Chapter Text
It isn’t a single moment, Nick decides in hindsight. It’s a million small things that lead him here, to this realization that he’s in love with his best friend.
And it went all the way back to when they’d met. It’s hard to make friends as a grown up; that had been his experience… until Charlie. One little chat in a coffee shop had become… this.
Now this… it was turning Nick’s world upside down. How can he be almost 35 years old and just getting around to a sexuality crisis?!
It was funny and yet not. The same way it was funny they’d both been in a relationship drought when they met, after years of serial monogamy, and both been through so many “meh” first dates with other people in the nearly two years they’ve known each other. Almost like the universe hit a giant pause button on their love lives until Nick figured this out.
He looks with eyes that see now.
The moments where Charlie blushes... just for him. Where they linger on a hug. Where the strong lean hands push a stray black curl behind the delicate shell of an ear… at the same time as the dazzling eyes lift up just so under long eyelashes. The moments they make each other laugh.
It’s not “just banter”; it never was! Charlie’s been flirting with him all along! Nick shakes his head as the string of memories play out in his mind.
Remembering Charlie’s eyes twinkling at him over that first cup of coffee, already taking the piss out of him just minutes after that awkward exchange of “hi”. Noticing the small stain on the edge of a jumper sleeve when he took him out for a birthday dinner and knowing what all it meant.
It meant therapy was working and Charlie was happy in himself and it meant he was trusted with the younger man’s imperfections. When he got caught noticing it and Charlie’s only reaction was a peaceful smile, Nick felt so warm, so proud. When he made Charlie giggle and got to soak in the sight of those dimples once more, he thought his heart might burst and it… was a moment…
Was that the pivotal moment, the hinge of his world turning? That would be poetic. They’d met on Nick’s 33rd birthday, such an easy topic to mention to your neighbouring customer, and then he’d become fixated on that stain as they celebrated Charlie’s 33rd - a magical mirror if this was gonna be their love story…
Was it? Nick’s heart races thinking about what comes next. He can’t just keep chewing on this by himself. Google and talking it over with some girl friends have gotten him this far: biromantic demisexual. The words are settling into his soul. He’s finding new communities online which have welcomed him in. He’s rolling the word “queer” around on his tongue; it feels… audacious to apply it to himself…
But all he wants now is to learn what it might feel like to kiss Charlie Spring. To run his hands through that hair. To press them together from shoulder to knee. To never let go.
And so it all boils down to this moment. We live not in days nor years but in moments, he thinks. They slip by unremarked… until one captures you and changes everything. We all get a new chance to be who we truly are in each moment as it arrives.
He looks across his living room at the other man still watching this movie until Charlie notices and makes eye contact. He opens his mouth…