Work Text:
Alex’s suit jacket was off before he’d left the building with a wave to the reception staff at the front desk. His tie immediately followed, both shoved into his backpack as he waited at the traffic light to cross the road. The heat was shocking, and he rolled up his shirtsleeves so he could breathe a bit, a part of him enjoying the feeling of the early evening sun prickling at his skin after all those hours in an overly cooled office building reading the most boring manuscripts known to man. As he turned the corner, he dared to undo the second button of his shirt, but then immediately fumbled to button it again.
The Man.
The Man was at the bus stop.
He’d seen Alex. Well. His eyes had passed over him. He’d acknowledged Alex as a figure approaching, determined he wasn’t a threat, and then gone back to watching the traffic, drumming his fingers against his leg impatiently.
Alex was very proud of himself for not immediately going catatonic and falling to the pavement. He left the button undone and joined the disorderly queue for the bus, and dutifully ignored The Man. Even though The Man had also removed his usual tie and undone an extra button at his collar. Even though Alex was disappointed The Man hadn’t rolled up his sleeves.
The Man had started taking Alex’s bus at the end of the day a few weeks ago. A new hire nearby, perhaps, or a recent transplant to London? He didn’t catch Alex’s bus every evening, and Alex never saw him on his morning commute, but not everybody managed so tight a schedule as Alex. He didn’t usually take note of his fellow commuters, apart from the old lady who volunteered at the library and liked to complain to him when the bus ran late, and the young man who Alex never spoke to, but his collection of colorful hats made him hard to miss.
The Man was certainly hard to miss. Astonishingly tall with a big barrel chest and a handsome face too young for his white hair. Alex had occasionally seen him light up with a smile at a text message or an overheard bit of conversation, and Library Lady once made him laugh so hard he’d folded himself in half and bit into his fist, consumed with giggles. It was the laughing that sealed the deal and made Alex admit to himself that he maybe fancied the stranger a bit. Seeing The Man at the bus stop was always a pleasant surprise, but Alex made sure to avoid him on the bus itself, for fear of something awkward happening, like a conversation, or having to look him in the eye.
So Alex waited, occasionally glancing up from his phone to catch a glimpse of The Man, the shape of his cheekbone, the curve of his crooked nose, the sun shining in his stubbly beard and his dark-rimmed glasses. It was a relief when the bus finally arrived, tired office workers shuffling on and collapsing into seats. The Man had settled himself in against a window, and Alex was certain he smirked at him as he hurried past to a seat comfortably far away. When Alex scooted past a second time to get off the bus, he did everything he could not to look at the handsome stranger so he wouldn’t imagine any more smiles.
Greg’s watch read 5:17 and he was pretty sure he was going to miss his bus. Another long day of listening to hastily scribbled monologues, trying to encourage the handful of students who showed a bit of potential, and then struggling to get any focus, let along performance, out of the cast of the Spring production. It was enough to make him wish he’d once been in the handful of students who’d had potential so he hadn’t ended up with a slightly silly drama degree trying to get secondary students to care about A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If he’d applied himself he could’ve been —
Well, shit. There goes the bus.
It passed him slowly, and he frowned at it with his most teacherly face, letting it know how disappointed he was that it couldn’t be bothered to wait another 30 seconds for him, but he felt his frown lift almost to a smile as he recognized a familiar profile in a window. The awkward bloke with big blue eyes and an affinity for silly jumpers, at least until the heat had descended upon them seemingly overnight. It took a moment for Greg to realize — was he holding a plush giraffe in his lap?! But the bus was gone before his double-take could land.
They’d managed to catch the same bus a couple times a week since his schedule had changed with the addition of play rehearsals at the end of his day. And in that time, Greg had spotted the awkward bloke on various occasions carrying a succulent in a ceramic pot shaped like a rooster, a wine glass with a unicorn painted on it, and a snow globe that he’d kept his hands around very tightly, but the base, from what Greg could gather from surreptitious glances, said ‘Fuck Me’ on it in very large letters. He’d had the decency to look just slightly embarrassed by them all, and Greg could only imagine what job he must have if that was the sort of tat he was forced to take home with him.
Greg wasn’t going to go so far as to say he fancied the awkward bloke, even if he did have a nice beard and a kind face and those big blue eyes, and even if he was tall enough that Greg didn’t feel like he was towering over him like he did with most people, and even if the first time Greg had noticed him he was wearing a bright blue jumper with a hotdog knit across the entire front. That last shouldn’t be endearing of a man in his late-thirties at least, but combined with the awkward confidence and the cactus-in-a-cock, he was just interesting enough to have caught Greg’s attention. He wished he’d seen the bloke’s giraffe.
Instead, he sulked to the bus stop where there were no giraffes, naughty snow globes, or bearded blokes to be had and waited for a much less interesting bus.
Alex was definitely late when he left his office, well, Fern’s office, shoving three decks of playing cards into his bag and silently cursing the manuscript he’d been struggling with all afternoon — how the author had managed to write a boring book about the history of circus sideshows was truly baffling. He stepped out into a steady, miserable drizzle that seemed to just hang in the air, and added that to the list of things to curse. And once he’d made it to bus stop, the list is things to be irritated at included the playing cards, the circus nonsense, the weather, and the fact he’d clearly missed his bus. He sulked to the lonely signpost and stood blinking in the wetness like the gel that he was.
A couple of minutes went by while Alex considered what to do with the cards — giving them to Tim when they caught up over the weekend seemed the best option. Mark might enjoy the wine glass. Footsteps approached, wet and a bit stompy, and Alex looked over his shoulder to see The Man approaching. He felt himself gawping a bit, and snapped his mouth closed before it could fill with rain water, but didn’t look away until after The Man had caught his eye behind glasses speckled with water droplets and given him the sort of half smirk that said, “I am damp and unhappy about it, but at least we’re in this together,” and Alex did his best to reciprocate before turning his attention back to the road.
Moments later, the sky opened up, huge, heavy raindrops splatting all around them. Alex fumbled with his backpack while The Man just turned his face upward, accepting his fate. Alex’s umbrella opened with a dramatic fwump, and he stood under it self-consciously for a moment, knowing what the properly polite thing to do was, dreading it almost as much as he was excited by it. He took half a step towards The Man and then raised the umbrella up at arm’s length over his head, making room for the taller man. When nothing happened, Alex cautiously turned his face up to him with raised eyebrows and a bit of a wiggle of the umbrella, which he immediately regretted.
But The Man let out a chuckle and stepped next to him, under the umbrella, and Alex lowered it to a reasonable height. “Thanks, mate,” The Man said.
“Oh, yeah, er, no worries,” Alex nodded at the pavement about three meters behind him.
“Greg, by the way.”
Alex’s eyes snapped to the hand now thrust at him at an awkward angle, standing too close with an umbrella handle between them, then, disastrously, up into that handsome, wet face, eyes smiling behind the water droplets. He shifted the umbrella to his other hand to return the handshake with a muttered, “Alex.”
“Nice to properly meet you, Alex,” Greg said. Greg. Good name. Alex took his hand back, then didn’t know what to do with it anymore, because he was still looking at Greg’s wet face, watching droplets of water slide down from his mussed hair. “Can I ask, well, it might be a personal question, I’m not sure.”
It took a moment for the question to register, and another moment for his brow to furrow, and another for his heart to leap into his throat. “Well—”
“You don’t have to answer.”
“I don’t mind,” Alex urged just as the bus trundled up behind him. “Oh.” He fidgeted with the umbrella as Greg ducked out from under it and onto the bus. By the time he’d got the umbrella closed and his card from his wallet, the driver was tutting at him, but he made it inside. A quieter bus than usual, as the rain sometimes scared people into taxis or Ubers, and his eyes settled on Greg, sitting alone in a row and quirking an eyebrow at him. The bus lurched into traffic, and Alex dropped himself into the seat across the aisle from Greg, wet umbrella between his knees and backpack in the seat next to him. He took a steadying breath and looked over. “What was your question, Greg?” He felt his cheeks flush in anticipation, at the stupid thrill of saying his name.
Greg choked back a giggle as he tried to find a dry bit of shirt under his jacket to wipe his glasses. “I need to know about the snow globe.”
“Oh,” Alex gasped. “Er. Snow globe?”
“You were carrying one around about a week ago. I have a sneaking suspicion it was wildly inappropriate, and I just need to know why.” He slipped his glasses back on. “What was inside of it, why were you carrying it, everything about it, it’s been eating away at me. I won’t even ask about yesterday’s giraffe, but I must know the story behind the snow globe.”
Alex was certain he was blushing a neon red, the heat of his face drying his clothes in record time, but Alex would tell Greg anything if he kept aiming that knowing smile at him. “Well, to explain the snow globe and the giraffe, I suppose — I’m playing a game with some friends, setting them little tasks. They’re competing for points. And I asked them to send me ‘the most embarrassing thing.’ I was hoping for things that embarrassed them, to be delivered to my flat. But instead…”
“They’re having things to embarrass you delivered to your office?” Greg offered.
“Mmm,” Alex nodded.
“Like the cactus-in-a-cock.”
“That one was subtle, but it did raise a lot of questions from the receptionist who signed for it.”
“What did they think of the inappropriate snow globe?”
“That one came in a box, thankfully, but one of my coworkers — she’s part of the game — stole it off me so I’d have to walk home with the thing out in the open. Inside it’s a little dinosaur, a T. rex maybe? But it’s just penis from the waist up, if a dinosaur has a waist? It’s got googly eyes either side of the frenulum.”
“Erect, then?” Greg asked with a giggle.
Alex nodded with a frown. “Horrible to look at, but properly embarrassing, haven’t figured out yet if he had it specially made or if they’re just out there, waiting to be bought.”
Greg was covering his mouth with one hand, eyes crinkled with laughter. “It’s, yeah, I can imagine it! Is that the most embarrassing one so far?”
“I think I might be, yeah,” Alex nodded. “The giraffe, you might not have noticed, was too big to fit in my bag, and also dressed as a ballerina. Today’s offering was, well, I can only describe it as playing cards with soft-core pornography on them.”
Greg didn’t bother covering his face, just let out a glorious guffaw that made Alex’s heart sing. “I want to ask if I can see them, but considering I’ve known you for all of five minutes it feels a bit improper.”
“You can have some if you like!” Alex gasped, reaching into his backpack. “There were four packs in the box and I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Oh, well, I—” But then Alex was thrusting a pack of cards at him, a very naked woman on the box behind a layer of cellophane. “Keeping the others for yourself?”
Alex couldn’t stop himself from biting his lip at Greg’s raised eyebrow. “No. No! I’ve already given one to the box thief — well, I hid it in her desk drawer. I’ve got a friend who I think could make good use of the rest somehow. Right up his alley. As it were.”
“Well, thanks for the embarrassing gift, Alex,” Greg smirked as he slipped the cards into his own bag. “What does the most embarrassing thing win the sender?”
“Oh, just points,” Alex shrugged. “Best one gets five points, second four, and so on. We’re up to round three, not sure how many rounds we’ll do, but in the end we’ll tally up the points and crown a winner.”
“Does the winner get a prize, or just bragging rights?”
“I’ve been thinking about a prize. It might just be the snow globe in the end.”
“That’s a real incentive to win, isn’t it,” Greg chuckled.
“Gets it out of my flat at least?” Alex puffed up his cheeks with a sigh, pleased that he didn’t have to talk about phallic dinosaurs or pornographic playing cards anymore, but not willing to let the conversation die. “What would your most embarrassing thing be?”
“Me?” Greg asked with a chuckle. “Don’t know, I’d have to think on that for awhile. What would embarrass Alex who takes the same bus as me.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to embarrass me, specifically,” he corrected with a frown that deepened as Greg reached up to press the button for the next stop.
“Let me get back to you,” he smirked as the bus began to slow.
“Oh,” Alex gasped, looking out the window, “this is my stop!”
“I know,” Greg said with a nod as Alex fumbled with his bag, “didn’t want you to miss it because you were so worked up about the nudie playing cards.”
“Thanks. Sorry?” Alex stumbled to his feet. “Er. I’ll see you around?”
“Hope so,” Greg agreed and flashed him a charming smile as he turned to leave the bus. Despite the horrible rain, Alex walked all the way home with flushed cheeks and a quiet smile, not at all certain how any of that conversation had happened. The Man — Greg! — was disarmingly charming, made Alex feel like they’d known each other for years. He knew Greg would be trouble. But he couldn’t wait to speak with him again.
Greg watched his fellow commuters stumble onto the bus as he stepped out of the way, making sure to check for awkward blokes or embarrassing parcels. Once everyone was onboard, the driver looked at him expectantly, and Greg waved him away. The door closed with a shrug, and the bus pulled into traffic.
He’d missed Alex’s bus the day before by quite a margin, because Liam Green’s mother wanted to ‘have words’ with him, which meant demanding to know why her son would be getting bad marks if his only crime was not turning in any assignments. If he found out she’d made him miss Alex carrying a blow up doll onto the bus, Liam would start failing assignments he had managed to turn in.
He leaned against the signpost with his paperback, dog-eared and marked up with teaching notes, trying to look nonchalant while he waited. There was, of course, the chance he’d missed Alex, but waiting for another bus wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he’d give Alex two, just in case. But the bus was still in view, stopped at a traffic light, when footsteps approached behind him. “Greg!” He turned around to see Alex, face glowing from the heat of the day, nothing in his hands but his tie, his shirt unbuttoned enough to show a tuft of dark hair. “How did you miss that bus?!”
“Oh!” He hadn’t expected to be caught out like this. “Um. Too full, no room for a giant, safety hazard, probably, best to wait for the next one.”
“Hmm,” Alex agreed with a careful nod as he shoved his tie into his pocket.
“No embarrassing offerings today?” Greg asked hopefully.
“Ah, no, quiet day at the office, I’m afraid. Deadline for the task is Monday, I think almost everybody’s submitted theirs by now, might be out of embarrassments I’m afraid.”
“That’s a shame.” Greg was certain Alex blushed a bit at his smirk. “What’s this office like, then, what kind of job allows you to get away with these types of shenanigans?”
“Oh, I’m just a copy editor, small office, small imprint for a larger publishing house, we’re mostly left to our own devices — we haven’t got an Ian Rankin type in our rolls — yet.”
“Oh! Should I ask if you’ve read anything interesting, then?”
Alex shook his head gravely, and Greg bit back a giggle. “New one landed on my desk this morning. Two hundred and fifty pages dedicated to the sex lives of marine snails.”
Greg harrumphed. “Please tell me that’s the worst you’ve had.”
“Oh, no, not by miles. About a year ago there was a blessedly short study of the evolution of penis shapes through the animal kingdom?”
“What kind of publisher are you working for, Alex?” Greg demanded with a giggle. “Are they all sexually explicit?” The woman from the library was approaching and cocked her head at him.
“The perils of non-fiction, I’m afraid. Non-explicit titles have included ‘You, Me and Joey Makes Three’—”
“What was that one about?”
“A supposedly true story of a woman whose boyfriend tricked her into joining a marsupial smuggling ring.”
“You’re joking!”
“Oh that I were,” Alex said with a resigned smile.
“Best book you’ve had then?”
Alex quirked his lips for a moment, thinking. “Had one a couple months ago about what it’s like writing for an encyclopedia? Really interesting, especially when it discussed the perils of physical media in this digital age.”
Greg squinted at him. “I think you and I have very different reading habits.”
“What is it you read, then?”
“Hmm. As much as I’d like to impress a learned copy editor such as yourself, I have to admit that I’m happy to read whatever crime thriller my mum’s already finished and foisted upon me as I leave a Sunday dinner. But now I know better, and maybe come Monday I’ll be better prepared with some Byron or Proust or Beowulf—”
“Ah. Common mistake, Beowulf is the name of the poem, not the…erm, author.” Alex frowned at himself.
“Is it?” Greg asked earnestly, and Alex nodded meekly.
“I lied on my application to Cambridge, said I’d read it, said he was the author. Somehow they still let me in, must’ve been a dud year.”
“Cambridge!” Greg hooted. “I’ll have to try even harder to get you to like me now! How’s a man to compete?!”
“Oh, well,” Alex tried to ague, but Greg barreled on through.
“I’ll just have to knock you down a peg, perhaps.” Greg raised an eyebrow, and was surprised to see a quick smile flash across Alex’s face before it settled into wide-eyed apprehension. “What was your nickname in school?”
“Sorry?” He watched Alex’s blush rise up again as his eyes flitted past the traffic, then the couple of people who’d materialized out of nowhere to wait for the bus.
“Every boy in Britain has an awkward nickname foisted upon him at his first social faux pas. I’ll tell you mine was Tabletop, but I won’t tell you why.”
“Yet?” Alex offered, and Greg wiggled his eyebrows in reply. “Well. My name’s Horne, so I didn’t even need the faux pas.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Greg chuckled. “I can only imagine the levels of horniness that must’ve been attributed to you.”
“There were times it was, er, warranted,” Alex admitted, daring to meet Greg’s eyes with a chuckle. “But the names were relentless.”
“Still warranted?” Greg asked with a smirk. Alex tried not to giggle, but he did, and a conveniently timed bus arrived to allow for a change of topic.
There were a fair few people on the bus, but Greg found an empty bench and was quite pleased when Alex plopped himself down next to him. He asked about Greg’s teaching, and Greg talked about the play, and A Kestrel for a Knave, and Liam fucking Green. Alex was so busy laughing at Greg’s story of a disastrous audition for the school play that he missed his stop and Greg couldn’t apologize enough.
“I’m only a little bit further from the next stop, it’s fine,” Alex soothed as he pressed the button. “Maybe it’s a sign I should stop at the kebab shop and pick up some dinner, it’s on the way from this direction.”
“Is it the one with the amazing chickpea salad?”
“And the lassi?”
“That’s the one,” Greg nodded. “I’m only the next stop down, y’know. We’re practically neighbors. Have you tried Bob’s cafe?”
Alex shook his head and the bus started to slow.
“It’s not much, but it’s cheap and the coffee’s pretty good, and quick when you’re trying to catch a bus.” Greg pointed out the window. “Just about a block up that way. If you’re ever in the area.”
“Thanks for the recommendation,” Alex said with a smile as he gathered his things. “Er, have a great weekend?”
“You too, mate!” And he watched Alex and his backpack and his rolled up sleeves leave the bus and head in the opposite direction Greg was used to watching him go in. It wasn’t until he was getting off at the next stop that he realized he really could’ve gone for some of that chickpea salad.
Monday morning found Alex up a fair bit earlier than usual. It was surely an accident that his alarm had gone off early, and it was only that extra hour that he had to busy himself with that gave him the idea to try out Bob’s cafe. There were no other reasons to be walking towards Greg’s bus stop around the same time a teacher might need to head into work.
Which is why, of course, when he had his mocha in hand, ready to sit at a table in the window to watch the passersby for no reason at all, Alex was shocked — shocked! — to see Greg wander in. Greg, however, didn’t have the decency to look quite as surprised as Alex did, and just gave him a big, warm smile. “Good morning, Alex.”
“Oh! Greg! I, it’s, yes! Good morning!” He hadn’t got round to practicing a speech for the unlikely scenario of running into Greg.
“You sticking around for a bit?” He gestured to Alex’s coffee hovering over the table. “Have a second for me to grab a coffee myself?”
“Absolutely, no hurry!” Alex assured him, and then dropped down into a chair. He watched with an ever-increasing heart rate as Greg ordered his coffee, chatting with the woman at the counter, getting a chuckle out of her with some charming remark Alex couldn’t hear. And then he was back at the table, sitting across from Alex and digging something out of his jacket pocket.
“I’m glad I caught you this morning, I was hoping I wouldn’t miss the deadline, and it could be disastrous if I pulled one of these out in class.”
“Deadline?” Alex echoed, confused.
Greg pulled a blue pen from his inside jacket pocket, glanced at it and put it back before pulling out a red one and handing it to him. “An embarrassing gift!”
Alex turned it over in his hand. Inside the barrel of the pen was an illustration of a woman in a black bathing suit.
“Turn it upside-down,” Greg urged with a giggle into his coffee cup.
So Alex did, with a thoughtful hum, and the inky bathing suit drained away, revealing a fully nude woman. He blinked up at Greg and felt a hint of a blush tinting his cheeks.
“I’ve got one with a man in if you’d prefer?” Greg offered with a smirk, and Alex’s blush went right up over his ears. Judging from Greg’s giggle, he’d noticed.
“Oh. Er. I could go either way, actually,” Alex said carefully. He watched Greg’s face as he said it, wondering if it was as charged a statement as Alex felt it was.
Greg’s brows lifted and he gave the tiniest of nods as he reached into his pocket again. “That’s funny, me too.” Greg handed him the blue pen. “Keep them both, I ordered a set for myself, to go with the playing cards.”
Alex’s heart felt like it was taking up the bulk of his chest cavity, pressing his lungs into his ribs, up into his shoulders, so he turned his attention to the pen, watched the tiny swimming trunks disappear from the rather muscular and well-endowed man inside. Not his usual type, but the message was clear. Or he hoped it was. He felt himself licking his lips, and took a gulp from his cup to center himself. “Er, thank you, Greg,” he managed once he’d swallowed, but Greg’s smirk did little to lessen the heat in his cheeks or the tightness in his chest. “It’s no phallic snow globe, but it might get you three points?”
“Did the snow globe make you blush this hard?” Greg’s tone was teasing but his smile was warm.
Alex gulped down more coffee than he needed to. “Four points, maybe?”
Greg leaned back in his chair and fixed Alex with a firm gaze. Alex squirmed a bit, turning his cup in his hand as the silence went on a beat too long, but he couldn’t think of what to say, not when Greg cocked his head with an unspoken question. He felt his eyes go wider, a question of his own. “Tell me, Alex,” Greg said as he leaned forward on his elbows, his voice like silk. “Did you come here for a cheap coffee, or were you hoping we’d run into each other?”
Alex opened his mouth, but his breath caught and no noises came out.
“Because that’s why I’m here.” Greg beamed at him. “Thought to myself, might be nice to see my new pal Alex first thing, ease the pain of a Monday morning. Alex Horne with his big blue eyes and scruffy beard. Cheer up his morning with a saucy gift. And, maybe, if he enjoyed Mr Muscle in his little Speedo well enough, y’know….”
Alex tried to convey his enthusiasm through blinks, the only motor function he seemed to have any control over anymore — he wasn’t even certain he was breathing.
“…maybe see if I could get his number, spend our lunch hour chatting about where to grab dinner—”
Alex was already fishing his phone out of his pocket and fumbling with the contacts, his heart lightening at the sound of Greg’s delighted laughter, at the idea of a…date?!
They swapped phones so they could share their contact information, and Greg asked how Alex’s weekend had been. The change of theme was like whiplash, but Alex suddenly had all the energy in the world and would follow Greg anywhere.
He didn’t mention how much time he’d spent googling nearby schools to check their faculty pages to see what time Greg was likely to get on the bus. He did mention going to the pub with Mark and Tim, but didn’t mention how they’d laughed at him when he’d said a handsome local teacher had caught him with Tim’s snow globe. He did mention how Tim had giggled like a naughty schoolboy when presented with the playing cards, and how he’d immediately composed a poem across the breasts of the three of clubs, and how he’d then drawn a comically large dick and balls onto the jack of diamonds, who looked quite a bit like Mr Muscle but without the Speedo, before slipping the card into Alex’s pocket.
They chatted easily through their coffees, then Alex followed Greg obediently to the bus stop, happy that Greg at least remembered that it was a Monday morning and not a lazy weekend where they’d be free to while the day away. Alex asked about Greg’s weekend, and was regaled with a story of him and his best mate Roisin ordering enough Chinese to feed an army and then, after several beers, ordering up a chocolate gateau for dessert, only to have it delivered by the same delivery driver who, apparently, did not hide his disdain for their gluttony.
They were both in peals of laughter as they tumbled out of the bus, a shocking change for a Monday morning, and they reluctantly parted ways, with Alex vowing to send or reply to a text about dinner during Greg’s rigidly scheduled lunch break. By the time he got to the office and tried to school his features into an appropriately Monday-themed scowl, his cheeks were sore from smiling.
Alex was talked into walking to the sandwich shop with Fern and John, and every time his phone chirped, Fern tossed a playing card at him in protest while John dutifully collected them, fearing they’d be banned from their favorite lunch spot for distributing pornographic materials.
Guz figured out immediately that Greg was planning a date as they sat together at a sad little table in the teacher’s lounge, and he cheered for Greg’s initiative, but frowned when Greg announced they’d agreed to grab a quick meal at the kebab shop. “Chickpeas for a first date?! Brother, this is not sensible. Take the man somewhere nice! Candles, wine, a dessert so fancy you’re afraid to eat it!”
“With any luck you’ll get to meet Alex one day,” Greg said with a snigger, “and you’ll understand.”
Guz shrugged. “I guess anyone willing to date you has bad taste anyway.”
Greg threw a Wotzit at him.
Greg texted Alex as he was leaving campus, and Alex replied with an emoji of a running man. Unsurprisingly, when Greg arrived at the bus stop, Alex had beaten him there and was speaking with the library lady, who was giggling at something he’d said. The silly man, still in his suit jacket and tie, was stooped with his hands behind his back to hear her, his expression open and endlessly friendly. He glanced up and caught Greg staring, and Greg tried to turn his dopey grin into something more dignified. Library Lady followed Alex’s gaze, then shooed him away and gestured with her phone, so he took a couple of steps towards him. “Hi, Greg.”
“You’ve kept your tie on? In this heat?”
“Oh. Well.” Alex looked down at his chest. “I thought, erm. I was making an effort?”
Greg’s entire heart melted into a fizzy mess. “For me?” He frowned to keep himself from bubbling over at the ridiculousness of this strange man he’d found. Alex nodded, the motion meek, but the eyes somehow fiery. “I’m certainly not going to tell you how to dress yourself. But I’d rather you were comfortable.” Alex tentatively reached for the knot of his tie. “And if I get to see a bit of skin, well….”
The tie came off with a flourish, and he shrugged out of his jacket, flinging it over one arm so he could undo the buttons at his neck.
“I was wondering how long it would take you two to sort things out,” Library Lady said with a chuckle, and Alex whipped around to face her. “But I didn’t think it would escalate this quickly!”
“Oh, sorry, no, I was—” Alex flustered.
“It’s just so warm,” Greg offered over him.
She nodded firmly. “So long as there’s no fornication at my bus stop.” Alex’s face must’ve been as shocked as his, because she gave them a warm smile. “Kissing, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. Should you…you know. I don’t mind.” She turned away, trying to hide a smile as her eyes shifted back to glance at them.
Alex whipped back to face him, eyebrows raised. “Well, I…” he began just as Greg said, “I mean if you…?”
“Oh yes, I…” Alex trailed off, blue eyes impossibly wide, grin big enough to show off the endearing gap in his teeth. It was too much. Greg stepped forward and grabbed him by his ridiculous face, fingers in his beard. He thrilled at the surprised giggle that Alex gave, the sparkle in his eye. So he kissed him. Carefully, tenderly, aware of their surroundings, lips just touching, his glasses pushed up against Alex’s nose, both of them smiling. When he went to step away he suddenly became aware of Alex’s hands just grazing his hips as he held on tighter for a moment, chasing him to drop one last peck to his lips before his eyes fluttered open and met Greg’s. He felt like if he grabbed hold of Alex they could fly.
“Proud of you both,” Library Lady said. Alex turned his head to smile at her, not letting go of Greg quite yet. “And good luck to you. Now where’s my fucking bus?!”
That’s the way the whole thing started. Silly, but it’s true.
Nice to think that that umbrella led, eventually, to a wildly inappropriate snow globe on a shared dresser in a cozy flat across from a kebab shop with a great chickpea salad.