Chapter Text
“You know why this dinner party of yours is going to be raging success?”
“No, why?” Neil answered after a moment’s pause. He was standing at the head of the dining table, arms folded over his chest as he scrutinized the spread.
Charlie tutted. “Because of the samosas. Everybody likes samosas.”
“Hm.” Neil murmured absent mindedly. Something was missing from the table, but for the life of him, he just couldn’t decide what it was!
Charlie was observing Neil amusedly. He looked like he was trying to decipher the answer to an intricate math problem. It was endearing, albeit a little tiring.
He walked over to his friend and snapped his fingers in front of him to get his attention.
Neil gave a jolt, turning his face to look at Charlie surprisedly. He was chewing on the nail of his thumb. “What?” He questioned defensively.
Charlie daintily reached out and plucked Neil’s poor thumb away from his mouth. He put one hand on his hip and shook his head, sighing as he did so.
“Relax, will you?” Charlie demanded. “It’s just a bunch of friends coming over to eat and pass the time. Stop – ” He waved his hand about animatedly. “Stop thinking about it so much. It’s bothering me now.”
Neil looked at him through his lashes, worriedly. He pursed his lips. Charlie was very much unaware of what was really going on inside of his head.
You see, there was a certain someone coming to the dinner party as well.
And like a broken record, his terribly adorable face played over and over again in Neil’s mind’s eye. He could hear him laughing – breezily – and even picture that twinkle of brilliancy in his summer sky blue eyes.
The first time they’d met was at Donna’s Book Club – a popular bookstore cum café by XY Avenue. Neil had come there with Charlie for his monthly splurging of money on books, and was almost about to leave when he heard someone’s voice crackle to life over the speakers.
“Afternoon – ladies, gentlemen, and others. Hey, Donna! How are we doing? Good?” He punctuated his sentence with a breathy laugh. “Okay, good. I apologize for the delay, but my cat had fallen asleep on my lap and I just didn’t have it in me to push the beast off. Book sales be damned!”
Neil heard scattered laughter, and felt a smile grace his own lips. He took Charlie by his sleeve and tugged him over to where the podium was.
Up there, on the podium, dressed in a forest green sweater, stood he with all his beauty and passion - & that was the first time Neil set his eyes on him.
Whispering with his hand over his mouth, Neil leaned in towards Donna and inquired about the identity of ‘that guy up there’.
“That’s Todd.” answered Donna. “A gem of a poet and a person if I ever met one.” She showed him a book, the one she’d been clutching herself. “Finally got his own book out. I’m the proudest Mama ever right now. I’ve known him since he was just a sweet thing of nineteen.” She wiped a pretend tear from her cheek and gave a little pretend sniffle.
Todd Anderson, and that was the first time Neil ever shaped his name with his lips, softly murmuring it under his breath. The image on the cover of the book looked like the cavemen’s handprints from Cueva de las Manos.
Neil had always been particularly fascinated by that photo. It just felt like those people were trying to tell everyone - We were here! Don’t forget us!
Neil felt a nervousness in his heart. He turned his gaze back to Todd, who looked totally at ease while speaking to the dozen or so people listening to him. Smiles graced his face easily, and his words spilled out of him like water down a gentle river. He was so eloquent. Sometimes he got awkward, too, and then he’d look downwards and laugh sheepishly. Still, there was grace to that, too. How unfair it is that some people are so beautiful in everything they do. Neil wasn’t complaining, though.
If he wasn’t fully riddled with affections for Todd by then, after the poet started reading out excerpts from his book, Neil really did feel as if his heart might leap out of his chest and offer itself to Todd with a cry of anguish. Take me, please!
Todd finished speaking soon, and stepped down from the podium. A small group crowded around him to talk to him, but Neil couldn’t make himself join them. He wanted to, so badly – but he simply couldn’t.
He stayed where he was, but he did pick up a copy of Todd’s book and started to flip through its pages. He began to read, and was suddenly enraptured.
Todd wrote as if the world was collapsing around him, and all he could do to salvage any of it was to write. A fervent, feverish manner to his writing. Yet, it was so goddamned well-written. His words tore fast and hard into Neil. He felt a great excitement rise up in, and then against, his chest.
Alas, when he finally looked up from the pages of the book, the scene as it had been before had greatly changed. Todd was nowhere to be seen, the crowd had dispersed, and Charlie was chatting with some girl.
Neil sighed, fully disheartened. His heart ached.
Feeling an acute sense of glumness, Neil beckoned Charlie to go home now. Charlie made a fist with his hand, and then opened it to signal five minutes – and then he continued conversating with the girl.
Neil set off to the doors. Donna was sitting at her usual table, glasses perched low on her nose as she peered into some papers.
Neil interrupted her politely, “Donna, will you add this book to my account as well?” The woman looked up questioningly. Neil quickly turned the book over and showed her the cover.
“Of course, I will, honey.” Donna laughed heartily. “Enjoy the book.” She smiled. Neil returned her smile and nodded at her. “I will.”
Neil walked out of the bookstore. He stood under its green awning – it was the same color as Todd’s sweater had been. He gazed down with melancholy at the book. His eyes glossed over Todd’s name an uncountable number of times before he turned his eyes heavenwards to watch the dim moon in the evening sky.
There was a breeze blowing, gently. It playfully sifted through the orange red trees, shaking up their dry leaves and causing a ruckus amongst them. It rather sounded like they were giggling. The trees were having a little laugh, it seemed.
Neil felt better for some reason.
When Charlie finally stepped out through the bookstore’s doors, he was beaming. Smiling so boyishly, so happily.
“I love women so much.” He declared cheerily.
Neil smiled at him.
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Later that evening, when they had reached home – as in the flat they shared – Charlie casually mentioned how great he’d thought ‘that bookstore boy’ had been.
“Right?”
“Oh, yeah. Bookstore boy was great.” Neil replied casually. He was in the kitchen, chopping up some onions because it was Wednesday, and his turn to cook dinner.
Charlie continued speaking, and apparently, he’d gone to talk to Todd and learnt that they had quite a few mutual friends.
“He even knows Knox and Chris! Do you think we should have him over sometime?”
Neil paused; knife poised over a purple onion.
“Have him over? I don’t know…”
“Neil, come on – he was super nice and friendly. I bet you guys would click immediately. Plus, we need to commemorate this new flat, right?”
Neil pretended to give it thought. “Yeah, we do.”
“So, I’ll look into it?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“I’m not your fucking mom, Charlie. It’s just as much your place as it is mine.”
Charlie cackled. “MILF.”
“MILF will poison your food if you don’t stop bothering me now.”
Charlie walked off with a snort.
Neil exhaled, looking up from the countertop. After a moment, he smiled. A small, private smile. He wiped the watery tears from his cheeks on his sleeve, and got back to the onions.
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