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“So, are we going to the pub tonight, Knickerless?” Darcy asks. “Tara should be back by six.”
The one thing Nick really likes about his job – a mindless grind of data entry – is that it doesn’t require silence. His cubicle is at the end of the row, facing the window; he can be on the phone, listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks as much as he likes, as long as his accuracy doesn’t drop, and as long as Otis at the next desk doesn’t mind.
Meanwhile, Darcy, who’s a mailperson, is zipping around all day, shoving bills through letterboxes. It seems almost fate that they’d end up on the phone for six hours a day.
Tara bought them both matching bluetooth headsets for Christmas, and their new habit of spending most of every day chatting mindlessly about nothing has been great for both of them. They don’t get bored. They’ve come up with a whole new range of in-jokes. And Nick gets that sense of constant connection he always craves. So far today, they’ve discussed whether the phrase ‘hat trick’ relates to wearing two hats at once and tossing a third one on top of the other two, Darcy’s mysterious lower leg rash (which Nick is pretty sure is a result of their love of cheap polyester rainbow socks) and whether a vanilla sponge with a hamburger in the middle is a filled cake or a burger.
Nick doesn’t even bother to check his calendar to see if he’s free to go to the pub. Now that the amateur rugby season is over, his dance card is blanker than his Hinge DMs.
“Sure,” Nick says. “Which one?”
There are five or six pubs within spitting distance of their places, all with various pros and cons. Nick is a fan of the Pendlebury, because they’ve got Spag’n’Drag on a Wednesday, but it’s Friday, which means a whole different set of considerations, including the Pendlebury’s obnoxiously loud Friday night DJ.
“Let’s go to the Red Dragon,” Darcy says. “They’ve got the dartboard and all the Cards Against Humanity extensions. Plus, you looooove their pork faggots in onion gravy!”
“Euuuugh!” Nick makes a face. He can hear Darcy waggling an eyebrow. They’re fucking obsessed with this joke. Nick knows he shouldn’t keep overreacting to it, but even the thought of minced pig liver and heart wrapped in shreds of organ fat makes him want to heave and go vegetarian on the spot.
“Come on, Nick, what’s not to love about faggots? They’re so tender and yielding and saucy!” Darcy continues.
“Enough with the bloody faggots, Darce! They literally make me want to be sick! Why can’t you leave off? I hate faggots! They’re disgusting!”
Nick processes, a second too late, as he’s in the middle of making vomiting noises, that he’s not alone.
The guy who works for the B2B sandwich van – the astonishingly handsome, curly-haired, blue-eyed, dimpled guy with the pride flag pin, who Nick has been struck helpless by, every lunchtime since Lieke went back to Amsterdam two weeks ago – is giving Nick the absolute Level 10 stink-eye as he leans on the handle of his sandwich trolley.
“Oh— um— Not— I didn’t mean—” Nick stutters. He can feel his face warming ten degrees. His tongue feels like it’s doubled in size.
“Can I offer you a sandwich of any kind today?” the gorgeous man says with politeness so crisp it can’t be mistaken for anything but a middle finger.
“I wasn’t talking about— I’m—” Nick tries to clarify, but the man cuts him off smoothly.
“We have chicken salad, egg and cress, or cheese and tomato available,”
“Um… cheese and tomato, please. But I just wanted to say that—”
“That’ll be three pounds fifty, please,” says the man, holding out his little card reader.
Nick flails to tap his phone.
“I was just on my friend— I mean on the phone to my friend— they’re actually—”
“That’s gone through. And would you like anything?”
The stunning man who’s been rolling his sandwich trolley through Nick’s dreams three out of the past five nights rolls his trolley right through Otis’ cubicle, who pulls off one ear of his headphones, thanks him and declines with a wave, oblivious to the clusterfuck that just unfolded three metres from him.
And with that, he’s gone, putting as much space between himself and Nick as those long, lithe skinny-jeaned legs will allow.
Nick clutches his forehead with both hands as he watches the love of his life walk away through the cubicles and out the door.
“Fuck,” he says.
“Sorry, Knickers, I had to deal with a particularly savage Pomeranian,” says Darcy. “What’d I miss?”
—
Darcy had laughed themselves sick when Nick had given them an earful about the chaos they’d wrought on his imaginary love life with their faggot-related antics.
At the pub, later, Tara had been less shameless about it, but had pointed out it was actually pretty funny, even though she told Darcy off for poking Nick about something he clearly didn’t enjoy.
“We all love an inappropriate joke, Darce, but offal is a hard line for Nick, and you should respect that,” she chides. She’s half-joking, but even the word makes Nick a bit queasy. “He’s a sensitive little petal, aren’t you, Nick?”
“I was going to marry that man,” he says, looking sadly into his pint of cider.
“Just think, if I’d found a pub with spotted dick, I could be trying on Best Person suits right now,” Darcy snorts into their pint.
“You can clear things up on Monday and I’m sure he’ll find it as funny as we do,” Tara says. “And maybe you can even use it as a good way to start a conversation and find out if he’s single!”
“Yeah,” Nick says, slowly perking up. “Yeah! I mean it is pretty funny, really.”
“That’s my Nicky-boy!” Darcy cheers. “I’m going to get us some shots, and then we can come up with a speech for you.”
—
On Monday, after their 10am team meeting finishes, Nick finds himself explaining the whole clusterfuck to Otis, who reacts in much the same way Darcy had.
“Oh my god, Nick,” he laughs. “Can’t take you anywhere!”
“And then Darcy, whose fault all of this is in the first place because they wouldn’t shut up about the F-meatballs, decides we’re going out-out and drags us all to a gay bar,” Nick moans, dropping his head into his hands.
“Nick, mate,” Otis says.
“Otis, it was the worst. I’m so single. The whole point was that we’d try and find me someone. Which, like, I get that they had good intentions. But get three drinks into them and they can’t keep their bloody hands off each other.”
“Nick,” Otis says, a little more urgently.
Nick doesn’t register Otis’ warning. Or notice the tall, dark sandwich beauty pushing his trolley behind his desk.
“And they were there all night, just snogging each other in their matching bloody rainbow T-shirts, right in front of me… I just wish they wouldn’t flaunt it, you know?”
“Would either of you like a sandwich?” an ice-cold, melodic and extremely crisp voice comes over his shoulder.
Panic floods through Nick like a horde of lemmings.
“You’re early!” he says, idiotically. The man doesn’t grace this particular pearl of wisdom with an answer.
Nick’s entire carefully-rehearsed speech to explain his dislike of Welsh meatballs blows out the window in shreds.
“I’m actually gravy!” he says. “I mean—”
“And you?” Sandwich Hottie turns to Otis, who is watching this all unfold like he’s watching a bird fly into a window.
“Nah, man, I’m good too!” he says.
“No, I mean— not I’m— I meant onion gravy!” Nick says. His face is on fire.
“If you’d like hot food, you’ll need to head down to the van, and Nance can sort you out.” The man sounds like he pities Nance any interactions she has to share with Nick. Before Nick can find and collect the scattered remnants of his brain with both hands, the man’s walked off.
There’s a moment of silence.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, man,” Otis says. “That was hard to watch.”
—
The next day – the sound of Darcy’s hysterical cackling still ringing in his ears – Nick finds himself rehearsing different versions of his speech at his desk from pretty much the moment he sits down. He’s not mangling it again.
I just wanted to say that I’m queer, too, and I’m in love with you. Will you be my boyfriend? I want to be with you forever.
NO. No no no.
I just wanted to say that I’m not a homophobe – I just keep saying stupid stuff whenever you walk past – no, too defensive.
I just wanted to say that I know how it sounded but I’m really not homophobic – my two best friends are actually lesbians – and Darcy keeps joking to me about pork faggots in onion gravy. And then we all went out clubbing and I’m so single right now and it just made me a bit sad to see them being so in love. And I’m bi, actually.
That’ll do. Now he just has to get it out of his mouth without making any more impromptu word soup.
He doesn’t risk talking to Otis. He doesn’t risk calling Darcy. He’s even brought in a little mirror to pin to his desk divider so that he can see Dream Sandwich Guy’s approach route instead of getting jumpscared again.
He’s doing some of what is probably the worst-ever data entry work in the history of data entry when he finally catches a glimpse of a slender figure in his little mirror. For some reason, his body decides the best possible course of action is to leap to his feet? And then hook his hands behind his back like a naughty schoolboy in the principal’s office?
The man – just a whisker shorter than him, it turns out, from this perspective – slows his cart and stops several wary metres from Nick.
“I just wanted to apologise,” Nick babbles. “I think I gave you the wrong end of the stick – I mean, I didn’t give you the stick – I just meant that it was a misunderstanding—”
“Didn’t sound like a misunderstanding to me,” the man says. “Sounded pretty clear and unambiguous.”
“My lesbian best friend won’t stop joking about pork faggots in onion gravy,” Nick blurts. “And, I, um, liver makes me really queasy?”
“Yeah, that sounds likely,” says the Sandwich Angel. “Well, if you don’t want a sandwich, I’ll be on my way. Wouldn’t want to upset you by flaunting anything.”
The man runs a finger down his rainbow pride pin. It’s been joined by several others.
“That wasn’t because they’re lesbians,” Nick says desperately. “That was because I’m, like, really single. I’m really not homophobic. Literally half my friends are lesbians. They’re always joking that I should be an honorary lesbian. Please, you have to believe me. I even wore my Pride lanyard today.”
The gorgeous man rolls his eyes so hard he might strain something.
“We thank you for your service,” he says. “Now, if you’re not buying a sandwich, maybe you can go throw a fundraiser coffee morning or something.”
“I— um. Sorry. Just wanted to try to clear it up and apologise for sounding like a complete twat,” Nick says.
“Sandwich?” the man says to Otis, who just looks back and forth between him and Nick and then shakes his head.
“Fuck,” Nick says, flopping down into his chair as the man walks off, disappearing through the foyer doors.
“Sorry, man,” Otis says, getting up and coming around to pat Nick’s shoulder. “You gave it a good go. Though I don’t really get why you didn’t mention that you’re bisexual?”
“Fuck!” Nick all but shouts, dropping his head on his desk and bonking it repeatedly against the laminate.
—
Wednesday is his lucky day, Nick’s decided. The day he finally properly convinces Sandwich Bae that he’s not some homophobic prat, or an overzealous ally trying to prove himself.
He’s pushing the dress code a bit: he’s wearing his Bisexual Disaster finger guns T-shirt, with a suit jacket over it. He’s rolled up the sleeves on his suit jacket, too, just to make absolutely sure there’s no question, since he can’t really cuff his work trousers. But he only needs to avoid his boss until after lunch, at which point, he will hopefully have cleared the air with a certain Seraph of the Slice, and maybe found the courage to ask him on a date.
He carefully places his little bisexual flag in his pen mug.
But eleven thirty goes, then twelve, then twelve fifteen, with no sign of cheese and tomato on multigrain or transcendent choirs.
Finally, just as Nick’s given up hope completely, the trolley appears at almost twelve forty, pushed by… a middle aged woman?
Nick’s heart absolutely drops through the floor, and several storeys below it.
This is his fault. He’s made this man so uncomfortable that he’s apparently just quit the job. Nick’s a monster.
“Would you like a sandwich, love?” the woman says, pulling up at Nick’s desk.
“Um… yeah, go on,” Nick says, somewhat despondently. “Cheese and tomato, please.”
The woman gives him a long look as she fishes out his sandwich then rings up the purchase on her little card reader.
“You wouldn’t by any chance have made any unfortunate statements recently on the subject of your dislike of pork faggots, would you?” she asks as Nick taps his phone.
Nick stops mid tap and looks up at her, entirely caught.
“I’m a little behind on what all the different flags mean,” the woman continues. “But the impression I’ve always come away with, generally speaking, is that the only one us straight people are sort of allowed to borrow to show our support is the big rainbow one. Which suggests this –” she points at Nick’s little flag – “means you aren’t straight. Is that right?”
“Um. Yeah. I’m bi, actually,” Nick says, opening his jacket to show her the T-shirt.
“Well. Charlie’s downstairs in the van, doing the hot food. Tell him Nance sent you.” She pauses. “Do us a favour and put me out of your misery, yeah?”
Nick looks at this short, square person with sensibly pruned hair and isn't entirely sure there isn't a golden glow behind her.
“You're an angel,” he stutters, before racing outside.
As he races down the stairs, too impatient to wait for the glacial lift, his phone rings. Darcy. He's so flustered he doesn't even have the brainpower to realise he's allowed to not answer.
“Nickerish Allsort!” Darcy says. “How’d it go?”
“It hasn’t gone yet!” Nick says. “He swapped with Nance who is an angel and I'm running downstairs now!”
“Nick, my lad, now you're chasing a girl? Truly your bisexual chaos is unmatched,” Darcy says. Nick doesn’t have time to explain; he hastily puts Darcy on speakerphone and shoves the phone in his breast pocket as he pushes open the stairwell door and dashes through the foyer.
“I’m going to tell him now, Darce!” he says, running past a confused person coming back inside with a cup of hot chips.
The most beautiful man in all creation – Charlie – is handing Jayden from Marketing a sausage roll as he skids up to the open van window, panting slightly. Charlie turns, a luminous dimpled smile on his face, which falls straight off again like a doughnut thrown off a cliff when he recognises Nick.
Nick tries not to let that go through him like a spear through the heart.
“I’m afraid we’re out,” Charlie says coldly.
Nick – who had just opened his mouth to let loose another barrage of what was probably going to be idiocy – stops, confused.
“…out of what?” he says.
“Everything,” Charlie says, standing behind a well-stocked rack of snacky cakes and in front of a loaded toaster oven full of pies and pastries.
Fuck. This guy really doesn’t want a bar of Nick. How did he manage to fuck this up so royally?
“Um, Nance sent me downstairs,” he starts. “To tell you—”
“Yeah, well, Nance made a mistake,” Charlie says, turning away from Nick to straighten the sauce bottles. “She often gets the wrong end of the stick.”
Jayden from Marketing is watching like this is the greatest thing he’s ever seen. He takes a huge bite out of his sausage roll without taking his eyes off the unfolding drama. Nick sighs. This is going to be all over every Teams chat in the building before 3pm.
“Look, I know I’ve been making a hash out of this, but I just can’t stop saying the wrong thing to you, and I’d really love to explain myself,” Nick starts again.
“There’s really no need for you to explain anything,” Charlie says, his voice so cold Nick’s surprised the little baskets of bananas and apples don’t frost over like Princess Elsa sneezed on them. “With allies like you, who needs enemies?”
“I’m not an ally!” Nick bursts out.
“Wow. No shit, Sherlock,” Charlie says. “That’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me.”
“No! Fuck! Shit, that’s not what I meant! I mean, I’m not an ally, because I’m queer! I’m bisexual!” Nick says, so fast it’s practically one word. He pulls his jacket open properly to show Charlie his T-shirt, which he suddenly realises probably wasn’t even visible because of how close to the van he was standing. “I’ve had a crush on you for weeks, and I was trying to muster up the courage to say hi and maybe properly ask you out when Darcy dumped me in the soup with that stupid joke.”
“You’re bisexual.” Charlie says it like Nick’s trying to convince him RuPaul is straight.
“Yes!” Nick almost shouts.
Jayden from Marketing is just staring at them now, his mouthful of half-chewed sausage roll abandoned in one cheek.
Charlie stares down at Nick. For a moment, Nick thinks he sees a flash of yearning hope in those gorgeous blue eyes, but even as his heart starts thumping in his ears, it vanishes again as swiftly as it appeared.
“Yeah, no, I’m sorry. I’m not buying any of this for one second. I don’t know which of your nasty straight-boy friends dared you to fuck with the sandwich gay, but both you and they can get fucked.”
“I— er—” Nick finds himself genuinely at a loss, and actually, a little bit upset. He knows he doesn’t read as bisexual. And he knows Charlie has more than enough reason to be suspicious of him. But he’s had too many outings to clubs or pride events where even glittery eyeshadow in pink, blue and purple has been met with skepticism and weird backhanded microaggressions to feel entirely comfortable having to justify who he is to strangers.
Suddenly, he doesn’t want to be here any more.
“I think I’m gonna go,” he says, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder.
Charlie just stares down at him, arms crossed over his chest.
“Hey!” Darcy’s yelling voice crackles over the speakerphone. Nick jumps. He'd forgotten they were even on the phone. “I don’t know you, Sandwich Bae, but don’t you dare go bi-erasing my best boy. Nobody put him up to this. Well, actually a lot of us put him up to this, but we’re all meddling gays, and it’s our god-given right to bully our bisexual disaster into asking you on a date. Not that you deserve one.”
“Forget it, Darce,” Nick says, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. “He’s made up his mind. There are no more misunderstandings to clear up – he’s just not interested. I know how to take no for an answer.”
He turns around and almost walks straight into Nance, who – from the look on her face – has switched from divine angel of mercy into flaming-sword angel of destruction, rolling her trolley like a chariot of war, and making straight for… Charlie?
“Charlie Francis Spring,” Nance says. “If you turn this hot bisexual man down, I’m firing you on the spot. If I had had to listen to one more soliloquy on Fourth Floor Hottie at The 799 Building, or one more rant about him being homophobic, I’d probably have pushed you out of the van at sixty miles per hour on the dual carriageway. But if you manage to cock this up without a single obstacle in your way, I can’t be held accountable for my actions. He’s cute. He swings your way. He’s asking you on a date. Don’t you dare turn him down.”
“Wait, stranger, did you say Charlie Spring? Charlie Spring, who’s mates with Elle who used to live with my roller derby pal Vibeke?” Darcy’s voice says. “Nick! You never told me that Sandwich Bae was Charlie Spring! Charlie! How are you, man! I still owe you a bottle of crème de cassis and a sachertorte!”
“You owe him a what?” Nick says, latching on to this last part while his brain processes the whole Fourth Floor Hottie at the 799 Building part.
“Darcy Ollsen?” Charlie says. He's looking at Nick like he's expecting Nick to rip off a latex mask and reveal that he's actually a chaotic nonbinary lesbian, which, to be fair, wouldn’t be that far out of Darcy’s wheelhouse.
“Darcy’s one of my best friends,” Nick says. “They’re the one who got me in this whole mess with their ridiculous bit about the… you-know-what meatballs and onion gravy at the Red Dragon. And they were the one snogging Tara at the club all night. She’s my other best friend.”
“So… you really are bisexual?” Charlie says, looking like a deer in headlights. A really, really good-looking deer in headlights.
“Yes, I’m really bisexual,” Nick says. “Sixty-two percent gay, to be precise, if you want to take Buzzfeed’s word for it.”
“I really am sorry about the pork faggots,” Darcy voice says. “Actually, no I’m not, it was fucking hilarious, and it still is.”
“And I really would like to take you on a date,” Nick says. “Definitely not to the Red Dragon.”
A smile creeps across Charlie’s face like a cautious sunrise.
“Maybe just a coffee to start off with?” he says.
“That would be amazing,” Nick says. His knees feel weak
“Woohoo!” yells Darcy. “I bags best person at your wedding!”
“Well, thank fuck for that,” Nance mutters, rolling her trolley around to the van’s back doors.
“This is the greatest day ever,” Jayden from Marketing whispers, through his mouthful of sausage roll.
“There’s a nice little cafe near my place,” Charlie says. “We could go there.”
Then he snorts, that luminous dimpled smile bursting to freedom all of a sudden.
“They do a really good spotted dick,” he says.
Nick buries his face in both hands.
“I’m never going to live this down, am I,” he says.
“No,” “Doubt it,” “Not a chance,” “Never,” says a chorus of voices around him.
But with Charlie Spring smiling down at him, he can’t quite bring himself to care.