Chapter Text
Dan was in the bathroom when Moritz woke up. He’d slept terribly. Heavy raindrops were beating on his window and Moritz sighed. So much for his plan of going to school on his own. He’d come to the conclusion that the less time he had to spend with Riffert the better. Since it was raining cats and dogs, though, his father would probably insist on driving them to school. However, Moritz could avoid spending time with Daniel alone. Within seconds he was dressed and scurried into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Mo. I was thinking that, since it’s pouring outside, I should probably drive you and Daniel to school. What do you think?”
“We’re not made of sugar, dad. A little water won’t kill us”, Moritz said while he filled a bowl with cornflakes. “Also, Marie has to go to school too. We don’t want to be an inconvenience.”
“It’s not like it would be much of a detour.”
Jens took a sip from his coffee and eyed Moritz as he poured water into his bowl of cornflakes. Then he said: “I hope you’re not always this cold towards Daniel.”
“What do you mean, dad?”
When in doubt, play dumb.
“Moritz. Don’t pretend. Do you really think I didn’t notice the two of you barely exchanging a word during dinner yesterday? I thought you guys were friends now!”
Yeah that's what he had actually thought. He shrugged and hastily put a spoon of watery cornflakes into his mouth to buy himself some time. Daniel saved him from having to reply by walking into the kitchen. His hair was still messy from having been dried with a towel. When Moritz saw the shirt he was wearing he froze. He'd meant to give Dan a plain black shirt. This one, however, had the face of Elon Musk on it, huge. It had been a birthday gift from Lenny after Moritz had gushed about Musk's entrepreneurship one too many times. To make matters worse, the shirt was stretched dangerously snug around Dan's broad shoulders.
Moritz was well aware that he was staring at Dan. Even as he turned around and sat down across from Jens, Moritz couldn't tear his eyes away. His gaze drifted towards the place where the shirt had ridden up a little, revealing a sliver of Dan's bare skin.
The dizziness returned. He was really getting worried about his health; the last few days he'd had repeated heat flashes, dizziness, heart palpitations… Maybe the stress of running a successful business while still in school was getting to him. He was still intently looking at the bit of naked skin that the shirt revealed on Dan’s back.
“Good morning, Daniel!”, Jens said and freed Moritz from whatever had been going on with him. “I just offered Moritz to drive the two of you to school today because of the rain. Can’t risk both of you getting sick.”
Without looking at Moritz once, Daniel accepted the offer with gratitude. Moritz was too shaken from what had just happened to even feign annoyance.
“I’m riding shotgun!”, Marie shouted and ran towards the car.
Jens gave Daniel an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, at some point we introduced the rule that whoever arrived at the car first could ride shotgun. Definitely decreased the amount of squabbles between these two”, he gestured at Moritz and Marie. “But if you’d rather sit on the passenger side…”
Daniel looked at Moritz (for the first time this morning - not that Moritz was keeping track) and shook his head. “It’s alright, thanks.”
And that’s how they found themselves on the backseat of Jens’s car, Moritz’s bag like a wall between them. Even though it was barely 15°C, Moritz was hot again. There was a strange pressure in his chest. He was probably still feeling guilty about last night. But what did Daniel expect? Should Moritz apologise for having MyDrugs on top of his priority list? Well, maybe he had a bit of a point. But Daniel had brought them into an impossible situation! It wasn’t like Moritz had planned on drawing him into all of this. He’d had to decide within seconds what to do - whether to “convince” Daniel to cooperate in whichever way possible or whether to let him ruin everything they’d worked for, give up MyDrugs, and potentially go to prison. Nobody could fault Moritz for going with the first option. Also, if you really looked at it, Moritz thought, Daniel wasn’t completely blameless in this whole affair. If he hadn’t made a pass at Lisa with his drugs Moritz would never even have dreamed of buying up all of Buba’s stock. Moritz hated thinking of Buba because thoughts of Buba inevitably led to mental images he’d rather not see.
Fortunately, they’d just arrived at Marie’s school. After Marie was gone, Jens turned around to them and asked: “Daniel, do you want me to drive by your place so you can pick up your school supplies?”
“I’m just gonna borrow stuff”, Daniel said with a shrug.
Moritz caught his father’s eyes in the rearview mirror and completely understood. His school supplies were also Dan’s school supplies, at least for today. He nodded.
He tried to think of other things, he really did, but inevitably, Moritz’s mind always returned to the fact that he was sitting in the backseat next to Daniel. Also that he was sweating a lot more than usual. Daniel was staring out of the window. With anyone else Moritz would have assumed they were lost in their thoughts but he wasn’t sure Daniel Riffert even had thoughts he could get lost in. Moritz remembered the previous night and the feeling of too many toffifee crept up in his stomach again. Maybe he shouldn’t be so mean to Daniel anymore. He might not be the smartest person in any room he was in, ever, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have anything going on in his mind. Just not anything that was even remotely useful or interesting to Moritz.
“Boo!”, Daniel shouted and suddenly turned towards him. Moritz jumped and his heart started beating as it was trying to win a medal for the fastest beating heart in the world. Dan’s blue eyes seemed to be looking straight into his soul. Dan laughed. Obviously his laugh was perfect as well. He was Daniel Riffert after all.
“I didn’t think I’d actually get you. Anyway, why are you staring? Do I have something in my hair?”
Very good question. Why had Moritz been staring at him?
“Nah, I just wanted to look out the window and you were in the way.”
He fervently hoped that Daniel wouldn’t point out the window on Moritz’s side.
“Alright”, he just said, eyebrows raised. Moritz was blushing yet again and he was pretty sure that he’d never been this embarrassed in his life.
“Well, boys! Here we are. Don’t forget to get your bikes from the back, alright?”
“Yes, dad. Thanks for driving us!”, Moritz said and almost tumbled out of the car in his rush to get to freedom. Finally. No more Daniel. He didn’t even mind the rain.
When he opened the trunk, he heard Daniel say: “Thank you, Mr Zimmermann.” The sincerity in his voice was surprising, as was the reply Jens gave.
“Anytime. And if anything happens, you have my number.”
Moritz shut the boot and decided that he didn’t want to know. He wouldn’t waste another thought on Daniel Riffert and his stupid blue eyes today. He had more important things to worry about.
That worked up until Lenny rolled up to him and said: “I thought you wanted to go home with Dan, not the other way around.”
“What?”
Lenny nodded in Daniel’s direction. He was walking quickly towards his classroom, head down low between his shoulders like a turtle trying to hide in its shell. Before, he’d walked leisurely, head held high. This really wasn’t a good sign.
“That shirt is one of a kind. I don’t really consider Dan an Elon Musk fanboy and even if he did like the guy I don’t think he’d wear a shirt with his face on it that's a size too small.”
Moritz hated himself for blushing.
“He came over for dinner last night and since it had gotten late he stayed over”, Moritz said and desperately tried to sound casual.
Lenny looked at Moritz with doubt in his eyes. “Since when is Daniel Riffert coming over for dinner at your place?”
“Since my dad invited him”, Moritz replied curtly. “Let’s drop it and talk about something more important. Everything ready for tonight?”
“Of course. We’re professionals, after all.”
Moritz was relieved and for the next ninety minutes he was spared any mention of Daniel Riffert. Unfortunately, his mind wasn’t kind enough to spare him every thought of Daniel as well.
Why had he sounded so serious when he’d thanked Moritz’s dad? Why had his dad invited him over for dinner in the first place? Did it have something to do with whatever had changed Dan’s behavioural pattern? In that case it probably had nothing to do with the business MyDrugs was probably fine even if Dan wasn’t. But could MyDrugs be fine if Dan wasn’t? If Moritz let his employee knowingly suffer, didn't he neglect his duties as a CEO? Moritz needed more data.
When Moritz sat down for his second lesson of the day, Lisa said: “I didn’t know you and Dan were that close now. The shirt he’s wearing today, that’s yours, isn’t it?”
This was a delicate situation. Moritz had to carefully consider his next words.
“Uhm. Yeah.” He had no clue why he was blushing yet again. Maybe it was just embarrassing for him to talk about Dan with Lisa of all people. Somehow, he felt like he should maybe add something more so he said: “He slept over at my place yesterday.
Lisa smiled in a way that Moritz really didn’t like. Well, he liked it because he always liked seeing Lisa smile. However, he wasn’t sure he liked the meaning behind this particular one. Fortunately, it seemed like she didn’t have anything more to say about the topic for now because she asked: “So… are we meeting after school today for… you know?”
Their teacher entered the room at that moment and Moritz didn’t have much of a choice but to nod and send a quick message to the group chat.
Moritz: “Lisa’s coming to our meeting today”
Lenny: “so much for ‘just because she knows doesn’t mean she has to be part of it’ 🙄🙄”
Daniel Riffert: "👍"
Lenny: "she’s not gonna be part of the drop though is she"
“Moritz! Could you hand me your phone since it is so much more interesting than my lesson”, Mr Grunow said.
Moritz sighed. This was shaping up to be a wonderful day.