I'm Glad I Met You

Dan Again

Phil and his father got out of the car and ran towards the Howell’s front door. In the time it had taken them to reach the house, it had begun to pour outside, typical English weather as it was, neither man fancied getting rained on.

When they got to the door, Phil’s father straightened out his jacket before knocking on the door, while his own heart did the flippy-over thing. He was going to see again, and it hadn’t even been one day!

The door opened and Mr. Howell answered the door. “Ahh, Lester, it’s good to see you! And I see you brought your boy along!” He looked at Phil and beamed, “Just what I needed too, you see, Dan refuses to get up when I ask him to, maybe you could convince him otherwise? He’s upstairs in his bedroom if you’d like to give it a go.”

Phil looked at his dad, who nodded his head agreeably, “Go on, Phil! I’m going to be here a bit, so spend time with Daniel.”

With that the two men set off in the general direction in what Phil assumed to be the Howell’s kitchen. He turned on his heel and went up the stairs. There were only three rooms off the landing, one to Phil’s left being a bathroom, to his right a room with three computers in it. Phil assumed the door right in front of him would be Dan’s, so he walked right in without even knocking.

What stood before him made Phil chuckle to himself. With the blinds closed, Dan was laying on his bed with a black and white duvet wrapped around him, his face illuminated by the bright screen of his phone.

“For the last time dad, I said I was getting up!” said the younger boy, looking up from his phone.

His sleepy brown eyes widened when he saw who he was talking to. “Phil! What are you doing here?!”

“Trying to get you to get up, of course!”

“Dad set you up, didn’t he?” Dan said scowling.

Phil put his hands up, surrendering. “Not you too!” Dan exclaimed then added grumpily, “Dad sets up every friend I’ve got that comes over on weekends to wake me up.”

Phil smiled apologetically at Dan, who looked back at his phone and smiled to himself. ‘Dimples?’ Phil thought to himself, ‘I didn’t notice that Dan had dimples. They’re kind of..cute. Cute? Wait. What the heck? Phil. Nonononono, don’t do this to yourself. You know you’ll rarely see Dan again.’

Phil had always considered himself bi, but boys were always more attractive to him. However, Phil would never express this out loud. It was his little secret and he didn’t think that anyone should know about it. He assumed Dan was straight, so thinking thoughts like that were definitely not helping Phil’s case.

He looked up at Dan with blushing cheeks. Dan seemed to notice once more that Phil was in his room. “Hey, come sit by me!”he said, finally sitting up straight and patting the bed beside him.

If Phil’s cheeks weren’t already red enough, they were now. He awkwardly made his way over to Dan and sat down, a good 30 centimeters between them. Dan smiled at Phil, “I got your text about lions, by the way, very educational, thank you.”

Phil buried his face in his hands. “Kill me now,” he said.

“Why? That’s an odd wish.”

“I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I replied with the first thing that came to mind! I’m so embarrassing sometimes.”

Dan chuckled, stretching his arms behind Phil to pat his back. “Don’t worry,” he said, and then muttered to himself under his breath, “It’s cute.”

Now Phil, being oblivious, of course didn’t even notice the last half of what Dan said, to which Dan was grateful for.

“Want to play video games? I’ve got Sonic,” Dan said after sometime of a comfortable silence.