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John hated his job sometimes.
He hated the long hours on his feet. He hated going outside in the bitter cold to push in customer’s carts. He hated little old ladies who yelled at him and called him an idiot for bagging their purchases wrong.
It wasn’t like being a bag boy in that small store in Oadby. John thought it wouldn’t be that different, standing next to the register on the small counter and putting groceries in bags for sweet grandmas who tipped him in hard candies and pinches on the cheeks. No, being a bag boy in a huge city for a huge store was completely awful.
Well, maybe not completely awful. There were a few perks. More hours meant better paychecks. They were good about working with his class schedules each semester, and he got a discount when he shopped there.
But really, John would say his favorite part of working there were some of his coworkers.
Which was absolutely ridiculous, because John didn’t like people. He avoided social interaction as much as he could, one of the reasons he chose to be a bag boy again instead of trying to be a cashier. But something about these guys, only some of them, just drew John to them.
If John was being honest, he had huge crushes on all of them. Which was even more ridiculous, because there were three of them! John usually never got crushes so easily. And it seemed that his crushes turned more and more into infatuations with every passing day.
Roger, the blond and beautiful cashier who charmed every single person who came through his lane was the one to force John out of his shell.
“You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” Roger had asked one of John’s first days working at the store.
John hadn’t wanted to seem like he was ignoring Roger, so he shrugged. “Not much to say, I guess.”
“That’s okay, we’ll get it out of you one of these days.” Roger had flashed a bright grin, and John swore his heart skipped a beat.
And Roger had kept his word. With the help of his friend Freddie, another cashier, they had slowly but surely coaxed John into conversations, starting with small talk about what schools they went to, what they studied, how much they hated the weather. Eventually it turned to music, and everything just seemed to come together after that.
And then John had met Brian on top of it all. Brian worked in the produce department, though, so John didn’t get to see him as much as the others. But those nights when they all worked the closing shift together, when it was slower and they didn’t have to help as many customers, they could often get away with all talking together for good chunks of time.
“Freddie and I are headed to a pub after work tonight. Bri is busy, but you are welcome to join us if you like,” Roger mentioned to him after thanking a customer and sending them on their way.
The idea of spending social time with them outside of work, no distractions, with what would probably end up being a good amount of alcohol, was both tantalizing and terrifying to John. Of course he wanted to spend more time with them, to get to know them better. But John was so bad at social interactions. He would surely make a fool of himself, and then his crushes would never want to speak to him again.
“No, that’s alright. I already have plans,” John responded, the lie tasting bitter on his tongue.
He got distracted once, taking some vegetables a customer had decided they didn’t want back to produce. Brian had been there, arranging the cute little packages of strawberries with smiling suns on the corners. Brian had greeted him, started small talk, and that soon grew into a conversation that was much too long, but too interesting for John to walk away from. He knew Brian was studying science, on his way to getting a PhD in something to do with astronomy, but the way the man talked about the stars made John want for the first time in his life to go stargazing. It wasn’t until a manager yelled at him that John left produce, waving off Brian’s sheepish apologizing for talking his ear off.
It was a bit difficult, really, working with three people he had huge crushes on. Even more difficult as he got to know them better and better. They all loved music. They all played instruments and were all even in bands, something that made John a bit sad since his own band with college friends hadn’t worked out. Brian and Roger were in a band together, and had invited John to a couple of their gigs now, though John continued to turn them down out of anxiety and embarrassment.
And then it all culminated one day.
“Those are just lovely, aren’t they,” Freddie said, scanning a customer’s flower bouquet before handing them carefully to John to put in a flower bag. “Wonderful smell too. I’m always amazed at what nice flowers we have here.”
The customer agreed noncommittally, probably just wanting to get home and away from the oddly cheerful man.
Roger wandered over, having no customers in his lane and seeing Freddie was almost done. They did that, enjoying a nice chat between customers. And luckily, the only nice manager was working that day, who didn’t get on the baggers so often when they stood around and chatted with the cashiers.
“I do have to admit, those sunflowers we have on sale are really nice. Not very big, but the colours are beautiful,” Roger said once the customer was gone. He flashed John a bright smile, bright enough John had to look down at his shoes and take a minute to make sure he wasn’t blushing.
“I like the roses. We have some of those gorgeous dark red rose arrangements. Gorgeous and romantic,” Freddie sighed. “I would buy them for myself, but that just seems a bit pathetic, doesn’t it.”
And then there was a sudden voice behind John, causing him to jump a bit and the others to laugh at him. “I really like those bright white ones. I have no idea what they are called, but they kinda look like stars. And they smell really damn good.” John turned around to see Brian had come over, holding a small box filled with blueberry packages.
That was what planted the damn idea in John’s mind. The conversation hadn’t lasted long, but but everytime John walked past the florist department after that, he thought about what the others had said. Freddie especially.
It rolled around in his head for a few days. But one night, they all worked together again. John just so happened to get off half an hour earlier than the other three. It was the perfect opportunity, and yet John still spent the last twenty minutes of his shift working up the courage to do it, surely blushing and sweating profusely the whole time.
It was probably and awful idea, he told himself as he snuck past the registers when Freddie and Roger were distracted, checking to make sure Brian wasn’t lurking about before quickly snatching up the three bouquets he had had picked out all day. He carried them awkwardly behind his back as he scurried over to the self-checkout area, paying for them quickly, glancing around himself trying to keep an eye out for the others.
But when he made it to the break room, John was suddenly struck with the purest feeling of terror. There was no way he could go through with it. Not the way he had planned.
John stood for a few moments, heart beating wildly as he tried to think of what else to do. There, on the table, was a yellow notepad someone had left, and an ugly blue bank pen. It would have to work. He scribbled the names down quickly, so that it was clear which bouquet was for which person. The roses for Freddie, the darkest ones with the fullest blooms that would hopefully fit Freddie’s idea of romantic. The sunflowers for Roger, not the tiny ones that were on sale, but the big beautiful ones that could brighten the room just as much as Roger could. And the nameless little white stars for Brian, perhaps a way to stargaze when Brian was too busy to go out with his telescope.
There was a moment where John debated signing the notes with “from your secret admirer”, but it seemed a bit too much. Freddie would probably appreciate the drama and intrigue of it, but John was too embarrassed at even the thought of doing so. He did, however, draw a smiley face at the bottom of one and immediately regretted it. And then he had to draw them on all three, lest the other two feel left out.
John sighed as he glanced at the clock and admired his work. What if they forgot to come back and get their coats before they left tonight, and some poor soul would be forced to walk in on such an embarrassing spectacle early the next morning? Or worse, if they did find them but thought it was stupid? Or if they were still able to figure out it was John who gifted the flowers, despite attempting to leave them anonymously, leading to all of them rejecting John and asking to never be put on a shift with him again?
Finally, he was able to drag himself out of the room, after debating just throwing everything in the garbage more than a few times. He did his best to avoid the others as he left the store, pretending not to see Roger waving to him as he waked out the door.
John spent most of the night in agony, his stomach tightened into a painful knot, his head swimming with possible worst case scenarios. In the end, he decided to break into his emergency stash of sleeping pills, just to make sure he got a little bit of sleep that night. It helped, but the moment he woke the next day and remembered his predicament, the hot ball of metal was back in John’s stomach.
As he approached the store, scared to find out how the others might react, he reminded himself Freddie wasn’t going to be there that day, and surely he could subtly ask one of the other baggers to work with Roger that day instead of John.
And the day turned out to be utter shit as well. There were too many people, and John was almost a wreck with how distracted he was, bagging things wrong, sending people to wrong aisles for items they were searching for, and even accidentally dropping a watermelon into a poor woman’s cart right on top of both her large bags of crisps earning John a loud and exasperated rant about what an idiot he was.
For better or worse, neither Roger nor Brian talked to him much that day. The few times John was bagging for Roger, they really only spoke when they needed to. John wasn’t sure if Roger didn’t smile as brightly at him as usual that day, or if it was just John’s anxieties acting up. Or maybe even just Roger being a little tired.
But as the end of shift crept nearer and nearer, and less and less customers came through, John kept getting more nervous. He found as many other things to do, volunteering for all of the least desirable closing shift duties that pulled him away from the front end. Cleaning bathrooms seemed better than the risk of Roger turning to him during some downtime and telling John to fuck off and never speak to him again.
Just as John was dragging himself back to the front of the store, less than ten minutes left of their shift and officially out of other things to distract himself with, he saw something shimmery moving through the door.
Freddie walked in the fucking store, dressed up in the gaudiest outfit John had ever seen, and marched right up to Roger. And John couldn’t fucking breathe. He actually stood there, his mind completely blank with panic, struggling to figure out what to do.
Flee. That was the thing. Surely it was close enough to closing time now to clock out. Slip out the door before either of them noticed John was in the vicinity.
“John!”
There between John and the punch clock was Brian.
“Glad I caught you, I grabbed your things for you to save you a trip!” With a smile, he held out John’s jacket and lunch bag. How Brian had even known which ones were his was beyond him.
“Oh, um…” John’s brain hadn’t quite started working again. “Thanks?”
John felt his heart sink a bit when he realized Roger’s jacket was also slung over Brian’s arm. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to slip away quietly as planned, he accepted his belongings with the best smile he could manage, hearing Roger and Freddie right behind them.
“Let’s clock out real quick, and we can walk to our cars together,” Roger said, flashing John a smile, much brighter than his previous smiles that day. Somehow it made John feel slightly better.
It wasn’t unusual for them to do that. Walk out to their cars together after a closing shift. They all headed out at the same time anyway, and tended to park in the same area, so it wasn’t really unusual. But it wasn’t at all what John was wanting that night.
Nevertheless, he dutifully followed the others out into the chilly night. But he was stopped before he could walk past Roger’s car and to his own.
“Hey, John?” Roger called out. John could do nothing but stop and turn to him, both out of politeness and the siren call of Roger’s voice. “We were wondering if we could talk to you about something? Won’t take but a minute, I swear.”
“Um, alright then,” was the best response John could come up with on the spot. He moved closer to the others, still not quite willing to join the little cluster they had formed.
Freddie cleared his throat, looking a bit awkward, but keeping his eyes on John. “We just wanted to thank you for the flowers.”
It felt like something had frozen John completely. It took him a moment to even get his voice to work. "What? What flowers?" He felt like an idiot, but it was the best he could sputter out with his limited number of functioning brain cells.
"The flowers you left for us last night," Brian said calmly.
"And please don't say it wasn't you, Deaks. There's no one else it could be, and if it wasn't you, we look like total arseholes right now," Roger chimed in with a soft voice.
John hadn't really thought of that. He bit his lip and tried not to look any of them in the eye. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
"Why are you sorry?" Freddie asked. Freddie stepped closer to John, as if to touch him or comfort him, but John couldn't handle that yet.
John shook his head. “I don’t want you guys to hate me. Can we just forget I did that? It was stupid. I won’t do it again, alright?”
“What if we don’t want to forget?” Brian asked. “We loved them, John.”
This time, Freddie didn’t let John move away and reached out to grab John’s hand. Freddie’s skin was so smooth, and John’s heart skipped a beat when Freddie’s fingers squeezed tightly around his. “And not to be greedy, but I certainly wouldn’t mind you doing things like that again. It gives us an excuse to find nice things to do for you in return.”
John’s mouth was dry. He was scared his hands would start sweating and he would gross Freddie out. But Freddie stayed, holding his hand. John was still a bit speechless. He hadn’t expected this kind of reaction at all.
“Can I tell you a secret, Deaky?” Roger said playfully, stepping closer to grab John’s free hand with a bright smirk.
Behind Roger, Brian rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around Roger, so that his hand rested on Roger and John’s hands. John noticed the way Roger comfortably leaned back into Brian, as if they did it all the time. They probably did, now that John thought about it.
“Um… sure?”
“We all have a huge crush on you,” Roger said quietly, grin still on his face. “We have basically since we met you.”
John couldn’t help the way his eyes widened in surprise, the way the flitted between Brian and Freddie as if to confirm what Roger had said. Yet somehow it still surprised John even more when both Freddie and Brian nodded in agreement, albeit a bit more shyly than Roger.
“Oh,” was all John could think to say.
Freddie squeezed his hand again. “Is there any chance you like us back? We were hoping that’s what the flowers meant.”
John wondered how he was still breathing, considering his chest felt almost too tight to move. “Yes. I do.” It came out softer than a whisper. But they still heard him.
“Great,” Brian murmured back, fingers moving around to John’s wrist to touch more of his skin. “Very good to hear.”
But then, all too soon, they were letting go of John’s hands and shifting away, as if getting ready to leave.
“We don’t want to pressure you with anything, love,” Roger said as they moved away, giving John a bit of space. “Just know that whenever and if ever you want more, we are right here waiting.” He smiled again at John.
The others seemed to agree, not quite leaving yet, but making it clear that if the conversation were to continue, it had to be John’s choice. So John made his choice.
“Wait!” he said, a bit louder than he meant to. “Can I… can I kiss you?”
“All of us?” Brian asked, his wry grin a bit annoying. But perhaps John would be allowed to kiss the smirk off of his face.
“Yes.”
It was Roger who nodded first. John, feeling more confident that he had ever felt in his entire life, grabbed Roger’s face gently and pressed their lips together.
John felt like he was flying. Roger’s lips were a bit chapped, but still very soft. He didn’t move much, letting John take the lead and simply wrapping his arms around John’s waist to pull him closer. It felt so amazing, John wondered if he was dreaming.
Then Roger was being pulled away, to be replaced with Freddie, commanding John’s attention and grabbing John’s hips. Kissing Freddie was a bit more consuming. He still let John take the lead, as if not wanting to scare him away, but it was clear that Freddie wanted John’s undivided attention. John gasped in shock when he felt Freddie’s tongue swipe against his bottom lip, but not pushing any further than that. It was like Freddie just wanted a taste of him to savour.
“I think it’s Brian’s turn now,” Roger pointed out, breaking through the dreamy fog that had clouded John’s brain.
Freddie finally released his hold on John. He stepped away, grabbing onto Roger tightly and watching as Brian took his place in front of John.
Kissing Brian was much slower and softer than kissing the others. Brian wasn’t in a rush, wanted to take his time with John. And the kiss was so deep it was like John could feel it in his bones. He shivered slightly as Brian’s long fingers raked through his messy hair. God, John could die happy right then and there.
Reluctantly, they finally pulled away from each other, leaving John facing them, not sure what to do next.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Brian asked.
John would be surprised if they didn’t know John’s schedule the way that he knew theirs. So they would know he got off work fairly early the next night. “I don’t have plans, really,” he told them.
“Come to the pub with us? Or maybe back to mine and Fred’s apartment?” Roger asked, his voice hopeful.
It was an easy decision this time. “Yeah, I’d love to.” John let himself really smile for the first time that night, the happiness bubbling up inside him.
Freddie laughed, possibly at John’s excitement, and swooped forward for another kiss. “Then we will see you tomorrow, John.”
It must have been the best night of John’s life. With a drawn out goodbye, and a few more stolen kisses, they all finally moved apart to climb into their cars. John couldn’t help but take a moment to himself there in his dark car, trying to even out his breath, his cheeks aching from how hard he was smiling. He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.