a christmas miracle

eight

"You look so good." Nick smiled at Charlie when he opened the front door of his apartment building.

"You don't look too bad yourself," Charlie replied, noting the slight red tinge to Nick's nose and cheeks and wondering if it was from the cold or if Nick was blushing, "Blue suits you."

Nick brushed a hand down his blue coat as if brushing off some invisible dust and then did the cheesiest thing he's done in a long time, holds out the bunch of flowers he's bought for Charlie that he'd been hiding behind his back.

"Oh!" Now Charlie is definitely blushing.

"I wanted to make tonight special. For both of us." Nick explained, "I've been a bit distant the last few days, and I'm sorry about that. But we both deserve to enjoy tonight."

Charlie smiled and took the flowers from him, "Thank you Nick. I love them." He brought them up close to his face, letting their scent wash over him.

"What are you doing?" Nick laughed.

"Smelling them." Charlie replied, a frown settling over his eyes. "It's not that weird, is it?"

"No, no. I've just not seen someone smell flowers so, I don't know, intensely."

"Sorry." Nick watched Charlie's face fall and instantly felt regret.

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed. I'm glad you like them. And you can enjoy them however you like. I'm sorry. I wanted so bad for tonight to be special and I've ruined it already..."

"Nick." Charlie stepped closer, putting his free hand on Nick's chest gently. "You haven't ruined anything. It's just a little hiccup."

"But..." Nick started to protest but Charlie shook his head.

"No. Let's start things over, yeah? I'll go and put these upstairs and when I come back down, we'll pretend it's the start of the whole thing." He could see that Nick still wanted to argue but he just flashed a small smile and turned to go back inside.

He made his way up to his flat as quick as possible, mind running at a thousand miles a minute over what had happened. 

In all their conversations about this Valentine's dinner, ever since the first initial talk, Nick had always seemed a little distracted but at the same time, almost desperate to make it perfect. It gave Charlie the thought that something about the holiday meant a lot to Nick, and maybe there was some memory that he was trying to cover up. Part of Charlie wanted to suggest forgetting the whole night and just planning a dinner for any other night, one without all the societal pressure. But he sensed that that would make Nick even more distressed.

So their plans continued and now, they found themselves about to embark on their first real date, on Valentine's Day, and already off to a rough start.

Charlie could only hope that things went up from here.

He quickly put the flowers in a vase of water and, after taking a calming breath, headed back towards the lift, and Nick.