14. Luke

Luke woke up early, squinting at the weak winter sunlight trying to creep into the bedroom.

That was not on. They deserved at least another six hours of sleep.

He stumbled out of bed and almost collapsed onto the floor. His legs shook and protested as he caught himself on the bedside table, every muscle aching, but his thighs burned like fire. He had to stretch three times before he could stand up properly.

He almost stepped on the lube before kicking it out of the way – ow, ow, ouch – shut the curtains, went to the bathroom and crawled back under the covers, yawning.

Nick was curled up on his side and had a hand in the warm spot Luke had left when he had moved, but that was the only sign he had noticed Luke had gotten up.

He was thoroughly worn out.

Luke raised Nick’s arm, slid under it while his entire back protested loudly and arranged himself closer to the human heat dispenser, which soothed both muscle and soul (shut up, he was allowed to be sappy on mornings like these), dropping an absent kiss to the closest piece of skin.

The tie shimmered in the corner of his eye, still tied to the headboard.

January rolled merrily along.

Work went well. He had come out to his colleagues at the office Christmas party and lo and behold, all of his worrying had been for naught, as his immediate colleagues didn’t care one way or the other. Nobody came up to him to inform he was making bad homosexual life choices by having a boyfriend and, in fact, Elisabeth and Robbie had rolled their eyes at him back at the office party and said that yes, of course he was in love, did he really think they were stupid enough to believe that this “just a friend” he had been texting wasn’t his boyfriend? Amateur. His lack of subtletly was astonishing. Then again, Robbie had rectified, they were all in marketing. Subtle wasn’t exactly fashionable in the industry.

Still, the wary glances he was getting from some members of the other departments were rather uncomfortable. It was his sexuality and his private life, so not really something that people could air grievances to at work, but if he sent Morgane to deal with the other departments from then on, well. She was their liason, after all.

Nick had dived head first into his PhD, feeling like he was getting close to completing his thesis, texting him often but mostly staying at his own place, where all of his research notes were.

January soon turned into February and the weather went from cold to bloody freezing.

He wrapped up in an extra layer and actually wore gloves, despite hating the feeling. It was too cold not to.

Work got harder, clients more demanding than they had any right to be, asking for things that they just couldn’t do on such short notice. But he did his job, even if he was so busy that he sometimes forgot to eat.

Nick called early one Friday evening as he was making dinner and pretending to listen to the news on television.

“Hang on, just need to mute the TV!”

The remote was hiding down the side of the sofa.

Nick hummed to himself under his breath, something slow and familiar.

“You’re not on hold,” protested Luke, holding the phone between should and ear, digging down deep, “I’m just trying to find the re- ah!”

He muted the news in the middle of run-on a sentence by the annoying voiceover woman with the whiny voice. You know the one.

“Success!”

“Well done.”

“Sarcasm isn’t your colour, darling.”

Nick snorted.

“Come shopping with me tomorrow? I need to find a present for JT, it's his birthday soon. Help, please?”

He grinned, heading back to the kitchen, although Nick wouldn’t be able to see it over the phone, “Yeah, absolutely. Are you coming over tonight?”

“Not tonight,” he sighed, “I’ve got to go to the Epiphany, Bo’s got the flu and the new girl doesn’t start until next week. But I’ll see you at Sheperd’s Bush tomorrow at 9?”

“Absolutely. See you then.”

There was a moment of pause over the phone as Nick hesitated. Luke added pepper to his pot.

“Ok. See you tomorrow.”

“See you soon. Have a good night!”

Another pause before the click. Odd.

The sauce on the stove bubbled violently. Right, dinner.

Where had he put the remote down again?

They met up earlier than anyone should on a Saturday.

Nick had wrapped up as much as he could. His coat was almost bulging, the zip strained and his scarf was wrapped three times around his neck.
He rubbed his hands together, shivering, “First stop, Starbucks.”

Luke couldn’t resist teasing, “I thought you said it wasn’t real coffee?”

Nick gave him a flat look, blowing on his fingers, and already moving towards the shops, “It’s not amazing, but I want their hot chocolate. Warmth. That’s all I need!”

Clearly this was an emergency. A coffee and a hot chocolate later, they sat down.

“So,” said Luke, taking off his gloves, “What’s with the heat emergency?”

“The heating in our flat is broken,” explained Nick, wrapping both hands around the cardboard mug with a happy sigh, “and the landlord said it's going to take 3 weeks to bring back. Something happened with the main boiler as well as with the one in our flat, so it's going to take longer than he originally thought. JT has friends with a spare room, but it’s on the opposite side of London from where I need to be, so I’ve just been wearing all my clothes at once.”

Two hours later, in the shopping centre, after stopping in four different shops to look at presents, popping into Boots and spending too much time looking at books, Luke found himself having a copy of the key made and giving it to Nick. A novel development, considering he couldn't recall thinking the action through.

“Just for now,” he said, surprised to hear his own voice coming out of his mouth, “and if you want to stay afterwards, then we might just be able to work something out.”

Nick tasted like chocolate and sweet whipped cream when he kissed him.

Turns out that Nick used that key more responsibly than Mitch and Tash did.

By the time they got back from Westfield, the terrible twosome had invaded the flat and made the whole top floor smell like lunch, making the bear formerly known as his stomach roar to life.

“You know,” said Luke, hanging up his coat, “If you wanted me to have lunch with you, you could have just called. I’m always happy to come over to yours.”

“We know,” said Mitch, bringing them through a glass of wine each, “But this is a lot more fun!”

“It’s like B and E,” called Tash from the kitchen, “Only with less police involvement and more delicious food.”

“I love your friends,” said Nick, sniffing the air, “What is it?”

Tash grinned at them as they came through into the kitchen.

“Monsieurs, we have pasta à la Mitch and Tash.”

Nick bumped his shoulder to Luke’s, “Does it contain vodka?”

“Actually,” said Mitch, playing with his glass, “it does.”

Luke shrugged out of his jacket, “Has it been one of those weeks?”

“God yes,” said Tash, happily, “Fuck everyone.”

Tash currently worked in a physical therapist's office as an assistant therapist, in a practise that compared unfavourably the worst days of her placement in hospitals. And this was a woman who had worked 16-hour shifts on a regular basis before.

She told them at length about her colleagues (“bastards, the whole lot of them – I don't know what the hell they're doing in my line of work, we're supposed to be helping people, not hindering their recovery time”) and the reason she was currently less than ecstatic (“the bastards ruined a poor man's life by tearing down his confidence. He left in tears, tears, Luke. Who even does that to a person?”).
Luke gave her a one-armed hug, kissing the top of her head, “Oh, Tash, love, it will be ok.”

“I know,” she said, cheerfully, “this job is only temporary, one day I shall own my practise and be able to help people and fire anyone whose behaviour is half as terrible as that of the people I work with right now.”

Nick nodded along, pouring her another glass of wine, “That sounds like a plan.”

“Four years,” she said, putting down the serving bowl in the middle of the table and making a ‘help yourselves’ gesture, “I can do it all in four years.”

“Ambition,” Nick considered that, swirling the wine glass, “I like that in a woman.”

Mitch cuffed him on the back of the head on his way past, “Ambition is good. Only thing that’ll get you anywhere in this sort of economy.”

Tash came back in, bottle clutched in her hands, “Which is why we have vodka. Vodka makes everything better.”

That was the last properly social day he had for weeks.

Work sucked.

Work sucked serious balls.

While the clients had agreed to everything in the end, it had taken forever and stupid quantities of overtime from the entire team. The issue? The moment their signature had dried on the final papers, everything that was supposed to happen had to happen, immediately if not sooner. Work took over even more of Luke's life, leaving him little time to sleep, let alone see Nick.

“I actually think they're trying to kill me,” he complained one night over the phone, on his way back home at 10 at night before a 5am start the next day, “It's as though Elliott & Chambers didn't have enough deaths or stress-related incidents to fill their quota and they've decided I'm the best possible candidate.”

Sheila, his direct superior, had him working three times as hard as normal, making him check and double check his steps. It was his team’s first project together and it needed to pass the test with flying colours.

Good luck with today’s presentation! Text me when it’s over. You know you’ll be great.

Thank you! Have a good day. J

Sheila made him work through his lunch breaks, giving presentations and having business lunches with execs he needed to impress. He understood that she needed him to succeed – she had put herself on the line by recommending his promotion – and he was grateful to her for everything she had done for him, but he was exhausted.

Got an evening off?

Not even close. I’m so sorry, I’ve got a dinner with the boss tonight.

That’s ok, I’ll speak to you soon. Keep up the good work!

Nick, though, was amazing.

Luke’s workload had let up a bit, but by the time he got home, Nick was generally in bed. He would always leave some food for him to scarf down before collapsing into bed next to him, enough to take some to the office the next day as well, and kept up regular contact. Nick had thrown himself into shifts at the Epiphany, stating that if he couldn’t have Luke he might as well have the money, and the pleasure of seeing his friends while he was there.

He didn’t want to compare Nick and Sofia, because they were very different people and he had been a different person with her too, but Nick understood that he was too busy to even breathe at times.  Sofia would have made him feel guilty. That wasn’t to say he didn’t feel guilty, but it was because he was a decent human being rather than because his partner whined about being left alone at night.

Nick didn’t complain. He texted, he called, he left silly notes on the fridge and not once told Luke, despite definitely having the right to it, that he was neglecting his boyfriendly duties and letting work take over his life like an asshole. Like the city boy he had become.

But he had to. The minute work let up, he was going to spend three days in bed with Nick, not just being intimate – although yes, being intimate, obviously, Nick was fucking gorgeous and Luke had been deprived of that for far too long – but just being together, listening to Nick talk about his research or the people at the Epiphany, cuddling up in front of one of those awful sci-fi films Nick loved so much and eating takeaway.

He felt cheated by the fact that work had taken up so much of his time that he couldn’t enjoy Nick living in his flat. That was one of his favourite parts of relationships, people edging their way into each other’s space, the meshing of ideas and items, how the furniture got rearranged when the other had the great idea to change the sofa and armchair around, the background noise of someone living with you, the feeling of not being alone.

He wanted that. He had it. He just wasn’t around enough to appreciate it.

Work didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon.

So when, one afternoon, Phyllis walked up to his desk with a motherly smile and said, “There's a man waiting for you outside the office, sir. He said his name is Nick,” Luke blinked the tiredness out of his eyes and needed much too long to actually register what had been said.

“I’ve told you to stop calling me ‘sir’, Phyllis, it’s just – did you say Nick?”

Elisabeth walked in, fanning herself with a folder from Legal, “Who ordered the hunk of beef?”

Luke stood up, letting warmth settle in his stomach, “I think you've been working with Robbie too long. He's here for me.”

“Go get him, Boss!” She joked.

He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows as best he could.

Her giggling only cut off when he shut the door behind him.

“Hi,” said Nick, smiling shyly – shyly! – at him, “Hope I'm not interrupting.”

Luke smiled back, gestured him in, tempted to kiss him. But no – professional conduct.

“No, I just going through my e-mails. What are you doing here?”

“You haven't really been eating properly, so I thought I'd take you to lunch.”

“Alright then. I've just got to grab my jacket and then we can go,” he opened the door into the office again, “feel free to come in with me.”

Nick stepped into the office behind him and Luke caught sight of Elisabeth, leaning across Robbie to grab something, glancing over to them and blushing slightly.

Nick took a long look around, making appreciative noises, “So, this is where you work. Nothing like the fancy machines in the Physics department.”

“No, nothing like that,” Luke said, pointing at a projector, “but we've got the best Power Points in the whole of London.”

“And a really good view over the rest of the city,” admired Nick, stopping in front of their big window, “That's cool.”

Luke picked up his jacket, checked to make sure he had his wallet and his phone, smiled at his colleagues and started ushering Nick out.

Robbie called out, “Wait, hang on a sec, Boss, no introductions?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. Robbie smirked.

Nick turned towards Robbie, bright eyed and doing that charming thing he did, “Hello, I'm Nick.”

Elisabeth let out a gasp. Damn it, Elisabeth. He was just… Luke’s boyfriend, who they had all heard of but hadn’t been introduced to before and who they had all announced their support for when he had come out to them.

Oh.

Robbie swaggered over and stuck a hand out, grinning, “Robbie, pleased to meet you.”

He smiled back, “Likewise.”

Elisabeth came over, then James, followed by Fiona and Morgane, each wanting to introduce themselves to the new guy. To the boss’ boyfriend.

Robbie came to stand next to Luke, who was still looking doubtful.

“It's ok, man, he's cool. Breathe, dude.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“If you’re not careful, Liz might steal him from you.”

Elisabeth was chatting with Nick, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and blushing slightly.

“Nah,” said Luke, watching the interaction, “I think she just thinks he’s nice to look at. What can I say, she’s right.”

Robbie laughed, “You going out to lunch?”

“Yep.”

“Awesome. Hey, take the afternoon off. None of us had time for a Valentine’s dinner, or, you know, sleep since January, take some time just for the two of you.”

Elisabeth looked over and seemed to have some sort of silent exchange with Robbie.

“Yeah, Boss, we've got it covered.”

Morgane looked over, “But only if I get the day off on Thursday next week.”

Luke looked between the two of them, “I sense that you two are going to be difficult in the future.”

Nick laughed at something James said.

“I don't see why,” said Elisabeth, shrugging him away with a mischievous smile, “go. Have fun.”

Nick looked over and grinned at him.

“I can do that. Alright, folks, lunch break. I've been given the afternoon off, so feel free to do the same – it's been a long month already and we all deserve a break. Especially James, as he worked non-stop on buttering up the accountants in their firm. Well done!”

He took advantage of the spontaneous round of applause to get himself and Nick out of the room.

“They know you're bi?”

“Yeah,” Luke shrugged his jacket and coat on, “It's my life, and they are in it now, no matter in how professional a capacity, and we all deserved to be honest with each other.”

“Ok.” Nick seemed alright with that. He bumped their shoulders together, putting on gloves, “Good for you.”

“Thanks.”

Nick gave a brief squeeze to his wrist.

Luke couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

They stepped out of the office and the skies opened.

“Well,” said Nick, putting a hand out to check how heavy the rain was, “thank you, London.”

“It's all good. We'll just have to run,” Luke grinned, “see that restaurant down the road, the one that's being renovated?”

“Yeah?”

“Race you to it.”

He tore down the road, grinning as he heard Nick's laughter behind him.

The rain came down thick and fast, drenching him. It was way too cold to just be normal rain, but he had to win.

“Cheater!”

He stopped under the restaurant's covering, at a blank part of the cement wall, newly repainted grey. It would soon be covered in graffiti again, but he couldn't blame the owners for trying to make it look neat.

“You cheated!” Cried Nick, skidding to a halt in front of him, sopping wet, hair curling around his ears, “And I can't believe you're faster than me!”

Luke grinned at him, “I work out.”

“I know,” said Nick, grabbing his tie and pulling Luke towards him for a kiss, “but you're still a cheater.”

This was going to be a fantastic afternoon.

Luke pressed them closer to the building until they heard a loud catcall from above. One of the builders.

They laughed and walked away, huddled together under Luke’s raincoat, and set about trying to find somewhere to eat.

Nick poked him, “Does this mean you’re coming home tonight?”

Luke poked back, “Yes.”

“Oh good,” breathed Nick, “I’ve really missed you.”