Chapter Text
Drawing up his shoulders, Alex leaned against the wind and cursed the tiny sharp droplets hitting his face. It was September, dammit, and last week they had still needed the AC, but no, since yesterday an icy wind howled through the city and the temperatures had dropped significantly. If the weather stayed like this, they would need the heating system pretty soon.
Despite the weather, the main shopping street in downtown Colbyn was packed. Alex dodged a strolling couple holding hands and finally ducked into the male-underwear store. No wind, no nasty droplets, but instead pop-songs and some way too strong masculine room scent.
“Hi! Can I help you?” A blond woman, maybe early 30s like him, came towards him, a lifeless customer service smile on her lips.
“Thanks, I’m just checking on the socks.”
“Here we have the ones with prints, over there one-colored in various lengths, and over there are the winter socks.”
“Yes, thank you.” He smiled back and because there wasn’t enough space in the narrow aisles to get past her without getting physical, he stayed where he was and inspected the socks with the prints. Flamingos and cacti and cartoon characters and lots of random shit. Why the hell did someone put this on socks?
Even worse, the store clerk stared at him expectantly from the side.
God, really. He grabbed a pair with beer pints – not for himself, but for his brother-in-law who loved this type of socks – and lo and behold, the woman moved away, downright disappearing between racks full of fluffy bathrobes.
With a slightly annoyed sigh he went down the aisle to the normal, uniformly colored socks, arranged form lighter to darker colors.
Another sigh escaped him, this time wistfully. While sorting through some clothes, he had discovered that most of his socks were still the ones his mom had bought him back when he had lived at home. Given that he had moved out thirteen years ago, that surely spoke for the quality of the socks, but still, seeing the little marks she had stitched into them to distinguish which belonged to which member in the household felt weird by now. He wasn’t a kid anymore.
He grabbed a couple of white and grey pairs, as well as some in dark blue and black, before turning around and slamming into a wall. “Ooof!”
“You okay?” A very human wall, it seemed. With a deep rumbling voice.
“Ye-yeah, sorry.” Hastily he took a step back and gulped when he realized the wall was clad in camouflage. Basically on his eye level sat the name tag reading M. Britton.
“No worries.” M. Britton gave Alex a half-smile and he tried to reproduce it.
“Sorry.” He repeated and took a step back. This was definitely the wrong place and wrong time to fantasize about guys in uniform. The socks needed to get paid.
“Are they good?”
“What?” Alex nearly dropped the socks.
“The socks. Are they good? Good quality, I mean.” The soldier pointed with a beefy thumb at the rack.
“Uh, I don’t know.” Alex admitted. “My brother and brother-in-law say they are good, especially the ones with cashmere. I myself never had those before.”
“Cashmere? Fancy.”
To that, Alex could only shrug. That Britton-guy was a bit too muscle-packed for his taste, but he liked the sharp-cut face, even if it held a stony expression right now. And, well, uniforms just did it for him.
The guy gave him a tiny nod and turned to the socks.
Swallowing, Alex backed away a step, before heading to the checkout.
Back in the cold wind in front of the store, Alex tried to adjust his jacket collar in a way that would protect him better, but to no avail, he needed to dig out his scarf when back at home.
How ridiculous, it was still September.
Shaking his head and making a face at the dark-grey sky, he pulled up his shoulders. Back home, he would make himself a nice cup of that pumpkin spice coffee his sister had gifted him, and then – or well, maybe better before the coffee. Yes. Before enjoying the coffee, he would enjoy the fantasy of that soldier with the growly voice, to which he would happily reply ‘yes sir’ and then—
“Hey.”
The growl made Alex spin around. “Yes?” It was a bit a breathy answer, but better breathy than squeaky, right?
Britton stood there, his huge frame nearly blocking the store door, the paper shopping back seeming tiny in his hand. “You from here?”
“Uh, yeah. Born, raised and always lived in Colbyn. Why?” Alex had expected something more like ‘you lost x near the counter’ or similar, but that question seemed weird.
“Could need some help.”
After waiting a second or two for the guy to elaborate, which didn’t happen, Alex rose a brow. “That’s pretty vague.”
The stony mask shifted slightly, but remained unreadable. “Inherited an apartment. Need to take care of that.”
“Like, you need a lawyer? A realtor? Someone to—”
“Look”, the growl got a tad louder when interrupting Alex, “I just got posted to the local base, because I’m supposedly from here. I’m not. I just need to take care of this shit so I can report back to important things. I need someone who knows people or companies or just shit around here to get stuff done without losing a fuckton of time and nerves.”
Since this seemed like an outburst, Alex nodded, swallowed and tried for a smile. “I do know… shit around here.” A water drop hit is forehead. Not the tiny droplet type you could easily ignore, but real rain.
“Good.”
Another drop, and another. A third one made Alex flinch and blink, cause it hit right next to his eye.
“Know a place where we can talk without getting wet?” Britton growled and is nose twitched.
“Uh, sure. One block down is a little coffee shop that’s not overprized.”
“Good.”
The silence in which they walked to the café seemed to Alex as cold as the wind. The café was still decorated in a summerish theme, which felt out of place given the weather. Alex ordered a cappuccino and a cinnamon roll, while Britton – to Alex’ surprise – took some fancy coffee concoction with almond milk and carrot cake.
They sat down at a table close to a door leading to a back patio and Alex could see how the rain started to fall in earnest now. “So, man, what do you need exactly?” He started a little uncomfortable and reached for the little sugar sachets in a small black bowl on the table.
Britton huffed, his shoulders switched. “Not sure.” His coffee had come in a tall latte macchiato glass with a matching spoon, and said spoon got now thrust through the foam. He stirred nearly aggressively. “Inheritance shit is all done. I own the place. But I don’t want it.”
Stirring the sugar into the cappuccino much more gently, Alex nodded. “Means you need a realtor to sell it. Is the apartment empty or do you need to clear it?”
“The latter.”
“A friend of mine and his family own a little company for exactly that. But they do the trash job. No salvaging or reselling or the like.”
“Fine by me.” Britton snorted. “Been to that place only once.”
“Who did it belong to?” Alex wanted to know politely before lifting his cup.
“My parents.”
“Oh.” Alex nearly dropped the cup. Given that Britton appeared to be early 30s like him, his parents couldn’t have been that old. There was a tragedy hidden in there, wasn’t there? “I’m really sorry to hear—"
“Adoptive parents.” Britton clarified with another snort. “Gave me a name and a home, but they were only good people, not good parents.”
“Oh,” Alex did again, not knowing what else to say.
“Grew up over in Bernfield, they retired and moved here only a couple years ago. We met on occasion in their vacation homes.” Corners of the mouth moving downward with something resembling bitterness, Britton stabbed his carrot cake.
Alex swallowed his bite of cinnamon roll, then asked: “What happened to those?”
“Got sold,” came the mumbled reply. “Money went to charities and inheritance.”
“And this apartment now, why don’t you keep it?”
This time, the snort seemed to come from deep down and was longer. “My home is the base I’m stationed at.”
With this reply, Alex refrained from commenting on unrelated income due to renting out the place. “Okay, uhm, yeah…” Maybe what he thought to be bitterness was this guys form of grief. Maybe he just needed someone outside his own ranks to talk to about all this.
They sat in silence for some long minutes. On one side accompanied by the loud platter of rain on the patio and outside furniture, on the other side by the chatter of the other patrons, the hissing of the coffee machines and some music, too low to make out the actual song.
“So, you haven’t checked the apartment…?” Alex started after a finishing his cinnamon roll.
Britton, who had more dissected his slice of cake than eaten it, slowly moved his gaze from the patio to Alex. “No. Guess I should, huh.”
“I mean, maybe your parents have some valuable jewelry or sound system or whatever…” Alex gave him a small shrug. “If you don’t want to deal with selling stuff, you could donate it. My aunt is big into local charity. I could ask her what they would appreciate.”
While nodding, Britton’s shoulders dropped a little. He scrubbed a hand over his face and actually seemed a bit lost for a second – it hit right into Alex’ overly big soft spot for tough guys. “Would appreciate it.”
Some poetic thoughts about rain and tears popped unbidden into Alex’ mind, especially as Britton gazed again with slightly drawn brows outside. What had made this guy approach him? And why the hell did Alex agree to help? He normally wasn’t that good of a person and he wasn’t that driven by his dick.
“Mind to give me your number? Don’t know how much free time I can carve out of this new post.”
The low rumble sent a nice shiver down Alex’ spine. “Sure.” He took the smartphone Britton held out to him and tried not to eye the strange heavy case too curiously, before he typed his number and full name.
“Calling you,” Britton then grumbled after taking the phone back and Alex dug his own one out of his pocket.
“Got it.” He declined the call. “What’s your first name?”
“Max.”
“Nice to meet you, Max, I’m Alex. Even though the circumstances could be nicer.”
That actually elicited a tiny smile from the stony soldier. “They said Colbyn is a good place. With nice people.”
That in turn made Alex smile now. “Colbyn is boring. But in the sweet way.” Forcefully he pushed away the memory of his ex calling him ‘sweet but boring’ and doubled down on his smile.
Max nodded and lowered his gaze, it seemed to fall on the phone in Alex’ hands. A small frown flickered across his forehead, before the probing gaze switched back up to Alex’ face. Did he realize the green and blue marbled case was representing the gay flag? Was he one of those many homophobes and regretted now his decision?
“I guess I’m a bit boring too.” Alex said in a fake joking tone and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “So, I guess I’m available to visiting your apartment whenever you have time.” It sounded weird in his ears, but his first choice of words would have scared off – or angered – any real homophobe and he didn’t want to provoke anything.
But Max nodded slowly. “Thanks.” He held Alex’ gaze and a tingle snuggled up to the cappuccino and the cinnamon roll in Alex’ stomach.
“You’re welcome. And welcome to Colbyn, I guess.”
This time, the little smile on Max’ lips was reflected in his dark eyes. Maybe not a homophobe, just assessing the people around him.
Please let me not fall for a straight guy, just because he’s in uniform, not again.