Chapter Text
“Charlie, can you run out and grab the last living room box? It should just be a few knick knacks, nothing too heavy,” Jane Spring yelled down the hall to her son.
“No problem, Mom. I’ll be right in.” Charlie replied, making his way out of their new row house. Growing up in the American Midwest, he was still getting used to the close neighbors and short driveways. Back home in Michigan they had lived down a private drive with the closest neighbor a half a mile away. Rochester was the complete opposite of home, houses stacked on top of each other and barely any room to breathe. The last four days had been overwhelming, to say the least.
The Spring family had chosen to relocate after Charlie’s dad, Julio, had taken a new position teaching at the local university, or that’s what his parents said. Since he’d been outed as gay in 8th grade he’d been bullied relentlessly, his small group of friends, Tao, Elle, and Isaac, were the only people in the school that didn’t say nasty things behind his back. Or in most cases, to his face while pushing him into a locker. When Julio was presented with this opportunity, his parents had jumped at the opportunity to give their son a chance to live out the last 4 years of school in peace.
Charlie looks around at his new front yard and down the street at all the identical houses, feeling a pang of sadness. He’s 4,000 miles from his best friends, starting Year 10 (what should have been 9th grade, he still doesn’t understand how they’re a year off here) with a clear slate but completely alone. His older sister, Tori, would be at the all girls school in town, so he wouldn’t even have her to cling to.
Charlie sighs and makes his way into the moving truck and finds the box labeled “Living Room”, and begins carefully maneuvering it down the ramp. “Not heavy my ass,” he mumbles to himself as he makes contact with the pavement.
He’s almost to the footpath that will lead him to the door when something large attacks him from behind.
“Oh shit!” Charlie exclaims as he falls forward, landing on the box, the loud sound of glass breaking beneath him.
“Nellie, no! Oh my God, are you alright? I am so, so sorry! Let me help you” a voice says above him. Charlie turns over to see a boy around his age bending down to take his hands. At the same time a ball of fluff enters his vision and begins licking his face furiously. Despite everything Charlie can’t help but giggle as she tickles his ear.
“Nellie, stop, leave him be,” the other boy says as he attaches a leash to the border collie on top of Charlie and pulls her off. “Nellie, sit!” the boy commands, the dog, Nellie presumably. She sits, but not without a small whine, like her owner had just crushed her dreams.
The boy leans over again, offering a hand. He’s blushing furiously, with his brows creased in worry. Strands of strawberry blonde hair fall across his eyes as Charlie takes his hands and allows himself to be pulled up.
“Thanks,” Charlie says, looking up into the other boy's honey colored eyes. He blushes slightly as they make eye contact and the redhead gives him a small half-smile.
“Of course!” the other boy exclaims. “My dog just tried to kill you, it’s honestly the absolute least I can do.”
Charlie lets out a small giggle and glances down. When he does he notices his mother’s shattered collection at his feet.
“Oh my God, my mom is going to kill me! Shit, shit, shit,” he exclaims as he starts rummaging through the crushed box, trying to salvage what he can. The other boy crouches down next to Charlie and starts trying to hold up the edges of the cardboard so Charlie can pull the pieces of glass out easier.
“I am so sorry. I can pay to replace all of this. I’m just so sorry,” the boy starts. Charlie gives a small shrug as he pulls out what looks like it should be half of a glass elephant. All that remains intact is the face, sans trunk. “It looks like this box just had the circus collection mom got from the fair last year. She never displayed them, she probably won’t even notice they’re missing,” Charlie responds, letting out a small breath of relief. “Also, you say sorry way too much,” he says with humor in his voice. The boy huffs a small laugh as his eyebrows furrow in confusion.
“Are you American?” he asks.
“Um, yea?” Charlie responds, equally as confused.
“That’s so cool!” the boy exclaims as they both stand. “I’m Nick by the way. Did you just move here?” he asks. He quickly follows with “I mean to England, obviously you just moved here, like to this house.” He gestured to the moving truck as if to make his point on how obvious it is.
“Um, yea, we got here on Tuesday.” Charlie responds, giggling and blushing once again. “Oh, and I’m Charlie.”
“Charlie Spring! What happened?” a voice yells from the door. Charlie and Nick both look up to see a woman standing on the doorstep, hands on her hips.
“Mom, I’m sorry I fell and kind of, crushed, this box.” he responds “but before you get too mad it’s just the circus animals!” he rushes out, hoping to calm her down before she gets too upset.
Before she can speak Nick begins talking. “Mrs. Spring, is it? I am so sorry, this was my fault. My dog broke off her leash and apparently wanted to befriend Charlie.” He gestures to Nellie, who is now laying beside him with her head on her paws, giving a look of pure innocence.
Mrs. Spring huffs, “This is why I hate animals.” She turns and walks back into the house, telling Charlie to get the glass cleaned up and back inside to help move the living room furniture.
Charlie gives Nick an apologetic look, “I’m sorry about her, this whole move’s been a lot for her.”
“I can imagine, I’ve never moved up the street, let alone across an ocean,” Nick responds, giving him another small smile. “Let me help you clean this up, it was Nellie’s fault.”
Charlie nods, starting to feel somewhat taken aback by how kind Nick was. None of the boys back home would have even helped him up, let alone help him clean up the mess.
He goes into the small shed to grab the utility broom his dad keeps in there while Nick ties Nellie to one of the posts on the fence and starts picking up bigger pieces. It only takes them a few minutes to get everything swept and tidy.
“Thank you, for helping,” Charlie says when he comes back from putting the broom away.
“It was my fault,” Nick insists. “I’m glad to help.”
Charlie smiles and shakes his head, “You may be the kindest person I’ve ever met,” he replies. A red flush goes up Nick’s neck and he rubs the back of his neck, chuckling slightly.
“Well, thank you,” Nick says, then gestures to the house. “I should probably let you get back to your family.”
Charlie nods, as much as he’d rather talk to Nick, he knows his mom would not be too happy if he didn’t get in soon. “Yea, probably,” he says as he starts to turn towards the door. “Have a good night, Nick.”
“You too, Charlie,” he responds with a small wave. He walks over to Nellie and unties her from the post. “I’ll see you around.”
Charlie responds with a wave of his own, making Nick crack a small smile. Nick starts to make his way up the road with a much more calm Nellie as Charlie turns back to the house.
Jane immediately has him moving furniture and unpacking the rest of the living room. Through it all Charlie is thinking about kind brown eyes and floppy red hair.
By the time he goes to his own room that night he’s exhausted physically. His brain is still running a mile a minute, so he gets himself under the covers and pulls out his phone to doom scroll until his thoughts slows down. He opens Instagram, checking to see if any of his friends back home had messaged him, sees no new notifications and remembers his friends were all just getting home from school. He scrolls through the app, liking pictures and watching stupid videos, trying to calm his mind.
He has just watched a hilarious video of a cat acting like a scientist when his phone vibrated. He glances at the top of his screen, expecting a text from Tao or Elle, but it isn’t. The message reads “nick_nzzzz is following you!” Charlie inhales quickly with surprise, then clicks on the alert and immediately follows back, noting that Nick’s last name is Nelson, loving the alliteration on his tongue as he says it out loud. He then begins scrolling through Nick’s page, he is definitely a jock, his bio stating “Truham Grammar rugby captain”. Charlie isn’t 100% sure what rugby is but it looks similar to football back home.
What really catches his eye is that Nick attends Truham, the same school Charlie will be starting come Monday. He continues through his page, there are lots of pictures of Nellie and almost none of Nick. There is one selfie and a couple pictures with his teammates, all titled something about “lads”. Charlie cracks a small smile and rolls his eyes, “Must be the “bros” of the UK,” he thinks.
He’s admiring a picture of Nellie catching a ball mid air when his phone vibrates again. He looks to the top of his screen and this time it is a message. Charlie’s small smile breaks into something bigger as he taps the message to open it. It’s not the most exciting message, but it could be the start of his first friendship on this side of the Atlantic.
Nick: hi :)
Maybe England wouldn’t be so bad after all.