Work Text:
—
Wednesday
—
From: Nick Nelson
To: All Staff - Truham Office
Subject: Work hike! :)
Hi everyone!
Sorry for abusing the all staff email list but we’re planning on doing the Kingshill Circular this Saturday, and we’re extending the invitation out to all you lovely people. It’s 10km so should take about 3 hours (despite what the name would suggest, it’s pretty flat and easy!).
At the moment, it’s just the Sales Team going, so please also come along or Tara will end up talking at me about quarterly numbers for 3.5 hours and she does that enough in the office!
No need to RSVP or anything, just be at the church car park in Truham by 11am on Saturday. I’d recommend packing a lunch, but we’ll also be celebrating at the end with a few pints at the nearest pub. (If you’d rather join just for the pints, aim to get to the Queen’s Head at 2pm.)
Hopefully see some of you there!
Best wishes,
Nick
Nick Nelson (he/him)
Sales Manager
01632 960 239
From: Darcy Olsson
To: Charlie Spring, Tao Xu
Subject: FW: Work hike!
We should do this!! We’re always saying we should be more social with the rest of the company.
Darcy Olsson (she/them)
HR Associate
01632 960 374
From: Tao Xu
To: Darcy Olsson, Charlie Spring
Subject: RE: FW: Work hike!
The Sales team were not who I had in mind when I said that.
Tao Xu (he/him)
Planning and Performance Manager
01632 960 092
Darcy Olsson added Tao Xu to the chat.
Darcy Olsson 3:35 pm
Tao you fucking idiot
Tao Xu 3:35 pm
?????
rude????
Darcy Olsson 3:36 pm
catch up
I’m not actually suggesting WE go on a hike with the sales team I’m trying to get Charlie to go on a hike with one specific person in the the sales team
see where I’m going with this…?
Tao Xu 3:38 pm
ohhhhhhh right
dw I can rescue this
From: Tao Xu
To: Darcy Olsson, Charlie Spring
Subject: RE: FW: Work hike!
Saying that, I’ve checked my calendar and I suppose I have nothing else to do so I’m in. @Charlie?
Tao Xu (he/him)
Planning and Performance Manager
01632 960 092
From: Charlie Spring
To: Darcy Olsson, Tao Xu
Subject: RE: FW: Work hike!
Yeah okay, if you're both going
Charlie Spring (he/him)
Senior Finance Analyst
01632 960 649
Yesterday
Tara Jones Yesterday 10:03 am
N says he’s going to send the invite out tomorrow
you sure you can convince C?
Darcy Olsson Yesterday 10:05 am
I’m very confident
I think I could get him to sign up to sky diving if I said N’s going to be there
Tara Jones Yesterday 10:07 am
hahahaha
Today
Darcy Olsson 3:51 pm
Thunderbirds are goooooo
Tara Jones 3:53 pm
you're magic!!!
fingers crossed this works because I can't deal with the constant sighing and staring any more.
Darcy Olsson 3:54 pm
It'll work! After all, you came up with it and you’re a genius 😋
—
Saturday
—
Tao dropped out the night before. It turned out while he’d checked his calendar, he’d neglected to check Elle’s and therefore had forgotten that her parents were coming over for lunch. His text in the groupchat had been very apologetic and Charlie had put on an act that he was mortally wounded that Tao was abandoning them with Sales, but in actuality, he didn’t really care: if he was being honest, he hadn’t really signed up for this walk with the intention of spending time with his friends whom he saw everyday—they were just a helpful buffer for Charlie’s social anxiety, which he still had Darcy for.
He spent the night before in a kind of nervous paralysis, unable to sleep because he was so enraptured by the potential that tomorrow held. He parked in the car park Nick had mentioned in his email, and when he checked his appearance in the rearview mirror, the bags under his eyes definitely snitched on his sleepless night. His hair was acceptable, though the stiff wind that occasionally buffeted Charlie’s car promised that it wouldn’t last. There was nothing he could do about the dark circles under his eyes.
He’d just got out of his car when Darcy's text arrived.
Hey, are you at the car park?
Yeah, I’m by the ticket machine. Where are you?
Charlie I’m so sorry, I’m sick! I’m not going to make it.
It took three rereads to completely comprehend the message; when he did, his stomach sunk to the soles of his feet in horror. He knew that there were people out there (extroverted, outgoing people) who could easily spend a day with strangers without being swallowed by a bottomless pit of anxiety. Like Darcy. Charlie loved hanging out with Darcy because she was happy to take on the role of chief conversationalist, allowing Charlie to ride her coattails—because Charlie was not one of those people and, no matter how much he’d been looking forward to today, there was no way he could face doing it alone.
He didn’t wait for the ticket machine to spit out his day’s parking: he spun around and high-tailed it back to his car. He was halfway to freedom when someone called out, “Hey!”
There wasn’t anyone else in the car park they could be talking to, and as if just to strip Charlie of any plausible deniability, they followed it up with, “Hey, Charlie!”
Reluctantly, he stopped and turned to see Nick Nelson approaching from the ticket machine, waving a slip of paper at him. Oh, god. Charlie didn’t need to know Nick Nelson looked just as gorgeous in a pair of ugly waterproof hiking trousers and a t-shirt as he did in a button-up shirt and blazer. Charlie had enough material for his procrastination office daydreams just from Nick’s slightly ruffled hair on Teams during the Monday morning stand ups, he definitely did not need to know what Nick looked like in a v-neck.
Nick stopped just in front of him and hovered, awkwardly. With an uncertain expression on his face, he followed up with, “Um. It is Charlie, right?”
Just kill me now.
Because that was the main problem with Nick Nelson: not just that he was so beautiful that Charlie wouldn’t get any work done if he was in Charlie’s sightline, or that he worked in Sales, but that he didn’t have a clue who Charlie was.
“Yeah,” Charlie sighed.
Nick beamed at him. “So, are you joining me on the walk?”
He could just have said no, but then he would need a reason for why he was standing in the car park in waterproof trousers at 11am on a Saturday, so instead, he forced a smile and said, weakly, “Yep.”
“You forgot to take your ticket from the machine.”
“Oh. Silly me.”
Nick smiled at him agreeably as he gave him the ticket. “I do stuff like that all the time, like the other day I was supposed to get fifty pounds out, but I completely forgot to actually wait for the money once I got my card back. I’d say we should’ve moved on from anything being paper-based but then I lose my phone every other week, so I think it’s a me-problem.”
Charlie seized this tidbit about Nick greedily, savouring it like the last morsel of dessert. He knew some things about Nick already, but they were all work-related facts that Charlie had picked up from colleagues—things like what projects he worked on, who his line manager was, his sales numbers. Then there were the assumptions that Charlie had made himself, based on his own observations, like the fact that Nick favoured the coffee cart on the corner over Costa, and that he always brought in leftovers instead of buying lunch. This was the first time he’d learnt an anecdote about Nick Nelson, though.
He laughed and allowed himself the hope that maybe this wouldn’t be the most awkward day of his life.
“Yeah, I’m a scatterbrain, I guess,” he agreed, taking the ticket and clutching it in his fist, imagining he could feel the warmth from Nick’s hand.
“Are you into hiking?”
“Oh, yeah. Can’t get enough of it. I’m always out walking on the weekend.”
The lie couldn't have been less convincing to his own ears. For a moment, he was glad Darcy and Tao had bailed, because if they’d heard him say that, they would’ve teased him mercilessly for the rest of the year. However, he couldn't admit the truth—that he personally didn't see the point in the outside world, and would usually only go on a walk once a year on Boxing Day when the weight of the family’s expectations was too great to refuse—because he’d have to explain why he’d decided to come today.
“It should be good weather, hopefully. Is it just you?”
Charlie tried not to grimace. “Yeah, apparently. Darcy—I don’t know if you know Darcy? She’s in HR? Anyway, she was meant to meet us here but she’s just texted to say that she’s not feeling well.”
“Oh,” Nick said with a sympathetic frown. “That’s a shame. I think there must be something going around the office because Tara’s also come down with something. I hope they get better soon."
“Mmm.” The only reason Charlie would wish Darcy a speedy recovery was so that it would be a fair fight when he murdered her later.
"Is anyone else coming, do you know?"
Nick shook his head. "No one replied to the email, but then neither did you so who knows." He checked his watch. "They've still got a couple of minutes. Are you walking in those?"
The question was paired with a sceptical look at Charlie's converse.
"No, I have walking shoes in the car, they were just too clunky to drive in." He tried to pass this statement off casually, like he was the kind of man who had always owned walking boots, rather than the kind of man who'd logged off early yesterday to find an outdoors shop and then spent an eye-watering amount on hiking boots in a desperate, misguided attempt to impress a man whom he'd never said more than two words to before.
He opened the door and retrieved the shoes, hastily yanking off the tags he hadn't bothered to remove yet. Even so, they were very obviously brand new, especially when he pulled them on and stood beside Nick and his mud-stained, well-used boots. While Nick was distracted checking his phone and looking around the quiet car park for last-minute arrivals, he tried to surreptitiously scrape the rubber against the tarmac to scuff them up a little. He didn't want to come across as a total amateur.
Perching against the edge of the car, he jammed his feet into the shoes. It took him so long to thread the laces through the ridiculous number of eyelets that by the time he was done, Nick had stopped looking around the car park and was instead just looking at Charlie.
“Looks like it’s just us then,” he said with a grin which Charlie returned tentatively.
“Just us,” Charlie confirmed, his heart thrumming.
-
It was a well-travelled bit of footpath, meaning that the ground had been flattened into a smooth track, wide enough that Nick and Charlie could walk side-by-side. Occasionally Charlie or Nick would sway too far to the side as they dodged a rock or stick, and Nick’s waterproof jacket would brush against Charlie’s hoodie. Charlie had never realised that the quiet skrish of waxed polyester could be such an exciting sound.
“So, um, how come you're doing this?” Charlie asked. It felt like a safe topic of conversation and an ordinary question to ask. Normal small-talk. Charlie just needed to come up with another two or three hours of it.
He tried to keep his expression cool as the panic rose internally.
“Er, don’t really know,” Nick admitted guilelessly. “I mentioned to Tara that I wanted to do a walk, and she suggested that I make it a company thing.”
As Nick talked, Charlie furiously tried to remember every normal question anyone had ever asked him. Upcoming holidays were a safe bet at the start of June. That could nicely lead onto past holidays. Charlie knew Nick had been to Greece last summer because he’d seen it in his calendar when he stalked it after he’d noticed Nick hadn't been in the office for a while. He probably should keep that bit of the story to himself.
It would be easier if they had ever spoken in the office. Unfortunately, their one and only shared experience had been what Darcy had dubbed ‘The Great Pear Disaster’, when Nick had walked into the small shared kitchen while Charlie had been eating a particularly juicy pear, crouched over a bin to catch the juices that had been dribbling down his chin and over his hands. “Like a little pear goblin,” was how Darcy had later described him to Tao through tears of laughter. Charlie had been so embarrassed that he'd thrown the half-eaten pear away and left the room without a word, heading straight for an empty meeting room where he could crawl under a table and wait for death.
The only way he could cope with that memory was by telling himself Nick probably didn't remember it, so he definitely wasn't going to remind him of it.
“To be honest, Tara doesn't like walking much so she probably wanted me to invite more people so she didn't have to come. Maybe she's faking her illness to get out of having to walk in the rain.”
Nick finished speaking, leaving a natural pause that Charlie was supposed to fill, but all of his carefully planned conversation starters twisted and snarled on his lips, leaving him tongue-tied and stupid. He glanced over at Nick's face, and his kind and patient expression. He was desperate for something he could say that would connect with him on some level deeper than LinkedIn.
It was impossible to think when he was looking at Nick. He turned back to the path, searching for something to say. Something funny. Something insightful. Something clever. Any of the above. Just anything.
Just as the silence began to stretch from natural to awkward, Charlie managed to dislodge some words from the back of his throat.
“The weather’s okay.”
Fantastic, he thought at himself scathingly, you're officially the world's most boring coworker and Nick's going to regret ever planning this walk because he has to spend three hours listening to you.
Then, as if his traitorous mouth was determined to cement him to that reputation, he followed it up with, “How's work at the moment for you?”
But Nick didn't act like it was a boring question. Instead, he sighed and pulled a face and said, “Oh, yeah, you know. “Living the dream.”
Charlie winced. “That bad?”
Nick grinned. Charlie loved Nick's smile: it was cheeky and friendly, and when it was directed at you it was like you were immediately in on the joke. The moment he'd seen it from across the office on Nick's first day, he'd turned to Tao and asked him whether he knew anything about the new guy. Tao had answered by hitting him with a rolled up copy of the company’s annual report like a misbehaving puppy.
“Nah, it is fine. It's just working in Sales was never my childhood dream, you know?”
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “I mean, I obviously can't relate because I always dreamed I'd end up working in accounting for a mid-sized company in a town no one’s ever heard of. The first time I saw Oscar in The Office, I thought: that's what I want to be when I grow up,” Charlie deadpanned.
“You're not an Oscar, you're too funny,” Nick protested through a giggle, and a warm flush of delight spread through him. Nick thought Charlie was funny?
The compliment earned Charlie's trust enough that he offered Nick a moment of honesty. “I don't actually remember what I wanted to be in school. I think I was mostly just focused on surviving it and I thought I'd figure the rest out later.” He shrugged, then considered what he’d just said and winced. “Sorry, that sounds so depressing.”
“You don't need to apologise. And also you did survive, so there's another example of you fulfilling your dreams.”
Charlie laughed. “Finished school, tick. Became a middling accountant, tick. I'm the picture of success, I don't know why I don't get invited to do more motivational talks.”
Nick properly laughed at that, and even Charlie couldn't keep his artificially serious expression fixed to his face.
“So how is life in Finance?”
Charlie shrugged. “Eh. It’s alright. It’s pretty easy, like fifty percent of my job is just teaching people how the invoicing portal works, and the other fifty is fixing their mistakes when they don't listen.”
“To be fair to everyone, that portal’s impossible.”
Charlie choked on his outrage. “It's not! I made a flowchart! You just have to follow the steps in order and it all works perfectly!”
Nick shook his head, his chin jutting out. “Literally no one in that building understands how to use that thing other than you.”
“Some people do! You never come to me with problems though,” Charlie said. He didn't mean it to sound so accusatory.
“Only because Tara lost a bet ages ago and now she has to deal with all of my invoices. I think that runs out soon, though, so I'm definitely about to start bothering you.”
Charlie's heartbeat doubled in speed at the prospect. “We can book in a one-to-one on Monday, I can teach you how to do it.”
The corner of Nick's lip twitched up. “I might need more than one training session. I'm really helpless.”
“Sure. However many you need. I'll get you there,” Charlie said.
-
The sun came out eventually for long enough that Nick peeled his jacket off and tied it around his waist. Charlie resolutely kept his hoodie on and tried to surreptitiously wipe away the sweat that beaded on his forehead.
They paused at a stile to let a group of walkers cross. One of them had a bluetooth speaker slotted into the water bottle pocket of his backpack, playing a heavy drum and bass song loud enough that it had to get in the way of conversation.
“Wouldn’t be my choice of music for this kind of day out,” Charlie remarked once the group had moved on. “Or ever.”
“You’re more of a Muse fan, aren’t you?”
Charlie’s brain stuttered to a halt as he attempted to process the casual, offhand remark. It shouldn’t be weird—after all, Charlie hoarded facts about Nick as if he was stockpiling food for a nuclear winter—but hearing Nick state something about Charlie so casually was bizarre. Charlie knew things about Nick because of his humiliatingly gigantic crush; why did Nick know about Charlie?
Charlie was so preoccupied with this train of thought as he blinked dumbly at Nick that he missed a rock in the middle of the path. He tripped over it, nearly falling over before Nick’s hands shot out to catch him around his bicep and keep him upright.
“Whoa! Careful!”
Even through the layer of waterproof material, Charlie could feel the warmth of Nick's touch. It spread through him like flames over kindling, it's tendrils licking over Charlie's body in exploratory, snatching motions. Charlie shivered and swallowed.
“Thanks. Er yeah, I like Muse. How come you know that?”
“From Teams meetings. You have a poster of one of their albums on the wall behind you, don’t you?”
It was normal to have noticed other people's Teams backgrounds, right? Sure, Charlie couldn't tell you what anyone else in their hundred-person directorate sat in front of, but that was because he usually spent the whole meeting zoomed in on Nick.
He turned away so Nick didn't see his dimwitted expression and climbed onto the wooden planks to hop over the fence. The wood was wet and worn, smoothed under years of walkers’ boots, so he took it slowly, ensuring that by the time he'd hopped onto the ground on the other side, his face was back under control.
When Nick moved to follow him over, an irresistible urge pushed Charlie forward, so he could stand closer to Nick while he warned, “Careful, it’s really slippery.”
He held out his hand, palm up, leaving the decision to Nick, who accepted the offer without hesitation. Nick’s hand was warm and dry, and his skin was strikingly soft compared to the drumstick calluses that decorated Charlie’s palms. Charlie quickly became less worried about Nick falling over, and more worried about the possibility that he would swoon. Nick held his hand tightly, his fingers flexing as he adjusted his grip. Charlie’s other hand hovered in the air between them, ready to reach out and grab Nick should he slip.
“Thanks,” he said, when both feet were finally on solid ground (and was it Charlie’s imagination, or did he also sound short of breath?).
Charlie smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”
-
The last three dates Charlie had been on had been disasters. The guys had come from a variety of dating apps that all promised true love but delivered less-than-average men with whom Charlie had no chemistry or common interests. The venue options in Truham were dire, so they always ended up at the same trendy bar in the town centre that played moody covers of pop songs at a deafening volume. The stilted, awkward conversations lasted however long it took Charlie to down his drink, and he always left him feeling like an alien in a human costume, wondering how the fuck other people enjoyed dating.
This was about as far away from a swanky restaurant with overpriced food and too-loud music as you could get. The air was fresh and the sun shone brightly, though intermittently, as a strong wind sent thick clouds racing across the sky. The conversation with Nick flowed constantly and easily.
Charlie didn’t spend much time looking around: he was too busy staring at Nick while simultaneously trying not to get caught, which was surprisingly difficult because Nick kept looking at him. Even when the path narrowed and Charlie fell behind, Nick would glance back every couple of seconds, as if he needed to check Charlie was still there and hadn't dived into a bush or something.
They stopped for lunch at midday and, inspired by Charlie’s hastily bought Co-op meal deal, spent the whole conversation ranking the different supermarkets and then designing their perfect meal deal. Charlie probably put too much stock in the fact they both chose Hula Hoops for their snack, but it gave him a reason to offer Nick some from his bag and then watch him jokingly put one on his index finger and then suck it off with a pop. Charlie licked his lips, pretending to himself that it was to get the last crystals of salt.
In the latter half of the walk, the path linked up with a river and followed along its banks. In theory, it was a lovely place for a footpath; in reality, following the wettest August on record, it was a mud bath. The river level had just about receded to the point that it was back to the banks, but the evidence of the recent floods remained.
It was a popular trail, so Charlie could watch oncomers struggling through the swamp. A couple of brave people waded straight through the middle, emerging on the side with mud up to their knees. Most people were trying to skirt around the edges of the quagmire, keeping as close to the barbed-wire fence as possible on the sliver of wet mud that had yet to be churned up. It was clear from the way their feet were constantly sliding out from under them that the ground was treacherously slick, so progress was slow going as people clung to roots and saplings as they traversed.
After watching the third person stack it—a woman who fell and landed with a squelch on her hip, mud coating her leg and her hands which she’d thrown out to catch her fall—Charlie turned to Nick. “I can’t do this.”
“Come on, it’ll be fine. It’s just a bit of mud! Where’s your can-do attitude?”
“She’s stuck in the mud,” Charlie quipped flatly. He had to work not to look too pleased when Nick laughed. “Is there any other way around?”
Nick shook his head, still way too positive about the situation currently facing them. “Not unless you fancy a quick swim downstream. Or going back the way we came, but that’ll take us another two hours, whereas this”—he pointed at the waterlogged marsh ahead of them—“is just another twenty minutes.”
Charlie stared at the path ahead, quickly passing through the five stages of grief until he reached acceptance. “Fine, alright. But if I fall over, I’m dragging you down with me.”
“I won’t let you fall, promise,” Nick said, and he led the way forward, glancing over his shoulder to check that Charlie was following.
Nick, being infuriatingly perfect, glided around the edges of the marsh with a cool, calm confidence. Charlie stuck to his heels, trying to copy his footsteps precisely, his jaw clenched and his arms stuck out horizontally either side of him. Nick smiled at him every time he glanced over his shoulder.
They made it through the first patch unscathed, but then turned a corner to find another, then another. There was a small island of relatively firm dirt between that bog and the next stretch of churned up path.
“This is going to be the worst of it,” Nick said as they battled their way around the edge, but his reassurances were losing credibility every time they turned a corner and saw the next expanse of impassable mud.
Charlie shot him an unimpressed look, which Nick pointedly avoided by staring up at the sky, drawing a breath through his teeth.
“Worst of it, huh?” Charlie repeated.
Nick shrugged guilelessly. “This is gonna be the worst of it. Come on, I believe in us. We can do this.”
The side of the path that wasn’t next to the river was bordered by a small, steep slope that rose a couple of feet and then was topped off with a barbed wire fence to stop walkers from trespassing in the adjacent field.
Charlie followed, and, as it turned out, he’d been misled by Nick’s indefatigable optimism.
It was alright at first: he inched along, preferring to slide his feet over the mud rather than risk taking a step. Balancing on one leg at any point felt like too big of a risk to take. Then a family approached from the opposite direction and their dog sprinted through the mud. Charlie turned away to avoid getting it splattered over his face. The movement was too sharp, and the small amount of friction that was keeping his foot still disappeared.
He scrambled for his life, his legs going in every possible direction as his arms windmilled in the empty air.
He made a noise that could have been a cry for help or a scream of terror. He threw his arms out under the barbed wire and clutched a tuft of grass with both hands. Thankfully, it stabilised him enough that he reached a kind of equilibrium: his legs mostly stationary, even though they were wide apart like he was about to try going into the splits.
Nick was properly laughing by the time Charlie froze, clinging onto a clump of grass further up the bank. Charlie glared at him. “This is your fault!”
“Sorry! You just look like a baby deer, all wobbly,” Nick said, chuckling. Charlie’s glare deepened, but it only made Nick laugh harder. “It’s cute!” he added, which usually would send Charlie into a tailspin, but right now his brain didn’t have time to over analyse everything because it was working overtime trying to keep his body upright.
The clump of grass that Charlie had entrusted with his life made an ominous ripping noise, and Charlie's feet slowly started sliding backwards. “Nick!” he yelped, throwing his arms out.
Nick caught him just before he face-planted, grabbing Charlie around the biceps. Charlie desperately grabbed fistfuls of Nick’s t-shirt as he got his feet under him.
“See? Told you I’d save you.”
He’d lunged into the mud to get to him, and the mud was halfway up his ankle. When he pulled his foot out, the swamp released him with a greedy sucking noise.
“Here,” Nick said, turning around and sliding his backpack off his shoulders and onto his chest. “Hop on.”
Charlie flushed. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s my fault for suggesting a walk. Next time we can just go for drinks.”
Next time. There were a lot of casual promises being thrown around here. And somehow, they'd progressed from the promise of having some work meetings to what sounded like, by any stretch of the imagination, a date.
Nick shrugged his shoulders. “Come on,” he said.
“How am I supposed to get on you?”
“Just jump up.”
This was supposed to be a work trip. The fact that it was just the two of them who turned up didn’t negate that. And yet, here Charlie was, his legs wrapped tightly around the waist of the fucking Sales Manager, his arms draped over his shoulders. He didn’t want to leave his hands dangling down over Nick’s chest, it felt too gropey; he grabbed his own elbows instead, which meant his arms were locked across Nick’s neck. If he moved his hands back, he’d be able to feel the ridges of Nick's throat. He obviously wouldn't do that, because he'd just be choking Nick at that point. Although, maybe Nick liked choking—
No. He would not allow himself to continue thinking about that because if he did, not only would he be straddling Nick Nelson, he’d be straddling him with an erection. There was no amount of ‘smoothing over’ Darcy could do to sort out that HR violation.
“How are you so well-balanced?” Charlie asked, trying to take his mind off it.
“Years of playing rugby at school,” Nick said as he strode easily across the sliding, oozing mud. “You had to get used to running around on pitches worse than this one.”
Imagining Nick in a rugby uniform in the midst of a game—wiping mud from his face, glistening with sweat, his chest heaving with exertion—didn’t help to quell Charlie’s wayward dick. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and focused every atom of his mind on not reacting to that image.
“Was being a professional rugby player your childhood dream, then? The one you've sacrificed to be in sales?”
“Yeah. Although ‘dream’ makes me sound more hopeful than I ever was. I always knew it was never gonna happen, but rugby was my favourite thing to do so it’s always what I said if someone asked me.”
Charlie frowned, his heart aching dully in sympathy at the barely disguised disappointment in Nick's voice. “Do you get to play on the weekends now?”
“Occasionally me and some friends get together to chuck a rugby ball around but it's difficult to get enough people together to do an actual game. Why? Are you volunteering?”
Okay. This was safer territory. The words ‘chuck a ball around’ only instilled Charlie with distaste, still deeply ingrained after years of school.
“Ha ha,” Charlie said sarcastically. “Can you imagine me on a rugby pitch? I'd get trampled.”
“You never know until you try it. I'll let you know when we organise our next park day.”
“I preferred the going for drinks idea,” Charlie said. It was meant to be a light joke.
It wasn’t supposed to make Nick shrug, so Charlie could feel the roll of his shoulders, and drawl, “Well. Nothing stopping us from doing both.”
The words rolled through Charlie like the front of warm, humid air the moments before a thunderstorm that crackled with tension and the threat of a sudden, unpredictable release.
At the same moment, Nick readjusted his grip on Charlie, stopping to hoist him further up his back, dragging Charlie up half a foot or so his thighs were around his ribs rather than his waist and his chest was level with his head. Charlie wondered whether Nick could hear his thundering heartbeat, because the drag of Nick’s spine against his crotch had sent his pulse into a panic.
His breath caught. Frantically, he imagined Darcy having to fire him for getting turned on by a piggyback ride, but he couldn’t ignore the way that his arms were around Nick’s neck, and his hair was tickling Charlie’s chin, and Nick’s shampoo smelled like coconuts—
“You can put me down,” he blurted, wriggling, which only made his situation worse. “Now,” he added with a squeak.
Thankfully, Nick stopped immediately, crouching down as he unwrapped his hands from Charlie’s legs. The ground had hardened back into something traversable. Charlie stumbled back a few steps. He felt colder as the cold air caught his flushed skin: the puffy white clouds from earlier had turned into a blanket of grey, blocking out the warmth from the sun.
Nick cleared his throat. Charlie didn’t dare look at his face, too worried that the desire would be obvious in his own expression and give away his desperation.
“You should be alright now. It’s the home stretch,” he said, pointing at a field off to the left, sown with golden wheat that swayed violently in the gusts of wind. Sure enough, on the far side, Charlie could see the church tower marking the car park like a beacon guiding him back to civilisation.
In contrast to their easy conversation just five minutes ago, the silence that filled the space between their bodies felt like a third person that had joined them for the end of the walk and completely obliterated the nice relationship that they’d been building.
Although, he could just be being sensitive: it would be a classic Charlie Spring move to read too much into a moment and draw the worst conclusions. But… He was pretty sure he was right this time. The silence was definitely a bad sign.
He risked a glance to the side and found Nick staring at the path ahead mulishly, his lips pushed out in a glum-looking pout. Charlie looked back at the ground, his own expression mimicking Nick’s.
This is what he got for agreeing to go on a walk on a perfectly nice Saturday. He had forever ruined the perfect equilibrium he’d achieved at work, where he didn’t ever talk to Nick, enabling him to yearn silently from the other end of a video meeting.
After today, they would trade casual small talk in the office kitchen for the next six months to two years, until one of them eventually found a new job, and then Charlie would never see Nick again except for maybe an occasional LinkedIn notification reminding him to congratulate Nick on his one year anniversary at a company Charlie had never heard of.
Hell.
They were nearly all the way across the final field when the heavy clouds made good on their threat. At first, Charlie thought he was imagining the little spots of wetness that landed on the backs of his hand and neck, evaporating before he really had a chance to register them.
He squinted up at the sky. “Is it raining?” he asked.
Nick frowned. “The weather forecast promised me it wouldn't…”
Then, a big, fat droplet landed on Charlie's shoulder with an audible thwop, bursting into a dark mark on his hoodie.
“I think the forecast might have lied—” Charlie began to say, but he was interrupted by a flash of lightning, followed by a crack of thunder. “Oh my god!” he yelled, forgetting all about the hood part of his hoodie in favour of protecting his head with his arms.
“Over there! Quick!” Nick yelled. He grabbed Charlie's hand and dragged him into a sprint across the last bit of the field and into the church's graveyard, to the shelter offered by an enormous yew tree. His hand was warm, almost burning against the chill of Charlie’s rain soaked skin, and his grip was strong and secure.
Under its canopy, the light filtered down to them greenly. The thundering rain was reduced to a light pattering sound on the leaves. Occasionally, a droplet would splash through and land on the soil, releasing a pleasant, earthy scent.
“Fucking hell. That came out of nowhere,” Nick said, staring out over the drenching rain, his eyes wide.
“My hair’s ruined,” Charlie said mournfully, pushing his sodden curls back from his forehead only for them to limply fall back down immediately.
“Don't worry, you still look perfect,” Nick said, and then coughed awkwardly.
Charlie's eyes flashed up to Nick's face, curiously. Perfect. It was a big word, especially when Nick wouldn't meet his eyes. His cheeks were stained with a light-pink blush.
They were both sodden. A bead of water dripped from his cowlick onto his forehead and slid down the bridge of his nose. Charlie watched its progress, entranced.
“You have…” He gestured at the drop.
Nick blinked at him. “What?”
“You—here,” Charlie said, and reached up to brush his thumb across the tip of Nick's nose, catching the water with the brush of his fingertip. His index finger rested on Nick's cheek for a second.
It was like the world stopped spinning for the moment that they were touching, stretching for hours. Charlie couldn't believe his fingers were on Nick's face. He could feel the softness of his skin, the warmth radiating from his blushing cheeks.
“I think,” Nick said, pausing to run his tongue along his lips, then pressing them together briefly before continuing, “that I’m going to lose my mind if I don't kiss you today.”
The words blurted out of him in such a rush that Charlie had to take a few seconds to process them.
Then he lunged, grabbing Nick's face with both hands and pulling him down the few inches separating their lips.
It turned out that the warm wetness of Nick's mouth on his, his tongue in Charlie's mouth, searching for more, was what Charlie had been looking for all his life. He couldn't think of a single reason why he would ever need to move for the rest of his life. This was all he needed.
His hands scrabbled across Nick’s wet jacket until his fingers hooked into zip loops, which he hungrily, needily tugged at, reeling Nick in until their bodies were flush.
Nick followed Charlie's request and more, pushing Charlie back into the tree trunk. His hands were clenched around Charlie's hips and they pushed him back while simultaneously pulling him forward, trapping him exactly where Nick wanted.
His hands cupped Nick’s head, his thumb digging into the soft, vulnerable skin beneath his jaw. He could feel the shift of muscle and bone underneath his fingertips as Nick’s tongue explored Charlie’s mouth, tangling with Charlie’s and swallowing the involuntary breathless moans that he was coaxing out of him.
Nick buried his fingers in Charlie’s hair, and the occasional scratch of his fingernails against his scalp when he readjusted his grip sent shivers down Charlie’s neck and tingles through his body. The sensations left him needing more, craving the feeling of Nick’s body wrapped around him. Charlie wanted to lift his legs, put a thigh around Nick's hip, urge him closer and closer. He'd wanted this for so long, and the reality was somehow even better than anything that had played out in his head.
But it was the middle of the day, and a weekend, and—
“Charlie. We're in a graveyard,” Nick chastised, but there was laughter in his voice even as he pulled back. Charlie chased his lips, his every sense crying out at the loss of Nick’s lips.
He looked around, peering through the dense branches at the churchyard beyond. The rain had lightened ever so slightly, but the daylight was still dimmed by the heavy clouds, chasing everyone away.
“There's no one around,” Charlie said, grabbing Nick's chin and pulling his face back close. Nick followed his lead willingly, sinking back into the kiss as naturally as if they'd done this a thousand times before.
He didn't let it go on as long as their first. Charlie had just worked his tongue into Nick's mouth, and was wrapping his hands around Nick's waist with the intent to pull him closer, when Nick pulled back.
“No,” Charlie whined.
Nick chuckled. He cupped Charlie’s jaw and stroked his thumb across Charlie’s lips. It caught on his bottom lip, pulling his mouth open. Charlie’s knees threatened to buckle under the weight of his desire.
“My flat’s on the high street,” Nick said, his voice husky. “Like, five minutes, tops. If you want, you can come back to mine, we can…”
He didn't finish the sentence, and the options left opened in the trailing silence made Charlie's mouth water. He answered by jumping up onto his tiptoes and kissing Nick hard, with a desire that felt almost feverish.
“Is that a yes?” Nick asked, breathlessly, and even though he was too close for Charlie to be able to see his expression, he could hear the smile in his words.
“Please,” Charlie said, wondering whether Nick could hear the wanton desperation that made his voice so high and reedy. “I—I’ll need to get my car before the parking runs out, though, or I'll get a ticket.”
“How long is that?”
Charlie tried to remember what he’d paid for that morning. It felt like a lifetime ago. “Three more hours? Maybe four?”
A grin spread across Nick’s face. “I think we can probably make that work.”
—
Monday
—
🔔 1 Meeting Reminder(s)
🗓️ All Staff Monday Morning Meeting
9:30 23 August
15 minutes
| Snooze | Dismiss |
-
Darcy Olsson added Tara Jones, Nick Nelson, Charlie Spring, and Tao Xu to the chat.
Darcy Olsson 9:31 am
Morning gang
did everyone have nice weekends? 🙂
Tara Jones 9:31 am
Nick how was your walk? did many other people turn up? 🙂
Darcy Olsson 9:32 am
@Nick Nelson you're looking very stylish this morning
what inspired you to break out the turtlenecks at 9am on a Monday?
(😂 1)
Tao Xu 9:32 am
@Charlie what room of your flat is that…? I've never seen it before 🤔
Tara Jones 9:32 am
yknow it's SO weird Charlie
Nick has that exact painting in his living room
(👀 3)
Darcy Olsson 9:33 am
DONT TURN YOUR CAMERAS OFF
Tara Jones 9:33 am
COWARDS
(😂 2)
Tao Xu 9:34 am
LET US MAKE FUN OF YOU MORE, WE DESERVE THIS
Charlie Spring 9:35 am
this is workplace harassment
(👎 3)
Nick Nelson 9:35 am
we're reporting you to HR
(👎 3)
Darcy Olsson 9:36 am
Try it bitches.