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Phil sighs and looks down at his phone, 9:23 pm. Still early. He lumbers over to the bathroom and decides to run a bath. He walks out and plops down on his bed while he waits, but the moment he blinks, his eyelids start to droop and he realizes how tired he actually is.
~
Dan steps into his bathroom and looks into the mirror; he desperately needs a haircut. A drop of something worryingly warm lands on his forehead. He looks up and sees water seeping through his ceiling, great. 9:57. It’s not too late to go up and knock on his neighbor’s door, is it? After all, it’s his fault there’s water dripping all over Dan’s bathroom.
The lift isn’t working, as per usual, so Dan trudges up a flight of stairs that seems to grow ever steeper as he goes. He walks down the hallway until he reaches door 213, he’s pretty sure that that’s the one right above his flat. As his hand goes to knock on the oak colored door, he remembers he has no idea what his neighbor’s name is, or what he looks like. On second thought, he knows none of his neighbors.
He knocks and waits, he feels, far too long before the sound of hurried footsteps draws his attention back to the door. The door swings open a little too quickly and hits the wall behind it. Dan looks up and sees a man about his age with brilliant blue eyes behind thick, black-framed glasses and black fringe, artfully tousled. Dan struggles to find purchase on his words in front of the unfairly attractive man, and blames his own social awkwardness.
“Oh um hi, I’m your neighbor from downstairs, Dan.”
“Oh, hi, I’m Phil.”, Phil extends his hand, a slightly bemused expression flitting across his face. He has no clue as to why his neighbor decided to introduce himself at 10 o’clock at night.
Dan takes Phil’s hand in a slightly awkward handshake, “Sorry to bother you this late but um there’s water leaking through my ceiling and I think it might be from your bathr—” Dan has no time to finish as Phil’s eyes widen in realization and he bounds towards his bathroom before giving an explanation.
30 seconds later, Phil returns with a sheepish grin on his face. “Uh I kind of accidentally um fell asleep as I was running a bath.”, Phil explained apologetically. “So now there’s a bit of a mini pool in my bathroom.”
“And it’s raining in mine.”
A giggle escapes Phil and Dan sees his tongue poke out between his teeth as he laughs. It’s honestly too cute. Stop it Howell you met him literally 3 minutes ago, he chides himself.
“So I’ll just go mop up the water, I guess.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
“Oh and I’m really sorry, I should probably make it up to you. Do you want to go grab a coffee sometime or…” Phil trails off as he watches Dan’s face slip into an expression he can’t quite read, “I—I mean you don’t have to, I just feel really bad for ruining your bathroom.”
“Actually, I’d love to.”, Dan says with a smile. “And can I er get your number? We can’t you know, rely on leaky ceilings to meet again.” Dan mentally smacks himself, you’ve really overstepped this time.
“Yeah, no problem, let me grab a pen.” Phil scribbles a number down and hands it to Dan.
Dan looks down at Phil’s endearingly messy scrawl fondly, “Thanks, I’ll um text you.”
“And I’ll try not to fall asleep next time I’m running a bath.”
~
Light streams through Phil’s window, hitting his eyelids and waking him up. He reaches over to grab his phone and nearly falls off the bed in the process. He unlocks it to find two new texts.
From: (020) 8471-5923
9:27am: good morning, coffee later? I need something to help me wake up9:28am: this is dan btw
Phil is inexplicably happy to receive these two little texts. He adds the number to his contacts and quickly types out a reply.
To: Dan 9:33am: sure I’ll meet you at the Starbucks down the block at 9:50?
As he is brushing his teeth, Phil’s phone chirps and the screen lights up.
From: Dan 9:37am: I’ll see you there :)
Phil spends the next 10 minutes grinning like an idiot as he eats his cereal. At 9:48, he clambers down the stairs of the building, around the block, and heads towards Starbucks, spirits high.