Salubrious part 19

The bar was full of patrons stuck in tight seating that made Allan feel like they were sardines in a can. He mentally counted the seating and then the bar area where he tried to figure out the best place he could sit at.

Meeting Charlie begrudgingly at this bar was infuriating and made him want to just go home. He had really felt that Charlie was just trying to save face, to make up so things wouldn’t be weird anymore. He knew he put things out there in public at work, repeating Charlie’s lines about not being friends… but he had to spill beans somehow. It was eating at him slowly and he needed to stop letting himself suffer in silence.

He decided to sit near the bar. He got a text notification.

He looked at the text with an eye roll.

Sorry Allan I’m running a bit behind I’ll b there soon sry

He replied:

K.

He knew that his bare minimum responses were making Charlie upset by how his face looked afterward, but it was hard to be how he used to be with Charlie before the stabbing incident.

He got another text:

I’ll let you punch me for being late

He laughed at that, feeling the pain mix with the heat rising in his face. He texted back:

Stop acting like a jerk

And then he saw that Charlie put a laugh reaction on the last message. And a laugh reaction to his own response too. It made him laugh more but he didn’t respond anymore. In his mind, he kept saying, “Damn him. He can’t charm his way out of this.”

He ordered a club soda. He waited about five more minutes.

Suddenly, Charlie’s yellow form fills Allan’s eyes like a bottle of banana rum, which he drinks in subconsciously. He turns his head, feeling his face grow hotter. Out of breath, Charlie scoured the bar, looking for Allan in a terrified way that makes Allan think that he’s worried about being stood up.

“Fuck, fuck,” he heard Charlie mutter, as he talked to the hostess up front, “Did you see a tall red guy with a blue tie come through here?”

Allan grinned at the description, but covered his mouth consciously.

Suddenly he heard a rumble and a fast stride as the hostess pointed Allan out.

“Al-Allan?” He heard a choked up, breathy voice.

Allan took a sip of the soda and turned slightly. “Oh, it’s you,” Allan said, covering his face with his hands.

“It’s me, yeah, hey man,” Charlie said, sitting down next to Allan. He looked at Allan, feeling unsure where to start.

“Oh, wow. You already ordered? What is that? I’ll pay for it,” Charlie offered.

Allan looked at him calmly, “It is club soda.”

Charlie laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, “Oh. Okay. Why don’t I get the same thing.”

Allan shrugged. “Do what you want.”

Charlie skipped the drink, saying, “Hey man, I’m, uh, um… are you.. hungry?”

Allan shook his head.

“Listen, uh,” Charlie frowned, looking down. Allan looked over and saw that Charlie looked disheveled, hat sort of off tilt, and his button up shirt was not done properly. He was still out of breath, and he rubbed his temples, trying to keep calm.

Allan felt a little bad but he didn’t want Charlie to feel that things were okay either. “Why don’t you get some water.”

Charlie nodded vigorously, “Yeah. Good idea.”

“Whatever.”

Charlie’s expression fell, “Allan, I need to set something straight here.”

Allan shrugged. “I thought you already did. Two weeks ago. You said you couldn’t be my friend. Obviously it was true, you’ve barely spoken to me since.”

Charlie bit his lip, looking down. “Christ Allan. I feel like I’m the biggest idiot. I don’t.. I cannot understand for the life of me, like, how bad I screwed up this, this whole thing.”

Allan shrugged. “You got what you wanted.”

Suddenly a hand neared his own hand, reaching for a small second, but then he drew back. It made Allan think back for a brief moment of their first kiss in his bed. He looked away, biting his lip, his toes curling at how sexy and sweet Charlie was. It was beyond his control, he even slightly, softly squeezed the cup of club soda, sucking on the straw in a weirdly obscene way.

Charlie’s eyes looked somewhere between horrified to aroused.

“You.. you about done with your soda?” Charlie asked, his tone cracking a bit.

He looked over at Charlie, his eyes half-lidded, “I’ll be done when I decide it’s done.”

Charlie gulped. “Huh?”

“You heard me, Dompler.”

Charlie tried to pull himself together. “Allan, I really would like to…” he sighed. “You see how bad I am at this? I can’t even speak properly. You’re here without fail and I can’t even get out the words, like, I’m so fucked in the head. You know?”

Allan felt himself feel that one and nodded. “Yes. I often feel fucked in the head too.”

Charlie laughed, feeling a little better. “Good. Good. Well that’s not good, what I meant was.. that it’s good we understand each other or whatever.” He turned his chair and faced Allan. Allan decided to do the same, still sipping his soda.

“Allan,” he cleared his throat as if he was about to propose.

“Yeah?” Allan asked.

“Thank you for saying yes to tonight.”

Allan replied nonchalantly, “You need to fix your shirt. The uneven buttons are driving me crazy.”

Charlie looked down at his shirt. “Oh, that. My hot water heater was broken. I had to wait to get it fixed and then I had to rush to do laundry, take a shower, you know—shit, shower and shave like my uncle says, haha.”

Allan nodded slowly. “Okay. Can you fix it or should I? It’s actually making me feel angry.”

Charlie nodded quickly, started to fix his shirt quickly.

“What was that one meeting, like am I crazy or was the boss acting like squirrely or something at today’s meeting? He just acts creepy one second, then normal the next. You know? Or am I crazy?” Charlie bantered in a nervous way, making the buttons less even and more messed up.

Allan nodded, but looked irritated. Suddenly he leaned forward, not looking at Charlie in the face, focusing on the shirt to fix the buttons slowly and precisely one by one.

Charlie stayed silent during the whole process. Then, one last thing: the off kilter hat.

Allan had to fix it. He was itching to fix it.

So, he leaned in closer, fixing the hat to look straight.

Charlie seemed to let out a long held breath. “Oh, man I’m a mess.”

Their eyes met up close finally.

Allan looked at him, a wry smile, “I know.”

Allan saw the red blush creeping on Charlie’s face. He decidedly moved even closer, fixing a loose strand of hair, pulling it behind Charlie’s ear.

Charlie sadly smiled. “You know how to make it work. Make me work better, I mean.”

Allan sighed, feeling like he gave away too much already, pulling back to his seat. “Can I get another soda?”

“Yes! Definitely.” Charlie spastically answered. He hurriedly gets another club soda, handing it to Allan as soon as it’s ready.

Silence filled the void between them for a few moments.

“Works been a bitch lately,” Allan said. “It’s the quarterly review. I have to get all the data for earning reports, client data, draw up insurance proposals. I’ve been swamped with emails, meetings. Fucking killing me.”

Charlie nodded. “Work is always a bitch. One thing my uncle used to say, ‘Work is like taking out a chick that won’t put out. You do all the work to get it, putting in the time and resources. But in the end, you’re the only one getting fucked,’ haha,” Charlie rambled.

“Hah. I guess it’s like thinking you’ll get a promotion but you don’t ever have the right metrics or data to support the numbers.”

Charlie nodded happily, “Oh yeah, you get it!”

Allan laughed somberly.

“I missed this. I missed our conversations. Our calls. You know? I missed the texts.”

Allan frowned, “Charlie can you stop bullshitting me?”

Charlie looked stripped bare for a moment, looking confused. “Huh? I’m not bullshitting..”

“You’re just trying to make things at work not so awkward anymore. You feel the heat now and I called you out at work in front of the boss. You just want things to be neatly wrapped up so you can be on top again. Am I right? Yes, I am.” Allan quipped frustratedly.

“Uh, man, you.. that’s not..”

“Yes. Because you haven’t tried to explain anything to me at all. You see me everywhere, at work, walking home, every single day and you didn’t have the slightest inkling that you should’ve just come up to talk to me.”

Charlie gulped, silently staring at Allan, trying not to say anything rashly.

“You made me… think everything that happened between us was only in my mind,” Allan’s voice cracked. “That fucking… hurt, man.”

——-

A/n: Part two cooking up soon…