Alan shouldn’t have gone there, he was surely going to look stupid, but he just kept thinking about Jack for the past couple of days, till he realized he kinda wanted to see him, to face him.

So there he was, standing outside of a coffee shop, merely hidden by the wall next to the large window from where he could peek inside. Jack was behind the counter, he was smiling at one of his female colleagues, she looked so cheerful and flushed when giggling at him. Alan found himself making a disgusted expression, but immediately as his nose wrinkled he asked himself what he was doing out there lurking over his friend. He had to find the guts to go inside that place and greet the other. After all, he had done nothing wrong, and surely he wanted to see his friend’s expression when he appeared all of a sudden in front of him.

Or maybe he just wanted to see his face.

He breathed deeply and then finally moved from his hiding spot to enter the shop. Immediately the waitress smiled and welcomed him, they had seen him before so they knew who he was. He smiled back as if nothing was wrong, and then waved at his friend. Jack looked up and frowned lightly before nodding in response. He didn’t move from his place behind the counter though, and for some reason Alan felt like he had done the wrong thing going there without even sending the other a text. But truthfully what could he have done? Jack had ignored him for days, even if he had written to him probably the other wouldn’t have replied.

He smiled once again and then sat at a table close to the counter, close enough to let his friend feel his presence and his gaze. Close enough for him to feel compelled to move towards his table and ask him “What are you doing here?”

He looked up at Jack and faked another smile, while he really thought he would have punched him in the balls “Just passing by to say hi, I wanted to chat,” he replied tilting his head a bit. He was trying to read inside the other’s eyes, trying to understand his thoughts, but it seemed impossible, because Jack had a pair of very dark, very unexpressive eyes.

“I’m working now,” the other replied before adding “I can’t sit here and chat with you”.

“Oh it’s ok, I’ll wait,” he simply stated taking the menu in his hands, maybe an hot chocolate, or a warm tea for the waiting.

“I’ll finish in a couple of hours,” Jack said, almost whispered, probably because he saw the other’s eyes on him. He marked the word hours to let him know probably that it was pointless to wait.

“Don’t worry I have a free evening,” Alan said “can you bring me a tea, a random one, you know I don’t know much about tea anyway,” he then added putting back the menu. It was awkward, yes, it was probably not the right way to handle it, yes, and the other didn’t spare him another glance for the whole time. 

That was the main reason that brought him out of the coffee shop and on the street, leaning on the wall while playing on his smartphone. He sighed. Something was definitely not ok between them and yet he couldn’t understand how to fix it.

Did he want to fix it at all? Was Jack even interested in clarifying what had happened? Sure thing was that he didn’t seem like he wanted to chat much, but yet he didn’t say it. Jack didn’t send him away, he didn’t act rude, well not more than other times… Jack didn’t seem anything at all if you would have asked him.

It was the first time someone had cut him out oftheir life like that. Usually he lost friends because of his behaviour, they fought or treated him like shit and drifted apart naturally. But this situation was different. Jack was never rude to him, he was always very soft and funny. Very friendly and kind. Alan pouted without realising it, starting to bite the inside of his cheek. He always did that when he was deep in thoughts and he recalled Jack noticing and poking his face in order for him to stop. Alan’s eyes grew lager when he felt his heartbeat slightly accelerating. Was he getting mad maybe? It could have been just that, him being mad that his  friend started ignoring him out of the blue. But there was more, he was feeling unsettled for a different reason. The past few days that he had spent alone he often had found himself feeling scared, scared of being alone, scared of not ever seeing Jack again, and the more he felt like that the more he scared himself. It was so out of character for him. 

Alan specifically avoided relationships because he couldn’t handle the feelings involved. He rather had friends or sex partners, he wasn’t able to have deeper feelings. Love? What was that? He purposely never even wanted to experience it, he saw others involved in relationships and it never went well, why would it have worked for him? No way, he was emotionally unavailable, he was challenged in that area. Even when in the past some partners had told him they loved him, he had felt trapped and slowly convinced himself that it was just how he was made. He wasn’t able to love anyone, not romantically, and his life was going great without love.

So why was this situation with Jack making him feel almost dizzy at times? They were not involved in anything but friendship…sure it had been a very cosy type of friendship, living together, chatting and eating together on the couch while watchign tv. Sometimes waking up on Jack’s shoulder with him not moving not to wake him up, some others it was his unstoppable rambling about his work’s problems and his friend patiently listening to him with a soft and undersanding smile. Friends did that, it was normal, and for once it had been great and comfortable. But apparently while Alan had been enjoying their time together, Jack had found him attractive and, just like everyone esle, had decided he wanted a piece of him that he had never thought of giving him. His body, once again. It was always his body.

He looked at his watch. A quarter to eight. It was almost time for the shop to close, and soon his friend was going to come out of that door. He wasn’t sure what to say to him if he had to be honest, he just wanted to understand what was going on.

Alan heard the door being opened and the chatter of the waitresses. They were greeting each other and whining about how tired they all were, until they noticed him standing right there. The girls smiled and waved, he waved back and then looked at his friend, smiling at him too. Jack smiled back, a very short and very cold smile, but probably he just didn’t want to look rude in front of his colleagues, because the moment they left in the opposite direction he looked deeply in Alan’s eyes, with a very serious expression.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I told you I would have waited, you were busy…so,” Alan replied.

“Yeah but, you waited for hours here…” Jack replied.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you,” he simply stated, shrugging. He was trying to make it light and normal, but he felt that the air between them was definitely heavy. The other only looked at him, behind his glasses a mix of surprise and skepticism. “Well we haven’t talked in a while, so I came here to say hi. Also you have yet to show me your new apartment,” he added, maybe that way the other was going to be forced to say something about it.

“I didn’t think you cared much,” Jack said and shrugged, this time looking away. Something made him uncomfortable, maybe the mentioning of their break up as friends.

“Of course I do! Well why don’t I come with you and visit it? Just out of curiosity”. He wanted to spend time with him, if the other was going to simply say bye he was afraid his pride was going to prevent him from doing that thing a second time. Going to see his apartment? Really that had been the weirdest idea ever, because they didn’t talk, people who don’t talk to each other don’t show each other their houses!

“My apartment? Now?” Jack was buying time, for fucks sake he could have just said it plain and simple that he didn’t want him to, but when Alan nodded with a smile, his friend simply shrugged lightly and started to walk, mutely telling him to follow his steps.

They walked one next to the other, not saying a single word. Alan felt so awkward he kept having weird shivers down his spine. That guy slightly in front of him, who was he? He was sure he had lived with Jack for a couple of years, but only right there and then he questioned if he ever knew him for real. He didn’t understand what had happened, and even less the tension between them, there was no fight, and yet he felt it, something broke.

“We are here,” Jack said stopping in front of a door. He didn’t even spare him a glance before taking out his keys and opening it. Alan couldn’t fail to notice that those keys had no keychain attached, and of course his thought travelled back to that night when he saw Jack’s old keys on his desk. 

Damn it.

~

They entered the apartment and he stopped in the little hallway while Jack switched on the lights. It was a nice studio flat, and he felt almost annoyed by it, Jack was living better alone maybe. “Nice place,” he said looking around without moving from his spot right in front of the door.

“Right,” Jack only muttered, making him frown. What kind of reply was that?

“What? You don’t like it here?” he asked and the other shrugged before looking away, he was avoiding his gaze, looking blankly at the room, he was resting on the counter of his kitchen. Jack looked distressed, like he had been thinking of what to say, when, all of a sudden, he saw him clenching his jaw nervously.

He then spoke “Alan why are you here?” he shook his head and finally looked right into his eyes “really, why did you even come?”

Alan was speechless, what the hell was such a behavior. He was simply there because his friend ignored him for freaking days and now Jack was making it look like he was the angry one? “Woah!” he muttered looking away, those two dark eyes burning holes in his face. He had never seen his mate that annoyed by him, not even that time he had broken his glasses. “I just came here to visit…you know I waited for pics of your new apartment…for an invite, but it never came,” he peeked up again at the other’s face.

“Well you could have figured out then that I wasn’t going to,” Jack said between his teeth, crossing his arms and even his legs. Never had been his attitude more closed to arguments. It looked like he wasn’t going to reason with him at all.

 “Why is that? Why are you making me look so weird only for expecting a friend to invite me over?” he asked slightly raising his voice and taking a step further, to what Jack responded with a raised hand in front of him. An halt sign even?

“A friend?” he pinched his nose bridge and shook his head “were we ever really friends? When?” and a punch in the stomach would have hurt less.

“Sorry?” Alan asked, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, never he had thought to have such an answer.

“Alan, really, let’s not beat around the bush, we aren’t friends, we never were, so it was pointless for me to invite you over,” Jack’s face became softer for a second, but his eyes were still as cold as before, and Alan felt his rage growing more and more.

“What are you talking about? We lived together for years…” he couldn’t even finish his sentence that the other interrupted him.

“Yes, we lived together, I lived with you while you fucked around with every human being with a cock, not much to talk about right? Not much of a friendship either,” oh he was sour, almost sounding ridiculous.

“This is insane, we had meals together every day, we talked about our jobs, we watched tv together, I mean what else do friends do…I even trusted you with my thoughts and stories” he said, somehow sounding desperate at the end.

“Right, stories no one cared about, I mean how is a friendship built over cock lengths or abs shape?” Jack said, sounding even angrier than before.

“I guess you would have been all right with that if I had fucked you that night!” oh man he said it. He really did, and as those words rolled out his tongue he felt like he had done something incredibly stupid, unable to catch them anymore as they hit strongly his…friend’s face.

Jack’s eyes grew larger all of a sudden, as if those words had really hit a sore spot, and for a fraction of a second Alan saw the pain in them. “You are such a jerk!” he then said looking away, his pride was hurt.

Alan felt compelled to get closer and ask for forgiveness, but when he took a step closer, his once friend shoot him the coldest look, making him flinch. He never thought to be able to feel like that, but it was like someone had stuck a dagger in his chest, and he felt a pain he never felt before. He couldn’t let his pride win, because in a different situation, by hearing such words he would have just rushed out of that apartment, fucking up everything. If it hadn’t been Jack, he would have left without turning back ever again. If it wasn’t you I would simply…

He reached out and placed a hand on the Jack’s arm “Hey… let’s not,” he tried to say.

“Why? Really why do you care, just go home and have fun…whatever” Jack shook his hand away strongly and walked away further inside the apartment, towards the small dining table that was in the middle of it. He then turned around almost sitting on it, looking at him still with a defiant look. It was impossible to reason with him, or to talk to him, fine, if he had to act like a moron, they both were going to do it.

“Sending me away? You know that if I cross that door I won’t come back!” Alan said pointing at the front door, his arm almost aching when he threw it in the air with such strength. He was really mad, why did he have to feel that way? Jack was obviously the one in the wrong there and he dared to treat him like trash. A decent human would have talked this shit out, but indead he was just pushing him away.

Alan looked at his friend with fire in his eyes, he wanted to punch him and bring him back to his senses. Jack held his gaze fiercely while he shrugged, and man, he made him so mad.

He reached him with long strides and grabbed the neck of his jacket pulling him inches away from his face “Then let’s fuck!”.