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Chapter Text

Nick sits on his settee and scrolls through TikTok. He caved at last and installed the dreaded app after a student at his school was put in detention for something that was apparently connected to some sort of TikTok challenge. You have to keep up, these days, to understand the youth, as painful as it might be.

His girlfriend Heather, lounging on the other side of the settee, suddenly squeaks.

“No way! Monica got herself a boyfriend!” she exclaims. 

Nick stops scrolling and looks up from his phone. “Oh wow, how did she manage to pull that off?” he asks, amused.

Monica is their unhappy, chronically single friend, who has always entertained them Friday nights at the pub with endless tales of disastrous dates. As much as he’s delighted for her, he’ll definitely miss the stories.

“There is this new app,” Heather tells him.

Nick raises an eyebrow. “An app?”

“Yes, Nicholas, these little programs on your phone, to do things with. You surely know what an app is?”

“I know what an app is!” He waves his phone in front of her face, with the screen facing her. “You can’t mock me any more, I am a TikTok user now! I am up-to-date.” His left hand is making little quotation marks in the air, and he puts on an earnest face. 

She laughs. “So, there is this app called MeetCute.”

“MeatCute? Sounds like Grindr for low-carb fetishists.”

“Meet as in meeting someone, Nicholas! It’s a dating app that promises, and I quote, ‘to find your true match based on psychological analysis’.”

“So you have to go to therapy before they find you a match?”

“No, you dipstick!” She throws a pillow at him. “You have to answer a bunch of questions, and then the app analyses your answers and finds your true love via some secret algorithm.”

“Getting together through a TikTok challenge,” Nick states with an ironic nod.

“Good grief, you are obsessed with this TikTok thing. I will uninstall it from your phone if you keep this up!” Heather groans. She’s quiet for a few seconds and then continues with a shifted tone. “It’s actually really smart, don’t you think? You answer 30 questions, and they match you up on your basic values and preferences, so you don’t have to worry about dating an absolute twatwaffle who doesn’t like dogs.”

“There are people who don’t like dogs? Do they let psychopaths sign up, too?”

“Nicholas! Can you, for once, focus, please?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t aware that this is a serious topic here. I’m all ears!”

That earns him another pillow on the head. “You are insufferable, just forget it!” she laughs, and they both get back to their smartphones.

Nick had just found a rather delicious account about rugby training videos (seriously, how is this sport still considered straight?) when Heather puts down her phone again and looks at him.

“Do you reckon we’d match?”

“What?” Nick raises his eyebrows again. “You do realise that we are already together? Or do I have to slip you a piece of paper – yes, no, maybe later?”

“Of course I do. But do we actually match? Like, would we find each other with this algorithm?”

Nick puts his phone down. That took a turn he didn’t expect, and suddenly he’s getting all anxious. “Do you have the feeling that we don’t? Are you unhappy?”

She looks at him thoughtfully and sighs. “I am not unhappy, no. But sometimes I have the feeling that we don’t have a lot in common. And that everything is so … domestic. I’m missing the fun that we had in the beginning. Let’s do something fun again!”

“You know, I’m all up for fun!” Nick agrees. “What do you wanna do?”

“Let’s sign up on the app.”

If Nick had had tea, he would have choked on it now. “Excuse me, what? Do you want to … open our relationship?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, of course not! I just wanna see if we match! Make a game out of it!”

He shakes his head. “Babe, I love you, but I don’t think that’s a sound idea. Actually, I think this is your stupidest idea yet. This is a recipe for disaster and drama.”

“Oh, come on, Nicky boy, this would be fun! That’s some trust you have in us! We sign up, answer all these questions, and just see whether we match or not. And when we match, we can make a role play out of it.”

She gets up from her side of the sofa, crawls towards him, and kisses him. She looks him straight in the eye, and with a deep voice continues, “Flirt a bit. Get on a date. Have a hot night.”

Nick smirks and puts his phone on the table. “Well, when you phrase it like that …” He cups her face and presses his lips on hers.

Later that day, he sits alone at their dinner table to answer the questions for signing up in MeetCute. They’d decided it would be best if they did it truly individually – no peeping, no influencing. 

30 questions, about his morals, his preferences, his life goals.

Are you interested in seeing people of the opposite sex? Clear yes.

Are you interested in seeing people of the same sex? Well, he doesn’t want to date anyone else besides Heather, but this is clearly about his sexuality, and he is clearly bisexual. So yes.

Do you want children? Yes.

Do you like animals? There’s no "well, duh!" option, so yes.

He continues to go through the questions, answering as honestly as he can, and then goes ahead to create his profile description.

Self-advertising has never been his strongest suit, and he thinks hard about what to add here. He goes back and forth, writing and deleting it again –  including a whole paragraph about being in a happy relationship. He scolds himself for mentioning it on a dating app, then scolds himself for hiding it, because he isn’t going to look for someone else, and finally scolds himself for overthinking. Eventually, he acknowledges that he isn’t actually looking for someone else, and just jots down some nonsense about the dogs and his mum.

God, this is so hard. How do people do this for real?

Okay, now a photo. He opens his “Heather, Nick, and Heather & Nick” folder on the phone and scrolls through, starting at the beginning of their relationship. He smiles, looking at the huge amount of photos they have taken with, and of, each other over time, remembering all the nice things they’ve done together. He can’t help noticing, though, that the longer they'd been together, the fewer pictures they took. They seemingly spent less and less time as a couple, until eventually all the photos showed Heather or Nick off with their own friends, absorbed in their separate hobbies.

Was Heather onto something? Nick thought they did fine so far as a couple. Yes, the butterflies from the beginning were gone, and they aren’t as inseparable as they once were, but isn’t that normal?

He starts to wonder whether they’ve drifted more apart than they want to admit.

He quickly decides on a photo from his latest pride. He remembers vividly how much fun he had with Tara and Darcy – and how disappointed he was when Heather cancelled at the last minute. Ignoring the pit in his stomach, and decidedly not thinking about how shit things might actually be with Heather, he takes a deep breath and hits post.

Chapter Text

“But that’s …” Tara falters, clearly searching for the right words.

“Stupid,” Darcy helps.

“Questionable,” Tara adds.

“Completely ridiculous,” Darcy screams.

“Recipe for disaster,” Tara mentions.

“Impressively bad,” Darcy declares.

"A terrible idea," Tara argues.

"Just plain dumb," Darcy finalises.

“I know!” Nick answers. He groans and lets his head fall on the table. That’s probably really gross, given that he's in a pub, but he doesn’t care right now.

Tara sighs. “Oh Nick, why did you agree to this?”

“She says it will be fun!” he mumbles. “And that we could have sex!”

Darcy leans over the table and squints her eyes, trying to look at Nick’s hidden face. “Wait, that was her argument?”

Nick tilts his head a bit, opens one eye and looks back at Darcy.

“Well,” he huffs, “it was the end of her argument.”

He sits back up and tosses a few of the peanuts into his mouth that Darcy always orders with their beer.

“And why is she arguing with hanky-panky anyhow? Is your little Nicky not knackered enough?”

Nick nearly chokes. Tara hisses, “Darcy!” and shoots Nick an apologetic look.

“But seriously, Nick,” she then says softly, “is everything alright with you and Heather? You know you can talk about this with us!”

Nick thinks about this question before he answers. “Well, yes and no? We get along super well, and we have fun … sometimes? But I guess it feels like we … live beside each other? Rather than with each other?” he eventually says, sounding unsure. “And yeah, the sex, while we are at it, could be more. Or well. The sex could be, to be absolutely honest.” He smiles meekly. “I guess we are more flatmates than lovers lately. Heather believes this could bring back the tension, the fun.”

Tara doesn’t look very convinced. “And you talked about the boundaries of this experiment?”

Nick doesn’t look at his friends when he answers. “Well, not exactly?”

“What?” Darcy cries out loud. “Nickelodeon, my friend, are you insane? Oh God, this one is an utter bi-saster!” They throw their arms in the air.

Tara nods. “You need to set boundaries.”

“But we have been together for so long, we know our boundaries. We don’t want to meet other people. We want to see if the app matches us. Nothing else,” Nick shoots back. And with a lower, slightly insecure voice, he adds, “at least nothing romantic. There might be a new friend in it? I don’t know!”

Tara lifts an eyebrow. “And you are sure that you and Heather are on the same page? That she won’t swipe right on anybody?”

Nick looks defeated and allows his anxiety about this whole ordeal to come to the surface for the first time. “Oh God, what if she meets someone cute?”

Tara looks at him. “What if you meet someone cute?”

Darcy grins. “Then your little Nicky gets his little meat cute!”

“Ugh!” Nick throws a peanut at Darcy. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t call my penis little Nicky.”

Darcy is unfazed. “I did not agree to anything of the sort.”

When he comes home, Heather is still out with her friends, so he plants himself on the settee and puts on Avengers. He could really use a comfort movie right now. He’s decided to just ignore the whole app thing until Heather matches with him, and then they can forget about it and go on with their life.

An hour into the movie, his group chat pings.

Nick grunts. So much for his plan to ignore the issue. He wishes he weren’t such a people pleaser and had stood by his opinion – that this is a fucking crappy idea and that they should absolutely not do this –  but now he is stuck in it. 

He opens the app and half-heartedly starts flicking through the profiles that are suggested to him as matching partners. He swipes left on picture after picture, in the hope of quickly finding Heather and putting this to an end. 

Suddenly, he stops swiping, and stares down at the profile that just appeared. He tries to zoom in on the photo, because the man who’s shyly smiling at something outside of the photo, looks gorgeous. When the app doesn’t let him, he exhales a frustrated groan and holds the screen nearer to his face.

The man has olive-toned skin, luscious black curls and gorgeous sparkling, deep blue eyes. His cheekbones are so sharp, you could cut a steak with them, and on top of that, Nick spots a dimple.

Jesus, Mary and a bit of Joseph, this is the most beautiful creature Nick has ever laid eyes on. Now, Heather is a truly beautiful woman, and Nick has always considered himself lucky to get to be with a woman like her, but never has she caught his breath in a way this man did with just a photo. If he’s that beautiful on screen, he must be stunning in real life.

Nick swallows and checks the rest of the man’s profile to find out as much as he can about him. His profile is as sparsely filled as his own, but at least now he knows that his name is Charlie, he likes books, running and coffee, and that he’s about Nick’s age. The Lorem Ipsum that Charlie chose as profile text is giving away … nothing. Well, it could mean that he hates filling out dating profiles. Nick feels intrigued to find out the reasoning, because he actually finds it hilarious and wishes he had thought about that.

But now what? 

Conflicted thoughts are running through Nick’s mind. Just a few hours ago, he fiercely told Tara and Darcy that he wouldn’t match any other person than Heather. Now that he has stumbled upon Charlie’s profile, he isn’t so sure about that anymore. He truly can’t fathom swiping left on this guy. He’d never cheat on Heather, absolutely not, and he’s definitely not planning to hit on Charlie. Or to pursue something romantically.

There might be a new friend in it?

His own words from earlier echo in his head, convincing himself that it’s totally fine and reasonable. It’s unlikely that they match, anyhow. Why would they – a man like Charlie would never swipe right on Nick. He’s way out of Nick’s league.

Well, Heather could have set strict boundaries, but she didn’t, did she? It was her idea after all. 

This is on Heather alone, he thinks, as he swipes right. 

He’s already in bed when Heather finally calls it a night with her friends. He pretends to be half asleep, and she carefully slips under their duvet. “How was your day?” she murmurs.

“Hmmm,” he answers. “Normal.”

She chuckles, but doesn’t ask further. He knows that she knows that he’s deflecting. They have been together for some time, after all. Still, she’s not pressing. 

Maybe she doesn’t care any more after all? 

“Did you have a look at the app today?” she probes instead.

“Not really, just a glance,” he says. It’s nearly the truth; he wasn’t on the app for a very long time, was he? He stopped right after he swiped right on Charlie. This little detail he doesn’t tell her, of course. “I was quite tired after the pub. You know Darcy, I love them, but they’re a lot. What about you?”

“Nuh, didn’t have time. I was busy listening to all the gushing from Monica about her new boyfriend, remember?” She laughs, but sounds tired.

“Well, good night, then, I don’t want to keep you from your well-needed beauty sleep,” she smirks. She turns around, and from the corner of his eye, he notices the subtle glow from her smartphone screen lighting up. Probably one of the girls, he thinks.

He’s already nearly asleep when his phone lights up with a notification, too. Carefully and slowly, he reaches for it, hoping that Heather doesn’t notice, and glances at the screen.

For a second he stops breathing.

You’ve got a match.

Chapter Text

Nick’s brain boards a roller coaster car as soon as it grasps the meaning of the notification. Charlie and Nick had matched. Charlie, this beautiful angelic creature, had decided to right-swipe on Nick. Charlie might be attracted to Nick.

But what now? Does Nick contact him? Will Charlie contact Nick? What should he write? Nick isn’t witty and funny; he is a bisexual disaster, not good at flirting, always rambling and bumbling and stumbling over words. Chill is not a word that exists in his vocabulary – he is anything but chill.

On top of that, he reminds himself, he is decidedly not looking for a new partner. His partner, his girlfriend of four years, is lying right next to him, sleeping, while Nick is spiralling over a man he doesn’t even know. What kind of knob is he? Who thinks about other people while lying next to their partner?

Isn’t this exactly what Tara had warned him about? What if you meet someone cute? Nick groans and rolls around under his blanket. He had been against it from the start. Why did he let Heather talk him into it? This was such a stupid thing. He never wanted to sign up for this stupid app, and now he’s lying in his bed, haunted by four simple words that are repeated over and over again in his head (in a way too chipper artificial voice that his mind made up for this notification).

You’ve got a match.

He glances at the clock: 3:12 am. It's safe to say he isn't going to get any sleep tonight, and he’s afraid to wake up Heather with his fidgeting, so he gets up and plants himself on the settee in the living room.

He opens TikTok and scrolls through the videos to distract himself. Apparently, the universe notices his distraught state, and the app keeps feeding him loads of videos about penguins. Specifically – gay penguins. Happy about the distraction, he dives right into that rabbit hole, and an hour later, he knows everything there is to know about gay penguins.

In a burst of courage (and sleep deprivation), he opens MeetCute and starts a message thread with Charlie.

Nick groans and throws his phone on the settee. He is such an idiot. Opening a conversation with a monologue about gay penguins before even saying “hi”? Classic bisexual-disaster-Nelson behaviour! Good thing he never intended to flirt on this app anyhow, because that ship has definitely sailed now. No way Charlie is going to answer that opening line. 

He lets his head fall back and tries not to panic or spiral again. He’s not trying to be on a ship that isn’t Heather’s, for fucks sake! Then he hears the familiar ping. He jolts up and grabs his phone.

Oh! Well, maybe the ship hasn’t sailed yet.

Oh god! What is he doing here? Nick closes his eyes in a (quite unsuccessful) attempt to calm his nerves. He didn’t want to do this in the first place and now here he is, flirting his arse off with a beautiful, witty, funny, and smart man. He hasn't been this excited since … he can’t even fully remember the last time he was this excited. This conversation just flows, he doesn’t even have to think about it.

But … he’s definitely flirting. He shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not fair to Heather. Or to Charlie. He grunts again and decides to be honest. Even if this probably means that he won’t ever be allowed to talk to Charlie again.

Focus!

Okay, fuck it.

Nick holds his breath while he observes the three bubbles in the chat appear and disappear again and again. It’s out now. He is already sad, because he genuinely enjoyed the conversation with Charlie, but there is no way this ends in favour of Charlie still talking to him. How could he think this could end in a friendship anyway? Charlie was clearly flirting and interested in something totally different.

Nick snorts and thinks about what to write next. At least Charlie hasn’t blocked him yet. He writes and deletes a lot, when Charlie becomes antsy enough to text again.

Nick laughs again. It seems that he is not the only person who starts rambling when he is nervous.

Nick closes his eyes. He is going to get so much shit from Tara and Darcy. He already feels the slap in the neck from Darcy, he sees the pitiful look from Tara, he hears their “We told you so.”

What a fucking disaster he is.

And then …

Ping!

Oh fuck. His heart beats like he did a 5k run around the park. Not only has this ship not sailed, the ship has just anchored in Nick’s haven, and Charlie has boarded, in full force, dressed as a pirate, entering Nick’s soul. Yes, he does have a thing for pirates, thank you very much for asking.

Nick’s fingers hover over his phone.

Because you’re so beautiful. Because I couldn’t resist. Because I immediately had the fear of losing you, without even knowing you.

Because I’m a mess.

No, he can’t. He’s in a committed relationship, and he’s already flirting too much, even if he doesn’t intend to. While it’s true that they did not talk about boundaries, it’s clear that he has already crossed them. Despite his heart racing, despite his longing to pursue this further, he decides to break the tension. Maybe this can lead to a new friendship, after all? He grins like an idiot when he types his answer.

Chapter Text

Nick still finds himself staring and giggling at his phone, typing away witty answers, when hours later, Heather rises from her sleep and plops down on the other end of the settee. Time has flown without Nick noticing it, and never before has it been so easy for him to talk to someone like it has been to talk to Charlie for the last few hours.

Heather smirks at him. “I see I’ve lost you to this dreaded app.”

Oh fuck! Nick’s head jolts up. Has he been that obvious? He’s known to carry his emotions right on his face, but …

“What rabbit hole has TikTok dragged you down now?” Heather continues.

Oh, that app. He tries to repress his sigh of relief.

“Gay penguins,” he replies. “I found a book that I just had to order immediately for my classroom.” He pulls up the photo of the penguin book and shows it to Heather. “There are also bisexual ones, did you know that?”

“Aw, that’s so sweet! I love how you care for your kids.” She smiles at him. 

He puts down his phone. “Speaking of kids, are you ready to watch a bunch of overgrown adult kids running around chasing a leather egg later today? I already pulled out an old jersey from my uni team for you to wear, if you want.”

Heather looks at him with a faint pity in her face. “Oh shit, your game is today? Sorry, I totally forgot. I have a date with the girls for brunch. Also, you know how I hate standing on the sidelines with all the wives gushing about whose husband is the most sexy. Ugh, those women are awful. Sorry, babes.”

“Oh,” Nick answers, his smile dropping. She forgot again. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to go.

“Well, yeah, no worries, it’s fine. Maybe another time.” He tries not to let his disappointment shine through, but he knows he’s not very successful with that. It’s not that he didn’t expect her to bail anyhow, if he’s honest with himself.

“Yeah, next time for sure,” she says with an unconvincing smile as she gets up. “I have to get ready, or I’ll be late.”

And with that, Nick is alone again. On impulse, and hurt by being forgotten once again (more than he wants to admit), he grabs his phone and types a message to Charlie. Before he can doubt himself, he hits send.

And just like that, Nick and Charlie have a date.

No. Not a date, of course. He wouldn’t go on a date with Charlie, while he has a girlfriend. Would he?

They keep texting all morning until Nick has to get ready for his rugby match. Being alone with his thoughts for a few minutes it dawns on him: Did he ask Charlie out on what suspiciously seems like a date?

Well, fuck.

After his confession that he’s got a girlfriend, they had talked loads about his relationship with Heather – or what is left of it. He knows he should feel weird about it, with Charlie being a stranger and them having met on a fucking dating app, but it felt surprisingly good to talk about it. And once he had put it into words, he’d realised just how much he actually missed acting like a couple with Heather.

In all those texts, he did not intentionally flirt with Charlie – he tried to avoid it, even. Thinking about their texts last night and all day he now realises that he hasn’t been very successful with that. At all.

He grabs his phone and pulls up the group chat.

Walking to the rugby pitch, Nick can’t stop thinking about how stupid this idea was. Who asks someone to come to a rugby match for a first date? Charlie will be standing alone on the sidelines for the whole match. Also, this isn’t a fucking date, Nelson, you have a girlfriend.

He really is such a disaster.

It’s too late now, because he arrives at the rugby pitch and a curly-haired man is standing at the sidelines, nervously shuffling from one foot to the other, and keeps looking in all directions. When he spots Nick, he starts to smile and waves. Charlie. Fuck, he’s even more beautiful in real life than in his picture.

Nick starts a light jog towards Charlie and stops in front of him. “Hi!” he beams at him, “you came!”

“Yeah, I guess I did,” Charlie responds, beaming just the same. 

“Uhm, yeah, well,” Nick starts, “it was probably a stupid idea to suggest it, because I have to go play now instead of spending time with you, so this is gonna be the most boring, ehm, meeting you’ll ever have.”

“Good thing I brought a book,” Charlie laughs, holding up the book in his hands.

“And here I was thinking you wanted to ogle my shorts,” Nick smirks.

Smooth, Nelson.

“Shush, don’t tell on me,” Charlie laughs. “Now go, before you get in trouble! I’ll see you after the match!”

Warming up on the pitch, Nick feels a long-lost adrenaline rush through his body. He loves knowing someone is watching his match. He loves being observed. And he loves giving his best to show off. He glances over to where Charlie stands and is rewarded with a shy little wave from his not-date, which he immediately reciprocates. He can’t remember the last time Heather came to one of his matches, and once again he realises how much he’s missed that.

Unsurprisingly, under Charlie’s observant eyes, he plays the best rugby he’s played in a long time.

His three best friends from the team practically run him over after their win, screaming and laughing with joy. “Nelson, where have you been hiding that tiger for the last ten months?” Otis asks, while he ruffles through Nick’s hair. “We’ve missed him!”

Nick can’t help but grin. He shrugs. “I dunno, just felt good today, I guess.”

“Did Heather finally come to see you again?” Sai asks, scanning the sidelines. “I don’t see her!”

Nick’s grin falls from his face. “Oh, ehm. No. She didn’t. She … had other plans.”

He doesn’t look at his mates, not wanting to see the pity that is so clearly written all over their faces every time they talk about Nick’s girlfriend. Usually he just brushes it off, but today he can’t help but wonder if they’ve been seeing something for longer that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

Suddenly Christian grins and jabs his elbow in Nick’s side. “You do have a fan, though. Who’s that curly-haired cutie at the sideline who keeps looking in our direction?”

“Christian!” Otis scolds him.

“What? I can see when someone’s objectively good looking and you have to admit he’s totally Nick’s type! Imagine him with a pirate hat and a ruffled shirt!”

Nick looks over to the sidelines and sees that his date new friend is indeed watching them. Charlie throws him a grin and another wave. Nick can’t help but imagine him in the aforementioned pirate outfit and blushes.

“Christian, I have a girlfriend! He’s a friend!” Nick hisses.

Otis grins. “Does he know that? He looks quite smitten.” He leans closer to Nick. “And so do you, Nicholas No-Chill Nelson.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Nick answers and starts walking to the clubhouse to shower. He looks back over his shoulder and gives Charlie another smile.

You have a girlfriend, Nelson, he reminds himself, wondering when that stopped feeling like something good.

Chapter Text

Nick grabs one of the pints that the waiter just placed in front of them and lifts it.

“Cheers! To a relaxed evening without the chaos of a bunch of rugby lads!”

Charlie chuckles. “We could have joined your friends. Are you sure you don’t mind ditching them for me?” Charlie asks, now for the third time. “I feel bad for stealing your time with them.”

“Charlie, seriously, it’s fine! They would have grilled me endlessly, anyhow. I’m glad to have an excuse!”

“So that’s what I am to you? An excuse to avoid your friends?”

“No, that’s not what …” Nick hurries to say, but stops when he sees Charlie’s wide grin. “Oh, shove off, you menace!” he adds with a smirk.

“What would they be grilling you for anyhow?”

“For bringing a cute boy to the clubhouse and having no chill.”

Nick cringes internally. Did he really just say that? 

“But they do know about Heather, right? I mean, I’ve come as a friend, not as a cute boy,” Charlie says with wide eyes.

Nick shrugs. Why does it feel so sour to hear it phrased like this? “Yeah, they know. They also know that she hasn’t come to a match for ages.”

He takes another sip of his beer. He doesn’t look at Charlie when he quietly adds, “And they know that you’re exactly my type, to a T.”

God, what the hell? Five minutes into their non-date, and he’s laying his heart on the table. His heart, which feels so unfamiliar right now. Not even 24 hours ago, he was content in his relationship, and now he looks at those black curls next to him and his heart beats to a tune that it had long forgotten.

He flinches. “Sorry, Charlie, I’m a disaster.”

“I don’t think you are, actually.” 

“You don’t? Seriously, look at me. You didn’t sign up for this. Whatever … this is. You signed up to find a man who’s worth your time, not to hear me rambling about my relationship and witness how utterly no-chill and hopelessly embarrassing I am.”

“You’re my type, too, you know?” Charlie pushes his pint away. Propping his elbow on the table, he leans into his palm and looks at Nick with an open face. Nick mirrors his position, and for a while, they just look at each other. 

After a while, Charlie continues.

“I have rarely felt so safe and easy in a conversation as I do with you.” He smiles. “I don’t have to wonder anything about you or your intentions. You’ve been honest from the start on. I really appreciate that.”

“But …” Nick starts, but Charlie interrupts him.

“But, I am lucky to meet you as a friend, too, Nick. You’re a wonderful person, on the inside as well as on the outside. The time we’ve spent talking already is a win!” He grins. “Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish for Heather to fuck right off.”

Nick chuckles. “It’s complicated, you know?”

“Is it, though? Or are you just scared?”

Nick doesn’t know what to answer. “I need a wee,” he says, and flees to the bathroom.

Two hours later, Nick is laughing so hard that tears are running down his cheeks.

“You did not!” he screams.

“I absolutely did!” Charlie answers. “I was grounded for a whole month afterwards, but it was so worth it for the look on Grannie’s face. My sister was so proud, she kept sneaking in my friends as a reward.”

“You’re a legend, Charlie!”

The waiter appears and grabs the empty plates.

“Alright, mates? Do you want to see a dessert menu?”

“No, thanks, we’re fine,” Charlie says, after a quick non-verbal exchange with Nick.

“Gosh, you two are just too cute. How long have you been together, if I may ask?”

Nick blushes for the billionth time tonight. “We’re not … we’re …!” he stammers.

“We’re just friends!” Charlie states at the same time.

“No way! You look so settled together!” He looks back and forth between the two, then his eyes settle on Charlie’s face, and he grins. “Well, in that case … can I give you my number, darling?”

Charlie nearly chokes on his beer. “Uhm, thanks, but, uhm …”

The waiter laughs and shakes his head. “Nuh, it’s fine, I just had to shoot my shot, you know.” He leans forward to Nick and pretends to whisper. “You should, too, honey, he’s a catch.”

He winks again and leaves the table.

Under his breath, Nick mutters, “Yeah, he is,” and hides behind his pint.

From the corner of the eye he sees Charlie trying to suppress a grin. 

Did he hear that? Fucking hell. If this friendship thing is supposed to work, he really needs to get a grip.

Later, they stand in front of the pub to say their goodbyes. Nick has shoved his hands deep into his pockets because he doesn’t know what to do with them. And to not do anything he might regret later.

“Thank you for coming, Charlie. I had a lovely evening. It was so nice to have someone come and watch me in a match again.”

“It was my pleasure, Nick. Those shorts did not disappoint!” Charlie smirks.

“Ah, yes, I forgot,” Nick laughs, “you came for the shorts, and the shorts only!”

Then he continues in a low voice. “You know, if this were a date, I’d invite you home for a cup of tea.”

Charlie bats his eyelashes and looks at him. “If this were a date, I’d agree to come with you.”

“But …” Nick closes his eyes and gulps. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He wants to kiss Charlie so bad right now, but it wouldn’t be right. Not yet.

Charlie smiles at him, caring yet a bit sad. “I know. Don’t worry. Sort it out. You know where to find me. Good night, friend.”

Charlie gets on his toes and pecks Nick’s cheek. Then he turns around and leaves.

Nick doesn’t move. He watches Charlie leave, trying to ignore the eruption of butterflies in his stomach. He’s painfully aware that he shouldn’t have such an intense reaction to another person when he’s about to go home to his girlfriend, but he can’t help it.

Whatever he feels for Charlie not even 24 hours after their first text is a clear sign that things with Heather are not fine. And he dreads going home to face what that means for them.

The flat is dark when Nick comes home. He notices a glow coming from the balcony, where he finds Heather sitting on the floor, smoking.

She only ever smokes when something is upsetting her. 

Nick wonders whether they’re on the same page after all. He steps outside and sits down next to her.

“You’re an emotional smoker,” he states, instead of a greeting.

“Yup,” Heather answers and blows out a stream of smoke.

“Can I have one?” he asks.

She turns and looks at him with a look that tells him a lot. “You’re an emotional smoker, too,” she says. Clearly, she also knows that something is going on with him, too. Somehow, he finds it comforting that they can read each other that well. He wonders why they couldn’t these past months, though.

“Yup”, Nick answers, with a sad smile.

Heather closes her eyes and laughs. She takes out another cigarette, lights it, and holds it out for Nick to take. 

He inhales, puffs out the smoke, and looks up to the sky. He remembers so many nights, sitting outside with Heather on this exact balcony, drinking wine, laughing tears, being up until the wee hours. He wonders if they’ve lost that forever. It certainly feels like it right now.

It’s a thought that doesn’t fill him with anxiety, though. He feels surprisingly calm. Maybe he’s just tired.

“What a pair we are,” Heather finally says. She looks at him, a worried glance in her eyes. “So, that app … turns out that idea maybe backfired a bit?”

So, Heather has something to talk about, too. He checks in with himself, searching for his known panic. Still nothing. Yes, he wants to know what happened and talk to her about it – but he isn’t afraid of it.

“Yeah?” he asks non-committally.

“Sorry, Nick. You warned me it would be a bad idea. I really thought doing something unexpected would bring back the sparks.”

He looks at her, trying to decipher what she’s trying to tell him. “So, did you find sparks?”

She turns and looks back as if she doesn’t know what to say. Or doesn’t dare? “Yeah,” she finally admits. “I did.”

Why doesn’t that hurt more? Oh yeah, because he met someone, too. “Congrats?”

He laughs nervously.

“Aren’t you angry at me?”

He sighs. He pulls his legs to his body, and rests his arms on his knees. “No, I don’t think I am. I’m a bit sad. I’m confused. I’m tired. I’m a bit surprised, yeah. But honestly, it seems as if this just triggered something that was inevitable. It probably would have taken us another year to realise, though. So it’s kind of a good thing maybe?”

“We haven’t even talked about it, yet. How can you be so sure that this is how you feel?”

He doesn’t immediately answer. Then he says, “I don’t know. I still trust you, I guess? You’d be more upset right now if you’d done something I should be angry about.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she presses.

“We probably should, yeah,” he sighs. He crushes out his cigarette and gets up. “Not today though, if that’s alright with you. I need to think about things, sort my head. But we’ll talk.”

She looks up at him. “You too, huh?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess?”

“Yay, us.”

He laughs.

“I’m gonna sleep in the guest room tonight, and tomorrow I’ll stay with mum. After that, we’ll talk, I promise.”

He opens the balcony door to head inside.

“Nick?” She calls after him.

He stops in his tracks. “Yeah?”

“Did you do anything I should be angry about?”

“I didn’t cheat on you, if that’s what you mean.”

She exhales. “I still love you, you know that, right? I think it just shifted to a different kind of love. I really want to keep you in my life, if that’s in any way possible. Maybe try to not forget that, when you sort your head out?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Love you too, Heather. Good night.”

And with that, he pitches camp in the guest room for another sleepless night.

Chapter Text

When Nick’s car rolls up in front of his mum’s house, the door opens, and a worried-looking Sarah Nelson stands in the doorway. As soon as Nick approaches her, she opens her arms.

“Come here, Nicky,” and immediately he’s engulfed in the motherly warmth of a Nelson hug™️.

They stand like that for a full minute before Sarah releases her son and says, “Come in, I’ve already flicked on the kettle.”

“How did you know I was coming?”

“Motherly instinct,” she chuckles.

“Mum, seriously?”

She sighs. “Darcy texted me, they were concerned. Said, something’s going on in your mind, but you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“Can’t a man just think about his own things in peace before he’s pestered?” Nick groans.

Nick loves that Darcy and his mum still have such a good relationship. When they were teens, Darcy had no support from their own family. Sarah seamlessly slipped into the mother role for them, too, providing tons of Nelson hugs™️, motherly advice, and, most importantly, a safe space to find out about themselves. 

But sometimes it’s really annoying that they have their own little text chain and talk about him behind his back.

“Not a chance. Come on, let’s get that tea, and then we can talk, if you want,” she smirks and closes the door.

She shoves her son into a kitchen chair, puts two cups of tea on the table and flops down opposite him.

“Now talk.”

Nick anxiously looks at his mum. What would she say about this mess they’ve gotten themselves into? Then he remembers, ever since he came out as bisexual to her, she was there for him with a cup of tea and some wise words, never judging, always on his side. Whenever he made mistakes in the past, she never let him down. He decides to just jump into the cold water and let her catch him.

“I think Heather and I are going to break up.”

If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show.

“And why is that?”

He explains what happened in the last two days. Gosh, was it really just two days? Not even! He talks about the discontent he felt in his relationship without realising, about Heather’s suggestion to sign up for a dating app to match each other, about Charlie and their non-date, and finally about the short talk he had with Heather the night before.

When he’s finished, he looks at his mother, anxious about her reaction.

“Well, that was an amazingly stupid idea, I must say,” she finally says. “What were you two thinking?”

He can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, thanks mum, I know. And she does, too. But what do I do about it? Should I really throw away a relationship of four years for a man I’ve seen once?”

She puts her hand on his, before she answers.

“Look, baby, the way I see it, you wouldn’t be throwing away a relationship for this man. You’d be ending a relationship that doesn’t seem right anymore. And maybe you’ve found someone who’s right for you instead. But it’s two different things, and you need to look at them separately.”

“But what if Charlie doesn’t even want to be with me?”

“Then he doesn’t, and you will come back moping. And I will make you tea again. But it shouldn’t influence your decision about Heather.”

“Hm.”

“So, do you still love Heather?”

“Of course I do! She’s one of my best friends!”

“Do you love her differently than Tara or Darcy?”

His instinct tells him to affirm this as fast as the previous statement, but he forces himself to think about it.

He remembers Heather‘s words from last night, and how right they felt. It just shifted to a different kind of love.

He remembers watching movies together, laughing, joking, but how often are they even still kissing?

He remembers slipping under the duvet in the evenings, feeling cosy and content, but with no desire for more. He always blamed his job or stress. But was that really the reason?

And then he remembers Charlie, standing at the sidelines during his rugby match, throwing him shy little waves, smirks and smiles, causing butterflies to erupt in his stomach. He remembers him sitting in the pub really close, their thighs pressing against each other. He remembers Charlie licking his lips, causing …

Nope, certainly not, he’s still sitting in his mother’s kitchen, for fuck’s sake!

He doesn’t remember when he stopped feeling those things for Heather. It just slowly faded away, right in front of his eyes. So slowly that he hadn’t even noticed until now. Until Heather brought up that stupid experiment that was supposed to show how well they fit together.

Turns out, it did show how well they fit together after all …

“Huh,” he says out loud. “I guess not.” 

“You should take a moment and think about it. And then you should talk to her.” His mother smiles at him and leans forward. “And now show me that guy! I wanna see my future son-in-law!”

“Mum!” Nick groans. “Let me break up with my girlfriend first before you marry me to someone else!”

“Chop chop!” she insists, tapping with her fingers on the table top.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, and when he sees the notification of a message from Charlie, his mouth transforms into a big grin.

“Nicky! Show me the cute man!”

“When did you get so impatient?”

“When I turned 50. Hurry up, I won’t live forever!”

He pulls up a selfie he took in the pub, shortly after the waiter had tried to flirt with Charlie. Their eyes were still glistening with tears from their laughter, their faces relaxed and happy.

His mother snatches his phone out of his hands.

“Oi!”

“Nicky! He looks like that actress you had a massive crush on! You know, the one with the luscious curls and those blue eyes? What was her name again? Zooey Béchamel?”

“It’s Zooey Deschanel, mum, and he does not look like her!”

She raises her eyebrows. “He looks exactly like her. No wonder you like him so much, he’s completely your type!”

He lets his head fall down on the table and groans again. What did he do to deserve not only his best friends ribbing the shit out of him, but his own mum, too?

She quickly types something on her own phone, before setting it aside and taking his hands again, giving them a reassuring squeeze.

“Look, I’m sorry, let your old mum have a bit of fun. You know I’ll support you, whatever you decide. But you have to decide for yourself; I can’t take that decision from you. All I can say is that you sometimes have to let go of things that no longer feel right. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t have their place in your life, and it doesn’t lower the worth that they had.”

“Thanks, mum. I appreciate that, I really do.”

“And that photo you just showed me, it shows my son in a way that I haven’t seen for a long time. You don’t just seem content, you look genuinely happy in that photo. And you deserve to be happy.”

Nick nods. “Yeah, I’ll think about it. And then I’ll talk to Heather.”

“And I think we should watch a movie together now. What do you think about 500 Days of Summer?”

“Mum!”