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Nick makes his final trip to the car to put the cooler in the boot. He smiles at the sun grazing his face, it seems they are going to have the perfect weather for the Paris Squad Beach Day. It’s tradition by now, each year the group of friends choose a day in the summer to recreate that first day at the beach they shared all those years ago.
Nick goes back inside the house to check he is not forgetting anything. He scans the entrance and then his mental list. Everything is ready. Everything except his husband, who is nowhere to be seen.
"Char, we're going to be late", Nick calls loudly.
“There's no such thing as being late to a beach day, Nicholas”, comes Charlie’s voice from somewhere upstairs.
“If there’s no falafels left when we get there, you’ll have to ask Elle for the recipe and cook some for me tomorrow”, Nick answers, walking up the stairs.
“As if I could master Elle’s falafels with just the recipe”. Nick can hear that Charlie’s laugh is coming from the bathroom.
He approaches the door to stop shouting around the house. “You're still there. It’s been almost an hour. Are you okay?”
A few seconds pass with no answer. Until Charlie grunts loudly, “Ugh, yeah. I’m fine”.
“You don’t sound fine, sweetheart. Can I come in?”
“NO! Don't come in!” Charlie sounds panicked and it makes Nick feel uneasy. He tries to open the door, but there’s some resistance.
“Why are you blocking the door? You're worrying me, honey”.
The door opens and Nick exhales the breath he was holding. Everything looks fine, except for the dramatic look on Charlie’s face as he messes with his curls.
“What’s going on?” Nick asks his husband, hugging him from behind and resting his head on Charlie’s shoulder.
“I have a grey hair. Well.. two, to be honest. There’s one I’ve always been able to hide, but now I have this one on my front curls and I don’t want to pull it out because they say if you pull out one, then you grow like seven more”.
Charlie pulls straight one of the curls that usually falls on his forehead. Nick watches the movement in the mirror, even squinting his eyes he’s not able to see the white hair from that distance. Charlie might be going grey, but he’s going short-sighted. He makes a mental note to call the optometrist.
“I’m not sure this is the best circumstance to break this news to you”. Nick speaks quietly in Charlie’s neck, his mouth moving in that space tempting him to kiss his husband’s pulsepoint and see where that leads them. Beach day, stay focused , Nick reminds himself.
“You’re daydreaming, baby. And you forgot that you were about to give me some news…” Charlie giggles as Nick grazes his neck with his beard.
“I’m not sad to inform you that you have more than two grey hairs”, Nick announces.
Nick lifts his eyes just in time to catch the shock in Charlie’s face reflection. Charlie starts to mess with his curls further and wriggles to try to free himself from Nick’s embrace. Nick just holds him tighter.
“What do you mean by that? Where are those hairs?” Charlie demands anxiously.
Nick puts his mouth back on Charlie’s neck, his eyes slightly looking up to catch any curl he can in his sight, and tells Charlie how he found them.
“They are on the back of your head. I found them about a month ago. We’d slept in and the sun was coming in through the curtains. I was looking at your curls, as I normally do when I wake up, trying to stop myself from running my hand through them and interrupt your sleep. And then you moved, just a bit, and those grey hairs glistened with the sunlight accentuating a particular curl. I was mesmerised! I thought that I couldn’t love your curls more and then this subtle change occurs and there I go and love them more. I had to run my hand through them and, of course, I woke you up. Not that I regret what we did after”.
Nick lifts his head from Charlie’s neck, only to find Charlie looking at him with adoration, his eyes glistening with tears.
“God, you are such a sap”. Charlie sniffles and turns into his husband’s arms. Nick puts a hand on the nape of Charlie’s neck and buries his hands on the curls. “And you love me for that”, he answers and catches Charlie’s lips into a deep kiss.
When they break apart, Nick rushes Charlie out of the house. Charlie keeps complaining about his hair and ends up wearing a cap the entire day. Until they go into the sea and Charlie is forced to lose the cap. That gives Nick the perfect opportunity to appreciate without restraint the way in which the rays of sun make his husband's curls shine.
•~•~~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
It’s been more than twenty years since Charlie complained about his first grey hairs. His hair is mostly grey and white these days, with a few hints of his original black. He has learned to love it, Nick’s swooning over it helps too.
But today he feels old. He overheard a student calling him “that old geezer”; even knowing the kid was just being cruel due to a bad mark, it hurt all the same. He used to be the cool professor, apparently now he is just old hat.
To make things worse, a kid in the market pointed at him and said to the adult holding her hand, “that man looks like grandpa”. He doesn’t look like a grandpa, does he? Honestly, he is old enough to be one, but he didn’t think he would be perceived as one. And he hopes he is not going to be one for many years to come, Riley, his baby girl, is only seventeen.
Charlie’s mood lifts up a little when he finds himself amongst peers at parents’ evening. A few parents are surprised when he tells them his age, apparently he looks younger. After a few introductions, he starts to scan the room for Nick, who arrived earlier. Charlie needs him as a buffer, these meetings make him anxious; he tries to come anyways, for the sake of his kids, but his work hours don’t always allow him to. On the contrary, Nick, as the social butterfly he is, loves them.
In a corner of the room, Charlie recognizes his husband’s back in a group of people. As Charlie approaches, Nick turns to look at him with a smirk on his face. Charlie is not sure what to read in that look.
Since his husband has already seen him, Charlie puts his arm around Nick’s waist, Nick automatically lifts his arm to Charlie’s shoulder and pulls him a bit closer to kiss the top of his head and utters, “Hi, sweetheart”.
In the safety of Nick’s arms, Charlie looks at the people around him to introduce himself. He must have just missed a joke, because there’s a woman covering her mouth to contain a laugh and another woman red in the face, slightly embarrassed, apparently.
Nick introduces the woman covering her mouth, who still hasn’t got a grip on her laugh, and the man next to her as Elsie’s parents.
“Nice to meet you! Your daughter is lovely”, Charlie tells them.
“And this is Alfie’s mum”, Nick says, pointing at the woman still blushing.
“Oh! We love Alfie too, a bit of a troublemaker that one”. Charlie giggles a bit with his statement.
They make some conversation about their kids and how close friends they are. And that everyone’s welcome at their houses. Until they are interrupted by the teachers to start the official meeting.
When they walk out, Charlie is still intrigued about the laughing and the blushing, so he asks Nick what that was about.
“Oh, you are going to love this”, Nick replies with a mischievous grin.
“Colour me more intrigued, honey”.
“I saw Alfie’s mum looking around and at one point she said ‘Nick, you know everyone around here’. I just nodded to let her continue and she asked ‘Who’s that silver fox over there? I’ve never seen him before’”.
“Wow, juicy”, Charlie interjects.
“So, I’m about to turn around to see who’s she talking about and she tells me to be more subtle. But then, she freaks out and says ‘I think he’s coming to us’. Of course, I turn and see my beautiful husband with his gorgeous silver curls going wild”. Nick gives Charlie his most loving look, tainted with a hint of pride.
“Shut up!” Charlie says feeling bashful.
“No, I won't shut up about my hot silver fox. Poor Alfie’s mum, she wanted to hide under a rock”.
They lean on the side of their car, waiting for Riley to come out from the school. A few minutes later, they see Riley approaching them, she seems to be brooding, in direct contrast to the laughing friends she left behind.
“Hey, sweetheart! Are you okay?” Charlie asks, reaching to give her a hug.
“Yeah, just get in the car, please”, Riley replies through her teeth, pushing her dads into the car.
“What’s gotten into you?” Nick turns from the passenger seat to look at her.
“I hate having hot parents”, she snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What?” Charlie can’t contain his laugh at his daughter’s statement.
“It was bad enough that my friends kept teasing me about my strong dad after Papa helped Ezra’s mum push her car. Now you have to come with, apparently, some (she air quotes) ‘hot professor vibes’. Next time wait inside the car, please”.
Both men burst out laughing; they shouldn’t be laughing at their kid, she is upset about this, but they can’t prevent it.
“Stop laughing! One of my friends called Dad a silver fox! It was so cringe”.
In between laughs, Nick manages to say, “I bet it was Alfie. Like mother, like son”.
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
Nick is enjoying his favourite pastime, which is looking at Charlie’s curls. They have been sitting in this waiting room for a few hours now and Charlie ended up falling asleep with his head on Nick's shoulder.
Nick used to count the grey hairs in Charlie’s head like Charlie counted his freckles. Now that it is mostly grey and white, Nick has a secret: there’s still a black hair in the back of Charlie’s head, which is not always visible in the cluster of curls. So, whenever he has the opportunity, Nick runs his hand through those silver strands until he finds his secret treasure.
Nick’s phone pings and he revels in the good news, before threading his hands through Charlie’s head to wake him up.
“Hey”, Charlie says in a sleepy voice. “Did I sleep too long?”
“No, just a little while”, Nick replies, still taking his time to card through those beautiful hairs.
“Did you get bored?” Charlie asks amid a yawn.
“No, I was just looking at you”.
“No matter how old you get, you’ll never stop being a sap”. Charlie smiles at his husband.
“Are you ready to meet them?” Nick asks with a broad smile.
“They are here? What are we waiting for?” Charlie stands up from his chair and grabs Nick by the hand to help him get up too. “Is Riley okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Yes, grandpa! They are okay” Nick laughs at his husband’s excitement.
“We are grandpas, Nick! Can you believe that?”
“No, I can’t believe we are that old. At least we still got all our hair”.
“I have all my hair, yours is thinning noticeably”, Charlie replies cheekily.
Nick can’t argue with that and, honestly, he doesn’t care if he ends up bald. As long as he can keep caressing Charlie’s curls, he will certainly be happy.
