village after all. The best I could come up with was raiding the fridge and making us a picnic, and asking Pro if I could borrow his car. I had Googled (does everyone use Google this much or do I have some kind of overreliance on search engines? I should look it up sometime. Oh, for fuck’s sake) the best views in the region and landed on the Sierra Nevada ranges, specifically, a little mountainous village called Trevélez, where I thought we could hike and have a picnic. It was about a 45 minute drive from where we were.

Charlie met me at the front of the house as I was loading up the boot with stuff for the afternoon, and we drove away, stopping to pull over when we were out of view of the house to make out in the front seat for a few minutes.

“Hey, so does anyone ever call you ‘Char?’” I asked, once we were settled in for the drive to Trevélez.

“Nobody except you,” Charlie replied.

FFS. Me and my big mouth.

“Oh, I didn’t, did I?”

Charlie giggled. “Yep. Twice. Once at the nightclub and once when I practically had to carry you up the stairs when we got home.”

“Terrific,” I replied, pinching in between my eyes in disgust with myself. “That’s just swell.”

“It was adorable Nick. You are an adorable human being.”

“Yeah, well,” I took my eyes off the road to glance at him, “now I’m never calling you it again.”

“Sure, sure. I think a shot or two of tequila will do the trick.”

We sat in silence for a few moments more.

“Hey, so you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to…”

“What is it?”

“It’s just, I’ve been super curious ever since I found out…When did you realise you were bisexual? Have you always known? Sorry, do you mind me asking you that?”

“Oh, god no,” I replied. “No, I don’t mind at all. And no, I definitely didn’t always know. I had a good old fashioned bi-awakening about…oooh, three, four years ago now?”

“Oh can you please tell me? What was it?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.”

“It was…” I would have clamped my eyes shut if I wasn’t currently driving and risking both our lives and Pro’s car by doing so. “It was 500 Days of Summer.”

“Oh my god,” Charlie puffed out such a sweet little giggle and I could feel him gazing at me. “You just keep getting cuter.”

“Shut up! Or you can walk the rest of the way!” I smiled.

“So, do I get the story, or not? Come on, it’s a long drive, let’s hear it.”

“Argh. Well, I initially watched it because it had Zooey Deschanel in it, and she’s always been like, my number one crush. But then as the movie went on, I felt this weird pull towards Joseph Gordon-Levitt? At first I thought it was because in that movie, you’ve seen it, right? Yeah, so he kinda reminds me of me in that movie, like a hopeless romantic and a big sap and everything. And then by the time that song came on — ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ by The Smiths — I was crying. Like, actually sobbing. It’s not even a sad part of the movie or anything. But that was it. Something kind of broke inside me. Or healed? I don’t know. It felt like it broke at the time, but looking back, obviously it was an amazing thing. Didn’t feel like it back then, though.”

“I get that,” Charlie said supportively, and rubbed my leg a bit above my knee. “Go on.”

“So, yeah, so then I spent the next three months listening to The Smiths and going down massive Google rabbit holes and pining after JGL and all these other boys that I finally realised I’d had crushes on from years ago, like, some truly repressed shit in my head that I’d redesigned to be straight friendships or normal guy interactions, and stuff. You know, me and this boy even gave each other hand jobs at a summer camp when we were 15, and the next day we didn't even speak about it, and I thought it was just like, two kids experimenting? Like it was something that all straight boys did? So I kind of made myself forget about it, even though it really affected me. Then, yeah, years later it all kind of resurfaced and I realised I'd really, really liked that boy. I’d fall asleep listening to ‘Never Had No One Ever’ and ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’ on an endless loop. You should have seen my Spotify Wrapped that year, it was like, the most emo shit out. It was not a fun time for me. I’d just left school, I was eighteen. I didn’t have anyone I felt comfortable enough to talk about it with, until I finally worked up the nerve to tell Tara and Darcy, like, months later, because even though we knew each other prior to that, we weren’t like, super close or anything. They’re my best friends now, but yeah. I was alone at the time.”

“You know Morrissey is like, a massive fascist these days, right?”

“That’s what you picked up from that story?”

“Sorry, but it’s my sworn duty to point out problematic faves.”

* ゜* ゜*

It was really late by the time we got back. We went on a long hiking trail up one of the pristine mountains and had our picnic there. It was one of the best afternoons of my entire life! By the time we got back to the village, around seven, we found a local taverna to have a drink, and then ended up staying for dinner too. On the drive home we were mostly silent, we were both so tired, and just held hands and listened to music. 

When we got home and went up to my room, I started to get a bit nervous, but I had already made up my mind about what I wanted to do, so decided just to see it through.

See, that was something else the seduction Google searches had suggested.

Delayed gratification.

“Do you want to…you know, come into my room or anything?” Charlie’s blue eyes grew big at me and he walked two fingers up my forearm.

“I do, Charlie. I really, really do,” I exhaled, already frustrated with myself a bit. “But Sarah Nelson raised a gentleman. I don’t sleep with someone after a first date.”

Charlie exhaled and rolled his eyes. “God, I should have known you’d say something cheesy and annoying like that. I wish for my sake that Sarah Nelson had raised a dirty little slut instead.”

“Hey!” I laughed, and poked him in the side, god Charlie was funny, I was just a giggling mess around him like 95% of the time. Sometimes I don’t know how I ever managed to hold it together when I “seduced” him in his room the other day. I’d been thinking exclusively with my dick and trying so desperately to impress him that I’d pushed all my self doubt aside and just enjoyed the moment.

I couldn’t wait to do it again. 

Then, it was as though Charlie was reading my mind. 

“Seriously though, it’s not like we just met or anything, Nick. We’ve been living together for almost two weeks already. You’re hardly taking advantage of me. You’ve already had my fingers in your mouth, might I remind you.”

“Oh, you remember that do you?” I grinned at him and winked.

“You’re really not doing anything to convince me not to jump on you right now. We were even ‘friends’ before we kissed,” Charlie made air quotation marks for ‘friends.’ 

“Hey! I was your friend!”

“We were never going to just be friends...” Charlie wrapped his arms around my neck and gazed up at me. This was so bloody difficult.

“Yeah…this is true. Okay, so how about this? How about, if our second date tomorrow goes well, I promise I’ll sleep in your bed?”

“Second date?” Charlie’s eyes lit up.

“Yeah…If you want.”

“Of course I want! I want everything to do with you, Nick!” he leapt into my arms and I lifted him off the ground a little. 

I kissed him. I kissed him again, and again, and again, then I squeezed him, then I kissed him again. And god, I hoped, (I really, really hoped) it wasn’t weird or clingy or too early or anything but there was something about what was happening between us that made me feel like I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life kissing Charlie Spring.

“Tomorrow, in bed,” Charlie looked up at me under those amazing eyelashes of his.

“Yeah?”

“Will it just be sleeping?”

“Hmm…” I leaned in to kiss him once more. Okay, maybe twice or three times more. “Let’s wait and see, shall we?”

Chapter Text

It was almost ten by the time Charlie woke the next morning. The lemon yellow sunshine spilled into his bedroom through a slim gap in his curtains. Charlie lay in bed for a few moments; the only sound he could hear was a flock of cranes at the edge of the orange grove, squawking and ruffling their feathers. 

Charlie decided to go for his morning run alone, as Nick would be in the study with Julio by now. 

He was rummaging in his drawers, looking for a clean pair of socks, when he heard a knock at the bathroom door.

Just one, single, firm knock, rapped with the knuckles, made with a closed fist.

Charlie stopped moving immediately, as though he’d been struck in the back with a harpoon. 

He stared at the door, awaiting some kind of word from Nick, or the sound of his body stepping or moving somehow, or perhaps even for the door to slide open. But in the short, echoing aftermath of the knock, there was just a shattering stillness and silence.

Charlie moved towards the door, feeling like he was walking in slow motion, dragging his feet through sand. 

It was impossible to explain, but he felt as though the room, and the atmosphere, and even, somehow, himself, were newly awash with some kind of reverence, some sense of restraint, one that totally held him back from yelling ‘come in!’ or ‘good morning!’ or anything as pedestrian as that. 

As Charlie approached the door, he stood statue still, and didn’t say a word. 

Instead, he felt some kind of inexplicable forcefield pull his hand to the precise place he felt the knock had come from on the other side of the door. It was impossible to tell for certain, but his hand instinctively moved towards the space on the door where he believed Nick’s hand was resting, and he placed his own hand there so that they might be touching, only the thin wooden door separating them. Then, Charlie rested his cheek against the door, where he felt Nick was also resting his cheek, or perhaps his forehead, and they made a mirror image of themselves either side of the door. It was like this, suspended in a silence more loaded and charged than Charlie had ever known, that he gave just one, single, firm knock back to Nick.

Charlie heard nothing, but felt Nick was somehow absorbing the knock, as one might absorb a kiss, or a term of endearment. After a moment, Nick knocked on the door a second time in response, right where Charlie’s hand was resting, and Charlie inhaled deeply, his eyes fluttering shut — he felt something intense and brilliant pour through himself — as the vibration of the knock reverberated throughout him entirely, from hairline to toe, as though Nick had done something unspeakably intimate to Charlie’s body, perhaps whilst whispering his most devastating, salacious fantasy.

Charlie knocked just once more to conclude their conversation, trying to imbue in the knock the same level of passion he had felt emitting from Nick. He heard Nick draw a breath, but still, did not utter a word. After another excruciating moment, where Charlie’s heart was thumping from having held his breath almost completely this entire time, he pulled his head and hand away from the door at the moment he could sense Nick doing the same on the other side. Then he heard Nick’s footsteps recede through the bathroom and downstairs.

Charlie turned to the clock on his wall, and saw it was already after ten.

His phone dinged about a minute later.

Nick (10.05): Good morning x 

Nick (10.05): Sorry…if I had come into your room just now, I’d never have left 🙈 and duty calls 😩

Nick (10.06): I dreamed of you all night 

Nick (10.06): I’ll carry your door kisses with me all day x

Nick (10.06): I’ve arranged something little for us to do together at 3pm. It’s nothing fancy but I hope you like it. I can’t wait to see you xx

Charlie collapsed back on his bed, the ceiling spiralling above him, his expression halfway between smiling and slack-jawed shock, as he ran his own hands over his stomach, as though he could hardly believe this was the body or that he was person that had inspired such startling intimacy from someone like Nick. 

No way was he going for a run now. His lungs were drained of all oxygen. 

* ゜* ゜*

At two that afternoon, after having spent the morning swimming and lounging about with Elle (he filled her in on every single detail of the past 48 hours, all of it to her supreme delight), Charlie made his way back to the house in anticipation of his 3pm date with Nick.

Charlie lay on his bed, playing with his phone absentmindedly, an absolute nervous wreck; this was the longest he had gone without seeing Nick in several days, and the loss of him was causing a dull ache inside Charlie’s chest. 

At half past two, the hallowed door on Nick’s side of the bathroom slid open, and slid back shut again instantly, as Nick came bounding towards him, slightly out of breath, as though he had run through the downstairs hallway then up the stairs and to the end of the wide upstairs corridor, to the end room where Charlie lay.

Charlie barely had enough time to prop himself up on his elbows and say, “hey,” when Nick crashed onto the bed on top of him, knocking him back flat on the mattress. 

“Hey, baby,” Nick said, his voice a hoarse and low grumble in Charlie’s ear, which was the first place he started kissing, before moving to his mouth, breaking away briefly to continue, “god, I missed you today. I missed you so, so fucking much.” 

Rolling waves of warmth unfurled in Charlie’s lower belly at the desperate, raspy sound of Nick’s voice, the sound of him cursing, which he rarely did, and the ferocity of his kisses. 

This is it, thought Charlie. Don’t stop, Nick. You’ll kill me if you stop. 

Nick used one strong arm to lift Charlie by the upper back and move him further up the bed, not breaking away from Charlie’s mouth through the whole deft movement. 

“Did you miss me?” Nick paused the kissing to ask, his eyes searching Charlie’s for reassurance. 

“Yes baby, I missed you so much,” Charlie felt a blush scorch over his face and his breath catch. He wasn’t used to being so earnest. His cheekiness and sarcasm was a protective balm for him, even (especially?) during sex. But for Nick, who was looking at him with so much vulnerability and want, Charlie was eager to indulge this new feeling inside of himself, to reassure, to give name and words to the overflowing affection in his heart he felt for this boy.

Nick was massaging the back of Charlie’s head, his fingers raking over Charlie’s scalp as he kissed him deeply. The heat suddenly turned up to one hundred and one, and Charlie felt the world fall away around them, the background blurring, much the same as it had done the first time he’d ever seen Nick, standing on the driveway, almost two weeks ago. 

After a moment, Nick spoke.

“Do you want this, darling?” he asked, his voice barely above a growl, as he snaked his left hand firmly up and down Charlie’s side, while pressing kisses into his neck.

“Do I want…? Is that some kind of joke? I’ve been ready for you to fuck me since the day you arrived,” Charlie replied, his erection now completely firmed up, his whole body almost sick with anticipation.

Nick groaned wantonly and resumed kissing Charlie on the mouth. He moved so he was using the strength of his arms to pin Charlie down on the mattress, one hand on each of Charlie’s shoulders, preventing Charlie from reaching up to grab Nick. Charlie’s head was spinning in ecstasy. Nick broke away from the kiss every second or two, finding new corners of Charlie’s mouth to taste, while Charlie returned Nick’s kisses with fervour, though Nick was in total control of the movement of their heads and bodies. Charlie actually let slip a giggle at one point — he was that giddy and disbelieving of what was currently happening — that Nick, his fantasy incarnate from one thousand teenage dreams, was actually draped on top of him, kissing the living shit out of him. 

“You really are obsessed with me, aren’t you?” Charlie asked, for no other reason than a desire to clarify his reality, which seemed increasingly unreal to him as Nick’s kisses became more desperate.

“Hmm. Maybe a little bit,” Nick smiled through his kiss. Charlie opened his eyes and loved the sight of Nick’s fair lashes closed over his cheeks, totally lost in the act of kissing Charlie. 

“Nick, you’re so gorgeous,” Charlie said, a bit shyly, hoping it would please Nick. 

“Charlie,” Nick exhaled; he seemed unable to form any other response for a moment, and beside, his mouth was too busy on Charlie’s neck and mouth, kissing him into numbness. “You are incredible, so precious, so beautiful darling.”

“Fucking hell Nick,” Charlie gasped. 

“I-I want to touch you,” Nick whispered, loosening his vice-like grip on Charlie’s shoulders. “Can I? Is that okay?”

“Yes, do it Nick,” Charlie used his arms, now freed, to grip Nick’s biceps, then slid them under Nick’s shirt, back to the soft stomach he’d been longing to stroke again since the night in the orange grove. Charlie was harder than he’d ever been in his life; it was borderline painful. “I want to touch you too. I want you so bad.” 

“Te deseo, te deseo mucho,” Nick echoed back in Spanish.

“Oh my g-god,” Charlie stammered, digging his nails into Nick’s shoulders. “Nick, that’s so hot.”

He kissed Nick a moment more before adding, “you Google that too, did you?” 

Charlie couldn’t help but allow his naturally mischievous side to muscle in. He wasn’t capable of total saccharinity. He was still Charlie Spring, after all.

“Just fucking kiss me Charlie,” Nick allowed himself a short laugh but he was behaving like a man on a mission, his voice was low and serious. “Don’t waste that pretty mouth on teasing.”

“I still prefer French though, just so we’re clear,” Charlie smiled as Nick wetly kissed his ear. 

“Fuck you,” Nick smiled back, pausing to prop himself up on both his elbows, one on either side of Charlie’s head, and ran his fingers through Charlie’s hair. Charlie was overwhelmed at the proximity of Nick’s flexed biceps to his face. “Quiero decir te deseo en muchos idiomas. I’ve been practicing for you since Tuesday.”

“H-have you?” Charlie stroked Nick’s arms, savouring every one of the pores of his skin, his coarse hairs, his veins. “Fucking adorable. You’re so perfect, Nick.”

Nick moaned and shifted his hips directly over Charlie’s and hey, there it was, and now their two erections were rubbing against each other through their board shorts. 

They both gasped and stared at each other for a moment, somehow at once shocked and not shocked at all by the feeling of their hardness together. 

Nick started grinding into Charlie, as some small whimpers escaped Charlie’s lips.

“Not that I’m complaining but — oh, god, Nick — but what happened to being a gentleman?” The feeling of Nick’s cock, so straining hard against his own, was almost more than Charlie could bear.

“Fuck being a gentleman,” Nick sat up a little to tear his shirt off, which he threw to the ground, before diving back down on to Charlie’s neck. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t sleep a fucking minute last night. I’m an idiot. Can I take your shirt off?”

“Yes,” Charlie lifted his arms and Nick slid his shirt over his head and threw it on top of his own. Charlie shuddered, pressing Nick back on top of him. “And you’re right, idiot. Why don’t you leave the thinking to me in future? I’ll be brains, you be beauty.” Charlie giggled, he couldn’t help himself, he must be delirious.

“Fuck off!” Nick said, only half-joking; he had moved to Charlie’s chest now, and was kissing his collarbone, the small dipping bone right at the bottom of his throat, his nipples, his hands roaming every single solitary place except the one Charlie was most desperate for.

“You swear so much when you’re turned on, it’s so fucking hot,” Charlie said as he pulled the back of Nick’s hair.

“And you…” Nick had his hand on Charlie’s short’s waistband, and paused to look to Charlie for approval, and Charlie nodded, and Nick started tugging Charlie’s shorts off, leaving his boxers on. “You are being so sweet to me, darling. You’ve complimented me more in the last five minutes than you have since we met.”

“You like that?” Charlie asked in his most teasing tone. “Now your shorts off,” he ordered Nick, before continuing, “you like being praised?”

“Mmm, I like it a little bit, yeah,” Nick kneeled on the bed above Charlie, and wrenched his shorts down around his knees. Charlie stared goggle-eyed at Nick’s erection in his grey boxers, and at those hulking great big thighs that he couldn’t wait to get his face in the middle of. “Do you?”

“Y-yeah,” Charlie gazed up at Nick, and gulped in anticipation of what might follow such an admission.

“Good. Then I’ll remember to keep telling you how pretty you look while I’ve got my dick inside you.”

Charlie’s brain sliced in half, cleanly down the middle. 

“Fucking Christ, Nick,” was Charlie’s eloquent response, as Nick, still kneeling, while Charlie lay in front of him, took Charlie’s hand and stretched out all his fingers, closing his eyes as he licked Charlie’s palm from wrist to fingertip, then licked downwards and upwards again, slicking up his hand, then moving it down to his dick, where Charlie hovered above Nick’s boxers as he watched Nick licked his own hand, eyes open and staring intently at Charlie as he did so. 

Charlie started trembling as Nick lay back down on top of him and slid his hand into Charlie’s boxers and grabbed his dick. Charlie reached down for Nick’s too and pulled it out of his boxers. He didn’t dare look down for fear he’d come immediately just at the sight of it. They started rubbing up and down each other’s dicks in unison, breathing erratically, and after a minute Charlie had to squeeze his thighs together and cross his ankles, so unbearable was the sensation, and his orgasm was at risk of unspooling far too quickly, so instead he concentrated on the divine sensation of Nick’s cock in his hand, trying to ignore the fact that Nick was pulling on him like he was massaging out a muscle strain.

“Oh, baby, oh fuck,” was all Nick could say, while Charlie let out a small whine, which Nick quickly took into his mouth with a kiss. They started to —

 — “¡Hijos mios! ¿Estáis listos para hacer la tarta?” Esme’s voice crashed through the upstairs hallway.

“Fuck,” Charlie said; his and Nick’s hands came to an abrupt halt. They stared at each other, stock still.

“Nick…Why is Esme asking us if we’re ready to make cake?” Charlie whispered. 

His almost-grandmother and her baked goods were really, truly, the last two things on earth Charlie wanted to be discussing while he was gripping Nick Nelson’s throbbing hard dick for the first time.

“Fuck!” Nick threw his head back in frustration and whispered back to Charlie, “it’s our bloody date. I asked Esme to make tres leches cake with us at three o’clock. Then a bike ride to the river.”

“Three o’clock?” Charlie glanced at the clock on his wall. It was a few minutes to three. “You start having sex with me and then tell me we’re on a three o’clock deadline?!”

“I’m sorry!” Nick squeaked.

“You bastard!” Charlie tightened his grip on Nick.

“Ah, god Charlie. Fuck’s sake, I wasn’t planning on, like, any of this happening right now! I just ran up here without thinking!”

“Nick! Charlie!” Esme trilled, her voice echoing throughout the big house, she seemed close by, too close. 

“Fucking hell, I really wanted to blow you,” Charlie murmured, stroking Nick.

“Me too, Char, god, same, I want to blow you too.”

“It sounds like she’s already upstairs. We should probably stop,” Charlie whispered reluctantly.

Don’t stop, Nick. You’ll kill me if you stop. 

“Like fuck we’re stopping,” Nick ran his hand tightly up and down Charlie’s dick, making him tremble. “We’re going to finish each other off. We just have to be quiet. I’m close, are you?”

“Oh fuck,” Charlie gasped, relief flooding through him. “Nick, fuck yeah, I’m so close. I don’t know how quiet I can be though.”

“Try,” demanded Nick, covering Charlie’s mouth with his left hand, and Charlie did the same to him. They kept their eyes open, gazing at each other with fierce intensity, as they stroked each other in torturous, breathy silence. 

Nick came first, spilling into Charlie’s hand, biting down on the top of Charlie’s other hand where it covered his mouth, moaning into the skin of Charlie’s palm, while Charlie came a moment later, his obscene sounds muffled by Nick’s palm, which was weighing down on his face, arresting the very breath from him, and when Charlie had finished, Nick took his hand away, and he and Charlie exhaled together, starting at each other wide-eyed, red-faced, fucked out. Nick rested on Charlie’s shoulder, and Charlie tried to keep his eyes from rolling in the back of his head as he came down from the harrowing bliss of his orgasm. Then after a moment, as their heart rates gradually settled down, they were suddenly giggling: a bit shy, totally overjoyed, and kissing each other as sweetly and innocently as if it was their first kiss not only with one another, but with anyone at all.

* ゜* ゜*

Once they had cleaned up, they sprinted downstairs, where Esme was not happy that they were fifteen minutes late to their arranged cake-making time. They apologised sheepishly and got down to business.

It was, predictably, so much fun, although Charlie teased Nick for bringing Esme along as a third wheel to their date. Nick said he preferred to think of her as a chaperone, which made Charlie laugh. Esme walked them through the recipe in Spanish, with Nick doing most of the important parts like beating the egg whites until they were first foamy, and then glossy, while Charlie fetched spatulas and measured sugar and got into trouble off Esme for dipping his finger in the can of condensed milk.

While Esme was looking for the vanilla extract in the pantry, Charlie dipped his finger into the condensed milk again, and licked it off suggestively, staring at Nick with big eyes as he did so. Nick bit his bottom lip and stared at Charlie with intense affection and longing. Then they smiled at each other. Charlie threw some flour at Nick, who threw some back, and it would have escalated into food-throwing warfare were Esme not there to swat Charlie’s arm and tell him not to make such a mess in her kitchen.

Charlie was putting the cake in the oven when Esme said, “Charlie, creo que este chico está un poco enamorado de ti,” raising her eyebrows at Nick, as she started wiping the benchtop. 

Charlie was shocked, and asked in a hushed voice. “¿Como supiste de nosotros? ¿Has estado hablando con Olly? ” 

“Ah, tengo razón, ¿no? Y estás bromeando conmigo, Oliver no me dice nada excepto cuando quiere algo de comer,” Esme laughed.

“Was it Elle?”

“Ahora, Elle. Elle es una mujer discreta, lo sabes, Charlie. No cariño, no necesito haber hablado con nadie. Tengo ojos, ¿no?” Esme tapped next to her eye for effect, smiling knowingly at Charlie as she did so.

“Por favor no le digas a mi papá, ¿vale? Se lo diré un poco más tarde. Además… Esme, él no está enamorado de mí. Sólo nos conocemos desde hace unas semanas.” Charlie watched Nick, who had started doing the dishes without being asked.

“¿Y que? ¿Qué tiene eso que ver? Antonio me propuso matrimonio después de seis semanas. Llevamos casados casi cuarenta años. Cuando lo sabes, lo sabes. Cuando alguien está tan enamorado no importa el tiempo ni las circunstancias,” Esme nodded in that knowing way older people do sometimes.

“What are you two talking about?” Nick asked, placing the mixing bowl in the drying rack.

“Esme is saying we should make a raspberry coulis to go with the cake,” Charlie rushed to get the raspberries out of the fridge to make this lie more plausible. Charlie dropped his voice to a whisper as he passed Esme on the way, “Esme, ten cuidado con lo que dices, tú misma dijiste que Nick estaba aprendiendo español rápidamente!”

“You know,” Nick whispered, suddenly appearing at Charlie’s side beside the open fridge, using the door to shield them from Esme’s direct view as he wrapped his arms around Charlie and nuzzled into his neck, “whispering doesn’t make it harder to understand. I am learning Spanish quickly, es verdad!”

“Bloody hell!” Charlie exclaimed, and gave him a playful shove as he shut the fridge door. “Stop eavesdropping while we’re discussing you in another language! It’s rude!”

“I’m rude? So you were talking about me?” Nick was grinning at Charlie as Esme observed the two of them.

“Hmm, hmmm,” Esme hummed contemplatively, smiling at Nick and Charlie. “Sí, sé de lo que estoy hablando. Apuesto a que volverá el año que viene y todos los años venideros, mi Charlie.”

* ゜* ゜*

An hour later, they had made the icing and some raspberry coulis, and it was all sitting in little bowls in the fridge ready to assemble and eat later, and they’d biked to a beautiful river in a nearby town, overlaid with stone archways. Nick must have asked Olly for a tip about somewhere nice to go locally. This was somewhere even Nick Nelson would struggle to discover on Google.

“Well that was…quite an eventful afternoon,” Charlie said as they settled in a shallow part of the water, the crystal stream lapping gently at their legs. It was, as usual, a swelteringly hot day.

“Hmm,” Nick nodded. “Yep, that’s one word for it.”

“You’re not what I expected you to be in bed,” Charlie admitted.

“No?” Charlie wished Nick wasn’t wearing sunglasses, but then, Nick was probably thinking the same thing about him.

“No. You’re a bit of a simp normally. But earlier you were so…bossy. Direct. I loved the swearing too, by the way.”

“God, I’m so embarrassing,” Nick buried his head in his hands. “I really don’t think I’m usually like that. I think I was all a bit…pent up. Bit frustrated.”

“It’s the heat,” Charlie imitated pompous Professor Richards from that loathsome dinner. “It addles the brain.”

Nick laughed and laughed. 

“You are so funny, Charlie Spring. I like everything about you,” Nick said, in that easy-going, affectionate way that seemed to come so naturally to him.

“I like everything about you too," Charlie loved the feeling of saying back to Nick. "I particularly like what you’ve been hiding in between your legs.”

Nick snorted. “Don’t know how well I’ve been hiding it,” he crossed his legs. “I feel like I’ve had a constant boner since living in this house.”

“Well, I don’t know how you walk around with that thing, truly.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Shut up!” Charlie flicked some water at Nick’s face, and he splashed Charlie back.

“Speaking of…all that, though,” Nick’s voice turned serious. “I know I was saying some pretty…intense things, like, in the heat of the moment. I didn’t mean to presume that we’d like, you know, go the whole…the whole way, you know. And if we did do it, that I’d be the one…god, you know what I mean.”

“Nick,” Charlie could sense Nick wanted him to take charge of this conversation, so he gladly stepped in. “You can say anal. You can say topping. It’s fine. It’s a totally normal and healthy conversation to have when you’re talking about sex. And…I was…I was so excited you said it. I wasn’t sure if it was something you wanted to do, or had even been thinking about.”

“I mean, I haven’t actually done that, like, that part of it all before,” Nick was fiddling with a stick he’d found in the water. “But I do want to. With you. If you want to do it with me.”

“Yes,” Charlie said emphatically. “I definitely, definitely want to do that with you. And the way you suggested it is, well, that’s how I’d like to do it with you too. At first.”

“Okay,” Nick lowered his head and blushed, tapping the water with his fingertips.

“Don’t go all bashful on me now,” Charlie nudged Nick’s leg with his foot.

“Sorry! It’s just, argh, it’s hard to get the image out of my head now,” Nick’s head was still lowered, but he glanced up to grin at Charlie, and Charlie felt his pulse quicken.

“Try and think about something else,” Charlie said, though he was currently being very unsuccessful at taking his own advice. 

“You’re all I think about, Charlie,” Nick replied simply.

Chapter Text

The river sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine. They’d been sitting in the water chatting for around an hour, when Charlie felt Nick hesitate in finding the words for their next topic of conversation.

“Char, I did have something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” Nick shuffled his position so he was sitting closer to Charlie, facing him, their hips almost touching, their legs spread out in front of them.

Charlie wondered if Nick knew the effect it had on him each time he called him ‘Char.’ It made his heart do backflips and aerated his bloodstream.

“The other night,” Nick continued, hovering his hand as though he wanted to touch Charlie but wasn’t sure where to, or if to. “You said something, and like, you don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to…But I really — I really care about you, and I’d like to know more, if you’re comfortable telling me.”

Charlie knew what Nick was about to bring up, and tried to ignore a small, creeping dread in himself. 

He took a deep breath. He had no reason not to trust Nick, not to be open with him. Nick wouldn’t judge him. He was certain of it.

“You said, none of the boys you’ve ever liked have been nice to you,” Nick slid his sunglasses onto his head, as though wishing for Charlie to see the sincerity in his eyes.

Charlie mimicked Nick’s action and put his sunglasses on top of his head too.

“I…yeah.” Charlie rubbed the back of his head and steeled his resolve. He’d so rarely told people this story from the beginning. He looked Nick in the eye, and was instantly reassured by his open expression, his careful attention. “Um, yeah, I do want to tell you about it. There’s sort of a lot of it, though.”

“I’m listening,” Nick rubbed Charlie’s thigh. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Charlie started at the beginning. He started with being outed at fourteen, the horrific, relentless bullying, the isolation, the self-harm, the development of his eating disorder. How it took him months to confide in Tori, then to Isaac and Sahar, who’d insisted he tell Mr. Ajayi, who was able to intervene and get Charlie some help, before some Year Twelves finally put a stop to the worst of it. He told Nick about how the damage had already been done, and how he spent years recovering from the trauma of that damaging year. He told Nick about Geoff. He told Nick how he was much, much better, but still had bad days.

He told him about the joy and relief of leaving school and beginning at Oxford, where he found satisfaction and happiness in his studies, found family in the LGBTQ+ society, and enjoyed the chance to explore his sexuality, which never amounted to anything beyond an awkward date or two, and clumsy, sometimes downright embarrassing sex in random dormitory rooms.

“And apart from all that, when I was sixteen, Dad started doing the internships here,” Charlie continued. “The first student we had was Anjali, a Latin major, and she was great — studious, friendly. Then the following year we had…Ben,” Charlie’s throat kind of closed over as he spoke the name aloud, and his eyes immediately shifted downwards to the water, where he looked very intently at a round, grey pebble. “And Ben was…yeah, he was…Ben was…”

“It’s okay Charlie, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” Nick immediately sensed the shift in Charlie’s demeanour, and gently stroked his cheek, and Charlie gratefully leaned into his hand. Nick had already been holding and caressing Charlie’s hand in both of his, ever since Charlie had mentioned the cutting.

“It’s okay, honestly,” Charlie replied. “It’s just hard to find the right words. I guess he was…Ben was, well. He was a nasty, manipulative person. I was seventeen. He was nearly twenty-one. I was just so giddy that he even noticed me, that it took me weeks to realise that what was happening between us was actually a really fucked up power dynamic. He was older and more experienced, and took advantage of the fact I had an obvious crush on him. He insisted we keep everything a secret, like, not just the physical stuff, but everything to do with us. He wouldn’t even speak to me or look at me in front of other people. The sex was…pretty…one-sided, is how I would put it? Oh, don’t worry,” Charlie hastened to reassure Nick when he saw Nick’s face flare up in alarm, “I never did anything I didn’t want to do, I promise. I was really, really into him for those first few weeks. I actually, and it’s kind of pathetic, but I thought he was my boyfriend.” 

Charlie felt his heartrate kick up at the mention of the word 'boyfriend' to Nick.

“About a month or so into it, he said something properly belittling about me in front of some of the neighbours, while I was there, and Tori told him off, and he snapped back at her and stormed into the house — he hated being called out on his shit — and it was like, finally, I got some outside perspective on what he was really like. It was a real penny drop moment. I stopped meeting him at our usual times. I moved my stuff into Olly’s room. After a day or two, he started texting me, with, like, increasing urgency, he was getting pissed off with me, and I just broke down, and realised how twisted everything that had happened between us was. So I told Tori. And she came with me while I told Dad. He was furious. Not at me, but at Ben. He was really good to me actually, and said loads of times that none of it was my fault. I love him for that, to this day. It would have been pretty easy for him to blame me or implicate me. But he could see Ben had abused the trust our family had placed in him, and had behaved totally in the wrong. He also kept Mum off my back about it all.”

It was at this point Charlie, to his disbelief, saw Nick had grown pale, and his lovely face was all crinkly, frowning in anger, his caramel-coloured eyes creased with two tiny pinpoints of tears in their corners. Charlie gripped Nick’s hands back with urgency, trying to transmit a silent message — I’m okay now, sweet boy. Don’t be sad. You’ve coloured my life like you can’t possibly imagine. So much of this time in my past has turned to a foggy grey haze, such that I'm starting to forget it, in just a few weeks, all because of you.

“So yeah, Dad phoned Ben’s parents and told them he was terminating the internship, and that they were to send Ben money for a plane ticket home,” Charlie continued. “He made Ben stay in a hotel that night, and he was on his way back to England the next day. Ben’s parents begged Dad not to tell Ben’s university, so he didn’t, and Dad agreed to give him the credits for the whole internship on the condition he never contact me again. And that was that. I’ve not heard from him since, and hopefully I never do again.”

Nick reached out and wrapped his arms around Charlie, pulling him close for the warmest, most heavenly hug Charlie had ever received in his life. Nick nuzzled his face into Charlie’s neck, and Charlie felt his fringe flop onto his shoulder, and tickle his skin.

“Holy shit…Charlie,” Nick said softly. “Sweetheart. I don’t…God, I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say. I wish I knew what to say. I can’t find the words.”

“You don’t have to know what to say,” Charlie’s heart surged with an unfamiliar feeling of wishing to protect Nick from all evil in the world, and he suspected Nick was feeling the same about him at this moment. “There’s no guidebook for conversations like this. Just you being here, and listening, and everything lovely you’ve done for me and said to me since you arrived, and knowing that you like me…trust me, Nick. You’ve done so much for me that you don’t even realise.”

Nick kissed him and kissed him. “I’m glad, baby. There’s so many lovely things I still want to do for you and say to you.”

“You’re the best,” Charlie grinned at him. 

“And then? Elle?”

Charlie suspected Nick was trying to distract him.

“Yeah, exactly. So then the next year, there was Elle, of course. And you know all about her. So Dad redeemed himself by choosing her. Then last year there was Tomás, who I was desperately in love with. But he was as straight as an arrow, so I just spent a lot of last summer daydreaming and wanking. Then there’s you. So again, another summer of daydreaming and wanking.”

“You don’t have to wank alone.” Nick said this with such grave seriousness, as though they were two soldiers about to go over the top of the trenches.

Charlie burst out laughing. “That is extremely comforting, thank you.” Then he cleared his throat. “So, um, is it okay if we talk about something else now? Sorry, I’d just prefer we don’t dwell on any of the Ben stuff.”

“Of course, darling,” Nick said in his easy going, kind manner, because Nick was easy going and kind about everything. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, you’ve heard my sorry history. Now let’s hear yours. Come on. Have you had girlfriends, boyfriends?”

“I’ve had two girlfriends. I’ve done stuff with boys, like, physically, and been on a few dates during the last year or two with boys, but I haven’t had a boyfriend.”

Do you want one? 

Charlie wished he was brave enough to ask this. 

But something held him back. 

Maybe because, like all things, the summer would end.

“Spill, Nelson,” Charlie insisted, pushing that thought out of his mind.

“So my first girlfriend was Maya,” Nick said, unaware of Charlie’s present struggle. “We were fifteen. She went to Higgs. She was nice, but we were so young. We didn’t really do anything, like, you know. I was a pretty late bloomer with all that kind of stuff. I didn’t even really think of her sexually, if that makes sense? She was in my friend group, and on the weekends we’d go to the movies, and kiss sometimes, and text each other shit memes. I ended up breaking it off with her before I went on that summer camp I mentioned. I couldn’t be bothered to pretend to miss her for eight weeks while I was gone.”

Charlie giggled. “I miss being a fifteen year old drama queen sometimes.”

“Exactly,” Nick laughed. “Then I didn’t have my next girlfriend until I was, like, eighteen, nineteen maybe? Yeah, first year uni. Her name was Lauren. We were together around, god, almost a year? Like ten or so months? Obviously it didn’t make that amazing an impression on me, I don’t even remember. So yeah, even though we were together a decent amount of time, frankly, we barely saw one another, maybe twice a week. She was the worst at texting back. In fact, the most interesting thing about that relationship is the reason she broke up with me.”

“Oh, this’ll be good. Go on, then.”

“So…Get this, she told me that she’d had her doubts about us from the start, because our star signs were incompatible.”

Charlie snorted. “Oh, get fucked upside down and back to front!”

“Charlie!” Nick giggled. “But I know right! And, like a few days before she broke up with me, she made me take this quiz, and got annoyed at me because she said we had different ‘love languages.’ She said, hers were words of affirmation and receiving gifts, and mine were physical touch and quality time, and we’d never cross over well enough to be a long-term thing.”

“God, hers are literally the two worst ones to have. What a combo.”

“One hundred per cent, that's exactly what I thought.”

“Mine are the same, you know. Same as yours, I mean. Touch and quality time,” Charlie started stroking Nick’s bicep and leaned in to kiss his neck.

“Hmmm…” Nick gripped Charlie’s arm as Charlie kissed him. “That’s good to know.”

“Sorry, I’m distracting you. Keep going.”

Nick resumed stroking Charlie’s fingers and hands like they were something precious. “Yeah, so Lauren said I was too intense. She just wanted to have someone to go to parties with and maybe like a Friday Nandos date. She had loads of friends who she was out with, like, constantly, and she was trying to set up a business in her dad’s shed doing, I dunno, eyebrows and eyelashes and stuff. She was always busy. She just…” Nick shrugged. “She just didn’t want to hang out with me. I don’t care now, obviously, but at the time, it was pretty hurtful. I remember crying to Mum about it. Lauren, like, towards the end, she couldn’t hide how bored she looked when I suggested just doing simple things together like watching a movie or baking something or going for a walk. So yeah, that was that. Good riddance!”

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t believe anybody wouldn’t want to be with you.”

* ゜* ゜*

By the time they returned to the house, around seven in the evening, Nick and Charlie kicked their bikes out from underneath them and heard them fall to the shed floor with a thump and a rattle of the bells. Then they sprinted upstairs, holding hands as they reached the greater privacy of the upstairs hallway, and Charlie pulled Nick into the bathroom with him, reached in to turn the shower taps on, and started undressing him, wordlessly, dropping all Nick’s clothes off piece by piece, as Nick lifted his arms first and then stepped out of his shorts as Charlie’s hands made their silent demands of him.

Nick smiled as Charlie flitted his eyes over him from head to toe, lingering for a particularly long time about halfway down.

“Oh my god, Nick…you’re just…you’re so beautiful!” Charlie spoke with a warmth in his voice he wasn’t entirely aware he was capable of until that moment. 

The vision of Nick completely naked in front of him, so at ease, his dick hard, his skin flushed from the sun and the sweat of their bike ride, his eyes glowing from the soul-baring feeling the moment was giving to both of them, moved Charlie to such a depth of emotion that he felt a the beginning of a tiny sob arrest in his chest. He choked it back down, focusing on the overwhelming contentment he felt at having Nick in his most personal, most vulnerable form, giving of himself to Charlie in this way. 

Nick, Charlie could plainly see, was similarly moved by the tenderness of his words and voice, and dipped his eyes down in pleasure, a sort of golden haze effusing around his body, as though he were an angel. Nick reached out for Charlie’s waist, pulled him closer, and kissed him like he’d been kissing him for years instead of days. 

Charlie, while not as confident, was just as eager to share himself with Nick. He waited until Nick was in the shower before he quickly wriggled out of his own clothes and jumped in too. Charlie pressed himself close to Nick, feeling more wanted and safer than he had ever felt before, as the bathroom steamed up around them, and Nick held him, as they kissed under the rushing water, their hands (they seemed to have at least a dozen hands between them) exploring everywhere, running over pecs, squeezing arses, pulling on hard cocks, kissing wetly, messily.

Charlie cradled Nick’s head, running his fingers through Nick’s hair, which turned almost metallic in colour when it was wet, as Nick leaned down and kissed the inside of Charlie’s upper arm, where his scars sat like cross stitches on his skin.

“Do you hate them?” Charlie asked quietly, almost unheard over the rush of the running water. 

He knew with absolute certainty that Nick did not hate them. 

But he needed to hear it all the same.

“No baby, I don’t hate them,” Nick whispered, shivering as he raised his head back up from his kisses and rubbed Charlie’s cheeks with his big hands, gazing into his eyes. “I wish you didn’t have them, for your sake. I wish I’d met you when I was younger. I wish I could have protected you. But I don’t hate them. They’re a part of you, and I like every single part of you.”

With that, Nick dipped his head back down and kissed the scars on Charlie’s other arm, almost gently sucking on the skin there, like he was trying to heal a wound. Charlie felt like his knees were about to give way, and he held on to Nick’s shoulders desperately, as Nick took most of his weight with just one arm.

They dried themselves off quickly. Charlie sat on the edge of the bed. Nick picked up what Charlie was putting down and dropped to his knees in front of him.

“I can’t believe I get to do this for you,” Nick murmured, as he started kissing and sucking the inside of Charlie’s thighs, creating dark marks which Charlie had so longed for him to leave.

“Oh, stop it,” Charlie puffed, embarrassed in the most blissful kind of way, although what he really meant, and what he really wished he was bold enough to say was:

Don’t stop, Nick. You’ll kill me if you stop.

“I mean it,” Nick replied forcefully, pressing his hands into Charlie’s thighs for emphasis, and Charlie got instant chills, his skin erupting in goosebumps; he swore Nick read his mind sometimes, “and I’ll keep on saying it until you believe me. I’m so into you, Charlie.”

“Then get on with it,” Charlie couldn’t help but say, he really did feel close to death with need, and didn’t know how much longer he could exist without knowing how Nick’s pouty lips felt sucking tightly around him.

“Now who’s the gentleman,” smiled Nick, as he took Charlie in his mouth. For the first few minutes, Charlie held his breath, with his head thrown back, and didn’t dare look down as Nick sucked his cock expertly. Nick was going so slowly, using his tongue deliberately, making small groans of pleasure every now and again, really taking his time with Charlie, in a way Charlie could barely comprehend, as though Nick wanted to kneel down there as long as possible.

Nick pulled off Charlie for a moment and ran his hands up and down Charlie’s dick as he spoke. “Now I know you like being praised, but I can’t talk to you while I’m busy down here,” he said sweetly, and Charlie looked down at him, and Nick was blinking up at him like such an innocent thing, as though he wasn’t presently torturing Charlie to within an inch of his life. “So you’ll have to wait until later to hear me tell you how much I am loving this, how I’ve wanted to get on my knees for you for weeks, baby.”

“Oh my god, Nick, I’m dying,” Charlie pleaded.

“Just one request from me. Don’t hold back for me, darling. Let me hear your pretty sounds.” Nick had the audacity to be smiling, and it would have pissed Charlie off if he wasn’t so inconceivably high on the feeling of Nick giving him the best blow job of his life.

Charlie felt a ripples tear through his body as he exhaled. “If you want to hear me then you'd better hurry the f— oh — ”

Nick interrupted Charlie’s demand by wrapping his mouth around Charlie again, and Charlie was silenced into shock, as Nick pushed Charlie’s hips up with his strong hands, and started going as fast as he had been slow before, and the sensation of his slick, wet mouth going at this speed, brought forth from Charlie a series of the most obscene moans and uncontrollable whimpers for the next minute or two, as he raked his fingers through Nick's silky hair, then muttered to Nick that he was going to come, and Nick swallowed it all down.

While Charlie floated back into his own body, Nick crawled up on the bed beside him and pressed his body against Charlie’s. 

After a moment, Charlie turned to him and said, “um, wow. Okay, you are suspiciously good at that. I think you underplayed your level of experience. Here I was thinking I was deflowering a gay sex virgin.”

“Pffft, you’re ridiculous,” said Nick, cuddling Charlie close. “I told you I’d done stuff with boys.”

“I thought you meant, like, a few quick handies behind the storage shed at school. I didn’t realise you were a certified member of the Mensa International Cocksucking Guild.”

Charlie stood up and put his board shorts back on, and stared at Nick, who was propping himself up by the elbow, chewing his lower lip as he looked up at Charlie.

“Cat got your tongue, Nick?” Charlie teased; Nick’s erection looked painful even to him.

“Don’t make me beg, Charlie,” Nick said in a low voice.

Charlie sucked in his breath. “Oh, I would like to hear that some time. But I won’t make you beg right now. Not when you’ve been so sweet to me. Sit up, baby.” 

Charlie settled on the floor and parted Nick’s knees, and even though he’d just come himself, the mere thought of what he was about to do – getting his head in between those legs, which had haunted him since first day he saw Nick stride past in his board shorts on the way to the pool  — made his dick firm up again.

Charlie got started on Nick, and was almost instantly rewarded with a deluge of Nick’s praise.

“You’re so fucking pretty like this,” Nick groaned, barely able to get the words out as he stared down at Charlie.

Charlie keened in response. He fluttered his eyes shut with contentment, and dragged his hand down towards the back of Nick’s thigh to take the rest of him. 

Over the next few minutes, Nick continued babbling a succession of praise. “You feel un… unbelievable...such a pretty mouth, baby...you’re such a good, sweet boy...you look incredible on your knees for me, I knew you would look this good doing this.”

Charlie had never been spoken to like this before, and it was doing unthinkable things to his mind, his dick, and — he realised with a happiness that felt like a balloon was about to burst deep inside himself — his heart.

He pulled off Nick and gazed up at him with a swell of emotion he could only identify as utter devotion. 

“You can use me,” Charlie said. 

He felt Nick’s hand reflexively move to the back of his head.

“Oh…Oh my god, baby,” Nick stammered, and pressed his hands against Charlie’s scalp, tipping his head back gently as Charlie’s mouth fell open. “You’re a dream, holy shit. Y–you shouldn’t say things like that to me. I might not be able to control myself.”

“Fuck controlling yourself, Nick,” Charlie ran his hand up and down Nick’s cock as he shuddered underneath Charlie’s touch. “I want this so much it's made me borderline crazy. I’ve never wanted anybody the way I want you.”

And with that, Charlie closed his eyes and surrendered to a pleasure unlike anything he’d ever experienced. 

* ゜* ゜*

Later, when Charlie thought he and Nick were both asleep, he felt the dream-like ooze of Nick’s voice, like someone was pouring honey on him, a voice that met him in the halfway realm between wake and sleep.

“Hmmm…Chaaaarlie.”

“M’yeah?”

“I want to be in your bed every night from now on.” Charlie felt Nick’s breath heating his ear.

“S’too hot for that.”

“Charlie.”

“I’m joking darling. I want that too.”

“Yay.” Nick pressed some lazy kisses into the back of Charlie’s neck and tightened his grip around Charlie’s chest.

Charlie’s eyes snapped open as though he hadn’t just been on the precipice of sleep. “That way you can fuck me whenever you want.”

That was all it took for them to both be wide awake again.

* ゜* ゜*

Three days later, it was time for their trip to Granada, which they had organised earlier in the week, and included Charlie, Nick, Elle, Imogen, Natalia and Jose. They had booked a cheap hostel in the city centre, and had two main plans: clubbing tonight, and underground flamenco bar tomorrow.

They caught the bus in, and Charlie made sure to sit next to Elle, as he felt a bit guilty about neglecting her the past few days. She insisted she didn’t mind, and showed Charlie photos of her series of artworks she was working on at the villa, and Charlie was endlessly grateful for her understanding and her friendship.

They had an early dinner when they arrived, and then headed up to the hotel room to get ready for the evening. Natalia had made pot brownies, which tasted pretty foul, but that everyone ate anyway as they got ready, drinking in the shared dormitory room, and by ten o’clock, everyone was already pretty drunk. Imogen and Natalia were singing Olivia Rodrigo songs very badly and very loudly, Charlie and Jose were trying (and failing) to make a Renegade TikTok video, and Elle was painting Nick’s nails.

“Nick, you gonna dance flamenco again tonight, hermano?” Jose poked Nick in the ribs, beaming. “You are the shittiest dancer in the whole world, my friend. I hope you treat us again tonight with more of your shit moves.”

“Leave him alone, Jose, you’re such a bully,” Charlie shouted as he came out of the bathroom. He had gotten changed into a loose-fitting button down crop top, with a sunburst effect, starting yellow in the centre and fading out into peach, and a pair of very tight white jeans. 

“Yeah Jose, I might not know how to dance but if we ever play rugby I will kick your…” Nick didn’t finish his sentence because he had lifted his eyes off his hands, which he had been keeping still so Elle could finish painting them, and saw Charlie, and Charlie was gratified to watch Nick lose not only his train of thought, but his breath as well, and drink Charlie in with his eyes.

“How does he look, Nick?” Imogen exclaimed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

“He looks…so good,” Nick answered her, before bounding up to Charlie and picking him up. “You look so good!” 

“Nick, your nails aren’t dry!” Elle chastised him.

Nick put Charlie down and held Charlie's face with both hands and kissed him in front of everyone.

“Wow, imagine not being single,” Imogen muttered to herself, facepalming.

“Get a room!” Jose jeered, grinning.

“This is their room, estúpido,” Natalia reminded him, also grinning. 

When Nick emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, Charlie almost swooned. Nick was dressed head to toe in black, which Charlie never would have expected in a million years, in a tight black knitted collared shirt with cropped sleeves and soft black trousers which Charlie wished to rip off with his teeth, he looked like James fucking Dean only even hotter and real, and holy shit, walking towards Charlie, smiling at him, and drawing Charlie close to him by the waist, and if the heavens had deigned to call up Elle, Imogen, Natalia and Jose to the pearly gates at that moment, Charlie would have applauded, because it would have meant he could be alone with this man — his man (?)

* ゜* ゜*

The nightclub was the same as all Spanish nightclubs — pulsating, sweaty, psychotically loud. And so, so much fun. They all danced until their feet were numb. They started spilling drinks on each other and didn't even notice. Jose and Nick had to wrench Imogen off the bar after she climbed up and tried to get everyone to start the macarena with her. 

While Nick was helping Imogen, a guy with a long brown hair and and an elvish smile sidled up against Charlie.

“Hola amor, ¿quieres bailar conmigo?” The man shouted to be heard above the noise, and got way too close to Charlie's face in the process.

“Sorry, I don't speak Spanish!” Charlie shouted back at him, taking a step back.

“Well then, how fortunate for you that my English is 'awesome,' no?” He made quotation marks and spoke with an American accent on 'awesome.' “So, now our mouths are speaking the same language, why don't we invite our tongues along for the party?”

Charlie almost threw up. He had to take another step back as the man attempted to re-close the gap between them.

“Absolutely not,” Charlie began, before the man interrupted him, saying,

“You like vodka, yes? I buy you one. Be right back, little one,” he blew Charlie a kiss and went towards the bar.

“Was that guy hassling you?” Nick was suddenly at Charlie's side, and he pushed his shoulders back and stood up a little bit taller, totally subconsciously, and stepped closer to Charlie.

“A bit. He’s harmless.”

“Is he going to come back?”

“Um, yeah, I think so. Maybe.”

“Okay, well, if he does, want me to pretend to be your boyfriend so he’ll leave you alone?” Nick put his arm around Charlie’s waist and leant his head down to start kissing Charlie’s cheek and beside his eye.

Charlie shivered. Emboldened by the alcohol, he tried not to be afraid when he looped his arms around Nick’s neck and said clearly:

“I don’t want you to pretend, Nick.”

Shock and happiness splashed over Nick’s face, as he picked up Charlie by the waist and hoisted him up.

“Oh my god, do you really mean it?” Nick looked up at Charlie adoringly, as a cascade of rainbow-coloured lights rolled over their intertwined figures. “I don’t want to pretend either! Char! Does this mean we’re boyfriends?!”

“Um, yes!”

Chapter Text

Nick and Charlie spent the next eight weeks suspended in a peculiar, beautiful air of unreality, that special poetic languor of a long summer holiday. The kind of long summer that feels lost and irretrievable to older people — a summer that seems to only ever belong to the young, and is perhaps given to us only once.

That familiar pressure of wanting to make every moment count, but also keen to while away the hours, taking a chance on being freed from the constraints of everyday life. Surrendering to a heat that sapped away at one’s energy, whilst also craving the feeling of the sun marinating one’s skin. Existing halfway between forgetting the daily grind of life in Oxford, or in Leeds, or at work, or studying, but also carrying a keen awareness that the days in paradise were numbered. 

And then, without much warning at all, Nick and Charlie were on the wrong end of halfway through the summer, and the days they had left in Spain were suddenly far fewer than the days since they’d arrived.

And amongst the dinner drudgery and the swimming, the basketball and the reading and the napping and the movies, the hot cinnamon churros and the fresh, tart orange juice, the salt cod and the gazpacho, the fishing and the bike riding, the drumming and the running — every day, almost always twice or sometimes even three times a day — Nick and Charlie shared a type of lovemaking that ran circles around time.

The first time they went ‘the whole way,’ as Nick had put it when they had first broached the topic, was around a fortnight after they’d officially become boyfriends.

Charlie had been sensing Nick’s increasing eagerness and curiosity — Nick ventured further, physically, with Charlie, with each passing day, testing his boundaries with a finger inserted here and there, twice asking Charlie to do the same back to him, and a fucktonne of filthy confessions about what he eventually wanted to do to Charlie that burst forth during their sex together — but Charlie knew Nick was, at the core of it all, feeling scared of the next step. 

In tandem with not pressuring Nick in any way, and taking all of Nick’s cues, Charlie also made it abundantly clear in the way he moved for Nick and the way he encouraged Nick to touch him, that he was extremely willing to cross that particular threshold whenever Nick was. 

The thing is, Charlie was gradually perishing at the thought of never having been that close to Nick. 

Wanting to be better acquainted with Nick’s outrageous physique was only part of the temptation to move things along. It was more so that Nick had mastered speaking some language previously unknown to Charlie — a language of praise — words Nick moaned while Charlie was going down on him, or sometimes even just when they were doing something as simple as kissing — a language that lit sticks of dynamite in Charlie’s brain. Nick spoke words that infiltrated Charlie’s very dreams. They haunted Charlie in the rare hours he was separated from Nick. Charlie soon became addicted to it. He was addicted to so many things about Nick — his laugh, his smile, his voice, his kindness, his perspectives, his earnesty, his artlessness.

To put it bluntly, Charlie wanted to hear what Nick would say to him when he was filling Charlie up with his dick. 

But quite separate from all of that — the simple fact of the matter was, Charlie Spring was falling madly in love with Nick Nelson. And he wanted their bodies to be as close together as Charlie felt his heart was interlocking with Nick’s.

It all happened rather unceremoniously, in the end. They were fooling around, as they usually did, in mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, when Nick had completed his work with Julio, and the house was generally empty — Olly playing water polo with his friends, Julio swimming or napping by the pool or having a late lunch in town with his friends and  cousins, and before Esme arrived for the evening. Elle had returned home to Edinburgh a few days prior, after her planned one month stay ended; she had her job to get back to, and her Tao, of course.

So Nick and Charlie were alone in the big house, and things were starting to boil over, as a strong gusty breeze, signalling an encroaching afternoon storm, billowed the thin curtain to the end of the bed, tickling Charlie’s feet, but he couldn’t move much, as he was trapped under Nick, as Nick fingered him, further in, and with more fingers, than he had ever used previously.

“Charlie, baby, I want to do it. If you want to. I want to be inside you. Properly,” Nick said thickly into Charlie’s ear, a place where, Charlie had learned of late, he was abnormally sensitive.

“Oh my god, yes, yes, let’s do it,” Charlie responded, probably way too keenly, but he didn’t care. One more minute of not knowing what it felt like to have Nick’s cock in him was one minute too long, by Charlie’s estimation. 

“You’re sure this is what you want?” Nick asked, as though he was asking Charlie if he wanted a large or small box of popcorn at the cinema, instead of presently having three fingers up Charlie’s arse with both their cocks rubbing together and dripping with precum.

Charlie glowered with something that bordered on annoyance. Not gracing Nick with a response — he didn’t feel he could muster up an adequate amount of tenderness when he was in this much need — he instead scrambled to get the lube from the bedside table, and started coating Nick with it.

Nick carefully removed his fingers from Charlie, who gasped at the loss.

“Charlie,” Nick looked down at Charlie’s hands working the lube up and down his cock, letting out a smile at Charlie’s eagerness, like he couldn’t quite believe what was about to happen.

“Don’t laugh at me Nick,” Charlie looked him right in the eye, with a small smile of his own. 

“I’m not laughing at you, baby,” Nick said in a reassuring tone, settling to lie down next to Charlie. He bit his lip. “I’m just nervous.”

Charlie took a deep breath. He could do this next part, for Nick’s sake. He could pretend he wasn’t literally gagging for it, and pause to help Nick through this. He could do that for Nick, who was unutterably sweet, patient, and giving.

Charlie stroked Nick’s cheeks and kissed him softly, on his eyes, on his mouth. “You have nothing to be nervous about, darling. I trust you, and you can trust me. We’re boyfriends,” Charlie felt the word catch in his Adam’s apple. He could still hardly say it aloud without feeling overcome with emotion.

Charlie cleared his throat. “You can do it,” he said to Nick. “You’re going to be great.” 

Christ, he thought. I sound like a bloody football coach. 

“Besides,” Charlie smirked. “I’m willing to bet a substantial amount of money that you’re going to love having your dick up me.”

Charlie could see Nick falter. “Baby, of course I’m going to love it, I love everything we do together, I just…”

“And don’t you hesitate either,” Charlie interrupted, speaking sternly, feeling Nick might respond well to some direction at this point. “Don’t get all sappy on me, Nicholas. Save that for later. You’re not going to hurt me. You won’t break me. In fact, you had better fuck me like you mean it, or I’ll assume that you don’t.”

That did it. Charlie watched with gratification as Nick’s eyes became blanketed in darkness and close halfway, his pretty pink mouth pursing with determination. It appeared, after that clear instruction, Nick needed no further encouragement. 

“Oh, what the fuck,” Nick gasped, almost in a state of shock, and dove back down to suck Charlie’s neck, stroking Charlie’s dick. “Where in the actual fuck did I find you? I’m so lucky. You’re going to be so good for me, aren’t you, honey? I know you’re going to take it so well.”

There we go, thought Charlie, as he felt waves of rapture lash through his body at the praise.

“Yes, yes,” Charlie chanted, and turned himself over on his stomach. 

Charlie felt Nick take his cock in his hand, line himself up, and then press inside him, with care, slowly, as Charlie breathed through the burn to bear backwards, to coax Nick further into him. After a minute or so, they were both covered in a sheen of sweat, their nerve endings numb with frost, and on fire.

“So pretty, my pretty baby, you’re so fucking gorgeous,” Nick babbled into Charlie’s neck, as Charlie whimpered and moaned violently beneath him. Nick started moving and Charlie heard noises come from Nick’s mouth he’d never heard before.

“Ah, fuck, oh my god, Jesus, Charlie,” Nick muttered as he thrust in and out. 

“Fucking hell Nick, god that feels good, holy fuck,” Charlie panted, borderline delirious, as Nick covered his hand with his, intertwining their fingers.

“You’re such a good boy, taking my dick like this. You’re so fucking sweet,” groaned Nick, as Charlie whined, his mouth open and half-muffled by the mattress. The old bed groaned and creaked, protesting underneath their weight as they fucked it against the wall.

After a few minutes, Nick wrapped his arms around Charlie, and pulled him up to his chest. Charlie turned his head back and upwards so they could kiss, wet and messy and loud, then Charlie rolled his hips. Both of them gasped and were almost out of breath as Nick made a fist around Charlie’s dick, and stroked him as they moved together. After a moment, Nick lay down on top of Charlie’s back.

“So special, you’re so special to me. You feel so fucking good baby. Made to take my dick. So tight, so warm...you perfect angel, you’re so good at this,” Nick moaned right into Charlie’s ear, his voice dark and low with desire. Charlie was gasping noisily, gulping in air, as his vital organs went into shutdown one by one from Nick’s words. And the sounds — those sounds Nick was making vibrated right through his chest and onto Charlie’s spine and onwards into the small valves of Charlie’s heart.

Charlie had the distinct feeling of arriving somewhere very dear, of having wanted this forever. Being embraced by his boyfriend, their bodies joined more intimately than any two bodies could possibly be — Nick inside him, his firm, muscular chest flat and level along Charlie’s back, squeezing Charlie around the shoulders, licking into his ear, whispering things that were at once filthy and full of endearment — all of this made Charlie feel like he had come home. Like he had discovered where he had been hiding all his life, bursting forth a realisation that a life without this, without Nick, was no life at all.

“Don’t stop, Nick, you’ll kill me if you stop,” Charlie blurted out the words he’d been longing to say to Nick for weeks now, bringing his hidden fantasy full circle. They were the words he’d first wanted to say to Nick the very first time Nick had touched him, massaging his shoulder by the lake on his third day at the villa, words that were so raw and so personal and so exposing that he never believed he’d ever share with another, and a moment later, he said them again, and once again after that, not caring how needy he sounded, just surrendering to his pleasure.

“I won’t stop, baby,” Nick replied, his voice straining with sincerity.

“Don’t stop, Nick,” Charlie repeated desperately.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you, sweetness. I won’t stop,” Nick muttered in response to Charlie’s pleas.

Nick asked Charlie to turn over so he could look at him as they both came. Their collapse was synchronous, shattering and absolute.

It took them several minutes to rebuild a picture of reality around themselves. They were drenched in sweat from the relentless Spanish heat. Nick helped Charlie clean up and they took a deliciously cold shower together, and got back into bed as the afternoon storm plunged the room in unexpected darkness, as the thick leaves of the orange grove rustled and shook in the wet wind.

Nick and Charlie lay on the pillows and held each other’s waists, gazing into each other’s eyes. They had already spoken in the shower. Said how incredible it was. Said it was the best sex of either for their lives, by a mile. Said they couldn’t wait to do it again. Laughed at why it had taken them so long. Teased at what they’d said in the moment. 

But now, lying in bed, they stared softly at one another in silent contemplation. Charlie had the impression they might soon fall asleep, and he was therefore surprised by the low, thunderous rumble of Nick’s voice and the piercing attention of Nick’s eyes scanning every tiny detail of his face.

“Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine,” Nick whispered.

Charlie wasn’t immediately aware of what Nick meant. It took him half a second to understand. Then his features softened as it dawned on him.

“Charlie,” he reached out to Nick and stroked him on the cheek with one finger. Then he poked Nick’s chest, smiling a little from the giddiness of the moment. “Charlie,” he repeated. 

“Nick,” Nick replied, in a breathy exhale, tugging on Charlie’s curls, tipping his head back slightly, which was a thing they did now, and Charlie’s mouth fell open reflexively, and after a moment he closed it back into a smile.

“Charlie?” Charlie asked. 

“Hmm. Yeah, Nick?” Nick responded. 

They were both smiling as though drugged. 

“I’ve never felt so close to someone,” Charlie admitted, as a rapid wildfire singed his heart. 

“Neither have I,” Nick shivered, and pulled Charlie closer to him. “I never thought this would happen to me.”

“Me neither.”

* ゜* ゜*

A week later, one Tuesday, Nick and Charlie had returned from their morning run, and Nick had gone downstairs after a flurry of quick kisses, to begin the day’s work with Julio. 

Charlie wondered if Julio was suspicious that Charlie had been, with increasing frequency, entering the study on weekdays and assuming position in the dove grey armchair, pretending to read or study, but really just staring at Nick, enjoying listening to him speak French or discuss translation techniques with his father, or to offer his own assistance when it was a Latin or Spanish module they were cataloguing that particular day.

Charlie had elected not to tell Julio about him and Nick. Not yet. He knew Julio would make him move to Elle’s old bedroom downstairs, and he would not accept that separation from Nick. Although neither of them were ashamed of being boyfriends, and almost everyone knew, except Esme (who wouldn’t have been able to keep the secret), telling Julio felt like one bridge too far. Charlie didn’t want it to sour Julio’s impression of Nick. Nick didn’t want to be perceived as another Ben, which Charlie was shocked that he’d had to actually verbally reassure Nick of at one stage, as if there could be any question of a comparison between the two men. 

So, Julio would not be told until the end of the summer. This was okay. Charlie could lie for Britain, but he did fret about Nick’s guilelessness accidentally betraying them.

It was thinking of all of this that Charlie, about to head downstairs to practise his drums for half an hour before meeting his friends at the lake, stopped in his tracks when he saw an envelope on his desk. 

The envelope said on the front, “Nick,” in Nick’s handwriting.

Charlie knew what this meant.

He tore the envelope open.

Dear Nick,

I was creating some tense exercises for the French beginners module for your Dad yesterday. It gave me the idea to write you this little something. I don’t know if it’s a poem or not? I hope you like it anyway. 

Who knows, if you pay attention you might even learn something ;)

Let’s take our bikes to the river this afternoon? 

I miss you already.

Charlie xxxxxx

(French) Kissing for Beginners

Présent – I kiss you.

Passé simple – I kissed you.

Imparfait – I was kissing you.

Futur simple – I’m going to kiss you.

Passé composé – Yesterday, I kissed you at nine o’clock and finished kissing you at nine-thirty.

Plus-que-parfait – I had yearned for you before I kissed you.

Futur Antérieur - I will have kissed you ten thousand times by summer's end.

Conditionnel Passé -  I would have kissed you forever if I could.

Charlie held the piece of paper to his chest and pressed it close against his heart, closing his eyes in bliss, smiling disbelievingly. 

To be the object of affection from a person like Nick gave Charlie a sense that he must be in heaven. 

Except, Charlie didn’t believe in heaven. 

Charlie only believed in Nick.

* ゜* ゜*

Some afternoons, late, as the sun started its golden descent, they’d be lying under the pomelo tree near the pool, and they’d read to one another. Oftentimes in English, other times in French or in Spanish, the listener not really understanding what was being said, but luxuriating in the sound and feel of the other boy’s voice making unfamiliar sounds and sharing unknown words and sentiments.

Sometimes, when Charlie was reading to Nick in Spanish, and he felt Nick’s head grow heavy with sleep on his chest, he would stop reading from the page, and just start speaking to him in Spanish, words from his heart, telling Nick how beautiful he thought he was, how happy he was that Nick was a part of his life. He didn’t know if Nick either heard or understood him. The thrill of not knowing was delicious. Nick would sometimes hum happily in response, and say something back in French, Charlie not knowing, but not not knowing either, what Nick was saying back to him.

In that hallowed space between not knowing, and not not knowing, Charlie pretended Nick was telling him he loved him. 

Then they’d run back to the house and devour each other, a tangle of limbs and sweat and come, until Esme called them all for dinner.

* ゜* ゜*

One night, the group of friends went with Julio, Olly, Imogen’s parents and brothers, Esme and her family, and Natalia and Jose’s families – almost everyone in the local village, actually, to the town square, where a visiting orchestra set up for a Symphony Under the Stars evening.

On the makeshift stage, the Andalusian Symphony tuned up, and the crowd fell in a hush as they started playing the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the Adagio Movement, which Charlie adored, and Nick had told him on the way over that he'd never been to the symphony before, and Charlie sensed a rush of excitement from Nick as the music played, the beautiful longing of the piece, receding into the warm, dark Spanish night. Charlie kept peeking at Nick's sweet face, as he stared, moved and enraptured by the musicians, looking at Charlie every now and again and smiling, their fingers touching, as subtly as they could manage.

When the concert was over, the group biked back to the villa, where they smoked weed and drank red wine in the orange grove until the early hours of the morning, listening to the concerto on repeat through their phone speakers. Charlie lay draped on Nick’s chest as they passed the joint between themselves, and to Natalia and Jose and Imogen, as they chatted lazily and stared at the vivid starlight.

“When I was little, Mum used to tell me that the nighttime was a blanket that someone put over the sun each night, when the sun went to sleep,” Nick said at one point. “She said because the universe was so old, that meant the blanket was very old too, and the stars were really just the sun peeking through all the little holes in the old blanket.”

“Cute,” Imogen said, because she always said that. She was half asleep, her lips stained with the wine.

“What is mean, ‘blanket?’” Natalia asked, and Jose laughed and kissed her hand. 

“You are amazing,” Charlie said to his boyfriend, who grinned at him.

At around three in the morning, their friends crept into the living room to sleep on the floor (Charlie made them promise they’d vacate before Julio woke up), and Charlie and Nick went upstairs, and stood on the balcony of their room for a moment, finishing the joint.

Charlie blew the last of the smoke into Nick’s face and stood up taller to kiss him. Nick kissed the rest of the smoke out of Charlie’s mouth. 

Charlie made a particularly hefty sigh of contentment.

“What you thinking about, Char?” Nick asked softly, and arms looped his arms around Charlie’s waist, while Charlie linked his hands behind Nick’s neck, threading up in his hair.

“It’s um…” Charlie blushed. “It’s nothing, it’s just…well, when we’re standing up, I have to get on my tiptoes to kiss you.”

“You do?” Nick looked down over Charlie’s shoulder and at his feet. “I didn’t know that. Oh my god, that’s so adorable.”

“Yeah. And kind of reminds me of this thing I said to Tori years ago.”

“Yeah? What was that?” Nick leaned in and touched his nose to Charlie’s. 

“About a year after I got outed, I was really low, and sort of had a crush on this straight guy in the year above me, and I was lonely, and I told her about this boy. She asked me, I think to distract me, to describe my hypothetical dream guy. And I remember answering: someone I can have a laugh with. And who’s nice, and kind, and likes being with me. And then after a moment I thought, that will never happen to me. Something like that. Something like that isn’t meant for me. So I laughed it off and said, I’d probably just settle for someone tall. And now…”

Charlie reached up for Nick, indicating he wanted to be lifted, and Nick obliged, hooking one arm under Charlie, lifting him, holding him tightly while Charlie’s feet swayed beneath him.

“And now I’m with you, and…and we're boyfriends. We laugh together. And you’re nice, and kind, and you like being with me. And you’re tall. I just…I feel so lucky I met you, Nick. You have no idea.”

“Oh, Charlie,” Nick buried his face in Charlie’s neck. “I have some idea, baby.”

* ゜* ゜*

It sounded dumb, in Charlie’s head. Really dumb, some days. He felt, instinctively, that it was nonsensical. He felt quite sure Nick loved him. But he couldn’t say for certain, and this bothered him. And besides — even if Nick did love him — there was nothing to say Nick would be willing to continue being his boyfriend once the summer was over. Perhaps it was just a summer thing for him? A youthful, tempestuous first love/first lover thing, a candle burning brightly at both ends sort of story. The kind of relationship you remember in older years when you’re stuck in a loveless marriage. The kind of summer you think back on with a wistful ‘what if?’ or a ‘what could have been?’ 

Because even if they did stay together, Charlie rationalised, they’d have to do long distance for at least a year before they even thought about what would happen after they graduated university. They both still had one year of uni left — Charlie at Oxford, Nick at Leeds. Three and a half hours away from each other, in good traffic.

And then, what? What after that? Where would they live? What kind of jobs were they both going to have, and where would those jobs require them to be? What if there was no alignment with what their futures held? 

Nick had told Charlie he was unsure about what kind of job he wanted when he graduated; he had so many options. Charlie, meanwhile, would graduate with two degrees that didn’t yield much by way of job opportunities, except for teaching or further study, neither of which he was particularly keen on.

They’d been at the villa for eight weeks by this point, and Nick was due to fly back to Leeds in one week’s time, with the Springs set to return to Oxford two days after him. It was this deadline of one week, such a rounded and absolute period of time, that pushed Charlie into an unhappy headspace, and he awoke that morning to Nick kissing him, asking if he wanted to go for a run before breakfast. Charlie declined, but Nick was feeling energised, so he went alone.

When Nick returned, Charlie was still in bed. Nick showered, dressed and kissed him goodbye, suggesting they bike into town and coffee when he was done with Julio.

Four hours later, when Nick was finished for the day with Julio, he returned to the bedroom to get his sunscreen, midway through texting Charlie to find out where he was, only to discover Charlie was still in bed, not having showered, eaten, or even really moved all day.

“Darling, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Nick kneeled on the bed beside Charlie’s face, and pushed one of his dark curls away from his forehead. Charlie could see that Nick could see that he’d been crying.

“I just…I don’t want you to go,” Charlie replied, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t want to go either, Char,” Nick said, in his softest voice, and rubbed Charlie’s back with his warm hand.

Then what are we going to do? Charlie was so close to asking. What will happen once you go? Does what we have end along with the summer?

He was terrified Nick hadn’t yet brought it up for fear of hurting Charlie, for fear that he’d say something that would ruin the summer, ruin their few remaining days together. 

Perhaps he was waiting until the very end to let Charlie down, hoping to just live in the moment instead.

“Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?” Nick murmured.

“I…I guess so,” Charlie stammered. “I don’t know.”

Nick smiled and shook his head. “Of course you don’t know. It would be just like you not to know.” 

Nick paused and studied Charlie’s sad face intently. “Charlie, sweetness, you mean everything to me.”

Chapter Text

~Nick~

I’m in love with Charlie Spring. 

I’m in love with my boyfriend. I’m in love with Charlie. I’m in love with Charles Francis Spring. 

I love the way the words look written on a page. I love how the words sound, strung together like a verse, when I chew them over in my head, which is about a thousand times a day. I love how they sound when I whisper it to myself in the shower, or when I’m brave enough to tell him in my dreams, or when I say it to him in French, which I have dared to do a few times.

I wish I could bottle up that feeling — the feeling of being in love with Charlie— although even if I could, I had a sense that that bottle would overflow, in the same fashion my heart wasn’t big enough to contain the multitude of ways I loved my boyfriend.

God, listen to me. Who’d have ever believed it? Charlie Spring has made a poet out of me — me! Nick Nelson, who, for most of my life, never would have believed I’d ever even have a boyfriend, much less one I absolutely worshipped and adored, and craved being around at all hours of the day and night.

I’m in love with Charlie. I love loving him. I’m the luckiest person on earth to get to be the one to love him.

Now all that’s left to do is to tell him.

* ゜* ゜*

By the end of the summer, we were a package deal. 

Nick and Charlie. Nick and Charlie. 

When people said it, they tended to say it in one breath — almost monosyllabically, if that’s even possible. Nickandcharlie. Where are you doing this afternoon, Nickandcharlie? Have you seen Nickandcharlie? Get a room, Nickandcharlie! 

When we started to approach the end of the summer — those last, dwindling weeks — I wished with all my might for a perpetual replay of everything that had happened, so that I might exist in the summer in some kind of endless, blissful loop.

Being with Charlie, meant that everything that happened that summer — all the tiny parts that make up a life — would be (I knew, instinctively, before it was even over) forever irrevocably tinted with hues of Charlie. He would, always, be engraved on every song that topped the charts that July and that August, in every book I read, threaded throughout every movie we watched together. I understood, on some profound level, that whenever I heard this song or watched that movie, no matter if I was one hundred years old, all the memories of that summer with Charlie would flash through my spirit once more, and I’d be transported back to the big table under the jasmine tree, listening to him speak passionately about Latin phonology, impressing the pants off the hoity-toity dinner guests, or to the bright sparkle in his eyes when he blushed under my lips, or to the feeling of embracing him in that hot bedroom, while he sat in my lap, his legs stretched on either side of my waist, as our heads burrowed into each other’s necks, basking in the stillness and the sweat and the silence of being manacled together in such a beautiful way.

Charlie amazed me. Flat out, hands down, I was in constant awe of his strength, his wit, his intelligence. What he saw in me, I really didn’t know. This contributed to my hesitation in telling him I loved him. Sometimes I let self-doubt overshadow me, because I genuinely believed he could do better than me, that he ought to be with someone smarter, or more impressive. But these feelings never lasted for long. The way Charlie looked at me and spoke to me and touched me always provided me with more or less instant reassurance. I felt the force of his feelings for me almost every moment we were together.

Then there was the sex. Holy shit, being with Charlie was phenomenal. Like, a mind-altering experience. It sounds like I’m bragging or lying or whatever, but truly, the gratification I got out of making love to Charlie for myself was secondary to what it felt like to give gratification to him. I’d never seen, felt, or heard anyone as sexy as him. Watching him come undone beneath me got me off immediately. I could tell how much he loved the way I talked to him during sex. Frankly, some of what I said was so obscene that I almost felt embarrassed on occasion, but Charlie reacted so wonderfully to it, that once I started, I found it hard to stem the tide. 

Tara and Darcy kept asking me: what are you waiting for? Lock down your man! That’s what they’d say. And I knew they were right. 

I didn’t realise the reason for my stalling at first. I knew there was something holding me back, or standing in the way, but I didn’t know what.

It came to me one evening, while Charlie was practising his drums, and I heard the music waft through the bay window from the parlour while I exercised with Olly in the front garden.

It was something Lauren, my ex-girlfriend, had said to me right before she broke it off with me.

She had said: Nick, not everyone’s as intense as you. If you expect people to match your feelings all the time, you’ll be disappointed.

Olly was calling my name but I was just staring aimlessly at the evening sky, the sunset pink like a ballet slipper — as I thought with something halfway between joy and trepidation — even if Charlie does love me back, how could he possibly love me as much as I love him? 

I was helpless in the face of the totality of my love for him, and terrified of scaring him off with it.

* ゜* ゜*

Throughout the whole summer, I had always felt kind of bad that Pro didn’t know about me and Charlie. I’d grown so fond of the Professor, and I think he felt the same about me too. 

Though, that’s not to say I didn’t think he was entirely without his suspicions.

I realised this, about a fortnight before I was due to fly home. It was a Friday, and after we’d spent a mentally draining four hours in his study, updating reference guides, he asked me to have a coffee with him outside. Pro showed me how to make it on the stovetop, in a tiny brass pot, using unfiltered, very finely ground Turkish coffee beans he’d purchased in Granada. It was a slow, therapeutic way of making coffee, and when I expressed admiration for the technique, he gave me a jar of the beans to take back home as a gift to Mum. He poured our coffee into little blue glass cups.

We went and sat on the back table to drink it. I took a sip, and it was so strong it almost blew my head off. Pro laughed at me as I coughed.

“What do you think of the old heart starter there?” he chuckled.

“I don’t think I’ll sleep for a week now,” I smiled back at him. It tasted and felt like tar, but it would have been impolite to say so.

There was a pause — a long one — it felt purposeful on Pro’s part. 

We watched as Abel, the gardener, stood in the grove, midway up a ladder. He was dropping overripe oranges into a large wooden crate underneath him. The oranges fell into the crate, one by one, with a soft thud. 

Thud. 

Thud. 

Thud.

“You and Charlie have a nice friendship,” Pro said, after a moment, breaking the silence. 

I immediately got a distinct feeling, from the care in which he chose these words, and the fact that he was looking at Abel and the oranges, and not at me, that there was a whole different layer of meaning underpinning his words.

What I really think he was trying to impress upon me was — I’m not going to force you to speak about it, but let’s not pretend we don’t both know what I’m really saying here.

“Yeah. Yes, we do,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. My hand gripped tightly around my little glass cup, such that I thought I might smash it.

Thud. 

Thud. 

Thud.

“You’re too smart not to know how rare, how special, a friendship like yours is.” Pro’s voice was soft. His gaze remained fixed on Abel and the ladder.

I had started to sweat. Charlie would have a conniption if he thought I had blabbed to his dad about us. 

I had to try and play it cool for his sake.

“Charlie is very intelligent—” I began, hoping flattery might lead the conversation in another direction.

“—Charlie is more than intelligent,” Pro interrupted, and my heart sang a little, to get a glimpse of a father’s proud love for a son — a love that I felt my dad didn’t particularly have towards me. “Your friendship has everything and nothing to do with intelligence. You’re lucky to have found each other. Because Charlie is good. And you too, are good, Nick.”

What is happening? Hot licks of panic furled up in my guts. Am I, or is Charlie, about to get into some kind of trouble here? 

Focus, Nelson. Listen to his words. I tried to wrestle myself back down into reality, and the panic was quickly overtaken by calm.

L isten to what he’s really saying here. Is Pro trying to give us his blessing? 

I had no idea what to do. Feign ignorance? Deny it? 

Or admit it all to him — the whole, magnificent truth of it all? That I’m in love with your son, Julio. That I’m going to ask him to marry me one day. That I would die for him.

“I think Charlie is better than me,” was all I could come up with in response. It seemed neutral-sounding enough when I had quickly rehearsed it in my head, although the way I said it, almost accompanied by an impromptu half-sob, probably meant the gig was now well and truly up. 

I might as well have served my still-beating, raw heart to Pro, inscribed with the initials ‘CFS,’ atop a bed of salad, on one of Esme’s porcelain platters.

Thud. 

Thud. 

Thud.

Pro smiled and nodded, sipping his coffee, contemplating me closely now. 

“I’m sure he’d say the same thing about you. And it flatters the both of you.”

He stared at me, beaming.

“Profesor!” Abel called suddenly, indicating to the crate that he wanted Pro’s assistance to carry it — overspilling as it was now with fresh oranges — to the kitchen. I stood to instead help him, but Pro put two fingers on my shoulder, signalling me to remain seated.

“I’ll go, Nick. You’ve done enough work today. Go and enjoy your weekend. I just…” 

Pro visibly hesitated, something he rarely did. Pro was a person who knew absolutely what he was about at all times. He bit his lip and fiddled with his watch.

“I just wanted to tell you that…that, I’m so glad you and Charlie are…” I could see him searching for a word, his brain leafing through the hundreds of thousands of words in eight languages he had at his disposal.

“...amis.” 

After a long pause, he had selected the French word for ‘friends.’ 

Pro left me under the jasmine tree to unpack what had just happened.

It struck me later that, possibly, he elected to say it in French rather than in English, because ami is closer in sound to amour, than friends is to lovers in English. 

That’s the thing about me and Charlie. 

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then, perhaps this is what lovers are.

* ゜* ゜*

So, there we have it. I felt like I’d told him I love him in every single way — except the most important way. 

Instead, I’d been trying to imbue ‘I love yous’ into as many interactions with him as I could. I hope he understood that I loved him each afternoon when I asked him if he wanted a snack (he always said no, but I always asked him anyway). I wanted him to feel that I loved him when I listened to him talking, or reading to me aloud, or telling me a story, as I grew ever-more captivated with that brilliant, ticking mind of his. I hope he maybe picked up on how, sometimes, when I read to him in French, I stopped reading from the page and just start telling him I’m in love with him; sometimes, when I did this, he shivered, and I hoped it was in recognition, or some sort of cosmic intervention, or something. I hope he felt how much I loved him when I touched his arms, or his belly, or kissed his thighs or his neck, how, even though I was whispering pretty filthy things to him, I tried to walk that tightrope between gentleness and strength that he seemed to love.

When I told him that he meant everything to me, that was a sort of soft launch to telling him I’m in love with him.

When I told him that he was all I think about, I wonder if he understood that this was just a shy man’s way of avoiding saying something profound.

The fact that we were boyfriends gave me excess amounts of hope. Why would he have suggested it if he didn’t want to colour what we have with some air of permanency? I hung onto the fact we were boyfriends like someone clinging to a branch in a raging river. If I was facing the end of the summer without the assurance we were boyfriends, I think I’d have had a nervous breakdown. 

* ゜* ゜*

Six days before I left to fly home to Leeds, and I finally had a game plan.

I decided to write Charlie an updated version of my tenses poem and leave a clue for him to find it in the orange grove, on the small wooden bench where we had first kissed. 

I really hoped he liked it. I really, really hoped…

De combien de façons puis-je dire que je t'aime

Présent – I love you.

Passé simple – I loved you.

Imparfait – I was loving you.

Futur simple – I’m going to love you.

Passé composé – Yesterday, I loved you at dawn and loved you until dusk.

Plus-que-parfait – I had desired you before I loved you.

Futur Antérieur - I will have loved you every second of every day by the time my life ends.

Conditionnel Passé -  I would have loved you in any universe.

* ゜* ゜*

Five days before I was due to fly out, I made my way to the orange grove, having been excused after just an hour helping Pro. My plan was to leave the poem in an envelope on the bench, and text Charlie so he could come and find it. Then I would go down to the lake and wait for him. As much as I was dying to see his response to it, I did want to give him his privacy while he read it, just in case (and I was pretty sure this wouldn’t happen) he reacted badly or awkwardly to it. 

So down I went to the grove, clutching the envelope, expecting to see nothing but the golden fruits hanging the satiny green leaves against the blue Spanish sky, and who was there but Charlie.

Charlie was sitting under one of the trees with his legs stretched out in front of him, not reading or listening to music, just sitting with his head bent down slightly, wringing his hands together.

“Charlie!” I exclaimed, delighted but surprised to see him there. I thought he had cycled into town for the morning with Olly.

Charlie’s head snapped up and he inhaled steeply.

“Hey! W-what are you doing here?” Charlie smiled at me, but it was uneven. I was immediately concerned to notice a sheen of tears in his eyes.

“I just, um, I came down to,” I waved the envelope at him. So much for the surprise, I guess, but this was fine too. “I came down to leave this for you.”

Charlie’s eyes zeroed in on the envelope in my hand, and he grew pale.

“What is that?”

“It’s a note, well, more of a confession, I suppose—”

“—Are you breaking up with me?” Charlie interrupted, in a strangled tone. He scrambled to his feet, but wasn’t looking at me. 

I almost died.

“Oh my god, no,” I tried to speak as emphatically as I possibly could, and stepped closer to him so that I might hold him. “Why would you even think th—”

“—I just, I know you’re going home in a few d-days,” Charlie said, still looking at the ground, and took a full step backwards from me, which hurt the same as if he’d plunged a dagger into my ribs. “I d-don’t want to pressure you into making this relationship into something you never wanted it to be. Like, I get there’s an appeal in having a summer romance and everything.”

“What are you t—”

“Because, we’re sort of in an irrational scenario right now, aren’t we?” Charlie started pacing back and forth, still not able to look at me, while my eyes were working overtime at imploring him to slow down, look at me, anything that might reassure him. He went on though at one hundred miles an hour, “like, it’s easy to be into each other and be boyfriends in a place like this. It’s a fucking paradise! We don’t have to work, or go to uni, or take exams, or see anyone we don’t want to see. There’s no pressure or care. We’ve just spent three months swimming and reading and sleeping and eating nice food and having hours and hours to ourselves every day. Being with me here isn’t like what it’d be like being with me back in England. You’ll realise I’m anxious and negative and annoying…”

I hated talking over him but I absolutely had to put a stop to this at once. “Charlie!” I tried not to yell but couldn’t help it. “Oh my god, hang on!”

“Not to mention the long distance thing,” he finally dragged his big blue eyes up to meet mine, and when our eyes locked, he seemed to falter for a moment, like he couldn’t help but smile at me just a tiny bit, but he kept going anyway, even though by now I’d dropped the envelope and was grasping his hands in mine. “We’d be going from a separation of a bathroom door to a separation of 175 miles. I totally, completely understand why you wouldn’t want to do something like that. I won’t be angry with you if you want to just keep this as a summer thing. Just something perfect that happened for a few months, and then ended.”

“Charlie! You need to stop! Darling!” I shook his hands a little and pulled him closer to me. I was heartbroken to see how unsure he still looked. But when our eyes met I felt it, and I know, I know he felt it too, that same crack and fizzle of brightness and preciousness and affinity that I’d felt with him the very first night I’d been here, standing almost in this exact spot. 

How had he ever doubted my feelings for him? Why had I ever hesitated in letting him know the depth of them? 

“Char,” I tried to say this next part with my whole entire self. “You’re my boyfriend…This is not just a summer thing for me. It never was. This is a rest of my life thing,” I squeezed his hands and stared at his lovely face.

Charlie closed his mouth after it had fallen open momentarily in shock. He twisted out a sort of half laugh. “Stop it,” he said eventually, wiping away a tear. “Don’t tease me, Nick.”

“I’m not teasing you, baby,” I grabbed his shoulders, and could feel myself welling up. My voice wobbled as I spoke next. “I’ve never been so serious in my life. You are the kindest, most thoughtful and caring and amazing person in the whole world. If you really want to break up, then I would respect your decision, but I want us to be together,” I took a breath, and noticed Charlie was grinning at me, which encouraged and emboldened me as though I’d won or was about to win the very best prize in the whole damn universe, and I continued, “you’re my favourite person. I need you to believe me.”

“I love you too,” Charlie said, beaming at me, and gripped my hands.

“I — what?!” I smiled back at him, the words ringing in the deep recesses of my mind like something heavenly.

I replayed what I’d just said. Had I said it to him without realising? Had I accidentally spoken in French again? 

“I love you too, Nick,” Charlie repeated, and held my face with his hands. Any hints of his tears were gone, and all he was doing was smiling, smiling, smiling. “You’ve somehow managed to say I love you to me in about a hundred different ways without ever actually using those words. So, I’ll do it. I love you, Nick,” he said a third time, and fuck me upside down and back to front (to use one of Charlie’s choicest phrases) if I wasn’t the absolute luckiest mofo to ever have lived.

“I love you, Charlie,” the words sounded just as good and as natural and as perfect coming out of my mouth towards him as I always knew they would. “I can’t believe it took me so long to…”

“Shut up,” Charlie, still smiling, kissed me on the lips, and kissed me once more before continuing, “just shut up for a second! It’s my turn for a speech.” He took a big breath and looked down to where our hands were still clutching on to one another’s, then back up at me, those eyes I loved so much. 

“I understand why you haven’t said I love you yet,” Charlie said. “I think it’s because it’s almost like it’s not enough. It’s just eight letters…three words. It’s been said in every book, movie, song…we say it to our friends, to our parents. 'I love you' isn’t enough for what I feel for you, Nick. The thing is…” Charlie appeared to be searching for his next thought, like he hadn’t quite pieced them all together yet, “...my father, with his work, and my studies, and everything I’ve been taught, and pretty much my whole life until now, has all been about matching words to thoughts, and then to expressions, everything I do, every day, is words, words, words, and the endless pursuit of finding the right words and placing them in the right order. But words…words aren’t enough to describe how I feel when I’m with you. What you mean to me, Nick — it exists beyond words. All the languages I know, all the languages I could ever learn in a lifetime, they’re inadequate to express how I feel about you. But,” when my boyfriend giggled, it always sounded like a melody. “I have to work with what I have. I love you will have to do. So. I love you. Te amo.” 

“Te quiero,” I replied in Spanish, not even bothered or embarrassed at all that I was doing that thing where you cry and laugh at the same time.

“Je t'aime,” Charlie replied in French, and it was okay, because he was crying and laughing too.

* ゜* ゜*

So. So the summer is over. Tomorrow I leave this majestic place. And two days after that, Charlie leaves. Me back to Leeds, Charlie back to Oxford. 

It’s a three hour drive in good traffic, or around three and a half hours on the train. We’ve got a plan. We’ll see each other every second weekend during the uni semester, and spend all the breaks together. And it’s not the first World War, as Charlie enjoys reminding me. We don’t have to wait six weeks for a tear-stained letter. We’ll talk every single day on FaceTime, as often as we like.

And then, when the year of long distance is over, after we graduate? We’ll figure it out. We’ll move to London and get jobs, or we’ll spend another summer or more here, or I’ll move to Oxford, or maybe we’ll both go back to Rochester. We might be physiotherapists or personal trainers or Latin tutors or baristas or reskill as bloody cybersecurity coders for all I know.

I don’t care. As long as I’m with Charlie.

In fact, it’s a bit less than a year, actually. We can do it, Charlie and I. I know we can. 

You see, we have to do it. We have to make it work. Because we’re Nickandcharlie. 

It’s only one year, after all. 

And what’s one year when it’s stacked up against the rest of our lives together?

Chapter Text

Mystery of Love

~Olly Spring~

~Four days after Nick’s arrival at the villa~

This year’s house guest slash intern in Spain is named Nick. He’s so bloody cool. 

I wish he was more my age so we could hang out, but he’s more my brother Charlie’s age. 

Not that I have any shortage of friends around here. Jack and Adam Heaney come here every summer like us. They’re two years older than me but don’t treat me like a baby (not always anyway). Their older sister Imogen hangs out with Charlie. Plus, there’s a load of local kids that we know from coming here every year, and we all hang out all in a big group most days.

Anyway, I’m rambling. What I was going to say was, I hope Charlie doesn’t do anything weird or embarrassing in front of Nick so that he stays our family friend for a really long time.

For starters, one of the reasons I like Nick so much is that Nick’s way more into sports than Charlie. Charlie never wants to play water polo or basketball with me — he’s more into music and conversations and reading and all that crap. Me and Charlie hanging out is mostly confined to him beating the shit out of me at Xbox, which I pretend to get mad about, but I secretly enjoy having that quality time with him. Sometimes I beat him, but when I do, Charlie says I’m being homophobic. He blames even the most minor inconveniences in his life on homophobia. It’s kind of an old joke so I don’t let on that I still think it’s hilarious. Charlie’s a nice guy when he’s not busy being a pretentious bastard rabbiting on about Greek mythology and Latin conjugations and that. As brother’s go, he’s a pretty decent one.

The dynamic is slightly off without Tori here this year, and I can’t really tell if it’s a good or a bad thing. Having her around is at once both comforting and unsettling. It’s hard to describe. Tori’s the sort of person who’s tricky to put into words. 

And not having Mum here is awesome because Dad’s way more chilled than Mum. Dad lets us run a bit of an open front door policy, with our friends coming and going as they please, having as much screen time as we like, and helping ourselves to whatever snacks we want. Whereas when Mum’s around, everything’s done a bit more militarily. Sorry Mum, love you, but I’m stoked to have the summer with just Charlie and Dad and Elle. 

And Nick of course.

Speaking of Nick, something a bit unexpected happened when we were playing basketball today. There was a massive group of us all, playing five a side, but there were like fifteen of us, so some sat on the sides and watched and we swapped players when someone got tired. I was sitting on the side of the court with Nick and Adam, and some locals about our age named Guillermo, Claudia, Katerina and Romy. 

Adam, one of the twins, is two years older than me, so thirteen, and he’s starting to get a pretty distasteful preoccupation with girls, especially pretty ones. He’s got the hots for Claudia big time. Claudia is fifteen, and I’m no expert with these things, but she certainly seems to have grown up a lot since last summer. It’s becoming challenging not to stare at her bum in those tiny bathers she flounces around in, but I try to make sure I only look respectfully. 

I keep telling Adam he’s got a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting with her, absolute no-hope joker that he is, but he doesn’t listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me because I’m the youngest. That’s why I’m learning Mandarin. When I’m a grown-up I’ll have an important job in Beijing or Shanghai in international shipping or exports or insurance banking and be a millionaire with a snazzy penthouse and a sports car, and then they’ll bloody well listen to me, the lot of them.

“Oi, Claudia! Jack is so keen on you, you know,” Adam said, referring to his twin brother, even though it’s Adam himself that’s the one who has the crush on Claudia. Teenagers are weird like that. I can’t believe I’m actually going to be one myself soon. How embarrassing for me.

“I am not!” Jack protested from the court, neglecting his defensive position as the opposing team scored a point from his momentary distraction. “Fuck’s sake, Adam!”

“You are so immature, you both,” Claudia scoffed in her thick Spanish accent, and strutted away with Romy to go brush their hair or paint their toenails or whatever the hell it is girls do when they’re alone. I don’t actually know that many girls, truth be told. Well, apart from Tori, but she doesn’t count. She’s less of a girl and more of an entity. 

“Mate,” Nick elbowed Adam’s arm, “if you fancy Claudia, you should just tell her. Don’t deflect all the time, or tease her too much. You’re already at a disadvantage because you’re younger than her. She’ll always just see you as an annoying little brother if you carry on like that.”

“Why should I listen to you?” Adam asked. “You don’t have a girlfriend.” He can be such a dick sometimes.

Nick laughed. He’s pretty good natured, and laughs at most things, even when a little upstart shit like Adam is being rude to him. “That’s fair. It’s hard to talk to girls, I know.”

“It is hard to talk to boys, too,” Katerina said, flopping herself on the ground beside us. Nick stood up to take her place on the court.

“Yep,” said Nick, sighing. “It’s very hard to talk to boys too. Probably way harder than talking to girls, actually.”

“What would you know?” piped up Guillermo, which was odd, because Guillermo never says anything. He didn’t take his eyes off his Switch. Come to think of it, I don’t even know his last name. He’s just…Guillermo. Like Cher. Or Adele. 

Nick shrugged, casually. “I’m bi, so I have to struggle with how to talk to boys and girls. It’s like, twice as much hard work for me.”

Those within earshot just nodded and hummed affirmatively. We were all a bit surprised, I think, or at least I was surprised, but none of us are assholes or bigots, we weren’t going to make a big deal out of this declaration. The only other thing that was said about it was when Adam, who was blushing rather hard I noticed, said to Nick before Nick ran onto the court, “how’d you know you were bi?”

Nick considered his answer. “It took awhile. Like, several years of avoiding my own feelings and not knowing why I was panicking so much whilst listening to The Smiths.”

“What are The Smiths?” Adam asked.

Nick sighed again, then laughed and shook his head. He’s such a nice guy, even to uncultured boofheads like Adam. “I’ll make you a playlist.” 

Then Nick jogged onto the court and joined in the game. The conversation switched to what we should have for lunch.

I wouldn’t have picked Nick to be bi, necessarily. But in the days after he’d said it, a lot clicked into place and started making loads more sense to me. 

Maybe I was imagining things, but Nick seemed as though he really liked Charlie — in a romantic way, not just a friend way. 

The first time I noticed it was when I was down at the pool with them one evening. I was scrolling on Insta under the pomelo tree, and Charlie was lying down on the edge of the pool, reading, one leg dangling into the water next to him, while Nick was bobbing up and down in the water. Nick had a book with him too, but it was totally obvious to me after a while that he was only pretending to read. For starters, he was turning the pages from left to right, not right to left like you’re meant to, so unless he was reading a text in Arabic, which I seriously doubt, he was, in fact, reading his book fucking backwards for fuck’s sake. He was too busy staring at Charlie to even notice what he was doing. 

The book Charlie was reading must have been funny, because Charlie giggled every now and again, turning the pages (the correct way), his lips mouthing silently, occasionally, as he processed the words, and Nick was just gazing at him, all dopey and sappy-like. I started coughing expressively, wondering if Nick would turn around to check why I had suddenly been taken ill, but he didn’t flinch, and then I experimentally called out, at half-volume, “oi! Nick!” and still he didn’t move, until eventually I stood up, tugged a pomelo off the tree above me, and threw it in the water next to him, making a big splash.

“What, what?” Nick said to me, startled, turning around, as though he was only just now registering that I was even there at all.

“What are you doing? Let’s see who can hold our breath underwater the longest,” I suggested. I was getting bored of all this moony silence.

“Alright,” he said, and placed the book he had been ‘reading’ on the side of the pool. “Charlie? Want to join?”

“Nah,” said Charlie. “There’s other things that involve leaving me breathless that I’d prefer to do, though,” he turned his head and gave Nick a very tiny wink, almost imperceptible.

Yuck, Charlie. I didn’t know exactly what he meant by this, but he certainly made it sound disgusting and sexual. Hopefully Nick didn’t pick up on it – how embarrassing. I don’t think Nick noticed though, thankfully, because he was too busy coughing, doubled over he was, holding his waist. I think he must have swallowed a bug or something. 

It wasn’t just all one-sided on Nick’s behalf, to be fair. Charlie was doing absolutely nothing to hide what a total desperado he was for Nick, fawning all over him when they were together, making great eyes at him and saying stupid suggestive things like that breathless remark at the pool, and asking after him and looking for him when Nick wasn’t around. Christ, Charlie is so embarrassing. Or is this what being eleven is — existing in a state of constant embarrassment because of your family? 

Maybe I should tell Charlie to rein it in a bit? I don’t want him scaring Nick away.

~One week later~

Okay, so, update: something’s definitely going on between Nick and my brother. I wish I knew what it was. Charlie and Nick have been behaving so bloody oddly the last two days, and it’s starting to annoy me. 

And now I’m even implicated in the whole sorry ordeal! 

It all started when Nick came to my room earlier this evening.

“Hey, mate,” Nick said, knocking on my door, which was half open. Esme, our housekeeper, who’s basically like my grandma, had just been in there changing my bedsheets and dropping off a pile of clean clothes for me. 

I was at my desk finishing up a pencil drawing of a bloodthirsty T-Rex. I was pretty happy with it. But still, dinosaurs are a bit babyish, so I covered the drawing with my hand, not wanting Nick to see. 

Sigh. It’s hard being eleven. Some days I feel like a little kid — still liking dinosaurs and wanting hugs from my Mum and secretly playing with Lego — but other days I get all swirly in my tummy about boys and girls, and don’t know what I’m meant to be feeling (all I know is, it’s new and confusing) and I sneak a vape with the twins even though I know it’s so naughty and I’m probably ruining my long-term lung capacity, and I want desperately to grow up but also I’m kind of scared about growing up? 

“Could you please do me a favour?” Nick asked, snapping me out of this spiral.

Nick sounded well nervous.

I side-eyed him suspiciously, flipping over my dinosaur drawing for safe measure. “What is it?” 

“Would you be able to…I need you to please give this to Charlie,” Nick started tapping the corner of a plain white envelope into his open palm. He seemed totally freaked out, if I’m honest. 

I felt my eyes light up. It was all I could do to keep from rubbing my hands together like a James Bond villain. I wasn’t about to let this moment pass without capitalising on it. I’m hardly ever in a situation when an adult is indebted to me.

“If I do it,” I said slowly, “will you be my personal trainer for the summer?” 

Nick dipped his head down and laughed. “Ugh, yeah, sure. But you have to promise not to open the envelope or try and peek inside it. No holding it up to a lightbulb or anything. I’m a younger brother too, so I know all the tricks in the book,” he pointed the envelope at me in an accusatory manner and smiled, though it was a stressed out smile, I think. “Do you promise?”

How strange…Maybe it was cash? Maybe Nick was buying some of Charlie’s weed off him? Yeah, yeah, I know all about the pot. Charlie thinks he hides it from me, but I can smell it wafting down from his balcony every other evening. He thinks he’s such a smooth operator, Charlie does, but that guy is about as subtle as dysentery.

“I promise,” I confirmed.

Nick walked into my room and placed the envelope on my desk. He was blushing. Or perhaps it was just sunburn? “Charlie’s in his room,” he continued. “Could you please take it up to him at seven o’clock? Not a moment before or after, okay?”

What in the shit did it matter what time I took it to Charlie? This transaction was getting weirder by the second. 

I was about to open my mouth to ask another question but stopped myself just in time, because, jeez, okay, I was really taking note of Nick’s blush now, he was even blushing on the tops of his bloody shoulders, and son of the bitch, as Esme would say, did I even really want to know what this whole envelope nonsense was about? What if Nick and Charlie were sending naked photos or something to each other…just — ew, ew! 

There are some things an eleven year old really doesn’t need to know about their older brother…for reals. Charlie and I are both still traumatised from the time I found an empty condom packet in Charlie’s room last year and showed Dad because I thought it was a discarded sweet wrapper and I wanted to know where I could get one from the kitchen.

“Seven o’clock. Got it,” I said, and before Nick could leave I added, “we’ll have our first session tomorrow. Let’s start with arms.”

“Just…” Nick seemed to hesitate, as if inventing another instruction for me, then he sighed and thought the better of it; maybe he was worried I’d change my mind if he pushed his luck too far, or that I’d blab to Dad about what was going on. “Sure Ols, yep, arms tomorrow. Text me what time.”

Ols. Nick has cute nicknames for everyone, even Dad.

Once Nick had left, I stood up and shut my bedroom door behind him. I waved to Esme, who was in the back garden hanging up sheets on the line, and I stuck my tongue out at her. She laughed and waved back. I love that lady. She watched me as I held the envelope up against the sunny light of the window for the teensiest, tiniest second (oh, whoops, my fingers must have slipped), but all I could see was pen lines indenting indecipherable words on thin notepad paper.

Hmm. Okay. 

So it’s either a Spanish vocabulary exercise or a love letter. 

Interesting.

To be honest, I sort of hoped it was a love letter. Charlie’s taste in men up until this point had been somewhat questionable. I could do a lot worse than Nick for a brother-in-law.

Who am I kidding? I’d be ecstatic for Nick to be a part of our family some day. 

~Elle Argent~ 

~Nine days after Nick’s arrival at the villa~

Sometimes it’s really difficult being best friends with a stubborn idiot. 

Charlie’s been obsessed with Nick Nelson since the moment we both arrived here, and he’s refusing to do anything to move the situation along, or initiate a conversation that would provide some sort of confirmation to see if Nick is A) queer and B) interested in Charlie. 

Charlie’s whole modus operandi is way off with this one. It’s starting to do my head in. 

I keep telling Charlie — Nick’s a nice guy! Even if he is hetero (which I’m seriously starting to doubt by the way; I am getting increasingly fruity vibes off the dude as the days go by), Nick is clearly a mature and accepting person who won’t be judgmental or awkward in learning that Charlie is crushing on him. At least that way Charlie can have some clarity, and move on to something else. I can always swap bedrooms with Charlie, if need be — I’m leaving in two weeks as it is.

Like, I get it, I do. It’s hard telling the person you like that you like them. Jesus, it took Tao and I long enough. And I get that there’s a layer of additional weirdness in that the two of them have to live together for the rest of the summer. 

But I’m starting to run out of reasons not to suspect that Nick isn’t also crushing hard on Charlie right back at him.

The thing is, I see things that Charlie doesn’t see, because he’s actually the one experiencing it. He only sees himself how he – Charlie – sees himself. He doesn’t see himself the way I see Nick seeing him. And Nick looks at Charlie like Charlie is responsible for every good and beautiful thing on this earth. If I wasn’t so happy for Charlie, it’d be borderline sickening, really.

Now all that’s left is to get the two of them to mutually admit they’ve caught feelings . I didn’t particularly want to meddle, but it had been like ten freakin' days and I had to do something. I was becoming bored of pouring over the excruciating minutiae of every single one of Charlie’s interactions with Nick.

“Charlie,” I said to him one evening, having had just about enough of all the yearning and the pining and the forlorn long looks across the table. He and I were packing away our things from the pool to go upstairs and get ready for dinner. After dinner, Jose was picking us up to drive into town and go dancing at the local nightclub. “Charlie, you need to say something to Nick.”

“But I’m nerrrrrvous!” Charlie protested petulantly.

“Charlie!” I was close to stamping my foot. “Have you even talked to him about any queer stuff yet?”

“Argh!” Charlie made a random noise of frustration as he marked his page in his book. He handed me my sunglasses which were on the ground. “No, no! Not yet. Like…not explicitly.”

“Have you told him you’re the President of the LGBTQ+ Society at Oxford?” I pressed.

“Nooo…” Charlie whined.

“Have you spoken about going to Pride? Shared coming out stories? Discussed whether you prefer topping or bottoming?”

“No! God, Elle, I don’t know. We’re always talking about other stuff. It hasn’t come up yet. It feels like it’s too late to bring it up now. How could he possibly not know I’m gay and interested in him? He would have to be the most oblivious person on earth not to know.”

“Well...” Charlie had a point. I was at a loss myself. “Something’s not connecting! You need to try something!”

“I’ve told him all my favourite books and movies and artists and stuff.”

Christ, Charlie, I thought. Be a little more obscure, why don’t you? Maybe next you should try drawing a treasure map to your dick, rolling it up, and putting it in a glass bottle for Nick to find washed up ashore in fifty year's time.

“He might not be as in tune with queer culture as you are!” I could feel my voice getting hysterical, but perhaps this was the amount of intervention required at this point.

“Well, from that, I guess we can surmise he’s not queer at all!” Charlie matched his voice to mine.

“We can surmise nothing, you silly man. Just because he looks like the straightest person I’ve ever seen, doesn’t mean he’s not…”

I stopped mid-sentence, because, behind Charlie, Nick had arrived at the pool.

“Hi,” Nick said, ostensibly to us both, although he was only looking at Charlie, because Nick was incapable of looking in any other direction except deep into Charlie’s eyes when Charlie was around.

“Hi,” I said back, although goodness knows why I bothered; Nick and I both knew I was only being addressed as a peripheral mortal in this situation.

“Hi,” Charlie replied, in his sweet soft little flirty breathless voice, his smile cracking open at the seams. Bless him. If I didn’t love him so much, I might dry retch.

“You two heading inside?” Nick said, observing us holding our headphones and phones and books, our towels over our shoulders.

“Yeah,” I replied, feeling Charlie’s energy shift beside me, already preparing myself for the twenty minute debrief this minor correspondence would inevitably trigger. “We’ll see you at dinner.”

“See you,” Nick replied.

Charlie and I were about to leave when we hesitated in tandem, instead watching in silent agog as Nick shucked off his t-shirt to get into the pool. He walked down the steps and started dragging his huge legs through the shallow end of the water. I mean. 

Woof. 

What? The man is fine as fuck. What am I meant to do, avert my gaze? We may be neck-deep in Catholic country, but this isn’t a nunnery, and I’m no Mother Teresa. Sorry, not sorry, Tao. I love you to death but it’s not for your hulking big thighs. I’m not going to not perve on deliciously ripped rugby boys when they enter my line of willing vision.

It didn’t matter that I had stopped talking, because Charlie was also channelling his entire concentration onto Nick’s immaculate corporeal form, as Nick, in that unique panache of only the most attractive people, seemed blissfully unaware of the impact his wetness and shirtlessness was having on those around him, as he emerged from under the water, gasping from the fresh coldness at the deep end of the pool, running his fingers through his soaking hair, his biceps flexing at the action.

“Charlie,” I whispered, nudging him. “Close your mouth.”

Charlie gulped and snapped his lower jaw shut.  Then he flipped me the finger.

We quickly waved goodbye to Nick and headed indoors.

You see, the thing with guys is, you have to let them think they’re the ones that come up with an idea. The more insistent you are about something, or the more you try to push them in a certain direction, they’ll dig their heels in and won’t do it, or worse, will do the complete opposite of what you’re suggesting. Charlie is no exception to this rule. He was born arguing. 

I had a feeling this was going to be a long summer.

At least we were going dancing tonight. Maybe Nick will come with us this time. A bit of alcohol might loosen both their tongues, and we can all move on from this torturous slow burn.

~Professor Julio Spring~ 

~Ten weeks after Nick’s arrival at the villa~

We leave Spain to go back to Oxford next week, and I’m faced with a real quandary. 

My son Charlie and my summer intern, Nick, a French language major from Leeds University, have fallen in love over the past ten weeks.

This in itself is not the quandary. I’m really very happy for Charlie. Nick is a lovely young man — clever, patient, diligent, kind-hearted, and sincere — and I’ve grown exceedingly fond of him during the few months he’s been here with us in the villa. The problem is, neither Nick or Charlie have told me about their relationship, and they think that I don’t know about it. 

Although, on what plane of reality or dimension of the time/space continuum they think they’re being subtle about it, I really couldn’t tell you. They are taking the concept of delusion to a whole other level if they imagine anyone within a thirty mile radius of them doesn’t know they’re an item by this point. Even sitting at a crowded dinner table of ten or fifteen people, one almost feels like excusing oneself and giving Nick and Charlie their privacy. It’s the way they gaze at each other so fondly, barely breaking eye contact, shuffling their chairs closer to be nearer each other, brushing their pinkie fingers together like one of them has just come home from war. 

I’ve even seen the two of them reading to each other, if you can believe that. I didn’t think young people did ‘romance’ quite like that any more. It was like a scene out of some sort of soft-focus arty European film. I saw them, one day as I was returning from a swim in the lake, lazing under one of the orange trees in the grove, Charlie resting his head on Nick’s stomach as Nick held a book above his head and read aloud. I squinted, and could see it was my worn down copy of Marguerite Duras’s The Lover from my uni days, the French text, and of course Charlie doesn’t understand French, but was listening intently anyway, which made it even lovelier, as they were evidently just enjoying being close to one another, and the sound of the other’s voice reading in a foreign language. 

The sight was enough to make me all wistful and nostalgic. Being young is such a magnificent gift.

Then there was the fact that Charlie had been showing an unusual amount of interest in my summer administrative work. By the end of June, he was skulking into the study most mornings while Nick and I worked, sometimes reading quietly in the armchair, other times offering his assistance with cataloguing or timetabling. In previous summers, the only time he’d ever come into my study would be to choose a book to read, or to ask me for money or a lift somewhere.

One morning, I gave Charlie and Nick the task of taking all the books off the bookshelf and giving them all their once-per-decade dusting down, and instead of the protests I was expecting, neither of them drew breath the entire time, chatting and laughing for hours about everything under the sun while they worked. 

“You’re such a slow coach!” Nick said at one stage, in a teasing tone. “I’m dusting like three books for every one of yours, Char.”

Char. I mean, really. Goodness gracious me. The boy may as well be ringing a brass bell in the town square proclaiming his love for my son at this point.

“You’re cheating!” Charlie shot back at Nick, his smile wide. “You have…strong rugby arms.”

Moses smell the roses. I swear these two forget there’s other people in the room sometimes. But I didn’t have the heart to interrupt them. They were so undeniably sweet together — so easy and content with one another. I just put some headphones in to concentrate on my German beginners worksheets and let them natter away. At least the dusting was getting done, never mind in what context.

Then one evening, a few days ago, I was speaking to Jane on FaceTime and she asked to say hello to the kids. After I’d passed the phone to Olly, I went upstairs to find Charlie. 

I could hear him and Nick murmuring to each other and giggling softly from behind Nick’s closed bedroom door. 

God, how fucking awkward, if you’ll be so good as to pardon my French. I contemplated just heading back downstairs, but then Jane would want to know why Charlie couldn’t come to the phone, and that was something I was in no mood to explain to my wife right now. I cleared my throat as loudly as I could, and knocked forcefully. 

“Charlie!” I banged on the door. “Mum’s on the phone, she wants to speak to you!”

The murmuring and giggling stopped instantly, and I heard the pitter patter of my son’s feet as he no doubt leapt out of Nick’s bed and ran to his own adjoining bedroom on the other side of the bathroom.

“Come in, Pro!” Nick said after a moment.

Pro. Come on now. How could I not be anything other than totally endeared to this kid? Can you blame me?

I opened the door, and saw Nick sitting up in his very messy bed, completely red-faced, as he tried to smooth his hair down. His rugby jersey was on back to front from where he’d evidently just chucked it on in haste. I stared at him, almost as embarrassed for him as I was for myself, his chest emblazoned with NELSON in white lettering and a large number 7 on his stomach. The room smelled like sweat. Idiots. I hoped to god they were practising safe sex at least.  

“Charlie,” I called through the bathroom, as Nick pretended to busy himself on his laptop. “Come and speak to Mum.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie said, half-begrudgingly. I scuttled downstairs to map out my game plan to let these two know I knew exactly what was happening here. Enough was enough.

But how to broach the subject? It’s such a tricky one. Jane often teases me, saying that even though I know eight languages, I still have trouble saying what I mean. I find it’s the eternal curse of the linguist. I know people who speak a dozen languages who are some of the dullest conversationalists imaginable. It’s because we linguists tend to operate in the realm of construction, not expression. That’s what artists, writers, and musicians are for. 

So, how to best do this, then? There’s no guidebook for parents in these situations. I wished to god there was. Wouldn’t that be the dream – to be able to go and select a volume off my bookshelf entitled, (ideally), “How To Let Your Son’s Boyfriend Know You Approve Of Him And Their Relationship Without Embarrassing Either One To Death Because They Haven’t Felt Compelled To Proactively Confide In You About It Yet?”

It feels disloyal to say so, but secretly, I was quite relieved Jane wasn’t there to witness all of this. She’d have had a conniption if she thought Charlie was spending the entire summer in his bedroom with Nick instead of making an advancement on his Latin fourth year modules like he said he was going to. Jane and I have always been totally supportive of the children's sexualities, but we feel it’s reasonable to draw the line at any hanky panky under our roof. 

Though, heaven knows you can’t stop them. It’s no different to what I was doing at that age, any rules my parents imposed be damned. My first girlfriend and I spent a pretty hot and heavy summer in this very house when we were even younger than them, for goodness sake. 

Parenting makes hypocrites of us all, in the end, no matter how hard we try. 

So it was with these thoughts that I sat contemplatively in my study, remembering what Charlie had said to me the day after Nick had arrived. He had chastised me, reminding me that he had asked me specifically not to pick an intern who was going to distract him or break his heart. 

Goodness, but didn’t I totally arse that one up. Well, I got halfway there at least. Nick certainly seems to have distracted Charlie. But, I have a distinct feeling from the way that boy looks at my son that he’s never going to break his heart. 

~Esme Deloza~ 

~One year after Nick and Charlie met~

~The beginning of the following summer~

I’m so excited, dios mío. The Spring family is arriving tomorrow. The villa is all ready for them. I went earlier today and opened all the windows to air the place out, unrolled the rugs, and plugged in all the appliances, giving it all a good dusting.

Profesor, Profesora, Victoria, Michael, and Oliver arrive tomorrow. Charlie and Nick arrive today, as they have come directly from spending a few days in Menorca with Nick’s mother. They are coming firstly to my house! I am cooking them a feast, and they will stay with me tonight, and then meet their family at their villa tomorrow.

Oh, but how excited I am. I got up at dawn to begin the preparations. I spoke to Charlie on the TimeFace last week to confirm all our plans, and he told me a little about what he and Nick have been up to in the last few months. They are both finished university now – what smart boys they are. 

Charlie also told me of their upcoming plans. He and Nick will remain in the villa for the summer, and then move to London together. This way they will be close to the Springs, who live in Oxford, and also close to Nick’s mother, who lives in a place called Kent, somewhere I have never been. Nick already has a job lined up, he will be a physical therapist, and Charlie does not have a job just yet, but I know that he will get one wherever he wants. He said something about wanting to create codes on a computer, and how his mathematics has prepared him suitably for a job in this field, and although I don’t understand how computers work at all, I am sure he knows what he’s talking about.

Anyway, here I am dithering on when there is work to be done. The boys will be here in an hour or so.

“Antonio!” I clapped my hands to wake up my husband, who was fast asleep on the couch. I turned off the football match he was ‘watching.’

“Hey! I was watching that!” Antonio grunted.

I ignored him. “Do up your belt buckle, por favor! Charlie and his boyfriend are going to be here soon!”

“Boyfriend?” Antonio wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up, doing his belt. “You mean girlfriend, no?

I rolled my eyes and boofed him over the head with one of the couch cushions. “No, Antonio, we talked about this many times. I told you already. Charlie is a homosexual. You know this, come on mi amor, have you taken your pills today? And Nick, the boy he is bringing with him, is his boyfriend, and Nick is bisexual. You met him last year, remember?”

“What does this mean, beesexual?” Antonio pronounced the word deliberately, his brow crinkling in confusion. “He likes honey and flowers?”

I groaned. “No, you neanderthal! Not beesexual. Bisexual. Like bye, like goodbye in the English,” I said ‘goodbye’ in English for emphasis. “‘Bye.’”

Antonio harrumphed. He tries his best, god bless him, but he is old, and not as modern or in touch with young people as me. I even have my own Facebook website, with my name and picture on it and everything. I know how to give the thumbs up on all the telegrams my friends and my church group pin on the digital notice board, and I know how to leave a remark using my favourite smiley circle on my iPad, which is 👌 although sometimes I also use ❤️ or 🥰.

“Alright, alright,” Antonio grumbled. “I understand what you’re saying now. Bisexual. Okay. It’s just hard keeping up with all these confounded new sexualities, that’s all!”

“Well, you must try!” I waved my arms so that he would move off the couch, and started fluffing the cushions. “And there’s nothing new about them. You are just a dusty old blanket at the bottom of the box that needs to be placed on the line for some fresh air. Welcome to the twenty-first century, cariño. Madre María and holy father, if you embarrass me in front of those boys tonight, by the body of Christ, I will throw poison on your rose garden.”

“You are as feisty as you were when you were twenty,” he said to me with a fond smile. He rubbed my shoulder. He’s a sweet man, really. “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. Charlie has been here for dinner many times before. He’s not royalty.”

Oh, but that’s where Antonio is wrong. Charlie and Nick are very much like royalty to me, and I am going to give them a dinner they will never forget. 

“I need you to sweep the front porch and get all the good china from our wedding out of storage,” I told him. “Hurry along now! They’ll be here soon.”

Antonio opened his mouth as if to protest, but I gave him my very best hairy eyeball, and he must have thought the better of it, because all he did was throw his hands up in the air and mutter aye, dios mío! under his breath. He trudged towards the front porch, grabbing the broom along the way.

Esme: 1. Antonio: 0. 👌

You see, the thing is, I have looked after Charlie every summer since he was seven years old — back when his grandparents, god rest their souls, were still alive. He was a delightful child, and he grew up into a delightful young man. He is always the first to offer to help and the last to leave when there is work to be done. He always, always takes time to ask me how I am and ask about all of my family. He really listens to me and I believe he enjoys that I listen to him in return. Charlie sometimes comes into the kitchen and talks to me for an hour, or more. Nobody else in the household does this. 

I love him. Charlie is my special treasure. He’s just about the sweetest and most polite boy I’ve ever met. He deserved a wonderful love story. 

I saw the signs very early. Young Nick made absolutely no secret of the fact that he was enamoured with my Charlie. He’s one of those people that cannot hide how they’re feeling. I watched as his smile exploded over his face every time Charlie entered the room, and how bereft he appeared when Charlie left. Some days, when Nick and I were cooking something together, I believe he was trying to ask me about Charlie, because of course I could recognise Charlie’s name in English if not much else, so I would spend some time telling Nick about Charlie in Spanish, and it did feel like we were truly communicating in these moments. I told Nick many times that I thought Charlie was in love with him in return and that Nick ought to be brave and express his feelings.

It took them a week or two, but they got there eventually. I saw them kissing behind the pantry door one day when I arrived early. I scurried back into the living room, grinning like the Cheshire cat that collected the cream.

By the time two or three weeks more had gone by, the relationship must have been moving along its course, because I would arrive to do my work each afternoon to find that the washing machine was already on, with either Charlie’s or Nick’s bedsheets, or often both sets at a time (the libido of the young person, dios mío!) halfway through a cycle, and the linen cupboard raided and empty – all the sets of clean, fresh sheets mysteriously vanished.

They think because I’m old I don’t know anything, but Esmerelda Deloza is no fool. You mean to tell me that after fifteen consecutive summers spent here under my care, during which time Charlie had never even so much as washed a sock, he’s all of a sudden so motivated to do laundry that he is washing his bedsheets every single beeping day? Aye, díos, por favor. Spare me days! I was young once too, you know. I know all about the pre-emptive sheet washing trick. 

Either Charlie or Nick was also emptying out the little metal bin in their shared bathroom every day too, by that stage, because every time I went up to their bedrooms to do it myself, it was either freshly prepared with a clean bin bag, or, as happened most afternoons, the door to Nick’s bedroom was firmly closed, and I couldn’t get in there to check up on things or to tidy up in there, even if I had wanted to. 

Bueno, I remember thinking, only a tiny bit spitefully, dragging the vacuum cleaner back down the hallway with me after being greeted with Nick’s closed door. Have dusty bedrooms, Charlie and Nick — see if I care! No doubt dust was the very last thing on their minds those days, anyway. I am sure those two lovebirds wouldn’t have noticed if the villa started melting away at the edges like the clocks in that famous Dalí painting.

Instead, I would fire up the vacuum cleaner on its loudest setting and bang it purposefully against the skirting boards of the upstairs hallway as I cleaned up there, by way of notifying the two of them that they were not in fact alone on the second story of the house (I still had my job to do, after all), so if they didn’t want me to hear them having their relations together, they’d better keep it down until the vacuum noise subsided and I was safely deposited back in the kitchen.

I think it worked, as I never heard them — thanks be to díos. On the occasions where I could grant myself safe passage into their rooms, I restricted my cleaning to the collection of empty tea cups. Any newly laundered clothes of theirs, I would simply leave in a folded pile on the edge of the bed. Although, ratbags that they were, sometimes, the following day, the neat pile would be tossed on the floor, an innocent victim of when they’d jumped into bed without a care to firstly move the clothes into their wardrobes. Estúpidos. They couldn’t wait not a solitary second before spoiling their clean clothes? 

And díos en cielo, I would never dream of looking in their bedside drawers or cupboards, for example. I’ve been the mother of teenagers too, don’t forget. There are some places us mothers just aren’t supposed to look.

By July, even Abel had sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Abel, the gardener, one of my oldest friends, who is nearing seventy, and is half blind, and has days where he thinks Generalísimo Franco is still El Presidente. 

“What is going on between those two?” Abel asked me one day. We were in the kitchen together, crushing fresh olives into a tapenade to marinate the sea bass he had caught from the river earlier that morning. We were standing at the window, watching Nick and Charlie playing together outside. 

It sounds ridiculous to describe two young men in their twenties as ‘playing’, but I have no other words for it. They were running around with their shirts off, spraying each other with Abel’s garden hose, tackling each other in jest, squealing with laughter, tumbling around on the wet grass like two puppy dogs.

“I think they are in love,” I replied, feeling my eyes get all misty. 

Charlie was spraying the hose directly on top of Nick’s head, laughing loudly as he rumpled up Nick’s wet hair. Nick picked Charlie up and hoisted him over his shoulder as though Charlie was a doll, Charlie protesting in English, screeching, and even though I couldn’t catch what he was saying, it was clear it was all a wonderful joke to them both. They looked like two angels, frolicking in the dappled late afternoon glow, their eyes sparkling as they paused every now and again to gaze at each other. Nick reached over and flicked some of Charlie’s wet curls over his forehead, as they grinned at one another like two simpletons.

Abel grunted, trying to express some sort of disapproval, but I could see a smile curve around the corner of his mouth. “Hmph. Young people these days.”

“You were young and in love once,” I reminded him.

“Yes, but I had the good sense to conduct my business behind closed doors until I proposed to her.”

I gasped at this thought. “You think they might get married someday?” 

My heart fluttered, and I already started imagining how I would prepare their wedding banquet for their ceremony in the orange grove.

“Perhaps. Why not? You don’t think they would make for a good match?” Abel asked, and I realised we had both now stopped crushing the olives, transfixed by the sight of Nick and Charlie, the hose abandoned and spilling a puddle onto the grass at their feet, as Nick closed his eyes when Charlie reached up to wipe a smudge of dirt off Nick’s cheek, Nick leaning into Charlie’s touch. How sweet they looked.

“Yes, they would,” I said, quite certain that Nick and Charlie would make for just about the best match of any two people who ever lived. “Son perfectos.”

It was easy for me to like Nick, you see. This is because Nick reminded me of my son, Leo — god rest his soul. Leo was killed in a car accident when he was eighteen years old — almost twenty years ago now. I carry him with me in my heart every moment of my life. Every morning, I light a candle for him. It’s hard to describe in so many words what the loss of my son did and meant to me. All I can say is that it left a wide and gaping ache in my heart and my spirit which no amount of love and happiness (of which I have much of in my life, thanks be to god) will ever truly fill up.

Like Nick, Leo had a sunny disposition and a welcoming face. People often remarked on how handsome my Leo was. Like Leo, Nick is polite and caring. He’s perhaps shyer than Leo was — Leo was the life of every party — but in many respects, he seems to share the very traits I most miss in Leo.

Still, enough reminiscing. There was a knock on the door and I quickly took my apron off to welcome the boys. I couldn’t believe it was nine months since I had last seen them. It was a beautiful early June afternoon, the sky so blue it almost hurt your eyes to look at it.

I opened the door to Nick and Charlie, who were standing on the front step, holding hands, and Charlie leapt into my arms first for a big cuddle, while Nick stood back, cradling a very large and beautiful bunch of flowers in one arm.

“Hello! It’s so good to see you, Esme!” Charlie said to me, in Spanish of course, and held my shoulders for a moment to look at me properly and say, “you just look younger and younger every year!”

“What a load of rubbish!” I shouted back to him, although I was delighted by what he had said. “You are always so cheeky to me! Now, get out of the way and let me see my Nick.”

“Hello, Esme! I’ve missed you so much!” Nick said to me in near perfect Spanish, with just a hint of a French accent. What a good boy he is. I always knew he was smart. He presented the flowers to me.

“Nick, cariño! Thank you for the flowers, they are so gorgeous. Come here, let me look at you both. Don’t you both look fabulous! I’m so lucky to have you both here tonight! Did you have a fun time in Menorca?”

Nick was listening to me with great concentration. I know I speak quickly when I’m excited. Charlie beamed at Nick and gave him a moment to respond. “Yes, Menorca was very good, thank you,” Nick replied slowly in Spanish. “We are happy to be at your house, Esme!”

“Come in, come in the both of you. Would you like red wine, or white wine? Antonio! Fetch the wine from the cellar.”

Antonio scuffled away obediently while I herded the boys into the good sitting room.

“Sit, sit,” I insisted, as I searched the display cabinet for a big enough vase for the flowers. Nick and Charlie sat on the couch, and while they thought I wasn’t looking, Nick draped his arm around Charlie’s shoulder and kissed him on the forehead. 

“Tell me boys, how are you? Was your year apart very terrible, or not too bad? You must be so happy to finally be together, properly, at last.”

Charlie answered. “The year apart wasn’t so bad at all, really. We spoke constantly and spent every second weekend together. It went quite quickly, actually! Don’t you think, Nick?” Charlie switched to English, and must have repeated my questions to Nick in English, for Nick began nodding his agreement once he had listened to Charlie, saying to me, “oh yes, very quickly, muy rápido.”

“If anything,” Charlie switched back to Spanish and addressed me. “The year apart was incredibly…validating, in a way? Like, the time apart from Nick did nothing but confirm my belief, which I’ve always had since the moment I met him, that we are destined to be together. Oh god, don’t tell him I said that, or he’ll tease me for being a big sap,” Charlie laughed, and Nick beamed at him, clearly only half-following the conversation. “And besides, now we already feel like such a big challenge of our relationship has already been conquered — so now we can do anything.”

“I told you love was no barrier to these things,” I swatted Charlie on the arm. “Perhaps next time you’ll listen to old Esme, hey?”

“Yes, yes, yes” Charlie said, pretending to be dismissive, but he was grinning at me.

I could hear Antonio clinking the wine glasses in the kitchen. He’d be back in the room in a moment. I wanted to say this next part before he joined us.

“Nick, cariño,” and he gazed up at me as I moved from the armchair to sit instead next to him on the couch. I took his hand in mine and he squeezed it. “I said some of this to Charlie over the TimeFace when I spoke with him last week. But I must say it to you too. I just…I want you to know, that last summer…watching you fall in love with my Charlie was one of the happiest things that has happened to me these past few years. Charlie deserves the love that you give to him. To see you two treat each other with such care, and respect, and affection, gave me such joy. Charlie has always been like my son, and I know Charlie told you once that you remind me of my Leo, and you still do,” I patted Nick’s hair, and he smiled that same warm smile at me that reminded me of Leo, and I struggled to choke back a little sob, “and therefore I have to tell you that I think of you as my son too, and that you two are always welcome in my home, and I hope I get to live a very long life still to come, so I can see you two get married and have babies and return to my house every summer with your family to let me enjoy how happy you both are with each other.”

I said all this in Spanish, of course. Antonio shuffled in with a tray of wine glasses, but none of us even glanced in his direction. Nick’s eyes had filled with tears. I have absolutely no idea how much of what I said that he understood. Perhaps most of it…perhaps hardly anything. It didn’t matter though, I realised, because he had evidently grasped my meaning well enough. He opened his arms to me and enveloped me in a hug, saying, “gracias, Esme, te quiero,” and I wept a little, because whilst I’d lost one son, I knew I had two more sitting right here with me. 

Charlie giggled and wiped away his own tears, wrapping his arms around Nick and I in a lovely group hug. And it was in that moment I realised that sometimes we don’t need to understand each other through speaking or through words in order to communicate. Similarly, you don’t have to understand your feelings completely to know that you like something, or that you’re happy — you can just feel. 

And that, in moments of pure connection, like this one, that you share with other people — whether they’re a lover, or a friend, or your sons — sometimes words are futile devices.