Passenger Seat
Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.
--
October 3, 2003
"Fuck." Greg kicks at his tire, groaning when all it does is seem to deflate it more. "Fuck!"
Nick seems to appear from nowhere. "Something wrong?" Greg flails unattractively and almost falls on his ass. He catches himself on the hood of his car, grinning back at a clearly concerned Nick.
"Oh no, no, nothing at all. Just a flat tire and a car that won't start." He stares forlornly at the vehicle in front of him. "I hate this thing. I really, really hate this thing." The smile Nick gives him in return is far too much. He turns away. "Guess I'll call a—" he says, at the same time Nick asks, "Do you want a ride?"
A beat passes in an odd silence and then Nick clears his throat. "Alright, then, guess that's a no."
"Um." Greg glances out at the street beyond the parking lot, trying to decide whether he should take the ride from his far-too-attractive coworker and risk outing himself or his teeny, tiny crush in the ride home, or if he should pay the overpriced fee of taking a cab home. "Um." Nick looks at him, eyebrows raised in silent question, and Greg gives. "Sure, uh, if you're up for it."
You gotta live on the edge some time, right?
Nick brightens a bit and waits for Greg to get his stuff from his car and lock it up before he leads the way to his truck. Greg hears him curse under his breath at least four times before he can unlock the doors, and internally, Greg thinks he's far too nervous to just be driving a coworker home. Lending a helping hand is not something he would have ever thought Nick Stokes to be nervous about.
"Hey, listen," Nick says after they've been in his car for a while. Greg turns to look at him. "We're going out for dinner next week for Warrick's birthday… You wanna come?"
Greg grins, nodding enthusiastically while ignoring the voice in the back of his head that says that if it weren't for Nick, he wouldn't even be included. "Definitely, yeah."
Nick noticeably relaxes, smiling wide. "Great. If your car's still not fixed, I could pick you up, drive you home."
Having forgotten about his car, Greg slumps back in his seat. "Oh. Right, yeah. I'll let you know." Nick turns down onto his street. "Should I bring anything in particular?"
Pulling into an empty space on the street in front of the big glass doors of Greg's apartment building, Nick clears his throat. "Uh, 'Rick vetoed presents, so not really. Although if you want to contribute to the alcohol, feel free." He shifts the car into park.
With a nod, Greg opens his door and picks up his bag from the floor. "Great. Looking forward to it." He gets out and immediately hates having to switch out Nick's scent for the city air. He turns back and points at Nick. "You gonna pick me up tonight or should I call a cab?"
Nick gives a quick nod of his own. "Yeah, I'll pick you up."
"Great! Thanks!" Noticing his over-excitement a moment too late, Greg tries to downplay it by clearing his throat and turning away. "I'll see you tonight, then. Thanks again for the ride."
He closes the door before he can hear Nick's reply, and enters the building with a terrible feeling in his stomach. He'd had his chance; if he would have just brought it up, asked him out or something before Nick had asked him about dinner next week… Now he can't say anything until well after Warrick's birthday, because if he mentions it and it goes badly before then, then he'll have to deal with Nick outside of work at least one more awkward, awkward time. And, if his car isn't fixed by then – which it likely won't be – he has to worry about getting there.
He's so distraught that he doesn't even greet his neighbor as she comes out of her apartment
--
October 10, 2003
Greg hates everything. He'd scorched the coffee he made that night (don't ask how, he just did), had to suffer through one of his mother's lectures about finding someone, and then, just as he thought things couldn't get any better, he'd gotten a call from Nick informing him that he was leaving to come pick Greg up. And Greg had completely forgotten about Warrick's birthday dinner thing.
His closet clearly isn't ready for a ten-minute outfit shop, because all the time he has is spent digging in his closet, trying to find something at least partially decent to wear. As he'd half-expected, however, his phone rings ten minutes later with Nick telling him he's waiting downstairs. He tells him the room number and buzzes him up, closes his phone. Great, Greg thinks, tugging the shirt he'd been wearing all day back over his head.
Nick makes it up in record time, and Greg isn't even back into his bedroom before there's a knock at his door. With a longing glance towards his bedroom, Greg unlocks his door and lets his coworker in. "Hey, sorry I'm not—"
"Wow," Nick interrupts, shaking his head as he eyes him up and down. Greg feels the back of his neck heat up with a blush.
"I haven't gotten dressed yet," he admits with a sheepish smile. Nick doesn't seem to be fazed.
"No kidding…."
Blush creeping up to his ears, Greg waves him in. After insisting he looked good, despite that Greg hadn't done anything to change his wardrobe, Greg half expected him to have flowers. He doesn't, though, just keys. "Uh, I'll just be a minute. Make yourself at home."
He leaves Nick in the living room, heading back to dig through his closet for an old pair of shoes. Greg returns five minutes later, after a quick look in the mirror to check his hair, to find Nick staring at an old photograph in a frame that had forever embedded into it.
"Hey, ready?" he asks, raising his eyebrows when Nick turns around. He lifts the frame in question and keeps looking at it.
"You guys look really, uh, happy,"
Confused, Greg walks closer to take a look at what photo was in the frame, a younger version of himself, arms around his waist that belonged to another young man kissing Greg on the cheek. "Ha!" Taking the frame from Nick's hands, Greg drags his fingers along the lettering. "That's Jerry. We met in college."
"Oh… You're involved?"
"Oh, no, definitely not. We were just friends. We had a friend who was an art major, really into photography and stuff. He thought it'd be cute." Greg sets it back on the end table. "It used to say 'friends forever,' but it broke in the move and I never found the 'friends.'"
Nick can't seem to pull his eyes away. "Were?"
As Greg pulls his jacket on, he nods. "Passed away in his senior year." With one last glance towards the photo, he says, "Can we head out? I mean, not that I don't want you to know or anything but I don't think now is really a good time to talk about it if you want to know."
This time, he completely expects Nick to force him into talking, or even just want to set up an appointment or something, but all the entire drive to Warrick's, Nick doesn't say a word. It's off-putting and makes Greg feel like he's done something wrong.
But Nick doesn't seem mad, just distant. That doesn't really ease Greg's nerves, though.
--
For the most part, Greg stays away from alcohol, at the restaurant and when they return to Warrick's. His worries about Nick being mad at him drift away with the little he does drink, though, and Greg's pretty sure he's never loved alcohol more than he does tonight.
They're the last ones to leave; an hour after Catherine had left, Nick pulls Greg from his place on the couch where he's seconds away from falling asleep, and drags him to the car, grumbling. Greg helps as much as he can in his tired state, but unfortunately can't do much.
"Thanks," he offers when Nick gets in and starts his truck. "'Preciate it."
"Don't mention it."
The ride back is just as silent as the ride there, and Greg wonders if Nick's ever going to hold a conversation with him again. His head rests on the passenger window, staring lazily up at the starry sky that he doesn't get to see enough of anywhere near Vegas. His mouth opens countless times, insisting on asking questions that Greg forgets too easily. Just as the stars fade back into the pink sky of Vegas lights, Greg pulls his eyes from the sky and stares out in front of them.
Greg voices his thanks again when Nick parks in front of his apartment building. Ever the gentleman, Nick offers to take Greg back to his door, but Greg waves it off, assuring him that he'll be fine. "I didn't drink that much."
The lack of sleep obviously gets to him, however, because as he steps out, his foot catches on the edge of the curb, and he doesn't even know he's falling until his face collides with the cement. He vaguely hears Nick's worried voice call out his name, a car door slamming seconds later, and maybe Greg should be a little more concerned about the blood dripping from his face, but when Nick lifts him up into his lap, hands cautiously brushing blood away with the edge of his t-shirt, all he can think about is how close Nick is.
And Greg immediately sobers up. Nick is way too close, like the words 'personal space bubble' don't even exist together as a phrase, and he's touching and he shouldn't be. If Nick doesn't move or stop touching soon, Greg might do something he could very likely regret.
It seems that Nick notices their proximity at the same time Greg does, because his fingers slow on Greg's cheek and his Adam's apple bobs slowly as he swallows. Greg's not sure if it's because of the face planting or the alcohol, but time seems to slow down to half what it normally is and Nick won't stop staring.
"Greg," Nick finally says after a moment, his voice quieter than Greg's ever heard before but that might just be because of the ringing in his ears.
"Yeah?"
"When you said you weren't involved with Jerry… Did you mean you'd never be involved with a guy, or never be involved with him?"
Greg really hopes Nick can't tell he's shaking. "What do you think?" He feels the deep breath Nick takes in his eardrums. The ringing is almost too deafening to hear anything.
"I think I want to kiss you." Forget about shaking, Greg might as well be passing into earthquake territory as Nick closes the distance between them. Every single fantasy he'd ever gone through in his head didn't start or end the way it's happening right now.
"Wait." Dammit, no! Is that his own voice? Why the hell would he be saying that? "I don't really want to kiss you when I'm on the ground in front of my apartment building."
Nick chuckles but doesn't move away. Greg's insides squirm with every emotion he can think of, which isn't many. "Too bad." Greg hardly has the time to be elated about Nick's response before he's pulled into a kiss. The intensity, even without tongue, is enough to keep Greg from pulling away to complain about the pain in his neck. It lasts a few long, heavenly moments and when Nick pulls back for air, all Greg can think is how that surpassed his fantasies more than he thought possible.
"There's going to be more of that, right?" Greg asks as Nick pulls him up to his feet after closing and locking his truck doors. "'Cause I really don't think I'm going to be able to go back to fantasizing now."
Turning his head so Greg can't see the smile widening across his face, Nick says, "Plenty more."
