The night was restless; Brian woke up several times.
The first time he woke up, Paul entered the room, causing him to tense up. After what had happened the evening before, Brian was worried. Paul had seemingly calmed down after lashing out, but Brian's instincts pushed him to be wary. Thus he pretended to still be asleep as Paul started to undress. As his lover joined him in the bed, Brian tried to stay calm, but he couldn't stop his heart from beating quickly.
Only as Paul put a gentle arm around him did Brian feel able to relax. It seemed Paul didn't plan to hurt him again. Soon Brian dropped back to sleep.
The second time he woke up, he found that Paul had pulled him tight against his chest. His boyfriend was asleep, so he probably didn't notice it, but Brian felt much too warm in that hold, warm enough that it stole his sleep. Careful not to wake Paul, he moved the arm that was holding him, and moved a few inches away from him. Only then could he continue sleeping.
The third time he woke, it was morning, but it was not the light of day that woke him up, but the pain that was still emanating from his lower back. It seemed like the pain had increased a lot. It had started pulsating and that made it impossible for Brian to keep laying like he was.
So he sat up and as he did, he noticed that Paul had already left the bed. He was still in the room, though, and stood at the mirror that decorated the front of their wardrobe. He was dressing himself.
"You're awake!" Paul called out when he saw in the mirror that Brian was sitting.
Brian nodded, eyeing his lover carefully. He wasn't sure how to act with him after what had happened, wasn't sure if Paul was still angry, or if he had truly calmed down from the night before. After Brian came to the conclusion that Paul was acting placid today, he slowly pushed his blanket away, and left the bed.
Paul was watching all of his movements.
"You can sleep a little bit longer if you want. Sorry if I woke you up!" his boyfriend finished working on his tie then turned towards Brian.
"You didn’t. My … " Brian started speaking, then hesitated for a moment before finishing his sentence, "My back hurts."
It felt strange to talk about it. Bringing it up kind of felt like he was blaming Paul for it, but that wasn't the case. Paul had shoved him, causing him to collide with the table and that had been the cause of the pain. Thinking about it made Brian wince, but he didn't want to give Paul the impression that he was blaming him.
The only reason he brought it up was because part of him hoped to find some comfort with his boyfriend. Brian carefully looked up to Paul, trying to observe his reaction. All that he noticed in his eyes was compassion. "Oh, honey!" Paul said with a sigh, disappointed in himself. "I'm sorry that you got hurt. I truly am!" His voice was so much gentler than the day before.
After speaking, Paul went towards the nightstand. He opened it and produced a package of painkillers: ibuprofen. "Here! That should help!" he spoke, then handed Brian the pack.
As he did, their eyes met again and Brian could see regret in Paul's expression. Brian gave him a soft and careful smile. "Thank you," he said, and turned back to the bed to grab the water bottle from the ground next to it.
He sat down on the side of the bed, took the pill, and washed it down quickly. As he did, his lover came closer to him. Brian watched as Paul bent down over him. He took his chin between the fingers of his right hand. Then he gently turned Brian's head to the left, before bringing his other hand up to touch his lip. Brian winced as he felt Paul's fingers on the bruised spot. "This looks pretty bad. It's swollen," Paul said with some concern in his voice. "It probably will heal on it's own, but people will ask questions."
Paul sighed and Brian looked into his eyes. It was obvious that he was worried and Brian knew why, even before he continued. "You really can't tell anybody what happened, alright?" as he spoke Paul let go of Brian's chin.
"No, I won't. It's not your fault. If I hadn’t lied, it wouldn’t have happened. I'm sorry." Brian looked down onto his lap as the feeling of guilt came back to him.
He felt like a hypocrite. Here he sat, talking about not lying, when he had not even told Paul the truth. For a moment, he wondered if he should just do it now, but then he decided against it. It was better to leave Paul in the dark about Nick.
"Good," Paul said simply, and brought a hand up to play with Brian's curly hair. Gently, Paul trailed his fingers through its strands, then he sighed.
"I shouldn't have hurt you, either way. I'm sorry, too," Paul said, "but I was so angry, because you know that we had talked about not being late, and if you are, that you should call. But on Valentine's Day — of all days — you failed me. Again."
Brian watched as Paul shook his head. He seemed to be disappointed, but Brian couldn't tell if that was about him lashing out the night before or about the fact that Brian had provoked it all. Perhaps it was both. Gently he reached for Paul's hand, taking it into his own.
"It's alright. I'm not angry. It really was my fault. I love you." Brian smiled after speaking.
His boyfriend was still bent over him a little, but he now removed the hand from his hair. Instead, he used it to cup Brian's cheek, then he leaned in deeper to put a kiss onto Brian's temple.
"I love you, too, but just know that it won't happen again," Paul promised, and stood up straight again. "I have to go to work now." Paul pulled his hand away from Brian, and walked back towards the mirror. He checked himself one last time, then got his suitcase from the wardrobe.
Brian observed his boyfriend heading towards the door, looking all properly dressed. It made him feel proud of him for some reason. "You look so fine, babe. Have a great day at work, okay?" Brian spoke from where he was sitting on the bed, but then he stood up as well.
"Of course I will. If all goes according to plan, we will finish our database program today. If we do, I'll bring something nice from that Asian restaurant at the main station," Paul said as he stopped at the door to face Brian.
"That sounds great!" Brian exclaimed.
He loved the Asian restaurant down at the main station; they had the best Thai food in town. Brian was looking forward to it. Paul responded to his enthusiasm with a smile.
"See you in the evening then, honey," he spoke and waved before stepping through the door.
"Bye, Paul," Brian called after him.
Hopefully, he would have a great time at work. After the stuff Brian had put him through the evening before, he just wished that today would be better for Paul.
When Brian heard the front door close, he sighed. What a mess last night had been.
Now with Paul gone and nothing left to distract himself with, he felt the pain in his back again. He had taken the painkiller, but he knew that it would take a little time for it to work. Still, there was no way he could sit on the bed and wait for the pain to lessen. He had to be at work in ninety minutes as well, so he had no time to loose.
Forcing himself to ignore his agony, he stood up and walked towards their bathroom. He had to take a shower before leaving. With each step he took, the pain flared, but he finally reached his destination.
Slowly, he let his boxer-shorts drop before stepping into the shower.
Once inside, he took his time. As soon as the droplets of water started hitting his body, Brian's thoughts drifted off. It was so calming to stand under the warmth of the water and it had the desired effect of making his aching back feel a little better. It reminded him of the rain shower a few days ago, when he first met Nick. He had been so damn attractive with his clothes clinging to his body; thinking about it made Brian's body tingle. He had to use some willpower to think about something else. As much as he enjoyed that picture in his head, he felt bad for it.
There Nick was, in front of his inner eye, so very sexy, and the picture surely would have been able to arouse his passion — here, alone, under the shower — but he couldn't allow himself to give in. It wasn’t fair to have those thoughts about Nick when he still had Paul. He couldn't do that to his boyfriend.
Even though he managed to force his thoughts away from lustful pictures, they still were hanging on Nick: the way he had smiled and laughed when they had gone on their adventure yesterday, the way he had called him 'monkey' — so cute! It was a wonderful experience. Brian couldn't even remember the last time he had been as happy as he had been the day before. If only it could have lasted.
— But it was wrong. Brian had lost himself in a silly infatuation, like a teenager falling for a first love. It wasn’t right. He had a boyfriend.
Paul was his man, and he should be thinking about him, instead. He was beautiful, too; wasn't he? Then why didn't his thoughts revolve around him?
Brian felt like he should be ashamed of himself. Paul loved him so much, he always took care of everything. All of the complicated German paperwork, Paul was the one to do it; if something was broken in their flat, Paul repaired it; and every evening, he lovingly cooked for them both. Even yesterday.
It should have been a special day, the 14th of February, Valentine's Day. Paul had prepared everything for a romantic night, and Brian had not been there, and why not?
Because he had been with Nick, the guy that had put a spell upon him, a spell so strong, that even now, Brian had to force himself not to think about his beauty and warmth. He truly was warm, his whole personality, the half hug he had given him and that beautiful, beautiful smile. Brian shook his head as once again his thoughts were captured by Nick.
Brian should have never allowed himself to see him. If he had not been out with Nick yesterday, Paul would have never lashed out. His body shuddered when he thought about how his boyfriend had hit him. It had been what he deserved for betraying Paul's trust, for lying, but as he thought about it, Brian couldn't stop himself from crying.
What had he gotten himself into?
He just had to never see Nick again. It wasn't good. When he was around, Brian lost all common sense. He couldn't do that to Paul, he couldn't hurt him like that.
As the tears ran down Brian’s cheek, he finished cleaning himself, and when he was done, he stayed under the shower for a while afterwards, sobbing and feeling miserable.
It hurt to know that he could never see Nick again, but it was what he had to do.
Only once his tears stopped, did Brian finally step back out of the shower and reached for one of the towels on a near-by shelf. All cleaned up, he was ready for the day to come.
The pain he was feeling from his back started to ease by the time he had dressed himself.
Brian didn’t really think about what kind of clothes to put on; he just grabbed the first thing he could reach. It didn't matter, since he had to change into work attire once he reached the café, anyhow. His work clothes were in the backpack he always wore. Just like Paul had done, he looked at himself in the mirror one last time before leaving.
Paul had been right, his lip really did look bad. It was swollen, but surprisingly it didn't hurt, not unless he touched it. It felt a bit numb, though. If it had been a smaller wound, he could have probably covered it with makeup, but due to its size that was not an option. As he left for the café, Brian knew that he would need to spend the time in the tram figuring out what to say to the people who asked about it.
Half an hour later, he entered the café.
As usual, he was the first to arrive. Kevin was living above the café, so technically he was already there, but he usually came down to work later. Some might have considered Brian's earliness a flaw, but he preferred being early to being late. That way, he didn't need to stress and could take his time with all the things that needed to be done before the shop opened.
The first thing he did was to change his clothes.
He truly loved his work attire. They dressed all in black, except for the ruby-colored apron they all wore. The café's logo was printed on the front of it.
Brian thought he looked good in his work clothes — well, as good as someone as chubby as he was could look.
When he was done dressing, he headed down to the bakery. He turned on the ovens, so they could preheat for the things that had to be baked fresh every day.
While they were heating up, he started to prepare a few Leipziger Lerchen. They weren't an American specialty, but a common pastry from city they worked in. To appease the tourists that came to see Leipzig, they started to sell these small muffin-sized pastries about a year ago. They were made with marzipan and filled with marmalade.
They had a pretty gruesome history to them. Once, in medieval times, people in Leipzig supposedly loved to eat larks (in German, Lerchen), but since eating small birds like that was forbidden and kind of disgusting by nowaday’s standards, Leipzig's bakers had started to sell these small cakes. The marmalade was supposed to be the blood.
Just as Brian had finished the first batch of Lerchen, the door opened and AJ stepped in.
"Morning, Rok!" he called out and stepped up behind him. "Already working hard so early in the morning, eh?"
Brian’s best friend took a moment to get an idea of what Brian had already done, then he nodded. "I think I will make a New York cheesecake. Sound good?" Alex asked, and stepped in front of him.
"Yeah, sounds good," Brian said quickly, and looked down at what he was doing.
He knew it wasn't respectful not to look at AJ as he talked to him, but he wanted to avoid him noticing his lip, wanted to avoid questions.
AJ's gasp made it pretty clear that he wasn’t successful at hiding it.
"Bloody hell!" Alex exclaimed. "What happened to your lip, mate?"
AJ sounded pretty startled, and Brian couldn't blame him. His lip really did look bad.
Slowly, Brian raised his head to face his best friend. He had noticed the lip; so Brian had to explain it, somehow. Hopefully the excuse he had come up with would work.
"It's embarrassing," Brian said shyly, then sighed. "See, I was cleaning dishes and I slipped when I was holding the pan, so I hit myself in the face, and this is the result."
Brian pointed at his lip, while he examined AJ for his reaction. For a moment he felt quite tense, unsure if his friend would believe him. However as Alex started to laugh, Brian felt relieved.
"You're so clumsy, Brian. Should get you protective clothes for your birthday," Alex said, amused, then reached out to tousle Brian's hair.
As he did, Brian huffed, playfully pouty.
"Go make your cheesecake, Aje!" he said, still acting as if he was angry, while trying to shoo AJ away.
His best friend chuckled once more, but nodded, too. A moment later, he stepped around Brian to start his work. Brian watched him for a moment, before going back to preparing the Lerchen.
It was good that AJ accepted his excuse. Brian didn't know what else he could have said if he hadn’t. It's not like he could have told him the truth, he wouldn’t have understood. Brian knew that Paul regretted ever hurting him. He had forgiven him, but AJ would have never understood that forgiveness.
When the cakes were ready, Brian put them into the oven.
"I think it's time to open the shop," Brian said, as he looked at the clock above the kitchen door; "I'll do it."
As Brian walked out of the kitchen and towards the front door, he allowed his eyes to travel across the room he was in. With a quick glance, he made sure that everything in the room was properly prepared for the guests that would be arriving soon.
Everything seemed to be in order, so Brian unlocked the door. He started to push it open, slowly, then he stopped, as a shock of blond hair caught his eyes.
It was Nick.
He had forgotten about the fact that he had invited him to come to the café. He had come to talk to Kevin about singing there, but Brian felt himself panicking. Once again, he was reminded of the night before, of everything that had happened because he spent time with Nick, because he had not been able to avoid wanting to be closer to him. Now, here he was, once again, right in front of him. Part of Brian just wanted to slam the door closed again, but that was not an option. Instead, he just stood there as if he was frozen. Even worse was the fact that Nick looked shocked when he saw him. He had obviously noticed the swollen lip.
The question he asked was not surprising. "Brian! What happened?"
Before Brian could even answer, Nick had closed the gap between them and took his head between both of his hands. He looked so worried, but he was much too close. What if Paul found out somehow?
Brian was scared about what could happen, so he pulled away from Nick.
"It's … nothing … I just hit myself with a pan. I … I slipped," Brian repeated the same excuse he had used with AJ, but this time he was stuttering, because he was frightened by the attraction he felt towards Nick, even now.
Nick, who was narrowing his eyes at Brian’s explanation.
"You're lying," he said, and it felt as if he could look right through the façade Brian had built.
Brian lowered his head a little. He was lying, but he couldn't tell anyone the truth. It was his fault that Paul had hit him but, just like AJ, Nick wouldn't understand it either.
"I'm not. I'm just clumsy sometimes," Brian responded, this time a lot more confident in his words. Nick still didn't believe him.
"I'm not stupid. When you ran away yesterday, you were scared about your man getting angry with you." Nick was shouting now. "He hit you didn't he?"
Hearing the facts spoken like that hit Brian hard. For a moment he didn't know how to respond and just looked into Nick's eyes. A reaction that Nick seemed to notice. He huffed and clenched his jaw.
"That … bastard!" When Nick insulted Paul, Brian shook his head.
"No, he didn’t do it. Stop it, Nick. Stop!" Brian demanded and reached out to touch Nick on his lower right arm. "Please," he asked in a begging voice.
For a moment Nick didn't react at all, he just kept standing there in anger looking down at him, then Brian noticed him letting go of the tension. Anger was replaced by sadness and compassion in Nick's blue eyes. It was obvious that he still didn't believe him. "Brian," he started and shook his head, "how do you expect me to do nothing? Don't be a fool. You have to get away from that man."
Brian sighed. Nick meant well. It was obvious how much he cared for him, but he saw things the wrong way. "Paul is a good person, Nick. Everything is alright. Please stop worrying," Brian once again pleaded.
Nick sighed and let his shoulders drop. "Alright," he said, but didn't seem very happy.
Brian wasn't sure if he really believed him. Nick still seemed to be worried and after a moment he pulled Brian into a tight hug. He nuzzled his head up against Brian's neck.
It felt so good to be close that way, and Brian just wanted to loose himself in getting comforted, but he couldn't; he had to think about Paul. So, despite the warmth Nick gave him, Brian slowly took Nick by his shoulders and pushed him away.
"Nick — " Brian looked into his eyes. "— you’re here to see Kevin, right?" Despite the change of topic, Nick's worried expression stayed, but he nodded.
"As you offered. I still want to sing for this place," Nick pointed at the café as he spoke.
"He’s probably is in his office right now. Come with me." Brian took Nick by his wrist, and pulled him upstairs.
When they reached Kevin's office, Brian knocked on the door.
He felt tense; what had seemed like such a great idea yesterday was now bothering him. If Nick started singing at the café, Brian would have to be around him every day. That would mean that he would have to see him, even hear him sing. The attraction he felt to Nick would be so tempting; he wasn't sure what it would make him do.
What if he gave in to that feeling? What if he wouldn't be able to control himself? What if he talked to Nick some more and continued trying to get closer to him?
Even becoming his friend was not an option, now. It was too dangerous. The way he had felt enchanted by Nick, it was as if he had been emotionally cheating on Paul.
He couldn't do that anymore, and yet he had promised Nick that he could sing at the café and he couldn't break his promise, either. As he heard Kevin's "Come in." from the office, Brian pushed the door open.
"Brian." Kevin said as he stepped into the room. As Nick came in, he pointed at him and asked, "Who's that?"
"Hi, my name is Nick. I'm a singer and your cousin told me that I could work here, perhaps?" As he spoke, Nick stepped past Brian and offered his hand to Kevin.
As his cousin shook it, Brian pulled backwards. "I’ll leave you guys to it, then. Bye!"
Before anybody could respond, and before Kevin could say anything about his swollen lip — Brian knew he wanted to! — he hurried out of the room closing the door behind him.
This was not good. Brian had no doubt that Kevin would hire Nick. He was perfect, he could sing, and he would do it for tips only. Whether he liked it or not, Brian had to live with the fact that he would have to share his workplace with Nick now.
Brian hoped it wouldn't end badly; he just had to try to avoid Nick. As he started to walk back downstairs towards the kitchen, Brian winced in pain. The effect of the painkiller was waning.