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Nick Nelson is attractive. And he’s kind, and he’s outgoing, and he’s sweet, and he’s kind of everyone’s friend. He’s Nick. Slightly impossible, a complete idiot but in the endearing way, and always just the right amount of everything.
And he’s attractive.
Charlie has even gone as far as to refer to him as the hot straight boy before. Which, in hindsight, only one of those things is true. Nick Nelson is incredibly hot, but he’s also Charlie Spring’s boyfriend, and decidedly not very straight at all.
Holy shit, he’s Charlie Spring’s boyfriend.
It’s a fact that not even Charlie Spring himself has gotten over. Not that there are a whole lot of people around to get over it, seeing as they’ve told sizably no one that they’re an item. No one outside of their tight-knit friend circle, who all had their own collective bout of disbelief before being subjected to so much Charlie and Nick that they can’t really see either of them with anyone else.
Tao is probably the only one who knows that’s still bothered by it, but it’s less of his previous “Nick is such a straight boy” and more “can you please stare fondly into each other’s eyes at a time when I’m not also around.”
So no one really knows that Nick is Charlie’s, just as no one really knows that Charlie is Nick’s. But it’s entirely more dramatic for Nick to be walking around presumably available, especially when all his mates won’t quit teasing him over all the girls who are seemingly interested in his existence or allegedly fancy him this time around. Charlie swears it’s a new girl every week.
And, admittedly, he’s a little tired of listening to everyone try and predict which one of the girls from Higgs Nick is going to end up going after. Once he denied a date with Imogen, she stopped prodding around with him, but it earned Nick more than enough teasing in the rugby locker room because “Imogen is pretty, and she was so into you, and I can’t believe you didn’t go out with her!”
Harry still seems a little too set about Tara Jones—especially considering she’s properly a lesbian—but at least Tara can see some humor in the situation when Nick relays all the teasing to her after the fact.
Charlie just feels tired. Tired of sitting next to Nick tying his shoes while he listens to “did you hear who likes Nick Nelson now?” and the fact that having options is desirable and that Nick has about a million options because every girl at Higgs who likes boys seems to want something from Nick Nelson,
And yet, here he is, with Charlie Spring.
Nick sits and gets teased for not having a girlfriend, and never going on dates, only to follow Charlie Spring home with their knuckles brushing together and make out on his bedroom floor instead of doing their maths homework. And his camera roll is filled with photos of Charlie in every room of both their houses, and he shows Charlie a live wallpaper he made that looks like he has something normal and unassuming until he holds his finger down on the screen and it’s a picture of the two of them.
So really, in actuality, Charlie has no reason to be jealous. Because Nick likes him, and there’s no debate about that. Nick isn’t going to pursue any of the girls from Higgs he can’t keep track of, because he has a boyfriend, and even if he’s a secret boyfriend he’s not quite ready to tell the world about yet, he’s a perfect boyfriend.
Charlie Spring is dating Nick Nelson. And maybe it comes in the contract to dating the star rugby player—which Charlie never got the chance to read, by the way—that him dating Nick Nelson would mean sitting and watching girls flirt with him and guys tease him about said girls who flirt with him and punch him a little too hard in the shoulder when he dismisses that he’s not interested.
Charlie Spring is dating Nick Nelson. And in that same contract he never read, it says that going to parties with the star rugby player means watching everyone who can look at Nick Nelson and subjectively call him hot come up and try to talk to him. It’s why they tend to stick to private rooms and quiet areas—that and neither of them are too fond of the loud music and sweaty dancing—because there’s avoidance instructions in that contract, too.
The one Charlie never read.
But for once, they’re sitting close to where all the action is. It’s only because the party is being held outside on a particularly nice night, a living room made into dance floor still quite packed with too-young teenagers and glowsticks and the like. Outside, though, it’s nice, and Charlie likes the fresh air and sitting next to Nick on a bench by the side of the house and watching people he can’t name mill about and have conversations too far away to hear.
It’s kind of nice, for once, and Charlie is halfway to wondering if parties aren’t really as bad as he thinks they are. He can actually hear what Nick is saying to him, and he can hear himself think, and there aren’t so many flashing colors in his eyes that his head is starting to hurt.
His illusion is very quickly shattered when a pretty blonde girl takes a seat at Nick’s other side. As soon as she flutters her eyelashes and slides in close, Charlie remembers exactly why he doesn’t like parties.
Why does he even come to these things, anyway? (It’s to hang out with Nick, he knows this, but still).
“Nick Nelson, right?” the girl says sweetly, a little too sweetly for Charlie’s liking; she sounds so fake and saccharine he thinks he might gag.
But Nick smiles, because of course he does, because he’s Nick Nelson. Charlie figures it’s some kind of miracle the entire world isn’t in love with him. With his boyfriend.
“That’s me,” he says, laughing quietly. “And you are…?”
“Jane,” the girl says quickly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She slides impossibly closer to Nick on the bench. Charlie lets his shoulders sag, defeated, forever mourning the loss of a nice moment with Nick as long as he keeps coming to parties with him like this. Maybe if Nick were a little less attractive, or a little meaner, or a little worse at rugby—but then he wouldn’t be Nick Nelson, and Charlie probably wouldn’t like him as much. Maybe Nick wouldn’t like him as much.
He doesn’t really like thinking about any of that. He likes Nick the way he is, even if he attracts a few too many random girls at parties.
“So you go to Truham?” Jane asks, to which Nick only replies with a quiet “yeah.” “Do you like it there?”
Nick shrugs. “It’s school.”
Jane laughs far harder than anyone should. Nick did not say anything funny. And Charlie is saying that as Nick’s boyfriend, so really, he does get to be the final say on that fact. It’s probably in a contract somewhere, one that Charlie didn’t read.
“I heard a lot of the Truham boys date girls from Higgs,” Jane says slowly, prodding gently at the top of Nick’s thigh. “Are you going out with a Higgs girl?”
The awkward glint of borderline hope in her eyes makes Charlie feel ill. He has to suppress a frown, trying to remain subtle, and keeps to himself as he sits there and pretends as though his insides aren’t practically on fire. It’s not like Nick is flirting back, but forgive Charlie for not liking the scene of random girls touching his boyfriend.
He kind of wants to explode.
“Not really,” Nick dismisses, jerking away from Jane’s creeping touch.
Even with the direct refusal, Jane perks up. “So you’re single.”
And Charlie just kind of deflates. It’s in preparation for something he knows is coming: the dismissal, the avoidance, the finding a way to just get away from this place. He doesn’t have any problem with Nick wanting to keep them a secret, and it only gets to him in times like this; when he can’t show this girl who’s overstepping that Nick is his, and he’s really not interested, and she should go tell all her friends that encouraged her to come and talk to the cute rugby boy that the cute rugby boy has a boyfriend.
That’s in the contract, too. The contract to dating the star rugby player. The part where annoying girls are dismissed under the guise of just not being interested, which is entirely true, but it’s certainly not the end of it.
But Nick doesn’t say what he usually does, something that’s practically a rehearsed script at this point. Instead his lips tighten, and he counters, “I never said that.”
Charlie watches Jane deflate, then. And for once, he’s the one sitting up a little straighter, hoping that Nick will glance over at him and catch the “are you sure? look burning hot in his eyes.
Even with her dipping shoulders, Jane pries, “So who’s the lucky girl?”
Me, Charlie wants to scream, the other guy sitting here, who you’ve been ignoring this whole time, I’m the lucky girl.
There’s a simmer beneath his skin, red hot with uneven jealousy. Charlie sits and listens to Nick’s dismissals, and he smiles a little to himself at the familiarity of his voice. His envy remains unbitten, distilled by the way he knows Nick will kiss him the second they can find a quiet place to sit, ragged anticipation bursting sweetly at the seams.
Charlie sits a little closer to Nick on the bench. He sits, and he lets himself be a little tired, and he watches a girl he still barely knows flirt with his boyfriend. It’s strangely intoxicating to watch Nick be flirted with, intoxicating in that envy-fueled way that says he’s mine, and you just don’t know it yet.
He thinks about the contract to dating the star rugby player.
Charlie gets changed quickly in the locker room. Nick is always a little slower—half because he’s constantly distracted by his teammates—but Charlie doesn’t really mind. He’s alright with sitting on the bench with his bag hugged close to his chest, looking up at his boyfriend and listening in for his laughter where it doesn’t quite belong.
The one thing he does mind, though, is the way the rest of the rugby team speaks.
“Ay, Nicky,” one of them says, and Charlie barely catches the jostle when Nick is jabbed in the shoulder. “I heard there’s another girl from Higgs who fancies you.”
It’s in bold print. This right here, with Charlie sitting and listening to redundancy and dismissals that will never be caught in hints. Charlie sighs to himself, trying not to be obvious.
Uninterested, Nick mutters, “Oh, really?” And he tugs his shirt up over his head.
Charlie tries not to stare. Well, maybe that’s not true. He’s staring—he’s totally staring. Kind of because he knows Nick is going to be quick about getting his shirt back on, and that’s probably a good thing, because if he stares at Nick too long the rest of the team might notice.
He stares obviously enough that Nick gives him a look, though. It says I know what you’re doing, sideways grins and sun-stroked freckles.
“Aren’t you going to ask her name?”
Nick shrugs, pulling a shirt over his head. He’s nonchalant about it, but at the same time, it’s like he knows Charlie is watching.
“Eh, not interested,” Nick dismisses, reaching for his bag where it’s sitting on the floor. A chorus of boos rings out behind him, but Nick is too busy smiling at Charlie. “Char, you ready?”
Dizzying, Charlie stands up a little too quickly. “Yeah.”
And when Nick takes his wrist to pull him out of the locker room like nothing else matters, Charlie wonders if this part is written in the contract to dating the star rugby player, too.
Even if Charlie is on the rugby team, he rarely ever plays. And honestly, that’s what he prefers—he doesn’t think he’s very good, and the boys from the schools they play against are always bigger and scarier than he knows how to deal with. He probably has more fun standing on the sideline watching Nick play than he does actually playing, no matter how good of a player Nick will try insisting he really is.
It’s fun watching Nick play. Unlike Charlie, Nick is really good, hence being the quote-unquote “king of rugby.” Charlie will be the first to admit that there was a time when he was a little intimidated by the way Nick handled himself on the rugby pitch, but he’s beyond that now.
He’s watching Nick play as the math dwindles down to a close, fingertips toying with the hem of his own stretched-out jersey. Nick looks happy, really, really happy to be on the pitch, and that makes Charlie smile, because of course it does. When the match ends and Truham has won, the first thing Nick does is run up to Charlie, nearly tripping over his own feet trying to keep up with himself.
“Charlie!” he exclaims, catching himself on his boyfriend’s stable shoulders. “We won!”
And Nick is breathless, and he’s grinning, and there’s a gleam of sweat stroked down the front of his throat that Charlie stares at for a moment too long. Catching his own lost breath—which is gone for entirely different reasons than Nick’s—he smiles back, far more giddy about his boyfriend’s reaction than the victory itself.
“You did a good job,” Charlie compliments, voice a little quieter than he’d like it. “Should we head in?”
Taking a deep breath, Nick shakes his head. He looks to their left, and to their right, muttering an over-cautious, “Not yet,” into the bristling air around the rugby pitch.
Before Charlie can ask why, though, Nick leans in and kisses him slowly. It all happens so quickly that Charlie can’t really think about where they are, and he just kisses back, and he falls into Nick the way he always does; thoughtless, easily, with a little too much like.
He thinks he really likes dating the star rugby player, as long as the star rugby player is Nick.