Chapter Text
It was unusual for Nico to have to work two days in a row at Kleinfeld’s. Seb didn’t believe in overworking him since he was technically retired, which made him sound like an artifact in a museum. But it was fine by Nico. Then he had time to do his own real job (running his investment company) and figure out new and interesting ways to outdo Lewis.
So the morning after the blowout sale when he woke up splayed across the couch with his blankets askew and his hair a wreck, his body protested at the very thought of getting out of bed. Or, well, couch. Carrying around dresses and getting yelled at was very hard work, damnit! But Lewis would be getting up and going to work, so Nico had to as well. It wasn’t like he could call out, he had been telling the truth to Mick yesterday, he had never missed a day of work in his life.
At least he hadn’t had any nightmares. Maybe he was finally starting to break the curse. Maybe one day he would be able to go back and sleep in his own bed.
He yawned as he made his way into the kitchen, ready to fire up his Nespresso. Only to discover he had two pods left. Which simply wouldn't do when he relied on a quad shot to keep him moderately functional on the best of days.
He fumbled for his phone and took a blurry photo of the two pods and sent it to Mick. It was probably too early for Mick to be awake, Nico didn’t quite care. This was a proper emergency.
Still, some coffee was better than no coffee, so Nico made his two espresso shots. It would have to work until Mick could solve the problem and he would just have to hope that he had enough to not get an absolutely splitting headache.
He had already downed his coffee and started to get dressed by the time Mick had responded. Unfortunately, Mick was still seemingly incapable of reading his mind.
????
That was it, that was the whole text. Nico sighed and wrote back. Why was he the one who had to do all the work around here?
I ran out of coffee!!! Only had enough for a double shot instead of a quad shot!!! 😑
how is this my problem?
“Mick!” Nico groaned out loud. Thankfully no one was around to hear him.
I expect coffee when I get into work!!! 🙏😋
why cant you just get it yourself? im sure you pass a million bodegas.
Nico wrinkled his nose. Bodega coffee? No. He was too rich for that, his palette was too refined. He would simply shrivel.
No 😔 I need espresso! If I don’t have at least a quad shot every morning I will get a huge headache and then Lewis will beat me in sales!
well don't you get to work like 2 hours early? just go to the australian coffee place.
No! I get there early to do important things 👊
mate we really need to talk about your emoji usage.
You are ignoring what I am asking! Will you bring me coffee 🙈
hmmmm
Nico typed out a text, then deleted it, then retyped it. f*ck it, he really needed coffee. But he also needed his nap. This was what he got for being a caffeine addict.
I will stop bothering you about George if you bring me coffee 🙏
Mick’s response was nearly instantaneous.
done.
Nico smirked. Thank god. He threw on his blazer and walked out of his apartment. The sooner he got to work the better.
His commute was quiet and he had seemingly beaten Lewis. Good. Time to embark on his important tasks: taking a nap.
Thankfully, Nico didn’t have a nightmare during his morning office nap the next day. Which was fine by him, he really needed it after whatever had happened yesterday. But the next thing that he knew, he was being kissed awake by a pair of soft lips on his forehead.
“Nico,” Lewis whispered. “C’mon, we’re going to be late.”
Nico groaned, his eyes fluttering open slowly. Lewis was in front of him, dressed in a rumpled dress shirt that he was desperately trying to smooth out and a pair of plain dress pants. Nico was more than content to just watch him.
“Ni,” Lewis said again, shaking out his braids. “Let’s go, Toto’s going to kill us.”
“How is that different from usual?” Nico yawned.
Lewis laughed, a bright noise that sent shivers down Nico’s spine. “I guess you’re right.”
“We could take our time,” Nico said, reaching out a lazy hand for Lewis, who took it.
His hands were warm, breathing life into Nico’s cold fingers. Nico pulled him closer. “Toto can wait,” he said. “He’s nothing without us anyway.”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “Don’t give us so much credit,” he said. “It’s not like we spend our whole lives doing work.”
“Feels like it, sometimes,” Nico muttered, dropping Lewis’s hand. An itching sensation had started beneath the skin of his fingers, something deep and unscratchable.
“You can always take a break, you know.” Lewis’s eyes were large as he watched Nico, concern dripping off of his slight frown as he brushed a few strands of hair back behind Nico’s ear. “If it gets too much.”
Nico’s breathing picked up slightly and he flinched away from Lewis. “No I can’t.”
Lewis’s frown deepened. “Yes you can? Nico you need to take care of yourself too, you can’t just-”
“No,” Nico repeated. “I can’t. I can’t and you would never tell me to. This isn’t real. Where’s my Lewis?” The Lewis that hated him.
“I am your Lewis,” Lewis said gently, like he was talking to a scared animal. “Ni, you’re scaring me here.” He reached out to touch Nico, but he flinched away.
“Don’t touch me! God, don’t touch me, you would never f*cking touch me, f*ck!” Nico buried his head in his hands.
“Nico-”
“No!” Nico pulled further away from him. “Please just-”
“Nico!” There were hands on him again, but this time they were shaking him awake. “Nico wake up, I have the coffee you asked for.”
Oh. It was Mick.
Nico forced himself to breathe deeply until he could see Mick’s shoes on the floor come into focus. He discreetly pinched his thigh. It was just a dream. A f*cked up, twisted dream, but a dream nonetheless. He plastered a fake smile across his lips and looked up.
Mick was wearing his usual dress shirt and slacks, a paper cup of coffee in his hands.
“Double shot, with almond milk,” he said, holding out the coffee to Nico.
Nico took it gladly, happy to have a distraction.
“How did you get almond milk?” He asked, taking a sip. “The Australian place never has any.”
Mick rolled his eyes. “They do if you go early enough, also I know Jack pretty well.”
“Jack?”
“The barista with the really poofy hair.”
Nico crossed his arms. “How do you know his name?”
Mick threw his hands up. “What is this? An interrogation? I left my apartment a whole hour early to get you coffee because you had absolutely unskippable tasks to do. I find you sleeping and then you interrogate me?”
Nico took another sip of coffee. “Are you going to answer the question?”
Mick sighed. “I used my eyes and read his nametag. Which you could also do.”
“Pffft,” Nico said. “I’ll learn their names when I need to, which is not right now. Now I have more important things to do.”
“Like sleep?”
Yeah, there was no way in hell he was going back to sleep after that dream he had had about Lewis. Mick didn’t need to know about that though. “And what do you need to do? Make out with George?”
Mick jammed his finger against Nico’s chest. “No no! You said that you would quit bothering me about George if I got you coffee and I did!”
Nico held up his hands in surrender. “Fine! Fine! Keep your secrets!”
Mick squinted at him, but lowered his hand. “We have 50 minutes until the morning meeting, don’t sleep through it.”
“I won’t!”
Mick slammed Nico’s office door shut behind him.
Nico stared at the door behind him. It was very rare that Mick snapped at him. Maybe there was something more to the George situation than he thought. Maybe they were just hooking up, but Mick wanted more?
Oh God.
He had been so blind to Mick’s suffering. He needed to help Mick. Finally, he had something worth focusing his energy on other than beating Lewis in sales: mending Mick’s clearly broken heart. But what could he do about it? He wasn’t going to meddle in Mick’s affairs and set him and George up, that would be horrible. What he needed was to get over George. He knew just the place to go for this.
Nico opened his phone, went to Google, and typed into the search bar: How to help a friend get over a crush.
At first, he was greeted with the godawful AI response that said he needed to be there for Mick, and listen to Mick rant about George. Nico was not ready for that. That would be horrible and also torture for both of them. Mick was too cagey and frankly- far too shy- about his personal life for that to ever work. Not to mention Nico didn’t really like George all that much. It wasn’t personal, it was just business and George was on the wrong side. Had George also been his personal assistant, he might have considered matchmaking, but as it was, that was his worst nightmare. He started scrolling through Quora, noticing that there was an endlessly long thread about just the thing he was looking for.
After about thirty minutes of scrolling through what was possibly far more than he ever needed to know about people’s sex lives, he gave up on his search. It would be best for Mick to deal with his feelings alone, probably. He’d just stop mentioning George unless it was directly related to work, just as he had promised.
There were only 20 minutes left before the morning meeting, and Nico was not sure what he should do. He thought for a moment before deciding he should probably apologize to Mick. He had really disrupted his day, which definitely wasn’t fair to Mick.
Mick 😋
He wasn’t sure what to say from there, so he just waited until Mick responded. Thankfully, the responding text came back almost immediately.
what
Sorry for making you get coffee so early and talking to you about George. That was not cash money of me. 😥😣
huh
I am very sorry. It was unfair and I had promised to not mention it 😿😿😿
ur use of emojis upsets me more than the yelling
also ????? what do you mean by cash money????
You know, how the kids say it these days. 😆
like in 2018 maybe?????
Nico frowned. How should he know the newfangled slang, besides, he was very cool with the younger generation. Seb had told him that once! Had he lied? He continued texting Mick, partially because he wanted to distract him from George, and partially because he was bored. Once there was only ten minutes left until the meeting, he stood up, knees and back both cracking. He rolled his shoulders once, taking misery in the fact that he now apparently texted and stood up like an old man.
Maybe he needed more botox or something.
“Nico!”
Nico looked up, seeing Mick waving at him from down the hall. Nico waved back.
Mick rolled his eyes and waved more dramatically.
Oh. He was waving him over.
Nico walked down the hall, hands in his pockets, trying to look entirely unbothered.
“Why do you look so smug?”
Mm. Not quite unbothered, but he would take it.
“Helps scare off my enemies,” Nico said. “What can I do for you, Mick?”
“There’s a whole list, really. Starting with taking a class on how to properly use emojis. Then maybe-”
“Hey, hey! What’s wrong with my emojis?” Nico pouted.
“A lot, starting with the fact that-”
“Hey, sorry to interrupt whatever is going on here,” Jenson said, nearly making Nico jump three feet in the air because when had he shown up?
“No, by all means,” Nico said. “My assistant was just complaining about my emoji usage.”
Jenson made a face like he agreed with Mick. Nico resisted the urge to punch him.
“Nico, would you step into my office for a minute?”
Nico’s blood ran cold.
Jenson, probably sensing his discomfort - damn himself for being predictable- gave him a smile. His eyes were kind. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.”
Nico’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
He followed Jenson into his office, shooting Mick a thumbs up and a look that said they would be continuing their conversation later.
Jenson softly closed the door behind them.
Nico was unsure if he should sit or stand, but considering he didn’t trust a single chair in Jenson’s office to not be covered in some unspeakable substance, he opted for standing.
Jenson was also standing, but he had his hands on his desk, leaning forward like he was trying to do some kind of awful foreplay. For one very brief moment, Nico almost saw what Seb saw in him, and then he furiously shook his head to clear that thought.
“You’re not in trouble,” Jenson repeated again.
“Yes, you already said that.”
“I wanted to make it clear.”
“Well I have something that I want to make clear,” Nico said, taking a step closer.
Jenson nodded.
“Are we in an 80s p*rno?”
Jenson blinked, his eyes going comically wide. “No?”
“Good. Then stop leaning across the desk like you’re about to call me a naughty little boy or something, it’s freaking me out.”
Nico had never seen Jenson move so quickly. One second he was leaning on the table, the next he was upright and his ears were burning red. Good.
“Now, what was it that you wanted to tell me?”
Several emotions flashed across Jenson’s face as he tried to compose himself.
“How are you doing….after yesterday?”
Nico sighed. This again. “Just peachy.”
“Nico.” Jenson stared at him, raising his eyebrows slightly. Cut the bullsh*t, he was saying silently.
But really, Nico was fine. The bath and the food had done wonders for him, and his dreamless sleep might not have been the most restful, but at least he had slept. Really, he was doing better than he probably should have been, but that was not what Jenson wanted him to say. Because after Lewis, Jenson had always been able to read him the best. And right now he was being read like an open book.
“I’m better,” Nico said, because it was true. “Not perfect, but better.”
Nico had not been perfect in years. Maybe ever.
Jenson seemed to realize that this was going to be all that he was getting out of him today. “Promise me you won’t push yourself today.”
Nico’s blood began to simmer. “Are you implying that you think I can’t do my job?”
“Nico,” Jenson walked out from behind the desk and put a hand on Nico’s shoulder. Nico had to actively try not to melt into the touch. It had been so long since someone had touched him because they wanted to, to provide him with some comfort. He was determined to preserve the moment. He might have leaned into Jenson’s hand a little. “I’m saying this as your friend, not your boss. Not your colleague. And as your friend, I don’t want you to push yourself if you end up with someone awful, okay? No feud or whatever is going on between you and Lewis is worth that.”
His stare left no room for argument. And to be honest, Nico didn’t have much more argument left in him.
“Okay.”
“You agree?”
“Yes,” Nico said. He tried to pull away but Jenson kept his grip strong.
“One more question.”
Nico swallowed hard. “Yeah?”
“Can I give you a hug?”
Yes, oh my god, please. “Jenson…”
“Nico.”
Nico looked up at Jenson’s face. There was no trace of anger, only concern etched in the lines of his face. And if he was offering hugs, who was Nico to refuse?
Nico swallowed again. His voice came out a whisper, as if he was trying to hide his vulnerability. “Yes.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Jenson was wrapping him in a very tight hug.
Nico tried not to yelp in surprise. First he tensed, not used to not having someone who wasn’t a client hugging him. But then he started to relax into it.
Jenson was strong, there was no doubt about it. He was squeezing Nico against his chest like his life depended on it. And maybe it did. With every breath, Nico was further drawn into Jenson’s hold, the scent of soap and cologne washing over him.
He tried very desperately not to cry.
“I’m here any time you need a friend,” Jenson said, still holding Nico. “I mean it.”
“I know.”
Jenson gave him one more squeeze and then broke it off politely.
Nico wanted more, but he wasn’t about to appear needy in front of him.
“Let’s get to the meeting, okay?”
Nico nodded and stepped out into the hall, the ghost of Jenson’s hug still keeping him together.
“Alright everyone,” Jenson said from behind him. “Good morning, we have a busy day in the salon, so let’s get started.”
The morning meeting went as it normally did. Jenson went through the highlights of yesterday’s blowout sale, shouted Nico out for selling the dog of the day, and then got into the appointments.
Nico was appropriately distracted the entire time, as he normally was, but this time, Lewis also seemed appropriately distracted, which was not usual. And even weirder, he seemed to be discreetly staring at Nico. Well, it would have been discreet if Nico hadn’t been able to read him like an open book. And he was definitely staring. Nico could feel his dark eyes on him.
He tried to make faces at Mick instead. Mick just rolled his eyes.
“-and Nico you have three brides today, all have relatively low budgets. One is looking for a unique gown, the other two have shopped before and are looking for something simple,” Jenson said, shooting Nico a smile.
Nico smiled back. He knew that this was Jenson’s way of making his day a little easier, as he was the one who divvied up the appointments for everyone. Normally Nico would be pissed that he was seemingly getting the short end of the stick, today though he found himself feeling grateful. Jenson had been right, it was good to have a friend to turn to.
True to Jenson’s word, the first appointment flew by easily. In hardly any time at all he had found her a simple lace fishtail gown from the sale rack.It had given him a bit of confidence to know that he could still do his job and do it well.
After a quick break and another coffee he was back in the lobby, ready to meet his next bride. It was a girl and her mom, 2.5k budget, looking for a unique dress, never tried on gowns before. Or at least that was what it had said on the paper.
All hopes of it being an easy appointment came crashing down as Nico took the bride into the fitting room and she told him that her budget was unlimited, she had tried on over 100 gowns and she wanted something ballet inspired. Because she wanted to honor her ballet career.
Nico stepped out of the fitting room with a deep sigh. So she had lied on the paper, it was nothing new, it happened to them all the time. He would just have to get creative. Brides who had tried on that many dresses often were difficult. He would need his best people. And besides, nailing an appointment like this would make him feel pretty good, it always did.
“Lando!” Nico called out into the stock room.
Lando popped his head out from the rows of dresses.
“Hm?”
“Are you busy?”
“Not for you I’m not,” Lando said with a smirk, stepping out of the rows.
“Great,” Nico said. “I’ve got a bride. She lied on her papers, so it’s going to be one of those.”
Lando rolled his eyes. He knew the type. “What’s she looking for?”
“Something unique and ballet inspired, unlimited budget.”
Lando frowned. “Does she want short?”
“She didn’t say she wouldn’t do short.”
Lando considered. “We’ve got a few short Pninas that might work.” Without another word he disappeared into the racks again, coming back out a few moments later with the awful 15099 gown, a terrible bird cage-esque dress and the 15113 gown, even though that looked a bit more flapper than ballet.
“They might work,” Nico said. “I’m going to try to stick with Pnina unfortunately because she has tried on so many dresses before, but I know she hasn’t tried on the Pninas, so I’ll probably grab a few long ones. I have a feeling she doesn’t know what she wants. And I don’t really know anything about ballet apart from that there are tutus involved.”
“You could always grab the ugly ball gown,” Lando said with a smirk.
Nico resisted the urge to deck him.
“I’ll report back, thanks Lando,” he said as he exited the stock room. On his way back he stopped in the salon, picking up a few long dresses that sort of looked like they could be in ballet shows. Not that he really knew what that meant because he had actually never been to a ballet show.
He picked up the 5060 mermaid gown in all its sexy feather duster glory, and the 4966 ballgown covered in lace and bows.
Dorothy, the bride, vetoed the two short dresses straight away, saying that she didn’t want to be too non traditional. Totally respectable. Nico passed them off to Mick to return to Lando.
“That one is gorgeous,” she said, looking longingly at the sexy feather duster dress. “I don’t know if it is dying swan or if I want to die in it.”
Nico did not know what that meant, but he put her in the dress anyway. Somehow, she managed to pull it off. Maybe it would still be an easy appointment after all.
Of course though, Dorothy’s mom was less than pleased with the dress.
“There is so much skin showing!” she said. “And it looks way too expensive for you!”
Dorothy rolled her eyes. “Mom, you know I have an unlimited budget.”
“Are you paying for the rest of the dress then?”
“Mom, you know I just have to phone Dad and-”
“No! Dad is not paying for the dress! I am!”
“But!”
Nico’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two of them, trying desperately to keep up as the pit in his stomach grew. These were always the worst appointments. Dorothy had lied about her budget twice now, and she wasn’t even paying for the gown. Great.
“And you!” Dorothy’s mom said, turning her attention to Nico. “Are you incompetent? Why bring my daughter such an expensive dress when that is not in her budget?”
Nico tried not to fidget. “She insisted the budget was unlimited, ma’am.”
“It is most certainly not.”
“Yes,” Nico said. “I understand that now.”
“Do you treat all your clients this way?”
Nico was slightly taken aback. He had not known about mom’s secret budget until a few moments ago. Who did she think he was? A mind reader?
“Mom you can’t do this to me, its a Pnina! It’s literally my dream.”
Nico chose to ignore Dorothy. “What budget would you like me to be respectful of?”
The mom squared her shoulders. “No more than 8.”
“But mom!” Dorothy whined again. “It’s a Pnina! I can’t get any of the pretty Pninas like this for under 8, that's hardly anything!”
Spoiled brat, Nico thought. But he didn’t dare say that. He just guided Dorothy back to the fitting room, helped her out of the dress. This was definitely not going to go anywhere fast.
“I’m going to go pull some other dresses that are within budget,” Nico said, taking the feather duster dress and the ballgown with him out of the room. She hadn’t tried on the ball gown yet but he knew it was way over the budget.
Dorothy rolled her eyes. “Ugh, I can’t believe you're on her side too! There is no budget!”
Nico was beginning to see why she hadn’t found a dress yet.
“We can still look,” he said, trying to be reassuring. “Eight thousand is still a very good budget, I am sure we will find you a dress.”
He left the room before she could respond.
Mick was hovering outside the door, he took the dresses from Nico.
“Did you hear all that?” Nico asked, allowing his bright customer service smile to slip in front of Mick. This appointment was going to head downhill fast and hard.
Mick nodded. “The mom sounds difficult.”
“They’re both difficult,” Nico said. “We’re going to have to get creative.”
That was fine, he loved a good challenge. Hopefully though they would be nicer than the girls yesterday. He didn’t think he could take a repeat of that. But if they were already calling him incompetent….well who was to say what would happen. He would just have to work harder and prove them wrong, exactly how he had done with Toto.
“Take those back, okay? I’m going to look around in the stock room,” Nico said.
Mick nodded, disappearing back to the salon with the dresses.
“Lando!” he called out as he stepped into the stock room.
“Please tell me you have good news!” Lando called back from the depths of the dresses.
“The opposite!”
A few muffled curses came from the middle of the satin and tulle explosion, and a moment later Lando scrambled free of the dresses.
“What happened?”
“There’s a budget.”
Lando threw back his head and groaned loudly. Nico understood. He had had to resist the urge to do the same thing in the salon earlier.
“How bad is it?”
“Eight.”
“Oh,” Lando shrugged. “Could be worse.”
Nico side eyed him.
“Is there a catch? You’re looking at me like there’s a catch.” Lando put his hands in front of his face and peeked at him through his fingers.
“The bride and the mother don’t agree on the budget,” Nico sighed.
“Of course they don’t,” Lando huffed. “When has anyone ever agreed on a budget?”
Nico could point out at least four separate instances in the last week alone, but for Lando’s sake he elected to stay silent.
“So,” he said instead. “We need new dresses.”
“That we do,” Lando agreed. “Got any ideas?”
“I did, but now I’m not so sure. She vetoed short dresses, she loved the 5060 mermaid gown. If we can beat that dress with the new budget, I think we’ll be okay.”
Lando looked confused.
Right. He hadn’t memorized all the dress names.
“It’s the long one with the halter neck…looks a bit like a sexy feather duster?”
“Oh! That monstrosity. I have just the thing for you.” Lando ducked around a corner somewhere before emerging with a bright pink gown. Nico immediately recognized it as the Nicole + Felicia NF045. “I’m not sure if she would be okay with something that’s not white, but it's worth a shot.”
“Maybe. It’s at least worth trying so we know what styles she might like.”
“Do you want me to bring it to her?” Lando asked, looking a little too eager to see what sort of drama had amassed between Dorothy and her mom.
“Be careful. I don’t want her to lose it on you.”
“Of course I’ll be careful! Haven’t you met me?”
Yes, Nico had. That’s why he had warned him.
Nico took a deep breath and went back to looking at dresses. After a moment, Lando reappeared, looking rather amused with the same pink dress in his arms.
“Well?”
“She f*cking hated it, mate.”
“Was it off the basis that it was pink or-?”
“She hated the color and that it, quote, looked like a feather duster. She’s not a fan of mermaid dresses.”
“What?”
“I don't know, you talk to her.”
Nico grabbed the dress he had been staring at, the Pnina Tornai 15096K , which was a slightly ugly ball gown that Dorothy was going to hate. She’d probably find it too boring or something, despite it being one of the few Pnina Tornai ball gowns that she could probably afford. This appointment was beginning to really be a pain in the ass. But it was fine, and nothing he couldn’t handle.
Even though a little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Jenson told him that just because he could do something didn’t mean he should. Nico dismissed that thought quickly. There was no reason he shouldn’t be able to finish this appointment, not when he had gotten through so many appointments that were much worse.
Nico knocked on the door of the fitting room, before opening it.
“Now, you said you weren’t a fan of mermaid dresses?”
“Yes. I think they are ugly.”
“Okay. Just so you know, which I’m sure you already do, the first dress you tried on was a mermaid.”
“Mhm…”
“I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that. Now, I just found this fabulous Pnina ballgown, if you would like to try it on? I know it’s a bit different, I just want to see what a ball gown would look like.”
“I don’t really like that one either… but I guess I’ll try it on. I like Pnina, so hopefully it’ll look less boring when it’s on.”
At least Dorothy was sort of cooperating. Nico stepped out while she was changing, then came back in to help her lace it up. Dorothy looked very pretty in it, but she looked miserable. It was already a bad sign, but Nico didn’t want to give up hope yet.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s pretty I guess, but it feels like my prom dress from highschool.” Dorothy whined, sounding somehow brattier than before. “It’s just way too boring.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I can find anything with too much more sparkle without going over budget.”
“Do we really have to stick with that?”
“Huh?”
“The budget.” Dorothy said, as if it was obvious. “Do we really have to stick with it?”
What.
Nico stared at her for a moment. “I can’t go above the budget without your mother’s permission.”
“But-” Dorothy looked horrified. “But why?”
“If she’s paying for the dress and all she’s willing to pay is $8,000, and I find your dream dress at a higher price point, you may not be able to get your dress. I can’t do anything about that. What I would suggest doing is talking to her if you want to show this dress, that way she knows the line set by this price point. If she agrees to up the budget, that’s great. If not, we will still find you a dress. I promise.”
Dorothy frowned. “But I can just call my dad…”
“My job is to make you look fantastic on your big day. I can’t do anything about your budget. That’s a conversation between you and your mom. So, would you like to go out in this dress? Just remember when you have your wedding you’ll have jewelry and a veil, so it will definitely not be boring.” Nico was beginning to get worried. Speaking in his most perfect English, while trying to deal with one of the most picky and bratty clients he’d dealt with was getting kind of straining.
At least she wasn’t yelling at him.
Dorothy sighed, clearly annoyed. “Fine. I’ll talk to her.”
Nico followed Dorothy out of the fitting room. Mick was standing next to it, holding a comical amount of dresses. Nico shrugged at him, then noticed a small mark on Mick’s neck not quite hidden by his collar. Nico frowned, and watched as Mick turned red then moved a wedding dress to cover his face and neck. Nico reminded himself to review Mick’s contract with him, especially on the section detailing how he was banned from canoodling with the enemy.
When Nico finally caught up with Dorothy, it was clear he had made a terrible assumption in thinking that this appointment would be fine. Dorothy and her mother were almost yelling in the salon, their voices echoing off the various mirrors as they debated raising the budget.
“It’s not that big of a deal!” Dorothy was saying. “I know you and dad don’t get along but he wouldn’t mind paying, he literally told me that-”
“If you wanted your father to pay you should have asked him to come then!” The mother said, throwing up her hands.
Nico edged slightly closer to the two of them, not quite sure how to approach this one. At the far end of the salon, Mick and Lando watched on. Lando shot him a brief thumbs up. Mick looked slightly pained.
Nico squared his shoulders. It was no different than walking into an argument between Lewis and Toto, and he had come out of all of those unscathed.
Well. Relatively.
“Sorry to interrupt ladies,” Nico said, holding his hands together. “What are we thinking of this dress?”
“I think it’s insane you would think something like this is appropriate,” the mother said. “She’s showing so much skin! It’s like lingerie!”
Nico was unsure what kind of lingerie she was familiar with if a full ball gown counted as lingerie.
Dorothy seemingly agreed with him, for once. “Mom, I’ve worn more revealing dance costumes than this.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to show it on your wedding day!”
“It can be lined?” Nico said. “If that helps?”
“No it certainly doesn’t!” The mom exclaimed. She looked like she wanted to jump off of the couch and throw Nico against a wall. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite into that anymore. “If I am paying for a dress, I have to like the whole dress! I’m not paying for the dress and then paying to fix it because it’s not what I want!”
“Well, have you considered what Dorothy wants?” The words left Nico’s mouth before he could stop them and holy hell that was the wrong thing to say.
“How dare you!” The mom did jump off the couch this time, stalking towards Nico in her slightly too tall stiletto heels. “I am the one doing a favor for my daughter by paying for this dress, I have to like it, I have the final say and you work for me, not her! So find something that I will like!”
Nico blinked. The salon seemed to have stilled for a moment. Aware that everyone’s eyes were on him, Nico clasped his hands behind his back and squeezed them together hard before speaking again. “Of course, ma’am. But unless you and your daughter can come to an agreement, she won’t be able to find a dress, you can’t just pick something for her if she doesn’t like it.”
“Well, she should have thought about that before she asked me to pay for the dress. I am not her father.”
Well. Nico had tried.
“Let’s get you into the next one, alright?” Nico said, smiling as brightly as he could manage at Dorothy. She did not protest at all, and he followed her back to the fitting room.
After she was out of the dress and had rejected the next ten that Lando and Mick had wrangled into the room, Nico stepped out of the room to go poke around in the stockroom himself. And take several deep breaths of air.
He ran a hand through his hair. He had been doing that a lot this appointment - old nervous habits died hard and it was only slightly better than squishing his nails into his palms - and his hair gel was starting to lose its hold.
On his way to his office to grab more gel he ran smack into Jenson.
“Hey mate,” Jenson said, giving him a warm smile. “Heard you have a difficult appointment.”
“Yeah,” Nico said. “You and the whole salon practically.”
“I’m sorry, she seemed simpler on paper. Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Jenson said.
Nico nodded. “It’s just the mom being awful, nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
Jenson shot him a look, but said nothing else about it. “You know where my office is!” he called as he walked back down the hall.
“Nico!” Lando stuck his head out of the stock room. “I think I’ve got something!”
Nico ran down the hall, hair gel forgotten.
Lando was holding an Anne Barge gown, A line, with floral embroidery. It was corseted but still flowy, and probably ballet costume-esque enough that Dorothy might entertain it.
Nico nodded in approval. “Yes, yeah that could work.”
Lando’s eyes lit up. “You think so?”
“I do,” Nico said. “I’ll go bring it to her.”
Nico grabbed the hanger with slightly trembling hands and walked out of the stockroom before Lando could notice. Maybe this appointment was starting to get to him a bit more than he thought.
“Hey!”
Oh no.
“You there, carrying the dress! Hello? Can you hear me?”
Nico paused and turned around to see the mother stumbling towards him in her stilettos.
“What is taking so long? I have been waiting for almost an hour for my daughter to come out in another dress and she keeps texting me saying that you are bringing her bad options. You should have been running those by me first, don’t you know how basic customer service works? Is this not part of your training? It’s basic business! You have to talk to the client and I am the client!”
The woman swayed back and forth, pointing angrily at him. For one horrifying second she seemed to turn into Toto, angry glare and everything. Nico blinked and she was back to herself.
Don’t lose it now, Nico told himself. You’re so close.
He swallowed hard, attempting to keep himself together. “I was just about to bring her this one, what do you think?” He unzipped the plastic bag of the Anne Barge dress.
The mother looked personally offended. “This is atrocious. Is this really the best that you can do?”
Really, Nico? I give you all this time and this is the best portfolio you can come up with?
“Can’t I get a different consultant? I’m sure someone else can do this job better than you can.”
This is terrible, Nico. You’re a disappointment to this company, grab Lewis on your way back to your office and send him in, I’m going to have him take over this client.
“I am the only one available right now,” Nico said. A large patch of numbness started somewhere in his lower legs. He scrunched his toes a few times to try and make it dissipate.
“Well can I pick out a few gowns then? If you can’t do it then I will.”
Technically, they weren’t allowed to take customers into the stock room, but Nico really could care less at this point.
“Sure,” he heard himself saying. It sounded like defeat. How bad at his job did he have to be for some random stranger to be able to pull gowns better than he could? “Follow me.”
He prayed that Mick and Lando were nowhere near the stockroom. He didn’t want them to get caught in this.
That was, of course, right where they were.
Maybe they would ignore them?
“Nico!” Lando called out because of course he did. “How did the dress go?”
Nico chewed the inside of his lip. Another spike of numbness shot down his leg.
“Are these two helping you?” The mother asked.
Nico nodded. He couldn't bring himself to say anything that would give her a way to insult Mick and Lando.
“No wonder all the dresses have been bad, they hardly look older than 18! Surely you have more experienced people helping consults.”
“No,” Lando said, much to Nico’s dismay. “I know the stock here better than I know my desk and-”
Nico clapped his hands together interrupting him. “Don’t you two need to go on break? Go, go! I’ll be here when you get back.”
Mick and Lando shot him identically perplexed looks. Nico gave them a small smile, trying to reassure them that everything would be fine. It was totally fine that he was going to be stuck here alone with the mother in the stock room, falling victim to her heatless words that really shouldn’t sting, but they did.
“Where can I find the ball gowns that are in my budget?”
Not her daughter’s budget. Not the budget. Her budget.
This was so f*cked on so many levels.
Nico really hoped that Kimi wouldn’t mind if he stole some of his vodka later.
Nico guided her to one of the racks. He didn’t bother offering her direction, she probably would not take it anyway. It was better to have her see her own daughter refuse to try on the dresses that she picked or just rip them apart.
Was this him accepting defeat? When was the last time he had let this happen? He hadn’t thought that he was a quitter, but maybe he always had been. He had left Toto’s business first, he had never even attempted to repair things with Lewis, and now here he was letting a frankly annoying mother bully him around in his own appointment. And for what? To seem like he had his sh*t together in front of Lewis? That ship had long since sailed.
He scrunched his toes again. His legs stayed numb. Nico could only stand still as it started to seep into the tips of his fingers.
“I like these two.”
Nico looked where the mother was pointing. Two ballgowns. One plain Pnina that was probably above the budgetand one lace Sareh Nouri ballgown with long sleeves . Not the gowns that people usually went for. But this bride was hardly ordinary.
“Do you want to come to the fitting room to give them to her?”
The mother shook her head disdaifully. “That is your job.”
You seemed to have no qualms about doing that a moment ago, Nico fought the urge to say.
Reluctantly he grabbed the two dresses and headed back towards the fitting room.
“Okay,” he said, entering the room. He was only slightly surprised to see Mick and Lando in there already though it was slightly insulting that they thought he couldn’t do the appointment on his own. “Your mom picked out these ones.”
Dorothy squinted at the two gowns. Nico shied away from her judgemental glare, despite the fact that he was not the one she was scrutinizing.
“But I don’t like ballgowns.”
Nico tried to hide his shock. This was news to him.
“And they’re both ugly.”
Well, he didn’t disagree there.
“This one is a Pnina,” he said, pointing at the plain one.
Dorothy looked at it the same way one would look at a tax form.
“At least try it on for her,” Nico almost pleaded. He didn't want to think about what would happen if Dorothy didn’t come out in one of her mom’s picks.
“Fine,” she sighed.
To no one’s surprise, Dorothy didn't like the dress. By some miracle, Nico had still convinced her to go out in it.
“I hate this one,” she said before they were even at the pedestal.
“You just hate it because I picked it,” the mother said. “I think it looks beautiful on you, far better than any of the dresses that your incompetent consultant brought you.”
Nico bit the inside of his cheek. Hard.
“Yeah, but it’s not me,” Dorothy said. “It’s not enough of a costume, it's just a dress.”
The mother made a big deal of checking her watch.
“We’ve already been here for almost three hours, I don’t think you’re going to find anything here with this consultant,” the mother stared Nico down so intensely he had to fight the urge to flinch. “If they had been able to give us a more competent one, then maybe we could have found your dress.”
Across the room, Nico locked eyes with Mick. He looked murderous.
Nico bit the inside of his cheek again.
“But mom!” Dorothy whined. “Can’t we do one more?”
“I think this man has wasted enough of our time for one day and-”
“Please?” Dorothy made some fantastic puppy eyes.
Her mom sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “One more dress, and then we are leaving.”
Nico’s heart shouldn’t have been soaring, but it was. He had one more shot to stick to this lady, show her that he really did actually know what he was doing and she was just being an insufferable prick.
He passed Dorothy off to Mick and then stalked straight into the stock room. There was one gown that he hadn’t pulled earlier that probably would be great for Dorothy. It was a ballgown, which she apparently didn’t like, but it seemed like the kind of insane thing she would pick.
“There you are,” Nico said to himself as he pulled out the Nicole + Felicia NF021 gown out. It had a halter neck and a big textured skirt. No sparkles, which Dorothy did want, but she could put a few crystals on it if that was really going to make or break the deal. With a renewed sense of purpose, he strode back into the room. This was it, this was the gown, it had to be.
“I have your dress,” Nico said, poking his head into the fitting room. Mick had already wrestled her out of the Pnina and she was back in her robe.
Dorothy looked excited. “Show me!”
Nico unzipped the plastic garment bag and pulled out the big skirt of the gown.
Silence filled the room. Nico thought that it was a good silence until Dorothy finally let out a strangled gasp.
“That’s not my dress,” she said with an air of finality.
“Oh, c’mon! Sure it is!” Nico said, trying to sound happier than he was about the whole ordeal.
“No it’s not!” Dorothy said, starting to raise her voice and oh, that ripped open several wounds Nico hadn't known weren’t healed yet. “It’s nothing of what I wanted! It’s a ballgown! There’s no sparkles! I’m going to drown in it!”
Nico’s numb legs wobbled under him, his tongue sat heavily in his mouth. He swallowed, forcing his tongue to move.
“Don’t you trust me?” he asked. It came out more desperate than he had wanted it to, making him sound like an absolute fool that needed reassurance and not a weather beaten ex businessman and dress consultant.
Dorothy scoffed. “Absolutely not. My mom knows exactly what she's talking about with you. You’re too much of a pushover, you don’t listen and you still think I’ll try on your stupid dress. My mom was right, I should have left hours ago.”
You’re useless to me here, Nico. You’re doing nothing but f*cking up my clients and my reputation. Lewis could do this ten times better and with this eyes shut.
Nico’s knees knocked against each other for one brief moment as Toto’s voice echoed in his head. Calmly, he hung the dress on the rack. His eyes burned, but he couldn’t let tears fall in front of Dorothy, it would just prove that she had been right.
“Excuse me for one moment,” Nico said as steadily as he could manage.
As soon as he was out the door, he pulled his sleeve up to his face, dabbing at the tears that had collected in his eyes as he beelined down the hall.
Jenson’s voice pounded in his ears: I don’t want you to push yourself if you end up with someone awful, okay?
And now he had gone and done just that. How perfect. Seb was going to hate him and fire him and probably replace him with George.
Jenson’s door was open. Nico didn’t care if he had Seb laying out across the table in some weird kind of dom/sub ordeal. He barged right in.
Seb was not in his room, Jenson was sitting at his desk responding to emails. Something perfectly normal that Nico was about to ruin. Why was he so good at this?
Jenson didn’t even notice him until Nico was right in front of him.
He only had a few fleeting moments. The panic was closing in on him, the walls crushing the panic against his chest as he struggled to breathe.
“Nico?” Jenson looked up, what was probably fear etched into his forehead.
“Did- did you mean it?” Nico stuttered out, jamming his fingernails into his palms to try and keep the panic at bay for just a few more moments.
“Mean what?” Jenson had shut the lid of his laptop. All of his attention was now on Nico. f*ck. Nico hadn’t wanted to keep him from doing his job.
“That- you said- you- that you-”
“Nico,” Jenson’s voice was the only steady thing in the room. “Take a deep breath.”
Nico tried. It rattled unsuccessfully against his ribcage. He gasped again. He just needed enough air to say it-
“ThatyoudbehereifIneededafriend?”
It all came out in a rush, along with the little oxygen that he had managed to take in.
Jenson, who had been sitting still, probably to keep from startling him, stood up and next thing Nico knew he was being crushed into a hug.
“Of course I meant it,” Jenson said, pulling Nico’s head against his shoulder. “Of course I meant it.”
The floodgates opened.
Nico didn’t remember the last time that he had cried this hard. Not after a nightmare, not when he had left Toto’s business, not even when Lewis had been ignoring him. But he cried now.
Or at least he thought he was. He must have been, because Jenson’s suit was soaking wet underneath his cheek and the only explanation was that he was causing it, ruining something else with his stupid emotions.
He thought that Jenson was yelling at first, mad that Nico had gotten tears and snot all over his suit, but no, that was him, letting out every last shred of frustration, his words muffled by Jenson’s shoulder.
Jenson.
Nico tried to focus on him, not let himself get lost in the panic. He thought he could feel his arms wrapping around him, what felt like circles being traced on his back. But it wasn’t enough to grasp onto. His frustration needed to come out.
He probably screamed. Between one second and the next his throat felt raw. The tears kept coming, a new wave replacing the last each time he thought that he was done. Jenson’s arms were not enough to contain the waves of emotion that Nico felt himself riding.
His knees must have given out because he was on the floor. Head jammed against Jenson’s shoulder, the wall behind him holding him up.
Someone was begging him to breathe, he could barely hear it and he wanted to shout back that he was trying but it wasn’t easy when the world wanted to swallow you whole.
“-ico, can you hear me?”
Hardly.
Barely.
Maybe he was still screaming.
But no, his voice was too raw for that.
All he could manage was a whimper.
“It’s alright, Nico,” a thick British accent said. But it was too angular, not smooth and gentle. Not Lewis. Never Lewis. Jenson.
Nico tried to respond but all he managed was another whimper.
Jenson attempted to shush him. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he felt Jenson’s hands trembling.
“Just let it out,” Jenson said again. “I won’t let you go.”
That was all the permission Nico needed.
Frustration he didn’t know he was still holding onto poured out of him.
All the clients he lost, all the deals he never closed, all the brides he couldn’t find dresses for, all the times he should have told Toto to stick it. Every time he wished he wasn’t so stubborn and took the damn subway instead of an electric scooter in the rain. All the times he forced Mick to go along with his stupid feud, the fact that he still had a stupid feud in the first place. All the words that the brides yesterday had yelled at him, all the people whose lives he had made more miserable by just knowing them.
All the times he wished he had told Lewis he loved him.
Because that was what it had been, all the harsh words, the stupid games, the rivalry. It had been a stupid, f*cked up way of him trying to have a piece of Lewis because that was the only way he could be guaranteed a spot in his life. He wasn’t good enough to be a lover. He knew how to fight, how to argue his way to the top, how to make people regret they wished ever challenging him.
But underneath that he was just a f*cking coward. A coward who had been in love with his best friend for years and f*cked it all away for a job he hadn’t wanted and more money than he knew what to do with. What was the point of life if he couldn't share it with someone? Was it better to have Lewis like this - hardly at all and only in sharp words and unnecessary comments - than not at all?
No. It wasn’t.
Not for the first time he longed for his college dorm. The last place he had felt safe in. The two of them had stayed up nearly all night before graduation, decorating their stupid caps because Lewis had wanted them to and pointedly not talking about what tomorrow would bring. Lewis had been moving out to L.A. after graduation and Nico had had an internship with Toto right out of college. It had been their last night together as they were.
Lewis had fallen asleep first, sprawled across Nico’s bed, outlined by the moonlight filtering in through their broken blinds. And Nico had stared at him, white knuckling his graduation cap and wishing that it was the first day of school again and he had four more years to figure out his sh*t instead of one night.
He had tried to memorize the way the blankets were tangled around Lewis’s legs, how he had been wearing Nico’s faded blue t shirt with the tear in the hem, but even now, even though this was a memory Nico hardly touched for fear of shattering the nearly forgotten moment, details were missing.
He couldn't remember how the shadows had shifted across Lewis’s face or which of his blankets had been on the bed. He didn’t remember if Lewis’s head was on the pillow or if he had been too tired to bother.
He did remember that there had been tears on Lewis’s cheek. But he didn’t know if they were his own or Lewis’s. It would have been weird to think that Lewis was also dreading the end of their time together as roommates, where nothing mattered except passing a few classes and having fun. Even then Nico had known that no matter what happened, it never would be that easy between the two of them again. He just didn’t know how bad it would get.
Eventually, he knew that Lewis had pulled him into bed sleepily, but Nico had hardly slept a wink, too caught up in the fact that this was their last night as they knew it.
He wished he had slept. He wished he had woken up comfortably to Lewis wrapped around him and playing with his hair. But he’d never gone to bed and feigned waking up to Lewis’s alarm in the morning, trying to desperately ignore the ice pit that had been sitting in his stomach.
“Nico?”
There. A British accent again. Smooth, gentle. Lewis.
“Nico, it’s alright, okay?”
Nico stared at Lewis, half dressed in his graduation gown. He didn’t remember this part. But he didn’t doubt that Lewis had probably noticed that he was off. They had always been able to read each other too well.
Lewis crossed the room, putting his hand on Nico’s face. Nico leaned into it. It was only a memory, or perhaps some kind of f*cked up hallucination, there was no harm in granting himself a little comfort, especially when he definitely couldn’t get it now.
“What happened, Ni?” Lewis’s voice was soft as he wiped away tears Nico hadn’t realized he was still crying.
He didn’t answer. He couldn't. He could hardly breathe. Lewis would never be this gentle with him. Not now, not after everything he had put him through.
Lewis didn’t shame him for not answering him. He never would have, back then. Now he would laugh.
“Let’s breathe together, okay?”
A fresh wave of tears sprung into Nico’s eyes because how had he forgotten that? How had he forgotten how Lewis would get him out of his own head, the only thing that ever really seemed to work.
He was so far gone, so desperately wishing that he could have just a few minutes back with this Lewis, before it had all gone to hell, that he reached out his hands. Lewis took them, just like he always did.
Calloused fingers found his knuckles, drawing little circles over each of the bones until Nico’s breaths slowed and he no longer felt like his heart was beating out of his chest.
Lewis threaded their fingers together. If Nico concentrated really hard, he could imagine that Lewis’s hand was covered in tattoos, just like it was now. Tattoos he didn't know the meaning of. He never thought that there would be anything about Lewis that he didn’t know.
“Hey,” Lewis whispered again. “Shhh, it’s alright.”
Oh. He must have started nearly hyperventilating again.
Lewis gave his hand an encouraging squeeze and went back to running his thumbs over Nico’s knuckles, drawing mindless designs, the sleeve of his graduation robe brushing against them every so often.
“It’s okay,” Lewis repeated.
It wasn’t. It really, very incredibly wasn’t.
Lewis’s hand left his and Nico heard himself let out a strangled gasp.
The hand was back, a comforting weight on his arm. “What is it, Ni?”
With Lewis’s hand on his arm he felt almost at ease. Why had he gone and f*cked this all away? He wanted to smack some sense into his younger self.
He heard himself say something distantly.
“Don't…go.”
“I would never,” Lewis whispered. “I absolutely would never.”
Nico wanted to scream that he would, and he had, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to shatter the moment, the memory.
Strong arms wrapped around him. Nico let himself inhale Lewis’s sh*tty weird college cologne, a scent that he had forgotten about but now it seemed to stick to him, cloying and musky at the same time.
Lewis’s hand found his hair. Very slowly he raked his thumb across the nape of his neck. Nico shivered, more tears springing to his eyes.
He should have told Lewis, he should have said f*ck it and told him that morning, right before their graduation. But he hadn’t.
“You know you can always take a break,” Lewis said, his breath tickling the top of Nico’s head. “You don’t have to be stuck in go mode.”
His words sounded familiar, but Nico couldn't place them. Probably just the remaining distant memories of this conversation.
“Please,” Lewis whispered, nearly begging. “Please promise me you will try to take care of yourself.”
Something deep in Nico’s chest snapped. Maybe Lewis, this Lewis, had cared for him too, all those years ago. But he had certainty stopped.
Still, Nico felt himself nodding against Lewis’s chest.
He seemed satisfied with that answer. “Thank you,” Lewis said. “If we can’t be together, I need to know that you’re at least safe.”
Oh Lewis, Nico thought. God, I am so sorry for breaking that promise.
Lewis’s graduation robes wrapped around them like a f*cked up blanket. He combed his hand through Nico’s hair, the other wrapping him tightly against his chest.
“Just relax, Ni,” Lewis whispered. “It will all be over soon, I’ve got you.”
And so, Nico let go. He let himself get pulled back into the memory, where Lewis cared about him and the only thing that mattered was spending one more morning together before their lives would change forever.
When he woke, his head was in Jenson’s lap, and Jenson was stroking his hand through his hair. The calluses were in the wrong places, snagging on the strands instead of detangling them.
“Hey,” Jenson whispered, his voice too angular for Nico’s pounding head. “Welcome back.”
Tears must have filled his eyes because Jenson was wrapping him into a hug suddenly. It was nice, but the angle was all wrong.
And he wasn’t Lewis.
Nico blinked a few times, desperate to not make an even bigger fool of himself than he probably already had. “Why am I on the floor?” he croaked out.
It was far from the most pressing question that he had, but it was the one that he asked first.
“You…well….” Jenson squeezed Nico’s hand. “You passed out.”
“Oh.” So he had already made a fool of himself. When was the last time he had passed out during a panic attack? It had been years…maybe even since college. The last one he could remember was during finals week, junior year. He’d apparently been out for hours. Lewis had almost taken him to Urgent Care. But then he had come to, in a tangle of blankets and Lewis’s arms, with hot tears that didn’t belong to him running down his face and a hand tracing patterns over his knuckles. Lewis had ordered miso soup from the good Japanese place down the street and spoon fed it to Nico when his hands had shook too much to be useful. They had watched The Princess Bride until Nico could breathe again.
“Nico?” Jenson asked gently. “Are you still there?”
Nico blinked. He was not in his college dorm, he was in Jenson’s office, half laying in lap with what he could only assume was Jenson’s blazer thrown on top of him.
Nico played with the edge of the blazer, his hands were hardly shaking anymore. “Are you going to fire me?”
Jenson’s face went from surprise to shock to confusion. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before words finally came out.
“No, I’m not going to fire you. Why would you think that?”
Nico shrugged. “Toto would have.”
Jenson’s face darkened. Nico hardly ever mentioned his old boss, and for incredibly good reason. “I’m not Toto.”
Nico was spared having to respond to that by the door banging open.
“God that woman was an absolute f*cking prick Jense, I don’t know how long Nico held on that long in that appointment, he’s really stronger than a U.S. Marine. I think I’m going to have to ban her for life, if she hadn’t bought that dress I might have had to kick her out. What an asshole to do that to your own kid, I can’t- oh! Nico, you’re alive!”
Nico blinked at Seb. Jense?
Stronger than a U.S. Marine?
Bought a dress?
Wait a minute. “They bought a dress? Which one?”
Seb rolled his eyes as he walked over, plopping down on the floor next to Jenson and placing a hand on his shoulder. Jenson flinched away a little, but Seb didn’t seem to notice.
“Do you ever not think about work?” Seb asked.
Nico shook his head. At least he was being honest.
“It was the one you picked out,” Seb said. “With the flower skirt and the halter top. When I got into the room Mick had already convinced her to put it on, my job was relatively easy from there.”
Nico’s eyes widened. “Mick! Was she mean to him? Is he still there?”
Seb laughed. “No, he’s standing outside the door right now. I ordered him out as soon as I got there.”
Nico sighed. Thank god it had just been him. “And…you said she bought the dress?”
“Yeah,” Seb said. “I don’t know how you did it.”
Nico didn’t know how he had done it either.
“How are you feeling?” Jenson asked. “Do you think you can sit up?”
Nico nodded. Jenson’s hands hovered over him and wasn’t that just embarrassing. Nico tried to ignore how incompetent his friends clearly thought that he was, but black spots swam in front of his eyes and he squeezed them shut. His head swirled, instantly pounding and pulsing as soon as he shifted it.
Jenson’s hand was instantly on his shoulder.
“Are you alright?”
“Mhm,” Nico muttered. “Headache.” He leaned back against the wall, keeping his eyes shut.
“Here.” It was Seb’s voice this time, pressing a water bottle into his hands.
Nico didn’t have to be told to drink it. He knew he was dehydrated. He had no idea how long he had been crying for, but his cheeks burned from the tears that had rubbed them raw. The water Seb gave him was lukewarm at best, but he could still feel it ripple through his chest as he swallowed.
He opened his eyes slowly, blinking as Jenson’s office came back into focus.
Seb and Jenson were staring at him like he had just been impaled and was imminently about to die.
Nico rolled his eyes. “There’s no need to be so worried, I’m fine.” Based on the amount of effort it took him to say that sentence, he probably wasn’t fine, but he hated people worrying about him.
“You probably need food,” Seb said, clearly not believing him. “When was the last time you ate something?”
Nico didn’t remember, probably today at some point. But at the mere mention of food, his stomach clenched painfully.
“I don’t think I could eat anything right now,” he said,
“Wasn’t what I asked,” Seb said, though there was no heat behind his words. “We’ll get you something on yout way home.”
“My way home?” Ice flooded Nico’s veins again. “Are you sending me home?”
“You can hardly sit,” Seb said. “You had a forty minute long panic attack, I think it would be best if you went home and rested.”
What?
Nico tried to ignore the fact that he had spent forty minutes making a complete idiot of himself and crying all over Jenson (and wasting his time, probably), and decided to focus on the fact that Seb had just decided that he needed to go home. As if it was any of his business.
(It was probably Seb’s business, a small voice in the back of his head whispered, Seb was not only his boss, but his friend.)
“Jenson said that I wasn’t fired.” Nico said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “If I’m not fired, why do I need to go home?”
“Because, Nico, you just had a panic attack for forty minutes after you literally passed out. It would probably be in your best interest to rest.”
Nico took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down before he said something he couldn’t take back.
“Yeah, Nico, I know you want to keep working but maybe going back out and dealing with more clients would not be a good idea.” Jenson said, joining in.
“Exactly.” Seb responded, only looking at Jenson, as if Nico wasn’t even there. “I really don’t think it’d be a good idea for him to go out there. Like dealing with that woman in a relatively okay state was awful, I don’t see how he could handle it.”
“Two things,” Nico cut in, unable to control his anger anymore. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, and also who are you to decide what I can and can’t handle? I’m feeling better now, so I don’t see why it’s a problem."
“Nico, we weren’t saying you aren’t capable-” Jenson started before Seb interrupted him.
“Is this about your stupid feud with Lewis again?” Seb asked, sounding vaguely annoyed. “Or is this actually about working? Because it is clear to me now that you should not be working right now because of your mental state.”
“What do you know about my mental state? I’m doing fine!”
Seb rolled his eyes.
“Why are you acting like this is any of your business anyway? It’s not! I came here to work, not get coddled. You do not get to make decisions about whether I need to go home or not! It’s my f*cking choice!” Nico sat up straighter as he shouted at Seb, ignoring the horrible pounding in his head.
“Do not yell at me like that when I am just trying to help you!”
“I don’t want your help! I do not need your help!”
“Oh, so you didn’t need Jenson’s help during-”
“Seb, shut up.” Jenson said, “You’re making it worse.”
Nico was bristling in anger, more than happy to let it replace the fear that had been present throughout the day and stood up, only wobbling slightly. “You don’t need to defend me! Why can’t you both stop pretending to be my friend or whatever, and start being half decent bosses? I said I’m fine, so I’m-”
“Nico.” Seb cut in, sounding angrier than Nico had possibly ever heard him. “If you want me to speak like a businessman, fine. You are not fit to be working. You are not fit to be dealing with clients right now. It would make my business look bad if I sent you out like this. I will be giving your last appointment to whoever has an opening in their schedule. Got it?”
Nico glared at him.
“I asked you a question, Nico. Do you understand it?”
Nico refused to respond.
Jenson sighed, clearly trying to draw Seb and Nico’s attention to him and less off each other. “Nico, if you really don’t want to go home, you can go down to alterations. I’m sure Max and Charles have something you can do to help. But, I’m driving you back when my day is over, you’re not scootering or whatever it is that you do by yourself. Got it?”
“Fine.” Nico spat, unable to contain his annoyance. “I’ll go to alterations.”
“Good.”
It was a clear dismissal. Nico strode to the door as quickly as he could manage, making sure to slam the door behind him. He stood outside of Jenson’s office silently for a minute, trying to compose himself, as he listened to Jenson chewing Seb out for yelling at him.
“He just had a panic attack!” Jenson shouted, his voice muffled through the door. “The worst one I’ve ever seen! Why on earth would you yell at him? You know he’s always been stubborn, ever since-”
Nico walked away, unable to listen to more of that. Great. Now Jenson and Seb were going to have problems because of him. His feet blindly took him towards the alterations department.
It took a flight of stairs for Nico to realize what he had done.
He had yelled- fully yelled- at his boss.
Seb wasn’t Toto. Rationally, he knew this. But yelling at Toto had never gone well. He had done it only once, when Toto had inexplicably pulled him off of one big client and gave him the stupidest, smallest client they had. Toto had barred him from entering the building for a whole week.
Seb should have kicked him out. Seb should have fired him on the spot. Seb should have made him beg to be able to keep his job.
Nico should really apologize. No, he should slide his resignation letter across Seb’s desk, probably the most anticipated piece of paper to ever cross it, and leave all of this and his stupid feud with Lewis behind. No one wanted him here, he should just go back to doing what he did best apparently: business.
“Nico?”
Nico nearly jumped three feet in the air. Charles was standing in front of him, holding a pile of tulle. Apparently he had arrived in the alterations department.
“Oh, it's you,” Charles said. He glanced around, then switched to French. “What happened? You look terrible.”
Nico could hardly speak English right now, let alone French. He would have preferred German, but to his knowledge the only other language that Charles spoke was Italian, which was also definitely not happening.
“Panic attack,” he responded in English. People could know of his shortcomings if he was just going to resign anyway. “I can’t speak French right now, too tired.”
Charles took one look at him and dropped his pile of tulle on a table before grabbing Nico by the hand and dragging him through the maze of dresses and sewing machines to a tiny, almost hidden bathroom.
“Freshen up,” Charles said, though it was more of an order. “There’s soap in the cabinet. I’m going to get you something to wear.”
He was gone before Nico could ask what he meant. He was already wearing clothes. Why did he need to wear something else?
Nico looked at himself in the mirror and nearly had a heart attack. Why hadn’t Jenson or Seb told him he looked this bad? The foundation that he had smeared on that morning was patchy, destroyed by the tear tracks running down his face. And his mascara was smudged all around his bloodshot eyes, making him look like a slightly distressed raccoon. The gel had come out of his hair hours ago and it flopped unceremoniously in his face.
Unable to look at himself any longer, he threw on the tap, held his hair back awkwardly with one hand and scrubbed water across his face with the other, not caring if he got his blazer wet. It didn’t take off all of the makeup, but at least his cheeks weren’t burning from tears anymore.
He opened the cabinet that Charles had vaguely gestured at and found some stupidly fancy looking French face soap. Why Charles kept it in the bathroom was anyone’s guess, but Nico was thankful for it now. He put probably too many pumps of it into his hand. It smelled strongly of lavender and mint. The sink filled up with bubbles, washing the rest of his makeup and misery down the drain.
He dried his face and found some lotion in the cabinet, rubbing it into his face. He wet his hands and ran them through his hair, working through the slight tangles with his fingers.
There was a light knock on the door. “Nico?” Charles called.
Nico opened the door. Charles was standing outside holding a Kleinfeld’s dressing gown.
“Here, put this on and give me your suit, it is in desperate need of steaming.”
Nico blinked.
“Come on,” Charles said. “I do not have all day.”
Wordlessly, Nico took the dressing gown and closed the bathroom door. He pulled off his suit, thankful for the loose fabric of the dressing gown. It looked a little weird with his shoes, but it was better than feeling like his suit was suffocating him.
He opened the door and handed his crumpled suit to Charles, who took it the same way that one would pick up a dead mouse.
“There,” Charles said. “You look much better, let’s go find Max while I steam this.”
Nico walked behind Charles, back through the maze of sewing machines and dresses, until they reached a table in the far corner. Max was standing over it, pieces of what was probably a wedding dress sitting on top of the table, and frowning.
“Maxie!” Charles called. “Quit frowning, we have company!”
Maxie???
Max did not look up.
Charles sighed. He walked up behind Max and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “C’mon cheri, if you frown too much your face will get stuck like that.”
Nico couldn't stop the yelp that came out of his mouth. “You two are together?!”
“Yes,” Max said, still not looking away from the table. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”
“We’re married actually,” Charles said and Max elbowed him.
“But-” Nico gaped. “But you hate each other?”
“Some of us are emotionally mature enough to figure out our weird hom*oerotic feuds.”
“Max!” Charles exclaimed, smacking the back of his head.
“It’s true!”
Nico rolled his eyes. “My feud is not hom*oerotic. Lewis hates me, he has for years.”
Max finally looked up from the table. “I want an invitation to your wedding when it happens. I will come just to say I told you so.”
Nico sighed.
Charles tisked. “That’s not nice, Max. Please be nice to our guests.” He plugged in the industrial sized steamer next to them.
“Fine. Why are you down here anyway? Don’t you have brides you should be helping?” Max rearranged some of the fabric again.
Nico bit his lip.
“He had a panic attack,” Charles said. “It was the awful girl with the even worse mother, right? In the dress with the flowers on the skirt?”
Nico nodded. “Jenson sent me down here,” he said softly. “Seb thought I was mentally unfit to be helping people. Said you probably needed help with something.”
Charles gave him a sympathetic smile. “You could organize the remnants drawer actually,” he said, getting up and grabbing a bucket overflowing with various fabrics.
“I don’t know the first thing about fabric though,” Nico said.
“Don’t worry,” Charles said. “Just fold them nicely and put the ones that feel similar into piles.”
Nico could do that.
“I took that girl’s measurements,” Charles said, pulling up a stool for himself and Nico. “Her mom insisted on being in the room the whole time and she critiqued everything I did. She tried to tell me I should be measuring in inches instead of centimeters because we were in America.”
Max scoffed. Nico almost smiled.
“She was a little sad you had left though,” Charles said. “She wanted to thank you for finding the dress and she said she was sorry that she doubted you.”
Well, it was too little too late. But it was still a nice gesture.
Max sighed loudly, seemingly stumped by the wedding dress puzzle in front of him. “Charlie, I think this is impossible.”
“Why?” Nico asked before Charles could respond. “What’s wrong with it?”
Max sighed loudly. “Do you want to hear about this stupid f*cking wedding dress and why I have to shred this dress and sew it back together?”
Charles laughed. “You could pass it off to someone else, you know.”
Max made a face like he would rather die.
And well. Nico loved drama. Especially when it wasn’t his drama. And it was well known that the alterations department knew everything.
“Tell me,” he said as he picked up a pile of satin.
“Oh, Nico!” There was something fuzzy being draped around his shoulders. “Before Max starts, you can use this as a blanket. I know it gets weirdly chilly here.”
It was a bit chilly, now that Charles had pointed it out. He pulled the scrap of whatever fabric Charles had put on him closer.
Max put down his pins so he could tell the story with his hands. “So what happened was this lady decided to get her measurements done while pregnant. She didn’t tell anyone about it, so when she came into her first fitting, you can imagine our shock when she came in seven months pregnant and pissed that we didn’t adjust the dress to her new measurements.”
“But if she didn’t tell you-?”
“I don’t know what she was thinking either.” Max groaned. “But I have to rip the side panels out and refit everything because she was stupid. It’d be one thing if she didn’t know she was pregnant when she bought the dress, but she did!”
“It was all very stupid,” Charles said. “I do not like her very much. But I don’t think anything compares to f*cking Gia.”
“Oh my God. f*cking Gia.” Max picked up his pins again, frowning down at the fabric.
“She was so awful! She hit on me the whole fitting then said it was because I’m- and I quote- ‘gay married’ which isn’t as serious as real marriage.”
“What?” Nico’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“I know!” Charles gestured wildly, making sure he didn’t disturb any of Max’s fabric pieces.
“It was so weird, especially when I came up behind Charlie and said that I was his husband.”
“How’d that go for you?” Nico asked, invested. He folded another pile of lace.
“Well, given that she started apologizing and started bringing up all the gay guys she met in her tango classes as a way of proving that she’s not hom*ophobic, I’d say it went fantastically. I’ve never seen someone look so worried about handing over a wedding dress to be fixed before, it was honestly incredible.” Max sounded a little too amused, and Nico reminded himself to not ever get on Max’s bad side.
The two of them went on and on, telling Nico the most bonkers alterations stories that they could remember. Even one or two about Seb and Jenson. Apparently Seb had f*cked Mark, the coffee shop owner, several times a few years ago and Jenson was still pissed about it.
They also apparently knew that Oscar was finally going to ask Lando on a date next week. Nico was slightly terrified as to how they had figured this out and Lando had not.
“I don’t think anything compares to the George incident though.” Charles exclaimed, nearly walking into a sewing machine. “That was such a trainwreck.”
“The George incident?” Nico asked.
“You don’t know? Oh my God, Nico, you're not ready for this.”
“I’m not?”
“You really aren’t.” Max responded, sounding dead serious. “It’s possibly the worstI’ve seen happen recently.”
Nico raised his eyebrows. The stories preceding this one had been pretty bad, so he couldn’t imagine how terrible this one was.
“So, essentially, as you know, George is dating-”
Max shook his head. Violently.
“-someeeeone.”
“Who?”
“Um.” Charles responded. He busied himself with turning on the industrial steamer in the corner of the room and setting up Nico’s suit underneath it.
Oh God. Was it Mick? Why the hell didn’t he know George was dating someone?
“Who is it? Do I know them?”
“You’d probably know them?”
“Do they work at Kleinfelds?”
“No!” Charles responded, looking vaguely like a deer in the headlights. “They don’t. But he’s not out yet so don’t go asking everyone about it.”
Oh. Interesting. As far as Nico knew, George was out, so at least it wasn’t him. Maybe it was the Jack guy at the coffee shop? He’d ask Mick later.
“I won’t ask anyone about it,” Nico lied. “Now, what’s the George incident?”
Nico had been expecting the usual type of story. The type that everyone had experienced- about some bitchy bride, getting hit on by the bride’s friends, or even the bride, or the weird mother in laws- but nothing quite compared to the George incident. Every new detail that Max and Charles added onto it seemed to just make it worse and worse, and by the end, Nico wasn’t sure how George hadn’t snapped.
“-So, that’s the George incident.”
Nico was baffled. “So, were the squirrels like in her bra when she came in or-?”
“Yes!” Charles yelled. “I don’t know why she came in like that. Like seriously, just because you need space for your pet squirrels to sleep, doesn’t mean you bring them with you and pawn them off on the first guy you see and then immediately decide that you are soulmates with said guy? Like I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had been George. What do you do when some lady hands you squirrels, proclaims her love for you, then ditches her fiance for you in the fitting room?”
“What I still don’t understand-” Max started, before shifting the dress he was sewing. “Is why she felt that she needed to call the guy on speaker-phone while George was in the room while she broke off her engagement. If seeing George was all it took for her to break it off, maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to marry him?”
“I can’t believe George waited until she broke up with him to tell her that he’s gay and has been in a seven-year long relationship while she was still on the phone.” Charles laughed. “I didn’t know George had it in him to do something like that.”
“I didn’t either!” Nico cried. “But how did all of you find this out?”
“Well, because she had such a weird request with the whole squirrel pockets in the sweetheart neckline thing, Max and I both had to come up to see if what she wanted was actually possible. It wasn’t, by the way, and we snooped through the door when she called her fiance.”
“Wow.”
“Your suit’s done.” Charles said, holding up Nico’s suit. It looked far better than it had earlier, so much so, in fact, that he considered asking Charles if he would steam all of his suits.
“Thank you!” He didn’t know Max and Charles very well, but the two of them had managed to put him at ease in a way he hadn’t known to be possible.
“I’d say it was my pleasure, but given that you were wearing the most horrible white suit I’ve ever seen, it really was not enjoyable. You look very nice in white, but the three different shades are horrible. Please don’t do that again. Anything but this would be better. And,” Charles continued, waving his hands around. “The fit of the blazer is all off, did you get this tailored because if so I am upset about it. I might just have to fix it myself.”
Max spoke up. “I agree that the suit is terrible-”
Nico tried not to be offended. The suit was designer and had cost him at least a few thousand dollars.
“But why are you making him put a f*cking suit on again? Just give him your spare clothing that I know you keep here. That suit must be uncomfortable,” Max said. “I wouldn’t want to sit in an ugly suit after a panic attack.
Charles rolled his eyes. “Nico, I’m being told by certain people-” he glared at Max, “to give you sweatpants. I have no choice in the matter, if Seb yells at you for it, it’s Max’s fault, yes?”
Nico didn’t know how to tell Charles that he had already yelled at Seb once, and he really wasn’t keen on doing it again, so he just stayed quiet and nodded in agreement.
Charles disappeared, presumably to grab him clothes.
“Seriously, Nico,” Max said. “Just let Charles alter the blazer, it will make him happy and then I won’t have to hear him complain about it for weeks and you might be able to finally out fashion Lewis.”
Nico scoffed. “How do you know I’m not currently out fashioning Lewis?”
Max gave him a look.
“Here,” Charles said, coming back up to the table. “They might be a little big on you but anything is better than that suit.” He handed him a pair of sweatpants and a faded blue t shirt.
Nico took them gratefully and headed back towards the bathroom.
Once he had changed into Charles’ clothing, Nico was forced to admit that Max had been right about the suit. Being in sweatpants, despite how foreign it felt to wear them during his work day, really did help him feel less stressed. His headache even seemed to have subsided a little bit.
He walked back towards the table Max and Charles were at.
“Thank you for the drama and for steaming my clothes, I think I’m going to head back up and see when Jenson is taking me home,” he said. He didn’t want to overstay his welcome.
“Alright! Bye Nico! You’re always welcome down here, even if your suits are f*ck ugly.” Charles called after him, grinning as if he hadn’t insulted him.
“You can keep it and, uh, alter it if you want?”
Max smirked.
Charles looked like a kid who had been told he was going to Disney.
“Nico, this is the best present you could have ever given me, I won’t disappoint you!” he exclaimed. “It’ll be ready next week for you, okay?”
Nico smiled. It felt good to have friends again. “Okay.”
Max didn’t say anything, but gave him a slightly threatening finger wave.
Nick walked back upstairs. It was nearly six and business was starting to wind down. On his way to Jenson’s office, he walked past the entrance to the stockroom.
“Nico!”
He stopped dead in his tracks.
“Nico! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Lando said, bounding out of the stock room. “Jenson said you weren’t feeling great after Dorothy.”
Well, that was an understatement.
“Yeah,” Nico said. “You weren’t in there but she…she said a lot of things that were not very nice.”
Lando nodded. His gaze flicked down to Nico’s borrowed sweatpants but he said nothing about them.
“Hey, Lando, could you pull the long sleeve Hailey Paige with the illusion top? I think that might be what she’s- oh, sorry, am I interrupting?”
Nico froze as Lewis rounded the corner, still looking picture perfect in his black mock neck.
“No,” Lando said. “I was just catching up with Nico.”
“Well if you’re done catching up can you go pull the dress? I think Molly is getting anxious.”
Molly. Long sleeve dress.
Wait a minute.
“You took my appointment,” Nico said accusingly.
Lando disappeared back into the stock room.
“Yes,” Lewis said, almost tiredly. He scanned Nico up and down, probably taking in his not work appropriate outfit and probably judging him for it. Bastard. “I did.”
“Why?” Why after all these years did Lewis keep having to show Nico how much better he was than him?
“I was the only one available, my other bride had canceled and Seb asked me to,” Lewis said, still calm. Like he was expecting Nico to explode on him.
Nico was not going to explode on him. He was sure Lewis was playing some kind of mind game, but on top of everything else that had happened today, he really didn’t need to argue with Lewis. His head was still pounding.
“Thank you for telling me,” Nico said, trying to sound normal.
Lewis blinked in surprise. “You’re not going to yell at me?”
“No,” Nico said. “I’m going to yell at Seb.”
He turned and walked down the hall, blood boiling and ignoring whatever Lewis was yelling after him.
He slammed open the door to Seb’s office.
Thankfully, Seb was not getting f*cked on the desk.
“How f*cking dare you,” Nico said, trying to keep his voice level.
Seb looked up from his computer tiredly. “Hello, Nico. If you’re going to yell at me, at least have the courtesy of doing it with the door closed so we don’t disrupt the whole salon.”
Nico slammed the door shut behind him.
“Are you still mad at me for telling you to go home?”
“No,” Nico said, crossing his arms. “Why the f*ck did you give my appointment to Lewis?”
Seb sighed. “Nico, I really don’t think that now is the time to-”
“No!” Nico shouted. “Why the f*ck are you giving my appointments to him? Of all people? You knew how much it would piss me off, you know our history!”
“Actually,” Seb said. “I really don’t know your history because neither of you will talk about it. All I know is that you two feud all over my f*cking store and cause me headaches.”
“Last I f*cking checked it’s your fault that we both work here!” Nico yelled. “You asked us both to work here because you’re stuck in the past or whatever and think that forcing us to sell wedding dresses together will somehow make us not hate each other! Well it f*cking won’t! No amount of lace and tulle and satin is going to get me my best friend back! We’re not all in college anymore, I don’t know why you’re still so stuck in the past!”
“You think I’m still stuck in the- you’re-!” Seb stood up and banged his hands on the desk. “You’re the one still holding onto a ten year feud over probably nothing! Lewis doesn’t even want to fight with you anymore! Can’t you tell or are you too far stuck up your own ass to see what’s in front of you!”
“What’s in front of me is an asshole boss pretending to be my friend because it’s convenient to him!”
Seb’s face darkened. “You take that back right now.”
“No,” Nico said, chin in the air. “I can’t take back what’s true.”
“Well then I’m sorry you don’t see me caring about your wellbeing as me being your friend!”
“You’re the one who got me into this mess! You really think I would have volunteered to work here, selling wedding dresses with my ex best friend, who I didn’t even know worked here for a year?! f*ck no! I wouldn't have dreamed of letting this job taint my resume!”
Seb’s eyes were boiling over with rage. Had Nico been in his right mind, he likely would have been scared.
“First of all,” Seb said, in German and deathly calm. “I’ve worked hard to build this business, something you, a businessman, should be familiar with. So please at least have the decency to not insult it to my face. Second, I found you in a gay bar in an ugly cream suit after you had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth for almost four years, you had no friends, no happiness and certainly no joy in your life. I don’t think I was in the wrong for offering an old friend a job and a chance to at least get out of his apartment a few times a week and socialize.”
“But you deliberately set me up!” Nico yelled back in English, not really caring at all who heard him. People should know what kind of a person Seb really was. “You knew you were going to ask Lewis to work here! You knew what that was going to be like!”
“No I didn’t!” Seb yelled again, in German still, probably just to piss Nico off. “I only was able to piece together what little Lewis told me, we didn’t expect for you to barely be able to be in the same room as each other! Lewis doesn’t even hate you! He’s just going along with what you do cause the two of you are dumb f*cks that don’t know how to act around eachother anymore!”
“How dare you say you know anything about what happened to us!’ Nico shouted. “You weren’t there, none of you were there!”
“No,” Seb said, taking a deep breath. Nico could see him actively trying not to scream again. “I was not there, but we were all friends at one point and I can see how this is killing the two of you. I don’t think it makes me a bad person for wanting my friends to talk to each other like normal people again.”
“If your idea of making us talk to each other is giving him my appointments, you couldn’t possibly be more wrong!”
Seb threw his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry that I am still running a business here! The world can't stop just because Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton don’t get along anymore! I did what I had to do! There’s no one forcing you to work here, you can leave whenever you want. But maybe if you just stopped and looked around every once in a while you’d realize that maybe not as many people hate you as you think!”
Nico didn’t know what to say to that. He stared at Seb, glaring at him the best that he could.
“f*ck you,” Nico finally spat out. “f*ck you, f*ck you, f*ck you!”
He stomped out the door, slamming it shut behind him so loud he heard the picture frames rattle in Seb’s office.
He walked down the hall, already sniffling because of course he was a pathetic bitch who was going to cry about this. God, he was the worst employee at Kleinfeld. He deserved to be fired. He needed to get to his office so he could probably write his resignation letter, apologizing to Seb and Jenson (and maybe even Lewis), and then he could maybe drop off the face of the earth. No one really wanted him anyway. He’d still keep Mick as his assistant, but maybe he’d just make him work online so Mick didn’t need to interact with him. Mick didn’t deserve to lose his job because Nico was a f*cking disaster, after all. He’d figure all this out once he got to his office and actually f*cking resigned like he should have years ago.
But before he could get anywhere, he ran smack into Jenson.
“Sorry,” Nico muttered, taking a step back. He didn’t dare look up at Jenson, he didn't want to see whatever pity was probably plastered all over his face. If Jenson tried to question him, he’d probably start crying.
“Everything alright?” Jenson asked in the voice of someone who clearly knew that everything was in fact not alright.
“Peachy,” Nico said. “Can you please take me home?”
Jenson laughed. “I thought you were against me doing that,” he said.
“Mmmmm….” How did he tell Jenson he had just yelled at Seb for the second time that day? “Please. I just want to go home. I have work to do.”
Nico knew he sounded pathetic. He didn’t care. Having only one boss mad at him was enough, he didn’t need both of them pissed, especially since Jenson was the one bringing him home.
“We can go soon,” Jenson said. “I have to send a few more emails, and I need to talk to Seb.”
“Jenson, I need to go now.”
“Nico, what the f*ck do you need to do that’s so urgent?”
“First, I need to write my resignation letter, then I have to figure out how to keep Mick as my assistant, then I-”
“Your resignation letter?’
“Yes, aren’t you paying attention?”
Jenson sighed, looking profoundly tired. Nico was glad that once he resigned maybe Jenson would know peace.
“You aren’t resigning. C’mon, let’s talk to Seb about this.”
“I am resigning. I have dishonored my humble name, and now I am going to stick to something I know I can actually do correctly. Got it?” Nico was distantly aware that his voice was shaking. He didn’t care about how pitiful it made him look, especially when he wasn’t going to be back.
“Nico, you aren’t thinking straight-”
“I should’ve done this years ago.”
Jenson groaned, put an arm around Nico’s shoulders and practically dragged him to Seb’s office.
“Seb!” Jenson yelled, once he kicked open the door. “Can you explain to Nico that you don’t want him to resign?”
Seb didn’t respond and continued to work on whatever he was typing on his computer.
“Seb.”
“Bring him down to alterations again. I don’t care what he does.”
“Seb, come on-”
“I’m not speaking with him until he gets his head out of his ass and recognizes that I’ve done him a favor by allowing him to work here for so long, despite the various problems he has caused here. Once he acknowledges that, maybe we’ll have a decent conversation. Until then, bye-bye.”
Jenson groaned, looking kind of like he regretted getting involved. Nico didn’t blame him. They left the room together and began walking back down the stairs to alterations. Nico could feel his legs getting numb again, so he was almost thankful that Jenson was practically holding him up.
“I’m going to talk to Seb, and then I’ll grab you so we can head out. Got it?”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this. It won’t happen again, as I am resigning.”
“You’re not resigning.”
“Who’s resigning?” Charles asked, popping out of nowhere. “What?”
“I am.”
“He’s not,” Jenson rolled his eyes again. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid like yell at Seb for a third time. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Charles stared at Nico for a moment, clearly taking in the fact that Nico was one inconvenience from bursting into tears. “You need a cup of tea.”
Nico hated tea, but he didn’t want to stop Charles from helping him. At least he’d have one last decent memory of Kleinfeld before he left.
Charles guided him back to the same stool he had been sitting at. Max was still trying and failing to reassemble the wedding dress for the pregnant girl and he didn't seem at all phased that Nico was there again.
“Hard day in the office?” Max asked without looking up.
Nico laughed dryly. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, no offense,” Max said. “But you never come down here. And now you’re here twice in one day.”
Nico sighed. “It’s not my fault Seb and Jenson are treating me like a toddler that needs supervision.”
He was spared from whatever comment Max was going to make by Charles walking up with his tea.
“Here,” Charles said. “Do not spill it on the dresses.”
Nico would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. He did still have some morals.
He took a slow sip. It almost tasted like the tea Lewis had used to force him to drink in college when he was sick. But the aftertaste was all wrong. Great, yet another thing that he couldn't fix. He swallowed down his tears.
“Do you have a piece of paper?” Nico asked.
Charles pushed one across the desk. He also handed Nico a piece of tailor's chalk. “Will this do?”
“Sure,” Nico said. His time here had been weird enough, it seemed fitting that he was writing his resignation letter in blue tailor’s chalk on a piece of scrap paper.
How did one even write a resignation letter? The last one he had written, to Toto, had just been an email that said “effective immediately I am no longer working here.” Seb, despite the fact that he was being an asshole, deserved a bit more than that.
He scrawled Letter of Resignation at the top in the neatest handwriting he could manage with a piece of tailor’s chalk. He let Max and Charles’s bickering over the dress fade into the background as he deliberated what to say.
I, Nico Rosberg, resign from my position as consultant. I never wanted it in the first place I want to apologize to everyone who had to deal with me, Seb, Jenson, Lando, Mick and Lewis. I’m going back to being a businessman because it's the only thing I can do well.
Nico
P.S. Mick you’re not fired. I’ll let you know what your job is after your paid vacation.
P.P.S. You’re getting a bonus.
There was more that he had wanted to write, but the scrap of paper Charles had given him was too small. Oh well. This would have to be fine.
“Nico?” Charles asked.
“Hm?”
“Do you want to hear what I am going to do with your blazer?”
Nico shivered, despite the tea that he was forcing himself to drink. “I suppose.”
Something draped around his shoulders. He looked up to see Max putting the scrap of what he could now see was velvet around him, like Charles had done earlier.
Charles launched into a long explanation of cuts and trims and big fancy words that Nico could not bring himself to process. Maybe he was making the wrong decision, resigning. Maybe it wasn’t all so bad after all. Maybe Seb was right.
No. That was impossible.
“Nico! Thank god!” Nico looked up to see Mick walking towards him, incredibly out of place in the alterations department. “Jenson was being weird and cryptic, I heard you yelled at Seb. Are you alright?"
There was so much genuine concern on Mick’s face that it took all of Nico’s willpower to not burst into tears right then and there.
“I’m fine,” Nico said. It was a bold face lie. And everyone knew it.
Mick raised his eyebrows.
“I am!” Nico said, entirely unconvincingly. “Jenson’s going to drive me home in a little and I’m not scheduled again until the weekend. I will be perfectly fine.”
“Nico…” Mick sighed, clearly not believing him.
“What?”
“Are you sure you’re alright? Do you need me to stick around?”
Nico’s eyes widened in shock. Of course! Mick wanted to go home! Why had no one told him that he should go home? Now Nico had also wasted half of his day as well. “No, no, go home, Mick. Your services are not needed here anymore today. In fact you’re on vacation, actually. Until Saturday when I’m working again. I’ll pay you, and I’ll give you a bonus. No dinner tomorrow either, you deserve the time off.”
Nico would in fact not be working on Saturday because he was going to resign, but no one needed to know that yet.
Mick, Charles and Max all blinked at him in shock.
“What? I said you were free to go! Now go! Shoo!” He waved his hands at Mick. Hopefully he didn’t look as insane as he felt.
“Okay,” Mick said. “I’ll see you on Saturday then? Let me know if you need anything?”
Nico nodded.
Mick stood awkwardly there for another minute before patting Nico on the back. It was almost a hug. Nico had gotten far more of those in the last few days than he had gotten in the last year. “Seriously,” Mick said as he started to walk away. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do!” Nico would not. He did not like to bother people unnecessarily.
“Mate,” Max said. “You overpay him.”
Nico scoffed. “I have more money than I know what to do with, at least it’s going to a good cause.” He folded up his resignation note and put it in his pocket. He would tell Mick he had resigned after his vacation. He’d call him on Friday.
He sipped his tea and pulled the scrap blanket around him a little tighter, listening to Max and Charles argue over how to best put the dress back together. For a few moments, everything was okay.
That was how Jenson found him.
“Come on,” Jenson said, walking up to the table what could have been hours later. Nico had no idea. “Time to go.”
Charles and Max bid him goodbye. He folded the scrap blanket and put it on the table, following Jenson back upstairs. After a quick stop in his office to get his stuff, they headed out the door and to the parking garage.
“You drive a Prius now?” Nico blinked at the mint green car in front of him.
Jenson rolled his eyes. “Seb sold the Miata years ago for something more environmentally friendly. Said that if I was going to waste gas driving to work every day it should at least be in a hybrid.”
Odd.
Nico didn’t respond, he just put his scooter in the trunk and got into the passenger seat.
It had been a long time since he had been in a car with Jenson. He and Jenson had taken a great many impromptu road trips together, both in Jenson’s Miata and Nico’s red Pontiac Firebird, back in college when they just needed to get out of the city. Sometimes, he, Jenson, Seb and Lewis had all piled into Seb’s bright orange Dodge Neon and gone down to the Jersey Shore, singing along to whatever mixtape they had made that month.
They were good memories. Nico missed them.
Jenson seemed to have installed a cassette player into his Prius, somehow, but he didn’t put a tape into it. Instead, he plugged his phone into the aux cord, and immediately “As Long As You Love Me” by the Backstreet Boys resumed playing.
Nico nearly jumped three feet in the air.
“What?” Jenson asked. “Don’t tell me you still hate the Backstreet Boys.”
“I haven't listened to them since I was in college! Of course I still hate them!”
Jenson rolled his eyes but skipped to the next song on the playlist. It was “Your Love” by The Outfield.
Nico closed his eyes, listened to Jenson’s terrible singing, and pretended that the two of them were twenty and driving to upstate New York.
As one weird 2000s rock song blended into the next, Nico noticed two things:
- He still felt like absolute sh*t and
- Jenson had not taken FDR highway, he had instead opted to drive the long way, all the way up Park Avenue. And they had hit nearly every red light.
The music had gone from vaguely nostalgic to bordering on someone’s sad breakup playlist. Seriously, why was Jenson listening to so much Kelly Clarkson? And Train? Nico hadn’t even known Jenson liked Train.
He really started to think that something was up when “You Found Me” by The Fray came on. Jenson got slightly too into it. Definitely too into it for someone who was in a relationship. Had Seb f*cked something up?
Nico hoped that the next song might be a little better. But it was “Never Say Never,” also by The Fray. When had Jenson started listening to so much of The Fray? What the f*ck was going on in his life that he needed to listen to this much of The Fray? Not even Nico did that.
Nico definitely did not miss how Jenson put on sunglasses. Was he crying? What the f*ck was happening? Had he caused the two of them to break up with his stupid antics?
Just as Nico was beginning to work up the courage to ask Jenson as much, the song changed again. To “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood.
He half expected Jenson to skip it.
Jenson did not skip it. He instead turned it up and started drumming on the steering wheel, screaming the lyrics louder than strictly necessary. Even Nico, in his post panic attack haze, knew that this was certainly not good.
He pulled out his phone and texted Mick.
I know I said you’re on vacation, but is Seb cheating on Jenson??? 😬
Mick’s response was instantaneous.
not that i know? why???
He’s really getting into breakup music in the car 😬😬
like what kind of breakup music?
Nico glanced over at Jenson, who was miming slashing car tires.
You know that song before he cheats? He’s pretending to slash car tires like it says in the song 😳 And he was definitely crying to The Fray earlier 😔
Mick’s typing bubble appeared and disappeared three times.
interesting. He finally wrote. do you want me to dig around and see what’s going on?
Oh, Mick knew him so well.
Yes! 😁 Thank you 🙏🏻
And then, because he was curious.
Hey by the way, do you know if George is dating that Jack kid from the coffee shop? The one who gave you almond milk for my coffee this morning? 🧐
God, had that really only been this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago.
not that i’m aware of? i don’t really talk to george about his dating life.
Nico frowned. Hm. He would revisit this later when he wasn’t trying to figure out if Jenson was getting cheated on.
“Hey Jenson?”
Jenson turned to him, still wearing the stupid sunglasses. It wasn’t even sunny out.
“Is, uh, is everything alright with you and Seb?”
Jenson stiffened. “Why do you ask?”
Nico gestured towards the music that was still blasting.
Jenson gave him a tight smile and a short laugh. “I’m not accepting relationship advice from you until you figure out whatever you have going on with Lewis.”
Nico groaned. Why did everyone keep insinuating that there was something going on? “There’s nothing going on! He hates me, I f*cked it up with him. That’s all there is to the story.”
“If that’s what you want to believe then that’s fine,” Jenson said. “But I think you’re forgetting to take Lewis’s side into account.”
What the?
What the f*ck did Jenson know about this that Nico didn’t?
He opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by the opening of “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry.
“Oh,” Nico gasped, because he knew this song. He’d stumbled across it in the height of his and Lewis’s rivalry while they had worked for Toto. Nico was convinced for a few months that he was either going to beat Lewis in clients or he was going to die trying. Probably the second one. He didn’t remember very much from the time right before he had quit, but he knew there were more than a few nights where he woke up in places he didn’t remember going to.
But that had been probably the lowest point in Nico’s life. He had a reason for listening to weird sad country music. Jenson, as far as he was concerned, did not. So why the f*ck was it on his playlist? What the f*ck had Seb done? Nico had already wanted to deck him today, but now he really had no excuse not to.
“You know this one?” Jenson asked, barely hiding how thick his voice was with what Nico presumed were tears.
“Yeah,” Nico said. “I do.”
Jenson had the decency to not ask him why he knew it. He had probably been able to put that together himself. He was smart.
“Do you want me to turn it off?”
Nico looked up at Jenson. The light was hitting just right so that he could see through his stupid sunglasses. Jenson’s eyes were filled with tears. Nico was sure that his looked the same.
“No,” Nico heard himself say. “Leave it.”
Jenson rolled the windows down to drown out their sorrows with the sounds of Manhattan at rush hour. Maybe if there were enough horns and sirens, it would replace the misery that they had both endured.
A few tears rolled down Nico’s cheek. Hadn’t he cried enough today?
He wiped them away with the hem of Charles’s t-shirt. It was pathetic really, how he had let Lewis get to him, and that he was still letting him get to him.
Because really, Nico hadn’t changed too much. Sure, he was technically, realistically doing far better than he had been all those years ago, but was he really? Because everyone was right, he was still holding onto some stupid feud because he had gone and convinced himself that it was better to fight with Lewis than to loose him altogether.
He had already lived a life without Lewis. Well, mostly. And it had been miserable.
Jenson leaned over and patted his knee. Nico tried not to jump at the contact.
“That was my crying song for awhile,” Jenson said as the song started to fade out. “Was it yours too?”
Nico shrugged. “Something like that.”
Jenson looked like he wanted to say more, but they were both startled by the guitar riff of the next song.
“Oh my god,” Jenson laughed. “I forgot that this was on here.”
Nico began to smile through his tears. He’d know this song anywhere. “Heaven” by Los Lonely Boys. A classic staple of their college years.
“God, do you remember how much Lewis hated this song?” Jenson laughed.
Nico smiled at the memory. “‘Why are you all jamming to a song about wanting to die?’” Nico said, mocking Lewis’s accent.
He hadn’t heard this song probably since college. He had almost played it a few times, when he was sad and working for Toto, but hadn’t wanted to tarnish the memory of it. And in those days, he really had to cling to every good memory that he had had.
He didn’t feel like he was tarnishing it now though, not with Jenson singing along loudly and strumming the steering wheel in time with the funky guitar riffs the way they had used to when it came on during a trip down the shore.
Nico could almost smell the sea salt in the air and feel the sun on his skin.
“I’ve been locked up way too long in this crazy world,” Jenson sang along, not caring that the windows were down and they were at a red light. “How far is heaven?”
Nico almost laughed at the absurdity. But what the hell did he have to loose?
“And I just keep on praying, lord, and I just keep on living,” he joined in, much to Jenson’s apparent surprise. “How far is heaven?”
Nico let himself get lost in the moment. He somehow still remembered all of the words, and he and Jenson still butchered the Spanish part like they always had. When was the last time he had even sang along to music with someone? Something that he used to take for granted? He was sure he and Mick must have sang some terrible pop song together at some point while cleaning his kitchen after they had their weekly dinner together, but the fact that he couldn't remember was frankly sad. When had growing up meant not having fun?
Jenson pulled up to yet another red light as the song ended.
“You looked like you needed that,” Jenson said as the instrumentals faded out.
And suddenly, Nico knew why Jenson had taken the long way back to his apartment.
It was almost nice of him, too. Until “Wonderwall” started playing.
“Turn this off!” Nico moaned.
“Absolutely not,” Jenson said. “This is a classic.”
“It’s going to get stuck in my head!”
“Good.”
Nico pointedly ignored how Jenson was singing along loudly and very off key. Oh well, some things clearly never changed.
He checked his phone again. Nothing new from Mick. He slid it back into his pocket and his fingers brushed against his resignation letter. He hesitated for a minute before pulling it out. There were certainly more stupid ways he could announce his resignation.
They were stopped at yet another red light. Jenson was strumming the steering wheel again during the instrumental. Nico shoved the folded piece of paper into his hand.
“What’s this?” Jenson asked.
Nico’s throat went dry. “My resignation letter. Pass it along to Seb, okay? I’ll have Mick come clean out my office when he’s done with his vacation.”
Jenson turned the music down.
The light was still red so he unfolded the letter and read it.
Before promptly ripping it up and tossing it out the window.
“Hey!” Nico shouted. “You can’t just tear up my resignation letter and throw it out the window! That’s rude! And also littering!”
Jenson rolled his eyes. “It’s paper, its also about to rain, it’ll break down quickly. Also you’re not resigning.”
“You can’t refuse my resignation! That’s illegal and I could sue you!”
Jenson rolled his eyes. “Look,” he said. “I won’t stop you from resigning if that’s what you really want. But I don't think that that’s what you want.”
“How do you know what I want?”
Jenson sighed and stepped on the gas as the light turned green. “Look, whatever you and Lewis have going on aside, do you actually have fun at work?”
Nico looked down at his hands. Aside from the crazy brides and the mothers, and the occasional insane crisis, Jenson was right, he did have fun. It was nice being able to work with his friends, brainstorm and get through the difficult appointments together, prank eachother, watch Seb and Jenson make fools of eachother, sit in the weird Australian coffee shop and shoot the sh*t, make fun of Seb for ordering bagels from the same damn place every time and f*ck around with Mick and Lando and Yuki and even Charles and Max and-
Yeah.
Jenson was right.
f*ck.
“You do, don’t you?” Jenson asked.
He wasn’t expecting a response and Nico didn't give him one.
“Just think about how many people helped you today,” Jenson said. “Myself, Mick, Lando, I know you don't think he did but Seb did nearly kill that mother on your behalf, Charles and Max, and even Lewis.”
Nico’s head snapped up. “Lewis didn’t help me.”
Jenson sighed. “Yes, he did. He…well…he did volunteer to take your last appointment.”
“Rat bastard,” Nico muttered. “I knew he was playing games with me.”
“No,” Jenson said. “It wasn’t a game. He really did want to help you, Nico. I promise.”
Nico did not believe him.
“Lewis aside,” Jenson said, stopping at another red light. “I know you wont admit it, but you like working here and we enjoy working with you. And for all the sh*t Seb likes to give you, he really doesn’t want to see you go back to being miserable. None of us do, actually. I know we don’t really know what happened, but I don't want to ever have to see you as miserable as you were when we stumbled across you in that gay bar.”
Nico wisely didn’t point out that that night was not even close to how miserable he had been at his absolute peak.
“And, if it means anything to you, I like having you around again,” Jenson said. “It’s fun, even if you do get on my nerves.”
Nico rolled his eyes to hide the tears that were clouding them.
“You’re not too bad yourself.”
“So does that mean you’ll stay?”
Nico sighed.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll stay.”
The light turned green.
Jenson slapped his thigh and stepped on the gas. “Mate, I’m so glad you said that.”
“You would be, you sappy ass,” Nico rolled his eyes.
Jenson just laughed and turned up the music again.
It was some god awful club music. Nico made a face.
“Absolutely not. I am not listening to this sh*t.”
Jenson laughed. “Yeah, I don’t blame you, it’s only on here to piss off Seb.”
Nico skipped to the next song.
My Chemical Romance blasted through the speakers.
“Oh turn this sh*t up,” Jenson said.
Nico gladly did.
Unlike “Heaven,” he had listened to “Famous Last Words” a great many times in the last ten years.
He had thought that if he emphatically sang along to a song to a song that talked about not being afraid to keep on living that it would eventually convince him that he too would not be afraid to keep on living.
It had worked, for the most part.
But back in college, he Seb and Jenson had all had this entire album memorized. Lewis had known some of the words, but he usually pretended not to whenever this song had come on, content to watch the three of them make absolute fools of themselves.
Which was exactly what he and Jenson were doing now.
Ten blocks down from his apartment, loosing their minds to a My Chemical Romance song that was twenty years old. He hadn’t felt this alive in years.
Jenson pulled up outside his building.
“Do you want me to park and walk you up?”
Nico shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
And for the first time in a long time, he believed himself.
“So, will I see you at work on Saturday?”
Nico smiled. “Of course you will.”
Jenson clapped him on the shoulder.
Nico opened the door and got out, grabbing his scooter out of the backseat.
“Hey Jenson?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Nico shut the door and walked up to his apartment, feeling lighter than he had in years.
It was already getting late, driving through New York City at peak rush hour was a long experience. So he pulled out some leftovers from his door dash the night before. He wasn’t really hungry, but Seb had probably been right - not that he would ever admit it - he probably needed to eat something. And then he could take something for the headache that was steadily making itself known again. Damn crying. The day, even though it had ended on a positive note, was starting to catch up to him. He needed to sit down before he crashed.
He had just put his food in the microwave when there was a knock at the door.
Nico frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He looked through the peep hole and saw the same delivery driver from last night, in practically an identical outfit.
Nico had already had a rough day, he really didn’t need to deal with a slightly incompetent delivery driver.
Still, he wasn’t a total dick, so he opened the door.
“Here’s your food,” Lance, that had been his name, said, trying to hand him a bag.
“I didn’t order anything,” Nico crossed his arms. “You must have the wrong apartment.”
Lance looked at the receipt on the bag and then at Nico’s door. “Looks like 14B to me.”
“But I didn’t order anything, there must be a mistake.”
“Look man, I just take the food where they tell me to and it says to take it here.”
“Let me see the name on the order.”
Lance turned the bag around, showing him the receipt. L. Hamilton.
Nico rolled his eyes. This was low, even for Lewis.
“That’s the guy who lives across the hall,” he said, gesturing towards Lewis’s door.
“I can’t deliver it there, I have to take it where it tells me to,” Lance insisted.
“It’s not my food though!” Now Nico was getting frustrated.
“But I can’t-”
“Hey man,” Lewis said, stepping out of his apartment. “Sorry, sometimes it sends it to the wrong apartment. Nico’s right, that is my food.”
Nico stared at him, wide eyed. Had Lewis been spying on them this whole time.
Lance shrugged, evidently not giving a sh*t about giving the food to the wrong apartment anymore. What a loser.
He turned to go back inside.
“Nico, hey, wait a minute.”
He stopped. But he didn’t turn around.
“This is for you,” Lewis said.
And that was such an odd statement that Nico did turn around. Lewis was holding a container out to him. Almost like a peace offering.
Nico stared at it, unsure if he should accept it.
He looked up at Lewis. His eyes were calm, hopeful.
Nico took the container.
Once again, their hands brushed.
Electricity shot up Nico’s spine.
“I hope you’re feeling better, man,” Lewis said.
Nico thought that he might have smiled. But then Lewis’s apartment door was shutting, almost like he had imagined the whole situation. Except for the fact that he was holding a container of…something.
He stepped back inside his own apartment just as his microwave was beeping. His food was ready.
He walked into the kitchen, setting Lewis’s container down on the counter.
Rocky promptly jumped up on the counter, spawning in from seemingly nowhere, and sniffed the container.
“You want me to open that?” Nico asked.
Rocky meowed at him.
“It’s from Lewis though,” Nico said. “He could have poisioned it.”
Rocky stared at him like he was crazy. He probably was.
“Fine, fine,” Nico sighed.
He opened the lid and nearly fell over.
It was soup. Miso soup. Nico would bet his life on the fact that it was from the Japanese place they used to order from in college.
For what was probably the millionth time today, tears fell down Nico’s cheeks. His own food sat forgotten in the microwave and with shaking hands he brought the container to his lips and took a tentative sip.
It tasted like his college dorm. The last place he had felt safe in.
If he closed his eyes, it was almost like nothing had changed.
He slid down onto the floor, back against the cabinets, soup still in hand.
Why had Lewis Hamilton ordered him miso soup from an obscure place from all the way downtown? Had Jenson been right?
No, he couldn’t have been.
Right?
