Chapter Text
I moved to London about a year ago. This building I live in is not really an apartment and it’s also not a townhouse, it’s a weird mixture of the two. I love this building, I love the plainness of it, I love the fact it’s new but not too new, just the right amount of new, you know? But there are two things that I hate about this flat. 1 is the ungodly amount of fucking stairs that I have to climb to not only get to my door but then the three more flights inside my flat. And 2, the fact that my cat always finds a way onto the fire escape and into my neighbor’s. That doesn’t seem like an issue, but when the neighbor has about a million plants on his fire escape and my cat has a weird obsession with eating greenery, it’s a problem.
I think the guy living below me has been here for a few months more than I have, seeing as he has such a magnificent garden. Every now and then I hear him outside singing or even talking to his plants. I mean it’s not that weird, if I can hear him doing that he probably hears me talking to Melisandre, my cat. He’s not the best singer, per se, but I do find myself lip syncing to his weird song choices. Just yesterday he was singing Chandelier by Sia, and let me tell you, it was bad. But I sat in the kitchen and just listened to him on the fire escape until he finished. And when he was done, Melisandre decided to go outside and say hi. And by saying hi I mean she started to nibble on the plant I like to call the spider plant (I call it that because it has all these long green leaves that look like spider legs). Which then followed with the nice neighbor boy yelling “HEY STOP BITING THOR!! What has he ever done to you?” in the most high pitched northern voice I’ve ever heard.
I rushed to the door, stepped onto the fire escape and replied “Melisandre leave the plants alone! For fuck sake!” I swoop down and grab her and shoot an awkward smile across to the stranger. He’s not what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting to be honest. He’s about my height, his hair is oddly like mine just about a billion shades darker, so dark I don’t think it’s his natural color. It’s definitely not his real color, seeing as his eyebrows are like a light auburn. He’d probably be a cute ginger, he has the palest skin I’ve ever seen but it compliments his cute freckles and his striking blue eyes… Wow I’ve been staring at him for too long, I should probably speak, he must think I’m the strangest man alive.
“Sorry about her, she likes to chew on things.” I finally say, still awkwardly smiling at him.
He’s smiling back now, “it’s alright.” He laughs. It’s the cutest thing I have ever witnessed. His eyes get all crinkly and he sticks his tongue out a bit. I can’t help but smile a bit bigger. “I’m Dan, by the way. As you probably guessed, this is Melisandre.” I say gesturing to the black cat cradled in my arms.
He’s still smiling when he says, “I’m Phil, and if I introduced you to all my plants we’d be here all day.” We both start to laugh. He’s cuter than I imagined he would be.
Before I can even think about how I should avoid embarrassing myself, my mouth opens and that’s when I say, “how about you come over for dinner and you can tell me their names then.” There is an awkward pause, my mouth opens again, “I mean as a way to say sorry for my cat always eating your plants.”
The awkward smile is back. But Phil’s doing the cute tongue thing again and he nods and says, “Sure, let me just clean up and I’ll be over in a few.” We smile, turning away from each other and into our own flats.
Shit. Shitshitshit. I don’t know why the fuck I just did that. I was only going to make spaghetti for dinner. Thank god I cleaned my lounge today. Fuck I don’t have any placemats… What if he hates pasta? Oh god what have I done? “Melisandre, what are we going to do?” I try to keep my voice downs so Phil doesn’t hear me freaking out.
I haven’t had a boy, or even a girl, over since… well since I moved in here. I don’t really have the best luck with relationships. I broke up with my last girlfriend when I was 17. I like to say we broke up because of university and that we weren’t going to be seeing each other a lot. But really she left me because I was trying to figure out who I was and she was afraid I was gay. Who knows, after seeing this Phil guy, maybe I could be. I’m suddenly smiling like a dork sitting on my kitchen floor, thinking about my cute neighbor. And then there’s a knock at the door. Melisandre is running past me on our way to answer it.
He cleans up very well, let me tell you. “I didn’t know if this was a date or just a friendly thing so I wore this.” he’s rambling. “It’s not dressy but not too casual, you see cause it’s a button up, but it has short sleeves.” He’s smiling again, his tongue shooting out to the left side, and his cheeks are starting to turn a beautiful rosy color that compliments his eyes. We’re still standing in the doorway.
“You look very nice.” Great now I’m blushing. “I never had a chance to change, here come on in.” I wave my arm out towards the hallway in an attempt to draw him in. Thank god I went out today and I’m looking semi-good looking, “I’ve kind of been panicking about not having anything other than pasta in the house. I didn’t think I’d be asking someone over today, or ever in that matter.” Great, now I’m rambling.
We’re walking now, showing him the way to my lounge, up a flight of those fucking stairs. When Phil suddenly says, “you know, I wouldn’t be opposed to ordering a pizza and watching a movie?” I stop walking, and turn to him, “That sounds like a perfect idea, let me grab my laptop. You can make yourself comfortable.” Again, I’m gesturing with my arms to one of my many chairs in the lounge, he looks around and I take the opportunity to slip out and rush to my room.
I’m back in the lounge in a minute, and I find Phil on my couch with Melisandre. It’s possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. I stop staring and take a seat next to Phil on the couch. We just look at each other for a second. Then he’s back to petting the cat and making cute faces at her.
Once the pizza app is loaded we then have to decide on what to get. “So I really like meatfest! Wow that sounded dirty, I’m so sorry.” We’re laughing again. I want to make him laugh for the rest of his life, it’s so cute.
Phil’s response is soft, “I like it too. Do you want to share a large or get two personal pizza's?”
“We can share, I don’t mind.” He stares at me with the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m doomed. I send the order in and pay online, Phil offers to cover the tip but I tell him I’ll be paying everything today as it was my cat who keeps fucking up his garden. I close my laptop and set it on the coffee table. The room is silent, we’re just sitting there for a minute. Phil’s the first one to speak.
“So, what’s your story?” his head tilts slightly as he asks the question.
I ponder the question, what is my story? Phil’s looking at me very softly, waiting for an answer. “Well.” I begin, “I’m originally from Redding, I moved to London last year after I dropped out of Uni. I was going to be a lawyer, but I decided I wasn’t into it after 3 years. My parents weren’t too happy about that, but I have dreams of becoming an actor and I want to do what makes me happy, you know?” Phil’s listening to me so intently, he nods, “so I’ve been making YouTube videos and doing the odd radio event with the BBC, as a way to make money as I go to auditions. What’s your story?”
Phil doesn’t take so long to answer, “I work for the BBC as well! How have we never ran into each other?” We're smiling and looking dumbfounded as we take in this new information.
I shrug, “I have no idea, are you a radio presenter as well?” I ask.
“No!” he shouts while sitting up and turning to me, he’s like and excited puppy. “I’m actually a meteorologist, I do the weather on the late night news. I actually went to York University and did a degree in English Language and Linguistics, I have a master’s degree in post-production specializing in special effects as well, but I didn’t know what to do with that, so I went back and did my Bachelors in Science and an undergrad in Meteorology.”
Holy shit he’s the smartest man alive. “You’re kidding right?” I spit out, completely shocked. “You’re some kind of genius! I couldn’t even make it through 1 degree at Uni, what’s that, like 8 years of school? How old are you?” still in shock, I leave my mouth open after asking.
“Yeah 8 years of school, it’s crazy. I’m 29, I’ve only just started working this year.” He pauses, the doorbell rings and Phil is running to the door in an attempt to pay the tip before I get a chance.
He succeeds. I'm standing behind him at the door, when he closes it and turns to me laughing with his cute tongue sticking out. “You’re lucky you’re cute.” I say without a second thought. I grab the pizza from Phil’s hands and power walk back to the lounge. I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up bad. I can hear Phil giggling as he tries to catch up to me.
Placing the pizza down on the table, I realize I haven’t brought any plates or kitchen roll out to the lounge. This means I’m going to have to walk past him in the hall to go back to the kitchen. Oh well. He would have left if he didn’t like the compliment. So I turn around and start for the kitchen.
He’s still laughing, and it’s contagious. I can’t help but giggle as I try to pass him. He follows me into the kitchen and offers to help carry some things into the lounge, I hand him two glasses and the kitchen roll and I follow with the plates. He sits down at the table, he picks the blue chair. I figured he was a blue chair kind of guy. Me on the other hand, I pick the black chair.
“So, you mentioned YouTube, what’s that like?” Phil speaks while reaching to open the pizza box.
“It’s actually really great,” I pause to snag a piece of pizza from the box. “I’ve been doing this YouTube thing for about 7 years now and it’s a lot of fun.” I stuff a bite of pizza in my mouth, almost forgetting that I should be trying to impress this boy, not scare him off acting like an animal.
Phil’s chewing, he places a hand in front of his mouth before speaking with his mouth full. “How many subscribers do you have?” his words are muffled by the amount of food in his mouth. It makes me smile.
Nonchalantly, I look Phil dead in the face as he takes a bite and say “oh, just over 6 million.” He almost chokes. Setting the slice down he looks at me, confused and head tilted.
It takes him a minute to reply, I’m just smiling to myself as he says, “dude?!” and then he mocks me, “’just 6 million’ what the heck? That’s so cool! I’m having dinner with a celebrity! A cute one at that!”
My god, if I don’t stop blushing I’ll probably end up staying this color. “Thank you” my voice is nervous, and shy. I can’t help but stare down at my food and just smile, “I don’t know how I did it.”
I can feel Phil staring at me, he takes a breath before saying, “Maybe it’s cause you’re extremely cute. Or the fact that even though I’ve just met you, I want to talk to you for the rest of my life, or the fact that you have the kindest eyes I’ve ever looked into. Maybe everyone else feels the same?”
Then there is silence, we’re just staring at each other. He’s beautiful. I’ve never looked at a person with so much intent in my whole life. I feel as though I’ve known him forever. I want to know him forever.
It takes me a minute to speak, and when I do it’s a very light tone, I just look at him and say, “Are you done with your plate?” and reach out for it, he hands it to me and I’m off to the kitchen again. Oh my god, why am I such a dork! ‘Are you done with your plate?’ oh god kill me!
I stay in the kitchen for a minute, I need to calm down. I’ve just met this guy, how can I be so effected by him? As I’m pacing in the kitchen I don’t see him standing in the doorway, staring at me with the cute smile again. I want to kiss his stupid face.
“I still think you’re cute even when you’re freaking out.” Phil’s soft voice calms me down a bit. And that’s when it happens.
Somehow I’m kissing him, my lips are pressed against his. They are soft and warm, unlike my chapped, dry ones. I’ve missed being kissed, I love the feeling. I love the softness, I love the butterflies in my stomach, I love being close to another person.
Just as fast as it started, it’s over. My eyes are still closed. My breathing is heavy and I’m desperate for more.
“I have to be at work for 11.” Phil whispers, lips still close to mine. He steps back a bit and says, “Can I come by and see you tomorrow? Dinner can be my treat this time.”
Looking into his beautiful blue eyes, I smile, “I’d love that.”
Grabbing his hand and walking him to the door, the dumbest smile plastered on my face. “I’m really glad my cat is always chewing on your plants, it’s given me the best excuse to come talk to the guy who’s always singing outside my fire escape.” I say with a cheeky smile.
Phil is bright red when he says, “oh god, don’t tell me you hear that every day?” and we’re both hysterically laughing.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Maybe next time I’ll join in.” and with that, I’m giving him one last kiss. He walks to his apartment, opens the door, turns and waves.
I can’t wait till tomorrow.