Chapter Text
Richard was very, very nervous. He flitted around the bedroom picking up random items, and placing them, vaguely, back where they belonged. Cleaning up was something he usually procrastinated doing. Things tended to get let go until the irritable look from his two mates weren’t so funny anymore. But, Richard desperately needed something to do with himself while he waited for James to come home to pick him up so they could meet Jeremy at the restaurant.
Glancing to the full length mirror, Richard smoothed down his shirt, looking for the bump that wasn’t there yet. No sign of what he now knew. This was either going to go one of two ways. There would be a long, awkwardness followed by Richard second guessing the whole thing, or…
He really hoped they would be happy.
On the bed sat a typical, cardboard jewelry box Richard remembered getting a chain necklace from James one Christmas when they three were still new, and gift giving was tricky. Next to it was a bit of string to tie it shut. Richard couldn’t help picking up the object that was to fill it. It felt like the flat, 5-inch stick was making him physically ill. Thinking about what he was going to tell the other two was making his palms sweat and his belly do somersaults.
Shaking his head, Richard placed the test on the dresser, and threw the box and string back into the closet. He wasn’t going to bother with something so sappy with Jeremy Clarkson and James May. The looks Richard could just imagine receiving from the other two were bad enough, but the ridicule in such a public place, where anyone could overhear, quickly changed any romantic ideas he had. Richard would just have to tell them straight out. Perhaps after Jeremy and James have had plenty of alcohol in their systems.
Startled out of his fond reenactment by the sound of a car horn outfront, Richard grabbed the more appropriately book-shaped present, spared one last glance to the stick sitting on the dresser, and was quickly out the door.