Jim woke up the next morning in a bit of an odd mood, trepidation and anticipation mixing uncomfortably in his stomach. He went to shower and got dressed, agonising over what to wear that would allow him to go from work to drinks with Ross and muttering when he realised he'd done his buttons up incorrectly.
He redid them, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He normally didn't do shirts, but this was going to be an actual date and he wanted to look nice. He'd chosen the only one he had that didn't make him look like an actual librarian and threw the plain navy shirt over a white t-shirt for contrast.
Dressed and ready for work, Jim ate his breakfast and then had a moment's panic as he contemplated whether they could possibly end up back at his flat. That in turn made him think about the possibility of sex, and while he couldn't be sure if he was jumping the gun Jim also didn't want to be caught out if that was on the cards in the near future.
A quick scout in the bathroom revealed that he had no condoms that were actually in date and he huffed in annoyance as he chucked them in the bin and made a mental note to buy new ones. That thought set off the cycle of nerves again and Jim was barely aware of anything but how hard his heart was beating at the thought that he and Ross would actually be going out that evening.
He was already out the door and halfway down the stairs when he remembered the notebook and had to sprint back up to his flat to go and get it. He charged through to his room, grabbed the notebook off the bedside table, and galloped back out again.
The diversion meant Jim almost missed his bus and he ended up having to fling himself bodily through the doors at the last minute, looking around expectantly for Ross. Unfortunately, Ross was nowhere in sight.
Jim frowned as he made his way to the back, falling into an empty seat and dumping his bag on the floor. He took out his phone and sent Ross a text.
Hey, you up?
There was no reply and that made Jim feel a flicker of concern in spite of himself. He knew it was crazy, worrying about someone he'd literally only met that week. He heaved a sigh and put his phone back in his pocket, now completely distracted.
*********
Ross woke up with a sense of foreboding. He reached out blindly, scrabbling for his phone. To his horror, he saw that he'd obviously switched off his alarm when he's last snoozed it and he was now bordering on extremely late.
'Shit!' He did a near vertical leap from his bed, then showered and got dressed at a speed that could have probably broken records.
He was still doing up his shirt as he hurtled out his front door and down towards the bus stop, knowing that he had definitely missed Jim by at least an hour. Thankfully that also meant that the bust stop was far less crowded and Ross got on, pressed his pass to the reader and went to sit where he and Jim had been sitting the morning before. As he got comfortable, he stretched his legs out as best he could and then frowned when his foot hit something.
He leaned down and saw that there as a something underneath the seat in front of him. Ross reached down and managed to grab it and then came back up. The object in his hands was a black Moleskine notebook, A4 size. He looked around, but the other commuters were not paying him any mind at all and curiosity eventually overcame common sense and he opened it.
Then promptly slammed it shut.
Then opened it again, his eyes going wide as he read the page of text in front of him.
'Bloody hell.' It was murmured and Ross immediately knew he couldn't hand this in to lost property, not after seeing what the owner had been writing about. It was taking everything he had not to blush profusely at the very graphic descriptions. He did have to admit that whoever had written this, had an enormous talent for making the whole scene come to life and Ross could all too easily picture what was being written about and he was engrossed all the way to King's Cross until the bus lurched to a stop and he was jolted back to reality.
