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i
“I just don’t get it,” Monty huffs, falling onto the sofa next to Miller. His friend looks over, a single eyebrow raised and Monty can’t hold his gaze for long, diverting his eyes to the TV in front of them. A hockey game is on, volume down low, and Miller had changed the channel almost as soon as the door shut behind their other friends. “Why don’t they see that they’re perfect for each other?”
“Who? Murphy and Bellamy? I’ve been trying to tell them…” Miller’s attention is back on the screen, and Monty can’t exactly say what’s going on, but a group of men are currently in a form of violent huddle. Maybe an over-zealous orgy in public, Monty wouldn’t know. Miller’s attention has been caught, though, and Monty assumes it’s the latter.
“No,” Monty sighs. “Clarke and Bellamy.”
“Oh,” Miller murmurs, sitting forward in his seat. His eyes don’t leave the screen and someone darts out of the orgy, following the puck along the ice. “Come on!” he yells at the television. The man shoots the puck and it swings into the back of the net. Miller cheers, rising out of his seat for a minute, before sitting down again. “I’ve always thought Murphy and Bellamy would be cute together,” he tells Monty, as the crowd dies down on screen.
“I think Clarke and Bellamy would be cuter,” Monty replies. Miller nods.
“Yeah, they have got that unresolved sexual tension thing going on. Why do you bring it up?” Monty hesitates – why did he bring it up? Oh, yeah-
“I think we should get them together,” he says. Miller turns from the TV now, that damn raised eyebrow again.
“You think we should set them up? Set our happily single friends up?” Monty shrugs.
“I don’t think they’re happily single – and if they are, then they’re be happier together.” Miller is silent for a moment, studying Monty’s face. Monty hopes he doesn’t catch the slight red tinge to his cheeks – being stared at for so long, and by Miller no less; well it’s embarrassing.
“Sure,” Miller decides at last. Monty’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Really?” Miller glances back at the television.
“Yeah,” he says, not as distracted as before. “You don’t have a bad bone in your body – if you want to do this, it’s going to be for a good reason. Besides, Bellamy’s been hung up on Clarke for at least five years now.”
“Are you serious?” Miller shrugs, someone in red taking the hockey puck and running – skating? – down the field – rink? Monty’s not sure.
“He hasn’t said it in so many words,” Miller relents. “But he’s definitely into her- COME ON, DEFENCE!”
ii
“We’ve got to go,” Monty announces, and Clarke’s mouth freezes, mid-word. Monty nudges Miller with his leg and Miller catches on quickly.
“Uh, yeah – we’ve got plans.”
“You’ve got plans?” Bellamy asks. Miller nudges.
“Roommate stuff, you know?” Miller and Monty have been roommates for about six months. It happened when Jasper fell for Maya and they moved in together, and suddenly Monty’s rent was way too high for him to cope with. Miller, the angel with the spare room, opened his door to him.
“What type of roommate stuff?” Clarke asked, curious and sceptical, all in one. Monty and Miller shot a look at each other, and Monty swallowed.
“You know, roommate… house… cleaning,” he lied.
“Cleaning?” Clarke asked.
“Miller is literally the cleanest person I know,” Bellamy replies. “He doesn’t even make messes in the first place.” It’s true – Monty is the messy one out of the two, and Miller doesn’t even fuss about cleaning up after him. It’s not compulsive, nor is it something that Miller even thinks about – he just lives in an automatically clean environment, unlike Bellamy, who has to work for it.
“It’s literally why I said you should move in with him,” Clarke agrees. “Always move in with someone who likes cleaning.”
“Is that why you moved in with me?” Bellamy asks. Clarke smiles.
“Undoubtedly.” Miller and Monty shoot each other another look as their friends lock eyes, clearing their throats.
“Monty’s room is a pit,” Miller continues. “I agreed to help him clean it. You two have fun though.” They stand up from where they’ve been sitting on the floor – Clarke loves eating on picnic blankets, even indoors, and they’d pushed the furniture away to have an inside picnic, chocolate-covered strawberries included. Miller and Monty both agree it’s a perfect date setting, if she and Bellamy just hadn’t invited them – their other best friends besides each other.
Miller snags a strawberry as they leave, Monty tugging on his coat and taking Miller’s jacket from the hook as they go.
The door is shut behind them just as Bellamy gets up to say goodbye.
They pause outside of the door.
“They’ll get the message, right?” Monty asks. Miller nods.
“Yeah, I’m sure they will. They’re going to have a romantic desert to the not-as-romantic dinner, and it’ll be fine.” They nod, Miller biting into the strawberry he’d taken, as they walk down the hall.
“Oh, that was a good idea,” Monty says. “I should have got one.” Miller holds out the other half of the strawberry, chocolate set and uneaten.
“Here, share mine.” Miller smiles and Monty wonders if it’s obvious how gone he is for his flatmate. He might as well be wearing a glowing neon sign above his head – awfully gay and hideously into Nathan Miller.
Monty smiles though, accepting the strawberry and biting into it, Miller watching him as if he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
“We missed desert,” Miller sighs. “You want to get some on the way home?” Monty nods.
“Sure, I’ll pay if you want?”
“Split it?” Miller suggests. Monty agrees and they head to the ice cream shop a few roads away, dark outside but still light up, bright white and neon. They buy ice creams and wander down the road in the dark; stars shining above and orange lampposts guiding their way home.
“They’d be cute together,” Miller says. “We could ditch them at the movies next time?” Monty laughs into the night.
iii
They ditch Bellamy and Clarke at the movies.
The film is one both Clarke and Monty wanted to see, and the two of them persuaded the people they lived with to come along – Clarke because Bellamy is a closeted romantic comedy fan, and Monty because he wanted help leaving them there on their own. Apparently the picnic ditching wasn’t enough of a push, but this just might be – it was reviewed as one of the most romantic films of the year.
“Actually,” Miller says, the lights going down at the trailers starting. “I’m going to get another drink.” He shakes his empty cup around, hearing the ice clink against the sides of the cardboard. “I’ll be back.”
Miller ducks out of the screening room, and the three of them that are left watch the trailers for a second.
“I’m going to the toilet,” Monty tells Clarke. She rolls her eyes.
“I told you to go before we came in.”
“I didn’t need it before we came in,” he replies indignantly. He smiles at her anyway and heads out – both he and Miller kept their jackets on so they wouldn’t seem suspicious, and Monty meets Miller out in the lobby, leaning up against a wall. Miller raises his eyebrows.
“They alright?” Monty nods.
“Yeah, want to get some dinner?” Miller agrees and they head out of the cinema, finding a café down the road and taking their seats near the back – in case anyone saw them in the window. They order food and laugh, eating and drinking and having a good time, because they’re friends, roommates, flatmates – what-have-you – and they get along well.
“It’s a shame though,” Monty says in a short silence. “I was kind of looking forward to seeing that film.” Miller smiles, albeit slightly apologetic.
“Hey, how about this?” he suggests. “I’m free tomorrow night, and I know you are, because you’re always free tomorrow night – we’ll go see it together then?” It’s hard to say whether it’s Monty’s chest that’s feeling warm because Miller is just about the greatest possible human, or if it’s his stomach because it’s scary how great Miller is, but Monty smiles, nodding.
Later, they turn on their phones (having turned them off to avoid any and all calls and texts from Clarke and Bellamy) and find that they don’t have any from during the film, but a few after. Monty calls Clarke back, as Miller pays at the counter.
“Hey, Clarke,” Monty says. They’d worked out their lie in advance, he could do this.
“Hey, ditcher,” Clarke replies, good-natured. “Where did you and Miller sneak off to?”
“Oh, I was feeling ill,” Monty tells her. “Miller agreed to take me home.”
“That sounds like a blatant lie, but okay,” Clarke says. “Hope you’re feeling better.”
“How was the film?”
“Oh, well we didn’t actually notice that you two hadn’t come back, until like, the end of it – but it was good. You and Miller should go and see it some time.” Monty almost catches her suggestion for what it really is, but he brushes it off.
“Yeah, Miller said we can go and see it tomorrow instead,” Monty replies. “Did you and Bellamy have fun though?”
“Loads,” Clarke replies, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “He gets really into rom-coms.”
iv
“I actually really don’t think it’s working,” Miller sighs, coming off the phone from talking to Bellamy. “They’re just oblivious to each other.” Monty nods. It’s a few weeks since they went to the cinema, and just nothing has worked to get them together.
“I don’t think they’re ever going to catch on.” They sit on the sofa next to each other, thighs pressed together even though there’s a whole extra seat Monty could shift over to. But they don’t, and Miller doesn’t seem uncomfortable, just thinking deeply about the Bellamy and Clarke situation they’d created.
“We could set them up on blind dates,” Miller says at last. “Go for, like, the number one trope.” Monty laughs.
“Do you think it would work?”
“Well they’d see how we feel about them together, and then maybe they’d at least consider it,” Miller decides. He looks over to Monty, eyebrows raised. “What do you think? Should we do it?” Monty considers it for a second before nodding.
“What do we have to lose?”
He phones up Clarke that evening, and Miller goes to their place the next day to talk to Bellamy. Both of them are sceptical at first, but Monty and Miller make the pitch work.
“You would love him,” Monty promises down the line.
“Are you sure? I don’t need to date to be happy, Mont,” she replies.
“I know that. But just meet the guy. You can be happy single, or you can be happy in a relationship – either way you’re happy and you’ve got nothing to lose.” She goes silent for a second, before relenting.
“Fine, where is this date?”
“Don’t worry,” Monty replies. “I’ll drive you there, myself.”
On the night of the date, three days later, Monty picks up Clarke at six.
“What do you think?” she asks, spinning around in her dress. It’s floral; flaring out from the hips with a wide neckline and a tight torso.
“Gorgeous,” Monty replies with a smile. She picks up her bag from the dresser.
“That’s what Bellamy said, too,” she says absently, wandering past him and out the door. Miller is to pick up Bellamy at ten to seven, because in reality, the reservation at the restaurant is at seven PM, but they didn’t want it to be too suspicious. So Monty drives around for a while, talking to Clarke and going out of town, before driving back into it.
“Where the hell are we going?” Clarke asks about twenty minutes in, as Monty doubles back on himself.
“It’s this restaurant my friend knows,” he replies.
“The friend who I’m going on a blind date with? What’s his name, again?”
“I never told you.”
“Then what is it?” She’s a little frustrated and a little annoyed and Monty shrugs.
“If I tell you then it wouldn’t be blind, would it? Do you think we should give you a blindfold too? That would just, like, epitomise the whole blind date experience.” Clarke just huffs.
“You better know where you’re going, Green,” she threatens, and Monty smiles sweetly, not a bad bone in his body.
They arrive at the restaurant on time, and Clarke frowns at him, getting out.
“Are you kidding me?” she asks. “This place is literally ten minutes from where I live?” Monty shrugs innocently.
“I got lost.” Clarke grumbles as she walks in, Monty beside her, and the man by the front desk asks for a name.
“It’s the reservation under Green,” Monty tells him. “For two.”
“Ah, yes – one has already checked in?”
“That would be right,” Monty agrees. He kisses Clarke’s cheek. “Go have fun.” The waiter shows Clarke to her table, and Monty slips down the side by the wall to watch it happen. She’s completely oblivious at first, looking for the new face sitting alone – then the man stops her by Bellamy’s table and they’re just staring at each other for a second.
She sits down, jolty and confused, and Monty shamelessly hides behind a plant as she looks around for him. He’s grinning from ear to ear as he walks back to the desk.
“I’m also here for a reservation under Miller? For two?” The man smiles, knowingly, as if he’s figured out Monty and Miller’s plan, and rolls his eyes.
“He’s already here, too,” he says, showing Monty to their table. They had a table that could watch Bellamy and Clarke, but was hidden near the back. Miller has a glass of wine in his hand when Monty arrives and they grin at each other.
“I watched her arrive,” he says as a hello, as Monty shrugs out of his jacket.
“Wasn’t it great?” Monty asks. Miller laughs.
“Yeah – I think this could be it, you know? Like we finally hit the right plan.” He glances over to their table and Monty does the same as the waiter pours out a glass of wine for him, too. Bellamy and Clarke are talking, not really smiling, staring at their menus.
“They’ll lighten up,” Monty promises. “They’re literally on a date with their soulmate.”
“I know how that goes,” Miller agrees, and when Monty turns back, his friend is already looking at him.
v
“So, we’re dating,” Bellamy announces into the room of all their friends. It’s almost packed, a good thirteen of them squeezing into Bellamy and Clarke’s living room. Bellamy’s arm is around Clarke’s waist and the group cheers, rolling their eyes like they already knew it. Monty leans back into Miller’s arms – so, the dinner at the restaurant got both couples laid, then.
“What the hell took you so long?” Octavia asks, before stuffing her burger into her mouth. Clarke shrugs.
“I don’t know, but I know what changed it.”
“What was that?” Raven asks. “Because we’ve been trying to get you guys together for years.”
“None of you were direct enough,” Bellamy replies, smiling at his girlfriend. “All you needed to do was arrange a lot of events with us, ditch us in romantic-ish situations, and eventually set us up on a blind date together.”
The laughter is almost deafening.
“Who the hell did that?” Lincoln questions.
“The other friends who live together and are now dating,” Clarke answers, shooting a pointed look to where Miller and Monty are grinning.
“Oh my God,” Octavia says. “Are you serious? You got them together?”
“It was a brilliant and well-co-ordinated plan,” Miller replies. Monty feels the heat run to his cheeks with everyone looking at them, and Clarke flops onto the sofa next to him, Bellamy coming shortly after.
“To be fair, Bell and I thought you guys were just ditching us to have sex like every one of those times,” she tells them. Monty raises his eyebrows and Miller lets out a bark of laughter.
“Yeah, so it wasn’t until you blatantly set us up on a date that we understood… apparently it wasn’t until then that you two got it together, either,” Bellamy continues. Monty looks up at Miller, who’s already smiling down at him.
“Something like that,” Miller agrees.
Later, when they leave, it’s not to leave Clarke and Bellamy alone. Well – it is, because it’s their apartment, and they’re almost definitely going to be having sex once everyone’s left, but this time Miller and Monty leave so they can make out in the confines of their own apartment.
Miller slams Monty up against the back of the door, the second it’s closed, his lips hungry. Their kiss is blinding; rough and quick, Miller’s tongue roaming Monty’s mouth, and his hands working the zip on his jeans. Monty runs his hands over Miller’s body, searching and plotting each expanse of skin so he can learn it by memory.
“God,” Miller breathes into his mouth. “We should have just been doing this when we ditched them each time.” Monty laughs, but it turns strangled as Miller sucks on his pulse point, before soothing his tongue across the area.
“Live and learn, right?”