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Most young adults find their paths in life through a series of regular events. Billy had been assured as much by a guidance counselor in junior high. Whether through college courses or dead-end jobs that break their souls, sending them on cross-European backpacking trips, the journey ahead eventually becomes clear. Or something like that. He might be paraphrasing.
Billy doesn't so much 'find' his path in life as he is thrust onto it at the tender age of twenty-two, forced into attending a cooking class by his mother with no options to back out if he didn't enjoy looking like the worst son to ever walk to the Earth. He was four years into his law degree, painfully single, and living off a mix of dollar ramen and free coffee refills from the 24-hour dinner, where he frequently crammed case notes after his shifts in the student center. After politely trying to say no and failing, he'd figured that it couldn't be so bad, having a useful skill like cooking under his belt.
What he hadn't thought to consider was encountering a long-lost twin brother, a best friend he never knew he needed, and a rich girl determined to break from a mold her father was hell-bent on shoving her into along the way. And yet...
Endless nights are spent in too-cramped apartments going over college essays or ignoring them with Mario Kart marathons and a shared bottle of Jack. Brunch becomes a new fixture in Billy's life, strong-armed by Cassie and funded by Kate's Dad's credit card. Suddenly, there are light-beam moments that cut through the dark cloud of Billy's future in the making, and while he appreciates them and learns to cling to them a bit too tight at times, they also serve as an unwanted magnifying glass, amplifying the soulless, brain-sucking litigation he memorizes with blurry eyes, and the mock trials that make his tongue bleed with how hard he has to bite it.
"Why don't you just quit?" Cassie asks, nonplussed as she wacks Tommy's hand so hard with her wooden mixing spoon when he goes for a bit of cheese that Billy feels his own hand twinge in sympathy. They'd arrived an hour before and commandeered all three feet of space Billy calls a kitchen. His is the only place with a working hot plate and a mini-oven that cooks evenly, and though Cassie still can't do much more than make quesadillas without incident, she's been trying her hand at bread-making for weeks now.
Billy huffs out a humorless laugh, tinged with hysteria, as the words from his assigned reading swim in front of him. He lets his head hit the book with a resounding 'thump.'
Just quit. Flush years of hard work and money down the drain. Why hadn't he thought of that before?
"And I'd do what instead? Stage magic in Central Park?" Billy's face is mushed into his textbook, so he can't see Cassie's expression when he mimes sleight of hand at her. He doesn't need to see it, though, to know by the sound of her spoon hitting the inside of her mixing bowl that she's unimpressed.
Still, Cassie doesn't speak for a moment and Tommy has stopped pacing around the foldout table Billy uses to stack piles of old case notes he doesn't know what to do with. It's a telling, unnerving sort of quiet that leaves Billy feeling as if there's silent communication happening that he should probably be a part of.
He lifts his head from its melodramatic pose and grimaces when a page sticks to the corner of his mouth. Cassie is looking at Tommy, who, for once, isn't using Billy's face to make exagerated expressions of ill content, and the little rock of unease in Billy's stomach grows ten times bigger. When they turn to look at him, he realizes that a trap has been laid, and he hadn't seen it.
"So," Tommy drawls, leaning back against the wall with a fake casualness that makes Billy's teeth itch, "before you say no because you're a buzzkill and you're going to say no, Kate's been working on this idea for like, weeks and she'd be kinda pissed if you wrote it off." Guilt tripping, smug bastard. Billy should have eaten him in the womb.
He's about to open his mouth and say 'no' from spite alone, but then Cassie reaches over and squeezes his arm, a small smile on her lips, the one she uses to disarm, and he deflates.
A trap indeed.
And unknowingly, a divergence in the path he'd thought he was supposed to go down.
He's dreaming of floating in a sea made of starlight and nebulas. There's no wind, just a comfortable, soft warmth that envelopes him and pulls him along, like standing in mid-spring sunlight, only it's dark, and no one is blaring their horn because a group of kids is jaywalking two feet from a crosswalk.
Only, apparently, yes, they are.
The sudden shrill ringing is too melodious, too loud, to be a taxi driver or some dickbag with a sports car who thought he looked cool stuck in stand-still traffic at rush hour. Still, the comforting space-soup river disintegrates under him, and Billy is left to slap around for what he knows is dragging him, kicking and screaming from sweet oblivion. He lets the phone drop onto his ear, eyes refusing to open.
"What? "
"Jeez, no wonder you can't get a bedwarmer. Bet they're worried about you biting their heads off the morning after."
For a second, just one, not even a full one, really, Billy contemplates hurling his cell against his bedroom wall.
"I'm going to put iocane in your coffee," Billy bites out instead, then burrows futilely into his pillow. "You'd never see it coming."
"You don't make my coffee dipshit." Tommy has a point. It doesn't stop Billy from imagining it, though.
"Cassie can be bribed." Not that Billy could afford her.
Tommy doesn't justify Billy with a response, or at least not one with words. His huff of dry mirth grates on Billy's still-waking ears, and he looks at the wall across from him, longing to see his cell phone smashed against it.
"Look," Tommy begins again, this time with an air of reluctance as if Billy had been the one to call him and not the other way around. "Kate told me to call you as an alarm, so here I am, doing that. You wanna poison anyone with makebelieve powders? Take it up with the boss."
Billy's brain blanks out on a perfectly searing response about how his alarm works just fine or something cutting about Tommy getting his reference in the first place, which makes him at least a third the nerd he's always teasing Billy for being. But Billy's still in limbo, between snoring and cursing the world, trying to remind himself why Kate would send Tommy after him at- he looks at his bedside clock- five fifteen in the morning.
The sun isn't even a ghost of a promise outside Billy's fourth-floor walk-up, the sky a dark smudge of ink and ancient brick.
All at once, Billy remembers the grumbled promise to Kate Bishop while he'd been elbows deep in Stars and Stripe's tax filings, chronologically pulling up receipts from local produce suppliers that Cassie had sheepishly apologized for not inputting into the computer with the ones that generate automatically. America Chevas, lead baker and all-around sergeant in the cafe kitchen, with her accidental arm break obtained from her hobby of women's roller derby, wouldn't be able to take the weekly morning delivery that happened on the cafe's singular closed day. She'd certainly tried to argue that she could, but Kate, with her silver tongue and inability to back down, so often used for the cafe's PR, had talked America around as easily as anything else, and the job now fell, inexplicably, to Billy.
Why Nate, Cassie, or even Tommy couldn't do it, Billy didn't know, but as he sits up in bed, rubbing the sleep crust from his eyes and sighing, he knows that wriggling out of it now that he's answered his phone is impossible. There's no question in Billy's mind that despite the early hour, Kate is close by and listening, making sure Billy leaves to take the delivery.
"Watch your drinks." Billy threatens uselessly, swallowing a yelp as his feet hit the cold floor.
"I'm shaking in my pajamas."
The line does dead. Billy gets up.
Letting himself through the back of Stars and Stripes is a familiar routine, though the grey slush of too early morning makes the grime of the business street's shared loading area seem even grimier than usual. The shadows are too deep for comfort, the world still waking up slow and shushed save for the occasional, if not disconcerting, slamming of doors from overhead apartments and the twenty-four-hour laundromat across the street. Still, Billy shakes off the unease and twists the lock, pulling the knob up hard and to the right so that it actually disengages. He lets it bang shut behind him as he stumbles blindly for two steps to reach the pin alarm, failing only once to input the correct numbers before the shrill warning beeps mercifully cut off.
With a half-muttered curse, Billy rests against the wall above the alarm box and takes in the oddly comforting scent of stale yeast and powdered sugar. He lets himself imagine the cavern of his warm bed, growing cool without a body in it, waiting for him, and straightens back upright. He flicks the back hall lights on before shuffling into the kitchen properly and giving the large, square room an impassive once over.
Empty of both America and Nate, the orderly but well-used space feels daunting, the walls seemingly ten feet taller in the pre-dawn hush. There's no stopping Billy's sigh as he makes his way to the row of dry storage shelves at the back, not when he feels tired and alone, somehow geriatric and infantile at the same time.
"I'm twenty-seven years old. I've no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents, and I'm frightened." Billy mutters the line under his breath, uncaring if the Hobart with giant googly eyes or the KitchenAid covered in holographic stickers has anything against an ironic, if not pathetically accurate, quote. It's not even six am, and he has to do physical labor; he's allowed to be defeatist if he wants to be. In Billy's opinion, there are no good thoughts that happen before noon.
Twenty minutes later, Billy amends his opinions on thoughts. The one where he falls asleep on a sack of corn meal and pretends he slipped into a sewage drain to avoid pulling the bags and boxes of ingredients from their rightful places so he can properly rotate them is compelling. Only the ghost of America, ever-present whenever Billy spots her homemade cookie cutters hanging from their place above the large sink, reminds him that even down an arm, she can kick Billy's ass without breaking a sweat. Add in the fact that Kate would help and Tommy would mock him the entire time, and Billy heaves another thing of flour onto the worktable that takes up the majority of the kitchen's floor space.
His muscles, slim and more used to lugging stacks of paper than boxes of sprinkles, begin aching long before the backdoor's buzzer announces either the presence of their delivery person or a customer who is very lost and very confused about what 'closed' means. By the time Billy drags himself away from his mostly completed task, he has given up all pretense of handling his day with grace and slumps, sweaty and noodle-limbed, to the exit.
Waking up had been a mistake. Billy might even go so far as to say taking those cooking classes and totally upending his life, while Kate strong-armed him into being both an accountant and legal team for a cafe none of them were equipped to run fresh out of college, was a mistake. Being born could qualify, too, if his brain were working enough to think that far back. Because standing in front of Billy, painted radiant by the first rays of a rising sun, is the hottest man he's ever seen.
He's tall, at least half a foot more than Billy, with wide shoulders (wide everything) and hair the color of straw spun into gold tussled carelessly over his forehead. Blue eyes, naturally bright, blink down at him, and when Billy manages to think more than ' big, blond, pretty,' he notices the dimples bracketing the man's small, confused smile.
Maybe, Billy considers, as he suddenly and horrifyingly becomes aware of his baggy Wonder Woman sweatshirt and ratty flannel bottoms, both of which are dusted in flour and sugar, he's still dreaming. Surely, this has to be the weirdest nightmare-slash-wet-dream he's ever had.
"You're not America," Dimples says, voice soft and deep, pleasant like it's not ass o'clock and Billy doesn't look like a homeless person who wandered into the store by mistake.
"Uh- no." Eloquent. Billy can almost hear Tommy laughing at him now.
The most gorgeous man on Earth doesn't say anything to that stilted agreement, but the amused lift of a single eyebrow and the curve of his mouth make it clear he's going to let Billy elaborate.
"She broke her arm, can't really lift anything, so I'm- uh-" he makes a vague gesture toward his less than stellar job at pulling stock, "yeah..."
The blond emits a low whistle, and Billy prickles from the tease, though he melts just as quickly when he's flashed another dimpled smile, too easily swayed with only half his brain functioning.
"You got most of it done. Shouldn't take too much time between the both of us to sort the rest out."
If Billy had a line directly up to heaven, he's sure he'd hear a choir of angels singing. Still...
"Not that I'm not totally going to take you up on helping, but," Billy scratches the back of his head, casting a wide gaze between the mess he'd made and the man he's starting to believe is a very convincing hallucination, "aren't you just supposed to drop the stuff off? I wouldn't want you working overtime or anything." He images handsome bakery supply delivery men have schedules.
Another flash of a smile.
"Like I said, easy work. And," blue eyes dip quickly down Billy's body, "I'm sure you won't hold us back."
That- okay. Billy isn't, like, totally blind to his own potential good looks. He's had a few boyfriends, and he knows how to dress himself to impress. But it's 'go fuck yourself' o'clock, he's in his comfiest pajamas, and if his eyes weren't bruised from lack of sleep, he'd eat his own shoe. Men who looked like they could bench press him and smile before eight am did not look at Billy deep in the clutches of gremlin mode and flirt with him.
"Yeah, well," Billy flushes, then before thinking better of it, lifts an arm and flexes one non-existent bicep, "not exactly the brawn of this operation." He lets his arm fall back to his side and does some quick math on how likely he can make throwing himself head-first into a table edge look like an accident. Anything to exit this increasingly awkward conversation with even a shred of dignity intact.
If the man finds Billy's bumbling and self-deprecation offputting, he doesn't comment on it, only huffing a quick, soft laugh and smiling somehow brighter.
"I'm sure the customers appreciate the eye candy at least?"
This is not Billy's life. It can't be. He's going to wake up and realize he fell right back asleep after Tommy's call, and America is going to throttle him.
At Dimples's 'awe-shucks' head tilt and earnestly patient expression (like it's cute that he's slowly killing Billy, one offhanded flirtation at a time), Billy's lack of higher brain function manages a croaked "I'm just the accountant!" and nothing else.
"Well, I'm Teddy," Teddy says, the curve of his mouth going impish, clearly pleased with how smooth that was. Billy can't exactly begrudge him the self-congratulations.
"Billy." He'd offer Teddy a hand, but Billy thinks if even a single atom of the other man brushed against him, his body would short circuit like his thoughts already are, and then they'd have to call Kate or Cassie to scrape his soulless husk off the ground. Though, given the size of Teddy's biceps, it's not like he couldn't do the job without the help.
Teddy laughs again and then effects a lazy lean against the still-open doorway. "Excellent," he drawls, the voice of a so-cal stoner slipping out.
The reference startles a bark of laughter from Billy, and like magic, some of the 'oh god, this guy is so hot and talking to me' anxiety melts away.
"If you're sure about helping me out," Billy says, "that would be kind of awesome."
"I said I would," Teddy shifts out of his leans against the doorframe in one fluid move and brushes past Billy on his way into the kitchen, turning to look at him as he goes, "We've got this."
There's electricity under Billy's skin where their shoulders touched, but he shakes it off and follows after Teddy.
For a while, they work in companionable silence, Billy trying not to grunt under the strain of thirty-pound flour bags, side-eyeing Teddy and how he lifts multiple in one go, pretending he's not. But eventually, the silence slips into little comments about the latest shows popping up or a comic they'd both read, even a compliment from Teddy about Billy's vintage hoodie, and Billy grows more comfortable now that he's half distracted by the work and can't get so easily tongue-tied by Teddy's, well, everything.
"Geez," Bill huffs, hauling another tub of- he checks the label- Crisco onto the table next to all the others as Teddy finishes up by the storage shelves. "Like, on an intellectual level, I know that sugar plus bread equals yummy, but do we really need all of this?" He stops himself from throwing his upper half across the table for dramatic effect, but only since it would make him look like an even bigger dork. Plus, he's sweaty and doesn't want to add disinfecting surfaces to his already long morning.
"Well," Teddy hums, "I sure appreciate you guys having it all."
"Good for business?" Billy wagers.
Teddy shakes his head, and Billy looks at him, the movement drawing his attention. Their eyes meet, and though Billy's known Teddy for less than an hour, he thinks smiling might just be something the other's face does.
"Because I think I'd probably die of caffeine withdrawals and hunger pain without my usual mid-shift pitstop for an americano and an apple tart."
Billy feels his pulse skip because, huh. That means Teddy has been into Stars and Stripes before and not simply to drop off inventory. That means that at least once, they have occupied the same space, and Billy hadn't known. That it's taken a dozen little mishaps to bring them to this very moment instead of the much more straightforward situation of Billy coming out of his accountant cave instead of begging Cassie to bring him something bitter and warm to keep his eyes open.
It feels... serendipitous in a way that Billy's brain is not equipped to try and understand. Or maybe it's just the sleep deprivation.
"So, is that your favorite then?" Billy asks after a moment too long of not having said anything. He doesn't want to stall out the conversation, already too invested in hearing Teddy's mouth continuing to make pleasant sounds.
To Billy's surprise, Teddy goes bashful and pink at the tops of his ears.
"Uh, not really?" Teddy winces, like admitting it to Billy might cause issues. Which Billy figures makes sense, seeing as even though he's not responsible for the baking or the barista-ing, he still works at the cafe. Still, he doesn't want Teddy to feel embarrassed about it and tries to move them along.
"Then what is?"
"It'll probably sounds weird," Teddy starts, checking something off his inventory sheet as he does, "but my mom and I used to go to this hole-in-the-wall place every Saturday morning before she had to go in for overtime, and we'd share the biggest milkshake I'd ever seen. They put everything you could think of in it, and the best part," Teddy looks over to Billy, something bright in his eyes that makes Billy want to smile, "they topped the whole thing off with a donut. Mom said that's what made it count as breakfast."
"Sound logic," Billy offers, and Teddy nods, seeming more at ease now that he knows Billy isn't going to make fun of his preferred cafe indulgence.
He's about to disclose that, honestly, he prefers boba to the chai lattes they serve, just so that he and Teddy are on equal footing when, from nowhere, The X-Files theme starts playing. When Teddy scrambles to pull out his phone to stop it ringing, Billy almost swoons. But then Billy hears the wha-wha of a voice on the other end of Teddy's call, and there's no mistaking the heated tone or how Teddy's face screws up in mortification as he checks the watch on his wrist and hisses under his breath. It makes Billy feel immediately guilty, especially when he's already commented about Teddy working overtime.
"No, I- yeah, Eli, I know. Traffic's holding me up." Teddy sighs heavily, then looks at Billy across the work table, mustering a smile before rolling his eyes and making a yapping motion with his free hand.
Billy has to muffle his undignified snort and casts a quick eye around the kitchen. The really had almost been done.
"Well, I'd get there a lot sooner if you'd let me hang up. Okay? Cool. I'll be back to the warehouse in an hour." With that, Teddy taps his phone and then shoves it into the front pocket of his jumpsuit. His face, when he looks at Billy again, is apologetic.
"So, I may have overstayed a little," he pinches his thumb and index finger close together, just for emphasis, and Billy nods, wishing he could pretend to be a little more sorry for contributing to Teddy getting chewed out.
"Then you better get going. I don't think early morning traffic's gonna hold up as an excuse for much longer if you're already late. Besides," Billy looks at the few bags of salt and packaging boxes he's got to throw around before doing a final sweep of the kitchen, "I think I can handle the rest."
Teddy's eyes dart to Billy's arms, and it's almost as nice as that unabashed once-over he'd gotten at the start of this whole morning fiasco. Letting it linger, letting Teddy linger, isn't an option, though, not if Billy wants to live with himself, so he makes a shooing motion at the blond and ushers him toward the back entrance.
"Seriously though," Billy says once Teddy's in the doorway and the supply invoice has been signed, "thank you. I think I'd have resorted the kicking thing into place if you weren't here. It would not have been dignified."
"At least no one would have been here to witness it?" Teddy asks with a chuckle as Billy shakes his head.
Silence, for a beat that lasts just a fraction too long, weighing just a bit too heavy, follows up the tail-end of Teddy's laughter, but before it can grow uncomfortable, Teddy jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
"I should really get running. But it was nice- meeting you and everything."
"Even if it gets you in trouble?" Billy can't stop himself from asking. Clearly, the grave he'd already half dug labeled 'needs assurance' wasn't deep enough yet.
Teddy grins and takes a step back.
"Especially then." And with a cheesy wink and a set of finger guns, Teddy is around the small corner leading to the truck area and out of sight, leaving Billy with the rest of the stock to sort out and the makings of a ridiculously quick crush he doesn't need.
That should be the end of it. One chance encounter, ultimately doomed to amount to nothing, and Billy should go back to sleeping on his Tuesdays, cursed to forever be haunted by the knowledge that men like Teddy exist and have enough energy to spend on flirting with him. Billy should let it go.
Only...
"You want to do next week's delivery?" America is looking at him, incredulous and disbelieving as she sips her frappe and hand edits a recipe card they'll be trying out once both her arms are back in commission.
Billy feels hot under the collar.
"Want is a strong word, but, I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything else, and Tommy'll just bitch about it if you ask him." Billy shuffles his pile of sales reports and pretends he isn't using them to hide his obviously lying face.
For a long pause, America doesn't say anything, but Billy can feel her judgemental stare through his flimsy shield.
"Cassie already agreed. You know Cassie already agreed. You were there when she did it so-" The cut-off is so abrupt that Billy can't not look. When he does, it's immediately apparent that he's made the wrong choice.
America is leaning on her good elbow, chin cradled on the back of her hand. The smirk she is leveling at him can only be described as shit-eating. Billy contemplates pulling the filing cabinet to his left down and crushing himself.
"So," she drags the word out, all sharp and knowing eyes, "you met Teddy, huh?"
Billy fights the urge to groan into his hands. There's absolutely zero chance he gets out of this office without the cafe's group chat blowing up. He's never going to live down Tommy, and Cassie will try to be encouraging about the whole thing, making the humiliation worse. The only one who probably won't care is Nate, but only because the things he cares about can be counted on one hand, and at least three of them have to do with Cassie.
"Can't we just call this my yearly good deed and not make a big deal out of it?"
America is already grabbing her phone from the desk before Billy can finish his weak attempt at pleading.
"Nope." She doesn't bother looking at him as she types.
Not a minute later, Billy feels a telltale buzz from his pocket, and a few seconds after that Cassie comes skipping into the office, cell still in her hand, dirty portafilter in the other.
"Teddy's great!"
Billy drops his head onto the desk and doesn't care that it actually hurts. The pain will pale in comparison to whatever happens next.
Teddy, Billy discovers, is great. He's also not a hallucination, just as beautiful as the first morning Billy had seen him, and, according to Cassie (once she's done teasing him), comes into Stars and Stripes at least twice a week but through the front door. Billy, having no real need to venture out into the cafe proper unless he wants to beg caffeine off of whoever is manning the coffee maker, is a little annoyed at his friends for never mentioning the literal demigod that orbits Billy's general space. If only so Billy didn't stumble into him unawares and make an ass of himself.
Too late for that.
Not even two more weeks and two more deliveries filled with unsubtle flirting and award-winning smiles build Billy any immunity to Teddy's easy charm.
Honestly, Billy's convinced that Teddy is just like that, all devastating, effortless magnetism, but when Kate bullies him into painstakingly recounting every meeting, from chance encounter to orchestrated inventory handoff, she's of a different opinion. To her, Teddy is nice (great), but it's in the shy, polite way that speaks of compulsory friendliness, not objective flirtation. And the thing is, Billy wants to believe Kate when she says Teddy is probably into him, or Cassie when she knocks her elbow into his side and tells him he's got a chance, so just "go for it, Billiam." But he's never had their optimism, and though he's no longer a bottomless pit of self-doubt, there's a difference between knowing he can pull a solid six and shooting for a ten.
It figures, then, that it's not because Billy musters up the courage that leads him to asking if Teddy's flirting with him and, therefore, asking if Teddy is interested in him but because Tommy sits his stupid ass on top of Billy and America's cookbook pet-project and goads him into a Situation.
"He's in the lobby."
Billy does not have the patience for this. When it comes to Tommy, he usually doesn't.
"Do you not have anything better to do? Like, oh, I don't know, your job?" While Billy's sure Cassie has the floor handled at half past two on a Thursday, that's not the point. Billy won't play Tommy's game just because he thinks teasing Billy is a better use of his time.
"I don't know," Tommy sing-songs, "still feels like I'm being more productive than a certain nerdling who can't even nut up enough to ask out someone who's clearly interested." The wry twist of Tommy's mouth is annoying enough that Billy is almost inspired to punch it off. But he's an adult now, and the last time he and Tommy got into a fight, Kate had filmed it...
With a sigh, Billy pushes back from the office desk and crosses his arms over his chest, hoping that somewhere between dragging himself to work and now, he's spontaneously developed laser vision powers.
"Why do you even care?"
Tommy taps his chin, a false display of thinking over his answer, his smirk growing. Even though they share the same face, Billy isn't sure his mouth can do that.
"Maybe if you get good dick on the regular it'll replace the stick up your ass," Tommy shrugs, "Or maybe I just want to revel in your home-grown suffering because you're useless when it comes to dudes."
Knowing Tommy, it really could be either. For as much as they'd come to care about one another over the years, it's like Billy's twin is determined to make up lost time by tormenting him as if his only child syndrome had taken a hike and been replaced with the instinct all brothers have that lead them toward the path of sadism.
"I'm sorry, do we need to do a headcount? Because from where I'm sitting, the number of successful adult relationships between us is three to one."
Tommy's eye roll is as dramatic as it is aggravating. He nudges Billy with his sneaker, and it's an honest effort on Billy's part not to grab his foot and yank him off the desk altogether.
"Oh, no, no, no. You don't get to include Mr. Week-End Pride Hookup. That wasn't dating, that was fucking."
Billy grimaces. Brothers shouldn't talk about each other's sex lives, no matter if they'd been apart most of their childhoods.
"I saw him plenty after that weekend. We were friends with benefits. Ergo, a relationship." At least more than the bar bathroom trysts Tommy had been favorable to before Kate had locked him down tight.
"Sure," Tommy concedes in a tone that means he doesn't concede at all. "And when was the last time you saw him?"
"... that's not important."
"How about the last time you've seen anybody? A fling from a club? A Grindr hookup? Be honest with me, Billy. The most recent intimate human contact you've had was between you and a centerfold, wasn't it?"
Billy flushes and pretends it's all from irritation.
"It doesn't matter--"
"And now that there's some beefy himbo making puppy eyes at you just waiting for you to give the go-ahead, you aren't because...?" Tommy trails off, leaving it for Billy to answer.
Billy's arms cross tighter over his chest. The answer is that beefy himbo is way out of his league, and the last time Billy tried to make a shot worth equivalent points, it was for Todd Stafford, the top-ranked tennis player of his junior year who shot him down so hard Billy didn't leave his bed for two weeks.
But he can't tell Tommy that because it will only give him the sort of ammunition that's dangerous in the hands of a sibling. Which means his only alternative is to go down the hall and hope Teddy lets him down gently.
Billy stands from his desk, and before Tommy can open his big, fat mouth, he jabs a finger into his chest. "This does not mean you won."
Tommy doesn't do anything more than grin, shark-like and slappable. It says everything they already both know.
Grumbling about Tommy and his stupid, childish antics, Billy makes his way from the office, across the kitchen, and through the beaded partition separating the back of the cafe from the peace of the lobby.
It takes no effort at all for Billy to spot Teddy, and when he does, his heart nearly leaps into his throat. Teddy looks good, not that his blue delivery jumpsuit doesn't do amazing things for his body, but now he's in a leather jacket, wearing a tight, nearly transparent white t-shirt beneath, which kind of has Billy's mouth going dry.
The motion from the beads must catch Teddy's attention because he pauses mid-conversation with Cassie and meets Billy's eyes over the pastry case that dominates the left side of the cafe floor.
Teddy beams directly at him and stands up straighter, his gaze making a quick up and down of Billy as Billy takes halting steps closer and closer, the burst of spiteful nerves Tommy had inspired slowly leaving him.
"And you said I wasn't right about the eye candy," Teddy huffs, eyes amused and mouth an appealing, teasing slash across his handsome face. "Sure, Mister 'I'm just the accountant.'"
Billy doesn't think there's enough blood in his whole body to compensate for the way his cheeks and neck want to burn. Cassie stifles a horrendous squeak of laughter poorly behind her hand before she moves toward the other end of the coffee bar, pretending to wipe the espresso machine down even though Billy can see it glinting perfectly from fifteen feet away.
He does the only thing he can think of when he finally reaches Teddy, and the other man is clearly expecting some kind of answer. Billy reaches up and undoes the top two buttons of his sharp, white dress shirt (the kind America says makes him look like a try-hard, and Kate appreciates when she needs to drag him away to catering meetings). With his skin a burning scarlet, Billy shifts the fabric to the side and reveals that beneath his adult appearance, he's sporting a graphic tee with Captain America's shield emblazoned on the front.
"I'm in disguise." Billy feels immediately stupid for doing that, but then, not a second later, Teddy lights up like he's trying to go supernova, and he leans across the counter, almost unconsciously swaying into Billy's space.
"Very Clark Kent," Teddy says, seeming genuinely delighted.
Immediately, Billy feels some of the tension ease out of him. Teddy's presence and not just the idea of him is a stark reminder that he's actually kind of great and hasn't made Billy's evident nerddom the butt of a joke.
"Thanks," Billy manages, then looks between Teddy, Cassie, and the very empty spot at the pickup area. His brows furrow. "Cassie didn't get your order yet?"
"Nah, we were catching up since there wasn't a line, then you came out from the back, and," Teddy shrugs, "here we are."
Here they are, indeed.
An idea, quick as a flash, strikes Billy, and before he realizes he's even opening his mouth, a surprisingly confident "Let me make you something?" comes tumbling out.
Teddy doesn't even hesitate. "Yeah, sounds good. Surprise me?"
Billy sure hopes he does, enough so that when he manages to choke the words "go out with me" into existence, Teddy will be too distracted to say anything but yes.
"Just go sit at the corner table. I'll bring it to you when I'm done."
Teddy does so, looking over to Billy a couple more times before settling in for the wait. Billy ignores Cassie's eyes on him as he ducks to the sink to roll up his sleeves and wash his hands. She won't try to stop him, not when she's probably guessed what he's attempting to do, but Billy doesn't need her scrutiny as he grabs for what he needs, pausing only a couple of times as indecision grips him.
All in all, it takes him a little over five minutes to configure what he thinks might go down in the history of all cafes as the ugliest milkshake ever created. But Billy thinks back on Teddy's story, the happiness in his voice at telling it, and figures there's a good chance he'll overlook Billy's heavy hand with food coloring and the too-large star-shaped donut he dropped into the mountain of whipped cream he'd topped the whole thing with.
It's the thought that counts, or so he's been told.
On unsteady legs, Billy ducks around the pastry display and into the lobby, both hands wrapped protectively around the drink cup. There really isn't anyone but Teddy at any of the other tables, though a group of three tired-looking college students have just entered, so Billy has less than ten seconds from the time he leaves the security of the counter to where he'd instructed Teddy to sit to overthink what he's doing. He also has a moment, the blink-and-you-miss-it kind, to appreciate Teddy's hunched profile as he plays what Billy thinks is a knock-off Angry Birds, and then those blue eyes rise up to catch Billy just as he's placing the milkshake on the table.
"Sorry," Billy says before Teddy does anything besides look at the blue, red, yellow, and white culinary disaster that Billy has given him. "If... if it's not what you were expecting, then sorry."
Teddy looks at the milkshake, mouth open just a little in what Billy hopes is surprise and not horror, and then back at Billy, who gets to watch as if in slow motion, a wash of joy pulls Teddy's slack face into shining relief.
"It's- I mean-" Teddy makes a wild, excited gesture at the milkshake, laughing when he almost knocks it over, "I can't believe you even remembered I told you that."
They might have only talked three times before today, but Billy thinks that even if it were a hundred, forgetting a thing Teddy's told him would be impossible. But he can't say that without sounding like an actual crazy obsessed person, so Billy shrugs instead.
"But it's okay? Right? Like, you'll drink it? Cause I'm pretty sure I used all the ice cream we even have on hand, and if America realizes how much food color gel I wasted, she'll break her other arm trying to kill me."
Still stretched wide in a smile, Teddy's mouth softens at the corners, shrinking but somehow not dimming in the slightest. It's almost as captivating as when he kicks at the chair across from him and says, "Only if you join me."
Billy, because he'd be an actual idiot if he didn't, sits down, only to get right back up again when he realizes he hadn't intended for anyone else to drink the milkshake but Teddy.
"I should get another straw-" A warm, large hand encircles Billy's wrist, stopping him from stepping toward the counter. When Billy meets them, Teddy's eyes are amused and crinkled at the sides.
"I'm pretty sure indirect kissing stopped being a thing in, like, middle school, but since after this, I'd kind of like to take you on a date and kiss you for real, if you don't mind the cooties right now, then I don't."
Billy sits back down hard, and only when Teddy's expression starts to slip does he realize that he should probably say something since there was a lot in that quasi-confession that needs agreeing to.
"Yes. All of that, I'd like- yes." If Billy weren't fairly sure Teddy is getting used to his brain-to-mouth function going haywire already, he might be more embarrassed.
As it is, once Cassie is done tattling on him, he just knows Tommy isn't going to let him live this down.