Chapter Eight
When Neil got up for work on Monday morning, he almost just rolled over and went back to sleep to avoid facing the Foxes. He’d emerged from Laila’s guest room late on Saturday morning, at which point she’d insisted on brunch. In fact, she’d be shepherding him around from one activity to another all weekend, even if the activity was just sitting together on the couch, she made sure he had something to do. He appreciated it; oftentimes after he spiralled like that, being left alone for too long was not advisable. But by Sunday night, she kissed him briskly on the forehead and told him she’d see him for dinner after work, at which point he knew he’d be on his own for a while. Of course, he knew he had to face what happened at Eden’s eventually, but avoidance had been an excellent tactic for him in the past, so he’d been using it to the best of his abilities so far.
But he dragged himself into work, relieved that, at the very least, he was done working directly with Nicky for the present. When he entered the common room, he was prepared for a long winded apology, one he’d been practicing in the elevator and during his commute, but Nicky beat him to it.
He practically threw himself at Neil as he got off the elevator, giving him a huge hug which Neil barely avoided tensing up at.
“Neil! I am so sorry about Friday. I never should have made you go or like, snuck up on you like that. I have a bad habit of assuming other people are okay with everything I’m okay with, and that’s entirely my fault. I’m so incredibly sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Neil blinked owlishly. “I-Of course. I just hope I didn’t hurt your arm.”
Nicky laughed. “Oh god no, Andrew’s done worse when I used to wake him up for school in the morning anyways.”
Neil nodded, but stored that particular nugget of information away for a later date.
Nicky threw an arm around him. “Anyways, next time we go out we’ll go somewhere more your speed. We do game nights sometimes, or at least Dan’s group does. I bet you could score us an invite, right bud?”
Neil frowned. “I don’t know how close we are, but I can try.”
Nicky chuckled. “Yeah, Matt thinks you hung the moon so I don’t think that will be too hard. Let me know though. If you can’t, we’ll just do a movie and takeout night. Or, you know, whatever you want to do. Okay?”
Neil nodded.
Nicky smiled, looking relieved. “Great. I’ll see you later Neil.”
Neil gave a quick nod and turned away, seeing Matt staring at him from across the room. Seeing Neil turn to face him, he broke out into a grin and waved enthusiastically.
“Neil!” He called out.
Neil winced internally. That was a lot of energy to match.
Seeing some kind of hesitation on Neil’s face, Matt seemed to tone it down by the time he walked over Neil’s way.
“Hey man, I was wondering if you would be willing to work on a song with me?”
Neil relaxed slightly. “Yeah, sure.” His comfort zone. Well, his job. It was probably either a really good thing or a really bad thing that talking about work was the only thing that relaxed him while he was at work. He wasn’t going to think too hard about it. “What can I help with?”
Matt’s easy grin grew wider. “I was working on a song to have Dan feature on. Unless you’d be interested?”
Neil shook his head. “No, thank you. But I’d be happy to help write it.”
Matt smiled. “Awesome! I was leaning towards the love song direction, you good with that?”
Neil nodded. “Sure.”
“Cool. You have anyone…?” He trailed off.
“Nope.” Neil tamped down on the frustration that he felt at that question. He got it way too often. It wasn’t anyone’s business, and he never really wanted to date. Plus, he’d done some research into the ace spectrum when Laila had brought it up once, and he was fairly sure he fell somewhere in that range. Not that he felt like sharing that with everyone that asked about his love life, even someone as friendly and well-meaning as Matt.
“No worries. Just figured I’d ask. I’m super in love, so maybe that’ll help me keep up with you writing-wise. Probably not though, given the songs you’ve done before.”
Neil’s shoulders dropped slightly. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
“Let’s get to work.”