Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s chilly in the kitchen when Joe shuffles in on Monday morning. He’s yawning, eyes still half-shut with sleep, hair an unholy mess, his breath probably a bit rank, as he stretches and scratches his belly.

There is a vague memory in his head of Booker telling him Joe needed to stay home this morning, but he can’t quite remember why. Was he expecting a delivery? It doesn’t matter, Joe overslept a little anyway.

He’s drowsy with it, and shivering. Oh, but it is cold in their kitchen. Maybe Booker left a window open before he left. Joe is on the verge of tiptoeing back up to his bedroom to hide under his covers, when he spots a hoodie Booker left on rumpled on his barstool by the kitchen island.

Before he can think twice about it, Joe pulls the hoodie over his head. It’s quite large around the shoulders, cosy. Maybe Booker hasn’t been lying about going to the gym. Joe tucks his nose into the hoodie's collar and shuffles over to their fridge, where he drains half the carton of orange juice Booker bought the day before. It’s fine, Joe can pop to the shops on his lunch break and Booker won’t even notice anything.

The juice is cold, which makes Joe shiver again, but the sugar and slightly acidic notes of the juice are just what he needs to fully wake up.

He sighs when he finishes his drink, and tucks his nose back into the hoodie. It started to get a little cold and the hoodie really is very comfortable. Maybe Joe needs to steal it a little more permanently, a leaving present of sorts, now that Booker is moving in with his wife again. It also smells good. Warm, a little musky. Not the cologne Booker usually wears, but definitely one he should continue wearing. It reminds Joe of outdoor picnics, and hugging his friends in the summer.

He closes the fridge door. In front of the sink stands a man with brown hair, large eyes, and a striking nose. He looks a little startled, and he’s holding a wrench. At least Joe thinks it’s a wrench. He’s a bit distracted by the fact that he dropped the orange juice the moment the man came into view.

Joe curses and lunges for the kitchen roll at the same time as the stranger in his kitchen. Their fingers brush, and Joe’s sock is getting wet. The two sensations are so at odds with one another that he recoils instinctively and slips in the puddle of orange juice. Maybe he would’ve fallen as well, but there’s a steady hand on his hip, straightening him back up.

Joe can suddenly taste his heart in his throat, past the sweet and the acid of the orange.

‘Sorry to startle you,’ the man says. He steps away from Joe, and just for a moment it feels like his eyes flick down to Joe’s torso, lingering on his pecs. ‘I assumed I was alone in the house.’

‘So did I,’ Joe says, because his brain, clearly, is otherwise pre-occupied.

‘I’m Nicky,’ the man says, and shakes Joe’s hand.

Joe laughs, trying to keep the sound of hysteria out of it. Here is a man with a jawline like it was chiselled by a benevolent deity, shaking Joe’s hand with all the sincerity in the world, while Joe—Joe is wearing socks that have a bunny pattern on them.

‘Joe.’

Nicky helps Joe clean up the mess he made, apologising at least three more times while he does. And every time, his eyes flick down to Joe’s hoodie. Well, Booker’s hoodie.

It’s only later, when Joe is in the middle of the corner shop to buy new juice, that he remembers why Booker asked him to stay home: There is a man coming round to fix up their kitchen.

Joe buys an orange juice, and adds a pack of biscuits at the till. He can console himself with the fact that at least he won’t have to lie when Booker asks him later if he kept an eye on the handyman. Nicky hasn’t left his mind since.

Nicky can’t figure his new clients out. It shouldn’t bother him so much – his job is to renovate their kitchen, not to collect details about their private life – but he can’t help it, he’s usually better at this.

For starters, he has no idea if his new clients are a couple or just living together.

He was hired by a man named Sébastien, who told Nicky within second of meeting him to call him Booker.

‘Tell me what needs doing,’ Nicky asked him on his first morning.

‘The kitchen,’ Booker said. ‘The faucet has been dripping for a while now, and it all looks a bit shabby, so before the landlord takes it all off our deposit—well, here you are.’

Nicky nodded. ‘Moving out then?’

‘My partner and I are moving to a new place together.’

Nicky met Booker’s partner a few hours later. It was morning in late April, and Nicky had arrived at the job wrapped in a hoodie. He’d taken it off as he started to get going, and draped it over one of the barstools by the kitchen island. It was a bit of a shock to find the most beautiful man Nicky had ever seen wander into the kitchen a few moments later, rumpled with sleep and disoriented enough to put it on like it was his hoodie.

Nicky didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure how to bring the topic up casually after the man – Joe, he introduced himself – spilled orange juice all over the place, and the longer he waited, the more awkward it got. Any moment now, surely, Joe would realise.

It was a close call when Booker got home later that day – no hello kiss to Joe, Nicky noted, but people get awkward in front of others – gave Joe a once over and said, ‘Nice sweater.’

There was a sardonic grin on his face.

Joe burrowed his face in the neckline of Nicky’s jumper, like he’d been doing on and off all day – not that Nicky had been paying attention, he had tiles to measure – and mumbled: ‘I’m not giving it back now.’

Booker raised an eyebrow at Joe and as he looked over to Nicky where hewas resolutely trying not to watch or listen, he thought it would all be over. Booker would say, ‘Babe, you can wear anything you want of mine, but maybe you should give back the hoodie to the plumber,’ and then Nicky would probably have to quit out of embarrassment.

Only Booker didn’t do that, he just laughed, pulled out his phone and left the room, so Nicky shivered as he went home that night, hoodie-less and confused.

Maybe that is just how they are as a couple. Lord knows Nicky has seen some weird antics over the years. But every day he returns to their kitchen, there will be Joe, wearing Nicky’s hoodie, drenched in sunlight as he offers Nicky tea after tea, each cup sweeter and less drinkable than the rest. And Nicky knows he shouldn’t, but he finds it hopelessly, helplessly endearing.

After a few days, it is almost a tradition. He will look up from his work at the kitchen cabinet to find Joe smiling up at him. And every morning it gets harder not to indulge himself in the little fantasy, that Joe, sitting at the kitchen island all cosied up in Nicky’s hoodie is not a client who accidentally stole his hoodie, but a boyfriend who had every right to. A boyfriend who is all cosy and snug because Nicky’s shoulders are just a little broader than his, making the hoodie a little loose on him. A boyfriend who will make teasing comments to him about not giving the hoodie back, and ply Nicky with tea (or, preferably, coffee) to make him forget. A boyfriend who will eventually give the hoodie back to Nicky, at which point the fabric will have taken on just enough of his scent that Nicky won’t feel alone at all when he walks home in the evening.

Of course, then, Booker will predictably walk into the kitchen to say, ‘I’m going for lunch with Adele. See you later, sweet cheeks!’

And Joe will yell after him, ‘Have fun babe!’ and Nicky will try his hardest not to laugh, or to cry, or do both. Nicky knows he has said some weird things to past partners, but who acts like that?

In the end, it doesn’t matter if Joe and Booker are in a relationship. Joe is still his client. A handsome client with a naturally flirty disposition, perhaps, but Nicky still has professional boundaries. Or at least, he should.

There is something about wanting, when you're not supposed to. It's a familiar feeling, that space carved out between Nicky's ribs of all the times his heart leapt at an emotion his mind wouldn't allow. Heartbeat battering against his bones, bruising in a way only he himself could see.

He's working for Joe and Booker for two weeks. He doesn't know whether to be happy or sad about it.

‘Looks good. Maybe the ground floor needs an extra set of bathrooms though.’

It takes Joe a moment to realise that Nicky is responding to his rhetorical question. Booker looked at Joe like he might have lost his mind when he told him that he’d started working from the kitchen while they were having it renovated, but it's not the noise and chaos that distract Joe. He’s at a higher risk getting lost in thought watching Nicky sand down a work surface before putting it in, or taking apart the sink. (The tool he uses for that is indeed called a torque wrench, Joe’s learned.)

Just now, he’s been muttering at his blue print, trying to figure out if his big project is finally finished or if it needs more tinkering. He got, predictably, distracted when Nicky materialised behind him to peer over his shoulder.

Joe clears his throat. ‘Do you—do you think so?’

Nicky nods, then points at two corners of the footprint. ‘Here or here. Right now people will have to wait in long queues or walk too far. But you need to make sure the pipes can take it.’

It’s nice to have Nicky around, is the thing. Joe has lost count how many times Nicky has found him staring at him, but he never says anything, just cracks a tiny style and returns Joe’s gaze with those big, lovely eyes of his. More than once, Joe wonders what would happen if he doesn’t look away eventually. The answer to that question is unfortunately that Nicky will likely complain to Booker, or to his boss, about the act that Joe is making him uncomfortable at his place of work, and then Joe will never see him again. Worse, he will never see him again and Nicky will forever think he is some sort of creep, hitting on people while they can’t escape his advances.

‘Oh yes, that’s right. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure,’ Nicky says, with that lovely rumble of an Italian accent, and Joe is glad he is sitting down, suddenly weak in the knees as he watches Nicky glide back to work.

Joe’s mother used to call him a flirt when he was a little boy and made friends so easily that there was always a horde of little girls following him home from school. Joe’s not sure that counts as flirting – he certainly wasn’t interested in any of them – but if it does, it’s the last time he’s done it successfully. From past experience, he’s more likely to have a wedding to a stranger fully planned than to ask them out. All of his flings and relationships happened by chance, or because the other person took action. He’s not going to take his chances now. (He does think about the wedding though. Early summer would be nice. A blue and white and copper colour scheme, to complement Nicky’s eyes.)

And so he makes Nicky tea after tea and hopes that it straddles the balance between hospitality and appearing approachable, maybe for more than just a chat between coworkers. He’s not sure how successful he is, but he takes solace in Nicky’s eyes still lingering on his shoulders and his chest. Booker’s hoodie is too bulky to show Joe’s biceps. Maybe that can be his secret weapon, eventually.

‘Thank you again for your suggestion,’ Joe says in the evening just as Nicky gets ready to leave for the day. ‘I had to fiddle with the budget a bit, but it’s going to make the project much better.’

‘I am glad to hear that.’

Nicky smiles at him, a little fuller this time, maybe, and Joe almost, almost says something.

‘I will see you tomorrow?’ Nicky turns to the hallway, and Joe hastens to get up to see him out.

‘Yes,’ Joe says, nearly tripping over the words.

There is a breeze going outside when Nicky opens the door, and Joe snuggles further into his hoodie. (It’s been nearly a week, surely Booker won’t want it back now.)

‘I will look forward to it.’

Nicky lifts his hand to wave Joe good-bye. He is still only in his t-shirt.

‘Wait,’ Joe calls after him, and Nicky turns, gloriously, immediately.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you—are you not cold?’

There is something in Nicky’s face that falls, like he’d been expecting Joe to say something else. Maybe it’s just Joe’s overactive imagination.

‘Oh. No. Maybe a little. I think I forgot my hoodie at home.’

Joe takes a second to recover from the way Nicky pronounces the word hoodie, all hushed, like he told Joe a secret. Then he turns to the wardrobe next to him and hands Nicky one of the leather jackets.

‘Here.’

Nicky stares at him like he has grown a third arm.

‘So you don’t get cold,’ Joe insists, shaking the jacket a little. ‘You can return it tomorrow.’

Finally, Nicky takes the jacket off him, reaching for it with two hands, reverently.

‘Thank you.’

Joe waits a moment too long to let go of the jacket, just enough for Nicky to raise his eyes to his. Then, he tucks his fingers back into the sleeves of his hoodie.

Nicky drops a kitchen tile on his foot. It’s nothing – really, it doesn’t even hurt, his boss Andy makes him wear reinforced shoes no matter how easy the job – but it’s still embarrassing. He’d been by himself in the kitchen all morning. It's the second day of Joe presenting his big project to his boss, the one Nicky helped with, and he told him that he didn’t want to disturb Nicky. Which is possibly the most ridiculous thing Nicky has ever heard. He’s usually the one who’s disturbing people, an intruder even as he helps.

As a result, Nicky has achieved more in the kitchen this morning than he has all week, Joe’s distracting smiles and cups of tea far away.

It’s only when Joe comes bounding back into the kitchen in the early afternoon – ‘They loved it Nicky, thank you again for your suggestion, the entrance hall wouldn’t have worked without the extra bathrooms—' – that things go sideways.

Joe is not wearing the hoodie for once, but instead a button-up shirt with a loosely fastened tie, underneath a patterned jumper. It is much tighter than Nicky’s hoodie, and would’ve possibly been enough to make Nicky lose his nerve, but on top of that, there is also a new pair of glasses resting on his nose.

They’re horn-rimmed, round, and make Joe look both very intelligent and unbearably cute. Nothing could have prepared Nicky for this, and so, he drops the tiles he’s been holding. They break upon impact with his shoe, falling apart on the floor with a clatter that sounds much more dramatic than it is. He swears and goes to reach for his foot out of habit more than any need for it.

Joe is by his side in an instant.

‘Oh my God, Nicky. Are you okay?’

Nicky nods. His foot stings a little, but he can move all his toes. At worst, there will be a bruise.

‘I shouldn’t have startled you, I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you.’

Before Nicky can protest, Joe pulls his arm over his shoulders and props Nicky against his side, gently steering Nicky towards the living room. The sudden amount of physical contact – Joe’s hand on his, the other by Nicky’s hip – startles Nicky out of any words. He’s still reeling a little when he finds himself on the couch, feet in Joe’s lap as he undoes his shoes.

‘Okay I’m going to take a quick look at your toes to see if I need to drive you to the hospital.’

‘I’m fine,’ Nicky manages, but Joe is already peeling back his sock. He’s barely touching Nicky, just the tip of his finger ghosting over the arch in his foot, but it still makes all the hairs on Nicky’s legs stand up. Joe’s hands are so soft, and he holds Nicky likes he’s worried he might break.

He wants to tell Joe that it would take a lot more than a stray tile to hurt him, but Joe is already lifting his foot closer to his face to inspect it, pushing the glasses into his hair. His breath ghosts over Nicky’s now naked foot. Nicky has to suppress a full body shiver.

‘It’s a bit red here.’ Joe points to a spot just below Nicky’s toes. Nicky isn’t even looking, he’s too busy staring at Joe’s face, the way his nose crunches up in concentration. He has to focus on that, because he doesn’t know what he will do if he thinks too long about the fact that Joe is currently touching his bare skin.

‘Don’t move.’

As if Nicky would dare to. Joe gently places Nicky’s feet on a pillow before hurrying to the kitchen, and soon returns clutching two frozen slabs of meat.

‘We don’t have any icepacks, so the steaks will have to do,’ Joe offers by way of explanation, then wraps them up in a tea towel to cool Nicky’s foot.

‘How does it feel?’

It’s cold, probably too cold, but Nicky was never going to say anything other than ‘Wonderful, thank you,’ with Joe smiling up at him like that, cradling his ankle so gently.

Joe looks pleased with himself, and reaches to the little cable behind the couch to get the remote for the TV.

‘Do you want to watch something?’

‘I think I should get back to work soon.’

Joe strokes down Nicky’s foot by the side of the makeshift icepack, a single caress. ‘You should rest a while. If it’s something serious that might make it worse.’

Nicky swallows. Joe must be aware that there is nothing wrong with his foot. His progress with the kitchen is already miles behind where he is supposed to be at this stage, an afternoon off feels like taking advantage. Taking more advantage than he already is.

‘Please,’ Joe says, like he’s read his mind. ‘For me?’

How anyone has ever resisted Joe with these eyes is a mystery to Nicky. He couldn’t say no to him if he tried.

He nods, and Joe puts on a daytime television quiz show. The questions aren’t hard, and the presenter is trying a bit too much, but it’s sort of entertaining and they each know enough of the answers to have something to talk about. The quiz soon fades into the background and the fantasy Nicky’s been indulging in creeps back into his mind. That this could be his life, that Joe could look after him not just because he feels obliged to, but because he wants to. Because they could be in love, and because Joe would want to care for him the way Nicky wants to care for him.

The thought burns brightly behind Nicky’s eyes, so much he can’t quite look at Joe, worried it shows on his face. He needs to stop fantasising about his client. He needs to talk to Andy about this, but he’s worried she will just laugh at him.

Joe’s hand on his ankle shifts, and it’s like Nicky’s entire spine is lit up with a jolt of electricity.

Maybe he just needs to get laid.

Nicky cooks the steaks, and they are unsurprisingly delicious. Joe tells him so, probably a little too much. (As if he didn’t already believe that Nicky might just be perfect.)

He likes to think that Nicky might even blush a little, the fifth time he tells him, but it could also be the wine rising to his cheeks. (Joe has topped up his glass nearly as often as he complimented him.)

‘I bet he cooks for you all the time,’ Nicky says, nodding at Booker. ‘Or at least he’ll be able to when I’m done.’

Booker chuckles into his glass of wine. ‘Too bad we’re moving.’

‘Well, we wouldn’t have to if it wasn’t for you.’ Joe pretends to hit Booker in the shoulder. ‘And anyway, you’ve never made anything like this.’

‘I could have,’ Booker insists, ‘but the steaks were stolen from me.’

‘I’m very sorry about that.’ Nicky looks genuinely stricken. ‘I do not usually drop things. I can deduct them from the bill, if you would like.’

Booker waves him off. ‘Eh, we’re having them now.’

When Nicky’s glance drifts over to Joe to check if he thinks the same, Joe takes the opportunity to wink at him. ‘See? He knows he wouldn’t have made them as well.’

He pops another piece of steak into his mouth and only barely suppresses a moan. He had no idea they had everything for a creamy peppercorn sauce already in their house, or that steaks could be cooked to perfection even with only three-quarters of a functioning hob. ‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’

‘When I moved here,’ Nicky says. ‘It was hard to make friends, at first. But I quickly discovered that almost no one says no if you offer to cook them dinner, and so. I started to cook.’

There is a spot of on his upper lip, sitting where something like a five o’clock shadow is coming. He wipes it away with a napkin before Joe can start thinking about licking it off. The thought doesn’t even surprise him anymore. He’s known Nicky for a little less than a week and he has it bad.

‘How did you meet?’

‘Oh, the usual,’ Booker says, and Nicky frowns.

‘Like, an app?’

Joe tries his hardest not to spit his drink all over the table, but Booker just laughs, the bastard.

‘University. We played football for the intramural team, and then I couldn’t get rid of him.’ Booker jabs his thumb to point at Joe, then stage-whispers: ‘You gotta be careful with that one, he’s a bit clingy.’

Joe tries to kick Booker under the table but hits the table leg instead, and in the resulting flare of pain he misses Nicky’s reaction. Does he look alarmed? It’s not like Booker is wrong, but there’s no reason to drive anyone before Joe even—before they even—Truth be told, he’s not sure what the future holds for him and Nicky. He has to wait until the kitchen is finished, probably, and then he has to get his act together and ask Nicky out. If he doesn’t embarrass himself any further until then.

Their conversation dies down shortly after, and in a rare display of community spirit, Booker starts collecting the plates to put in the sink. Joe uses the moment to gaze at Nicky, the genteel way he hands Booker his cutlery, drains the last drops of his glass.

‘I should get going,’ Nicky says after returning his gaze. A glance to his watch reveals that it’s nearly midnight. ‘Early start, tomorrow.’

‘You should sleep here,’ Joe says, and now Nicky does look alarmed. It’s outbursts like this that make Joe he’ll ever successfully do anything with Nicky.

‘I wouldn’t want to impose, it’s—’

‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s the least we can do, after you hurt yourself and cooked us dinner today. You can have my bed.’

Booker returns from the kitchen at the worst moment. ‘So you will sleep on the couch?’

‘I thought I’d crash with you.’ Joe rolls his eyes, then sarcastically bats his eyelashes at Booker, who continues to look deeply unimpressed. Then, he takes their glasses to the sink, muttering something under his breath that sounds a lot like the words ‘utterly hopeless.’

Joe turns back to Nicky.

‘Let me get you something to sleep in.’

Joe’s bed is so comfortable. He left Nicky with three pillows, two blankets, and a soft, worn out shirt and pyjama pants to sleep in, before he turned out the light and gently bade him goodnight. Nicky has no idea how he ended up in this situation, but there’s no point dwelling on what is either an extreme stroke of luck or just cruel fate. Joe said it was his bed. His. The room is a little cluttered, but only to the point that it looks lived-in. Like the person who inhabits it loves that space. Not someone who is on the verge of moving out, looking forward to pastures new. Could it be that Joe and Booker are not moving together? That Booker’s partner is someone else, while Joe hangs on to this house, this room, this space?

As Nicky sinks into the pillows, he imagines he can feel that love stretching out towards him, too, cocooning him in its warmth. It should make his heart speed up, the excitement of sleeping in a strangers bed. Instead it lulls him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

He wakes when the toilet flush goes at some point in the middle of the night, and he’s already well on his way back to sleep when the door to Joe’s room inches open. That’s when Nicky’s heart starts pounding, on alert from the intrusion.

But it is only Joe shuffling into the dark of his room, half-asleep by the looks of it. He bumps into the bottom of the bed as he moves towards it, and then, before Nicky can do or say anything to stop it, he slumps face first into the sheets next to Nicky.

After a bit of rustling, he manages to steal two pillows off Nicky and get under the cover with him, until finally he reaches for something to hold onto. All while fast asleep. It must not strike a sleeping Joe as odd, then, when the only thing he finds to hold onto, to snuggle into, is Nicky.

Nicky, who is lying as still as he possibly can, heartbeat now thundering up a storm. When Joe walked in, it looked like he was wearing Nicky’s hoodie. Is this the first time he is sleeping in it as well? Nicky has scarcely seen him out of the hoodie since he started working on their kitchen. It must smell only of Joe by now, that warmth and subtle spice from his aftershave. Nicky doesn’t have to imagine it, because the scent is all around him.

Joe murmurs something in his sleep and snuggles closer, nose pressed right into Nicky’s hairline at his neck.

Nicky wants to cry. Nothing has ever felt this right, nothing has ever felt so wrong. Nicky feels like he could sleep for days in Joe’s embrace, Nicky is unable to even close his eyes. His heart is bursting, his soul is withering with exhilarating agony.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but he must leave the bed at the first sign of dawn. He will try to get up without waking Joe, and he will not linger at the door to look at his sleeping form as he goes downstairs to get dressed. He will wait on their front doorstep until it is socially acceptable to make a telephone call, and then he will call Andy and beg her to find someone else to finish the job, because he can’t take it anymore. He can’t be around someone so utterly perfect (to him, for him) and not go mad for wanting.

He will never see his hoodie again, but that is a small price to pay for his sanity. He’s not sure he could wear it without the memory of Joe, fingers tucked into the sleeves and nose buried in its collar as he naps on his couch, painfully roaring to life.

It is better this way. It will be better this way.  

Nicky has to believe it, even as he dozes, Joe’s breathing a gentle rhythm on his skin.

By the time Joe stumbles into the kitchen, half the mess he expected to find is already dealt with. What he finds instead is Nicky, furiously scrubbing the pan he used to sear the steaks with the night before, looking up at Joe like a deer in headlights.

‘Let me do that.’ Joe reaches for a dish towel and begins to dry some of the glasses Nicky has already washed. Nicky isn’t looking at him. Joe wishes he would.

If only because he feels that something – and he doesn’t know what, so he needs to ask – has shifted between them, and he thinks it happened the night before.

All he knows is that he woke up in his own bed, with a feeling of loss like a physical pain on top of his breastbone. His sheets had smelled of that same note of earth that had so reminded him of picnics with his friends when he’d first pulled on Booker’s hoodie, but all Joe could think about was that Nicky was supposed to have slept in his bed. The thought almost kept him from falling asleep when he lay in Booker’s bed the night before, imagining Nicky rolling around in his sheets, trying to get comfortable. It was too easy to drift on to other things Nicky might do in his bed. Things Joe might do to him. I had never been worse, waking up alone, halfway to arousal and halfway to desperation.

What happened? He must have done something to drive Nicky from his bed. The place he had promised him he could rest safely. What did he do to make Nicky uncomfortable?

He can’t remember a thing but the thought alone is enough to turn his stomach. As he tries to work what to say – something, anything – to fix what he doesn’t know how to fix, Nicky’s arms start to shake.

‘Are you alright? What is happening?’

Joe sets the glass down as Nicky first nods, then shakes his head.

‘I cannot do this any longer,’ he presses out. Winces, when he looks at Joe, and puts down the pan filled with suds and water. Joe desperately wants to reach out to touch him, to soothe him, but he can’t think of anything that would be less welcome.

‘Oh, Nicky, I’m so sorry. I can’t remember a—'

‘No, no, no, you have it all wrong. I have been—Every day I—’ Nicky hiccoughs, although he’s not crying, ‘I wish I could make you understand, but it would not excuse my behaviour. I know what you must do. I have already spoken to my boss. She will be able to send someone else to complete the project. Someone more—appropriate.’

Joe expected to be insulted, or accused. This is neither.

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ This is Booker, coming in from the hallway as he shrugs on a jacket. ‘Nicky, if you hadn’t just quit, I would fire you just to put an end to this. Somehow you are both being the most ridiculous person I know. So I’m going to go on a walk, to see my wife, and when I come back, Joe, maybe you could be so good and ask your boyfriend to finish the kitchen so we can finally move out.’

Joe is unable to look at Nicky but for the way his Adam’s apple bobs in the corner of his eye.

‘B-boyfriend?’ Nicky doesn’t turn to him. ‘You have a—’

‘No!’

‘Then what—'

Booker comes back into the room. ‘Actually, I’m going to start you off, because clearly, neither of you can take a hint. Nicky, Joe has been fantasising about going out with you ever since you walked into our door. I know this, because he’s been scrawling your names in calligraphy all over his blueprints like he’s practising for wedding invitations. And Joe—that’s not my hoodie. Hope it helps.’

The door falling shut echoes all through the house, ringing in Joe’s ears. Booker is his best friend and nothing will ever, probably, change that. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t just acted like a colossal prick.

Joe feels rooted to the spot, shaken and upset. He toys with the hem of the hoodie. It really is so very soft. Much too nice to be Booker’s, actually.

‘This yours?’

Nicky nods, just once. It doesn’t lessen the mortification for Joe, but he appreciates it nonetheless. He takes the hoodie off and holds it out to Nicky.

‘No, don’t worry. You’ll get cold.’

Nicky has his arms folded in front his chest, fingers tucked under his arms, resolutely not accepting it. Joe wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He is already shivering.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

Nicky shrugs. His jaw tightens like he is currently trying to grind his molars into dust. ‘I did not want to embarrass you. And you looked like you needed the warmth.’

Joe’s hand sinks. He doesn’t put the hoodie back on, even though is thoroughly, almost comically, not wrong about this.

‘That doesn’t give me the right to—to take what’s yours, though.’ He puts the hoodie down on the kitchen island behind him, gearing up for what he feels he must say. ‘Nicky, I—please know that it’s me who needs to apologise. I can’t believe I put you in such an awkward situation. God, I must have looked like such a fool, and you were so kind to me, but of course you had to be. I had no right to that kindness, and I’m so sorry I took advantage like that.’

Nicky vehemently shakes his head. ‘No, Joe, you have nothing to apologise for. It’s me who—’

‘But I have!’ Joe interrupts him, gesticulating wildly. He doesn’t deserve this patience and endless understanding, not when he has overstepped from the start. What he does with his hand upsets the balance of the pan Nicky balanced on the side of the sink though, and it comes clattering down to the floor, soap and water and all.

Nicky is closer to the kitchen roll, but the soap has made the floor slippery. His foot slides out as he steps, and it is only on instinct that Joe manages to push forward and pin him against the sink to keep him from falling over.

‘No more accidents in the kitchen, please.’

It’s supposed to be a joke but his voice is too breathy, his hand tightening on Nicky’s shoulders as he tries to hold both of them up. It does nothing to distract him from the reality of being half naked and pressed up against Nicky. Nicky who smells like outdoor picnics and hugs and who is warm, warm, warm everywhere Joe can reach. Nicky who keeps looking at Joe’s lips.

My feet are wet, he thinks, and then he kisses Nicky, all the adrenaline and exhilaration singing in his blood at once. It’s nothing like any first kiss Joe’s head before, that gentle almost touch, a peck, a testing of waters. This kiss shifts something between the moment their lips touch, Nicky’s legs parting to let Joe in, Joe’s hand cradling his neck, soft strands of hair between his fingers.

There is something about wanting when you’re suddenly allowed. Joe’s body is a sun that’s just risen over the horizon, and every beam he’s pouring into Nicky.

They come up for air, eventually. Nicky’s hands have found their way to Joe’s ass. He’s pulling him close enough against him that Joe couldn’t fit a piece of paper between their bodies. It’s the moment he’d usually get self-conscious, being only in his boxers. Somehow, this outcome feels inevitable though. The scenario of one too many a daydream.

‘Before we continue,’ Nicky says, ‘and I want to continue, if you do, but I have to ask. Were you ever with Booker?’

‘Ugh, no.’ Joe shudders in his arms, first at the thought of Booker, and then at how Nicky’s small, pleased smile turns hungry. He has to kiss him again.

‘And you really had no idea that was my hoodie?’

The garment in question lies forgotten behind them and is soon joined by the t-shirt Nicky is wearing. Which is Joe’s t-shirt, anyway. The thought makes his toes curl in a way that has nothing to do with how Nicky’s kissing his neck.

They might have to take this upstairs soon. Then again, the kitchen is already a mess.

‘No,’ Joe gasps. ‘I thought you were just very intense about seeing me in it.’

‘I was. Probably will be, again.’

‘So you’ll let me keep it?’

At that, Nicky’s grin breaks free.

‘As long as you’ll keep me.’

1 month later