Music sounds better with you

coffee breathe

The faculty buildings on campus were a lot bigger than Charlie had pictured them in his head, and he finds himself staring a little bit awestruck at how high the ceilings are and how these corridors seem to stretch on for miles.

Nick leads them up an escalator, where there's a little cafe at the top. "I thought we could eat here," he suggests, tucking himself against Charlie's back. "This is a nice quiet little place, and I come here a lot to study in peace."

"You think you'll get much studying done with me here?" Charlie giggles. Nick nips at his shoulder.
"Probably not, but it's nice and secluded and the food isn't too expensive. Plus, it's free black coffee refills."
Charlie pretends to swoon. "The true key to my heart."

Hand in hand, they wander into the cafe and take a seat at one of the corner tables. Nick heads over to order them their food–a jacket potato with cheese and a Pepsi Max for himself, a ham & cheese toastie with a black coffee for Charlie–and he's served quickly, returning with their drinks before Charlie's finished replying to the group chat.

"Who are you texting?"
"Tao," Charlie says, gratefully reaching for his mug. "He's gushing about his modules and Elle is hyping him up, you know how it goes." He takes a sip of scalding hot coffee. "If only it was so easy to gush about maths."
"I just love trigonometry," Nick pretends to swoon, pressing a hand on his heart. "All those angles. Love them to death."
"Maybe leave the maths to someone who actually knows what trigonometry is, babe."

Nick chuckles. "I'm glad I'll never have to do maths again, not when I've got you to do it for me."

"Yeah, yeah. Are you still coming to meet us tonight?"
"Definitely," Nick says enthusiastically. "The rugby social starts at six in one of the bars, then we're just going to bar hop until we get to that sports bar in town. We'll stay there until it closes at 1am, then come and meet you after."
"Cool," Charlie says. "I'm actually quite excited to meet some of the other gays around here. I feel like they'll be more my speed than the guys in our building."
"A bit of local queer bonding never did anyone any harm, that's for sure." Nick grins at him and takes his hand over the table. "I can't get over this, you know. I probably sound like a right knob just saying this over and over again, but I love having you up here."

Charlie blushes. "Shut up. You'll make me think you have a crush on me or something."
"I've been caught out," Nick proclaims dramatically. "Do you fancy going on a date sometime?"
"Go on then," Charlie says, after a second of pretending to think about it that just becomes them grinning at each other stupidly.

They're both terrible at flirting stupidly with each other, because they both end up breaking character and getting all sappy with one another. He leans into Nick's space and kisses him gently.

"Where do you fancy going? Nando's?"
"Do you know how excited I am to be able to take you to better places than Nando's?" Nick hums, linking their hands together. "I think about it a lot, you know. About how when we're working full time, we'll both be making good adult money to go on luxury holidays and really nice bars and stuff. I think about that a lot."
"You do?" Charlie says breathily, his smile so wide it's almost painful. "You're so fucking sweet."

Nick opens his mouth to reply, but he's interrupted by someone clearing their throat behind them. Charlie spins and spies the waitress from before with their food in her hands, looking... embarrassed , more than anything.

"Um, jacket potato?"

"That's me," Nick says, dropping Charlie's hand so she can pass it over to him. "Thank you."
"And here's your toastie." The plate is thrust into Charlie's hand and suddenly she vanishes, disappearing into the little kitchen and letting the door slam behind her.