4. Luke

Luke had spent the past three hours wishing desperately for a drink. Between the new account he had landed and various other projects he was involved in, he was working longer hours than he ever had. Sheila, his new boss, had come over to his desk that afternoon and informed him that if he didn’t take the afternoon off she was going to demote him again.

“It’s not healthy to work this hard, not for so long.”

“But I’m almost finished!”

“And it’ll stay almost finished until you actually finish it tomorrow. Now shoo!”

Edo, the marvellous bastard, was waiting for him with a drink when he got to the Old Boot.

“Do I even want to know?” Asked Luke, sitting down.

“You doubt me, amigo? It's an After Work Special.”

He tasted it. It seemed to mostly be amaretto and coconut rum. He had to smile at that.

“I thought you might like it. So, I hear you've got a hot date on Thursday.”

“Yeah,” Luke shrugged his jacket off, “I do. Hottest guy you've ever met.”

“I resent that,” said Edo, slicking his hair back with a hand, “I am the hottest guy I've ever met.”

Luke laughed and settled into his drink, “Any chance of food?”

“Of course, chaval. Chips?”

“Yeah, I guess. Just so I don't drink on an empty stomach.”

Edo wandered into the kitchen and came back out with a bowl and a fork.
“Thanks, mate.”

They chatted for a bit until Edo leant over the counter with a serious expression on his face.

“I need to know what your intentions are with Nick. Is this just a date, like a fling, or the beginning of a relationship?”

Luke blinked, confused, “Well, err, it's just a first date. If we get along well, which we will, there will probably be more.”

“Because Nick is a great guy. Promise me you'll be good to him.”

“So you've said. I agree, I promise. What are you, the relationship police? You and some other bartender from the Epiphany seem really protective of Nick.”

Edo shrugged, “He needs someone to look out for him.”

Luke tilted his head, “He's a grown man.”
“Yeah, well. He's had a bit of a difficult life.”

“Which I will find out if and when he tells me. Are all of you this protective?”

Edo looked him in the eye, “We take care of our own.”

Luke nodded and got up, putting his jacket back on, “Thanks for the advice. He's lucky to have you all looking out for him, but I think I'd go nuts if you did this for everyone I tried to date.”

Edo shrugged at him as he went over to deal with another customer, “It's only for the people I think might stay long enough.”

Luke considered this as he finished his chips. Long enough to what?

Thursday dawned soon enough and Luke spent the day itching to text Nick to confirm it really was that evening. He texted Lucas instead, who told him to stop being so jittery and go forth to get his man. The prick.

Thanks, Lucas, useful advice.

A pleasure. I live to serve, you know that.

They met outside a little café just off Covent Garden, the sort of place that even Google Maps rather doubted the existence of.

Luke turned up slightly late, thanks to one of his colleagues wanting to go over something at the last minute.
But there Nick was, hair looking slightly dishevelled, as though he had been running his hands through it all day, in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt, holding a light jacket under one arm. He was leaning against a wall, hands in his pockets and looking to his left, messenger bag at his feet.
He turned to the front as Luke walked towards him and he grinned.

“Hey!”

“Hi,” he smiled back, stopping in front of him, “how was your day?”

Nick shrugged, picking up his bag, “Busy, but good. Yours?”

“It involved a lot more moving of furniture than I'm used to – new office space, I’ll explain late – but good, yeah. So, where are we going?”

“That depends,” he said, grabbing his bag off the floor, “on how hungry you are.”

 “Not yet. I don't ever really feel like food until after 8, but I'll eat whenever you're ready to.”

They walked a bit and turned into a street Luke hadn't noticed.

“Excellent,” said Nick, “I'm like that too. We could go for a drink first, somewhere?”

Luke nodded and they headed off.

“So what do you do?” he asked, “Other than working at the Epiphany, I mean.”

Nick moved his bag from one shoulder to the other, “I'm a PhD student at Imperial.”

Luke blinked, “Seriously?”

“Afraid so.”

“Wow. That's very impressive. PhD in what?”

“Astrophysics.”

“Ok, well. That officially makes you about 10 times smarter than me,” said Luke, putting on a serious face, “I feel very intimidated right now.”

Nick bumped his shoulder, smiling at him, “Says the guy who just got a promotion to being team leader in marketing!”

“Edo?”

“Yes. His last drink to me was called a Butt Chat, so he could sit me down and tell me all about your job. And make sure we were still on for tonight.”

Luke groaned, “The man needs a hobby.”

“I think this is his hobby.”

“Well, bollocks. We're never going to get rid of him, are we?”

Nick shook his head in mock pity, “Probably not.”

They reached a street that Luke vaguely recognised.

“I think there's a café around here somewhere that I used to go to when I was doing my MA.”
He looked around, memory slightly hazy.

Nick pointed towards a sign on the other side of the street, “That one, maybe? It looks like it's full of pretentious people in suits, so that'll be about right.”

Luke put a hand to his chest, feigning indignant, “That's horrible, Nick, it hurts.”

“Aww,” he said, reaching for Luke's hand, “I'm sorry. I'll buy you your drink to make it up to you.”

Luke let himself be led into the café, smiling at the simple fact that he was holding hands.

They sat in a corner and chatted about Luke's job and Nick's research and where they had gone to university until Nick mentioned coming to the UK for the first time.

“Alright, I have to ask - where are you from?”

Nick smiled at him over the rim of his glass, “Guess.”

Luke sat back and thought about it, “You're from the Mediterranean somewhere, but your English is amazing. Your accent is only there in certain words, you're more British than Edo.”

Nick nodded at him, “You're right. I'm Italian, from Southern Italy, but my Dad's English. I have good English, and it got better once I moved over here, but my accent is probably going to stick around forever, considering how little English I did at school.”

“Still, it got you into Imperial.”

“No,” he said, dimple appearing in one cheek, “my mad set of physics skills did that.”

When they started getting hungry Nick paid for their drinks, took his hand again and pointed them in the direction of a Lebanese restaurant he said was amazing.
Luke enjoyed their amble there, their easy flirting and casual conversation.
Talking to Nick was easy.

They reached the Lebanese place and chose a table by a palm tree in a pot. The restaurant was absolutely tiny, tucked away in a side street, but it served delicious food.
When asked what was good, Nick couldn't decide, so the waitress went to talk to someone  then said she would bring them small portions of whatever the kitchens recommended.

She smiled at them and came back not long after with small glasses of anise-flavoured liqueur.

“It's Arak,” she explained, “it's traditional. Your meals will be with you shortly.”

They talked about Edo and his meddling habits some more.

Luke told Nick about walking around with the hickey on his neck – including a meeting with his superior.

Nick laughed and laughed, open and honest and loud, then shared his own story.

“I know exactly what you mean, though. Not only did I have a meeting with Dr Clements, my supervisor, but I had to do bodyshots at the Epiphany the next night, with a slag tag on my shoulder!”

Luke choked on a bite of his makdous, “Slag tag?”

“Yep.” At Luke's confused look, he explained, “Hickey. Love bite?”

“I hadn't ever heard it described that before.”

“It's what all the kids are calling it nowadays.”

“When you get like that, I get the feeling you're mocking me. Why do I get that feeling, Nick?”

“Probably because I'm mocking you, old man,” He laughed.

“Hey, I'm not that much older than you. How old are you?”

“28.”

“32,” he countered, “See? Not that much older.”

Their conversation made its way gently into music, then TV shows.

“Don’t even get me started on the Big Bang Theory!”

“Are they not an accurate representation?”

“Funny,” said Nick, raising an eyebrow, “But no. And shows with forensics? It’s like the writers don’t even do their research! I mean, hey, I'm all for the willing suspension of disbelief, but sometimes the science is just plain wrong.”

Luke found himself staring at Nick as he ranted. When he was passionate about something his eyes lit up, he smiled, it was a good look for him. A really good look.

 “Zoned out, did we?”
Nick’s mouth was curled in an amused smirk.

“Sorry,” said Luke, unabashedly unrepentant, “your lips are very distracting.”

Nick licked them, Luke thought, just to watch his eyes track the movement.

They spent a long time in that restaurant, just talking. After sharing their food, dessert and a couple of coffees and their favourite types of films with each other (which led to a long and convoluted discussion about the Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings films because “I can't believe they left out so many good details – what about the Giant Squid?!”) they decided to go for a wander around Covent Garden.

A band was playing a song that Luke had heard before, but couldn't quite place until Nick started humming along in tune.

“How do you know that song?”

“Imperial is next to the Royal College of Music. One of my best friends went there and she did this as her performance piece in her final year.”

“Your friends sound like an amazing lot. Which means I have to ask – how did you meet Edo?”

“But that’s boring,” said Nick, following a large lady's pink silhouette through the square, “because we met at work.”

“There's got to be an interesting story, though, it's Edo!”

Nick shrugged, “We were introduced when I started working there, that's it. Linda, who was manager at the time, made all the bartenders who were going to work my shifts come in and introduce themselves. Edo was normal that day. Never again, but that day he was fine. I sense that your story is better than that.”

“Yeah, well. Some madman on the tube waved a bottle of hairspray paint at me and offered to dye my hair blue. I declined, and then later met him in the pub, where he served me my drink and told me I would have looked good with blue highlights.”

Nick looked at him thoughtfully then gently traced the edge of his jawline until he reached his hair, tugging on the ends slightly.

“Just for the record – I don't think he was wrong, blue would suit you. But please don't dye your hair.”

The band finished playing, and Nick let go of his hair to applaud them. Luke tried to squash that little niggle of disappointment that bubbled up when Nick's fingers slipped free.

They stayed to watch a few more songs, then wandered around the square and got stuck in a crowd of people watching a comedian marketing himself as a “magician” attempt to turn a child invisible and fail spectacularly, in a flash of bright green.

They went back inside to find a girl of university age singing her operatic heart out.

Nick leant on the railing to watch her more closely, “Did you know that most of the people who play here do it for practise, not money? The Royal College sends their students here so they can develop an ear for public performance.”

“I didn't know that.”

A woman with a large smile and a charity collection bucket was selling cupcakes.

Luke bought them one each, getting a simple vanilla one with a chocolate icing on it for himself while Nick chose his own. The woman gave them a smile each when Luke put some change into the bucket.

They sat on a low wall before unwrapping their goodies. Luke took a couple of bites of his cupcake (good, but not amazing) and offered the other half to Nick, who finished it with a smile before taking a bite of his own.

“Oh my God,” he said, pushing it towards Luke, “You have to try this.”

It looked like another vanilla cupcake, but once Luke bit into it he could see why Nick was still licking the taste from his lips. It was lemon, with the tiniest hint of the sweetness of lemon curd and bitterness from the rind, but what really brought it together was the unexpected sharpness of the icing on top. His eyes closed so he could see yellow and white sparks on the back of his eyelids.

He let out a sigh and opened his eyes to find Nick staring at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he smiled, eyes soft, “nothing at all.”
He kissed him on the cheek, nothing but a small token of affection.

They stayed on that wall, relishing in the taste of lemon until it melted away, as the sky melted from the bright blue of day to the quiet reds and purples of dusk.
Luke couldn't stop smiling.

Nick took him by the hand and they slowly made their way to the underground station, putting off the end of the date, knowing they both had places to be early the next day.

In that slow way that evening has, it surrounded them with the lights of a city blinking its way sleepily into life.

The station wasn't quite as full as usual, which meant they could say goodnight inside.

“My flat is on a different line to yours,” said Nick, “so this is where I say goodbye.”

Luke leaned in slightly, “Well, I guess this is where I say I had a really nice night and I hope we can do this again.”

Nick reached up to place hand behind his head, “I'm really glad you texted,” and kissed him.

Luke smiled against Nick's lips.

When they separated for air, he said, “I'm really glad you decided you'd be seeing me around.”

Nick blushed, biting his lip.
“I meant that in a good way,” Luke clarified, “because I think you're great.”

There was that shy smile again, “I think you're great too.”

“Do you want to go out again sometime? Next week?”

“I would love to. But I don't know what next week is going to be like yet. Text me?”

“I will. Right, I really have to go, but I'll text you tomorrow, ok?”

“Ok,” Nick gave him another quick, completely unsatisfying peck, “Tomorrow.”
Luke grinned at him and began to walk away, “Bye then.”

“Wait!”
When he looked back, Nick was running a hand through his hair,

 “So.”

Luke took the few steps back slowly, confused, but Nick took hand, “Yeah?”

“Do you want to, err,” he coughed, obviously giving himself time to figure out the words, fiddling with Luke’s fingers, “do you want to go back your place?”

He bit his lip, as though he couldn't believe he had just said that.

Luke took a deep breath and let it out slowly.