At least Alex bought the excuse about late nights. Victor had been used to late nights for a while now, as a bartender with the late shift, he was pretty much nocturnal already by the time he came to the Cirque. Sure, it was a different tempo to get used to, the rush for drinks was different, the customers were somewhat of a different crowd and the ambience was really something else compared to any of the bars he’d worked at… but it was no trial for him. He enjoyed it, truly.
When Alex said that he was usually in his workshop but having a lazy day, Victor sighed out his nose and looked down quickly, thinking that he’d intruded on one the other man’s few days off that he took and said, “It’s really okay, you don’t have to do anything for me if you were relaxing. I can just drop this off and you can, you know, spend the rest of the day watching…” He looked over at the computer, paused on a stand-up comedian and racked his brain. Yep, he came up empty. He knew the names of very few comedians, as it so happened and only the really famous ones. Great, Alex was definitely cooler than he could ever hope to be and he’d just dropped in rudely, expected him to do him a favor… Victor didn’t think his manners could get any worse, honestly. He’d tried to be polite, always, no matter what, but it seemed that impulsivity and the desire to get closer to Alex had foiled his best efforts.
Then the other man jumped in, offering to read his cards despite the intrusion and god Victor felt so badly when he talked about waking up a little more… not only was this his day off but he was tired. Good job, Victor, he told himself, mentally smacking himself in the head for being so damn hare-brained about this. “Oh, no… take your time, please. I was the one who, uh… well, just showed up,” he said with a laugh, trying to look past Alex to avoid eye contact. Okay so… he was extremely attractive, tired, wearing those pants and a genuinely nice guy, it seemed. Victor felt like he had just stepped into what he thought was a puddle and sank like a stone in a river, not knowing how deep the water was in the first place.
When he mentioned the hot toddies, Victor’s eyes widened a bit as if he’d forgotten them and just remembered and felt relief run through him when Alex mentioned how his mother made them. Then he actually smiled.
“Actually, I made them just like that. Heavy on the honey, light on the whiskey but like your mother, I don’t know if my ‘light’ is actually that ‘light’ at all…” he said, looking around the trailer a little as he made his way to the couch to sit. He opened the thermos and poured himself a cup, waiting to pour Alex one until he had found his cards and come back. “I hope you like it, I just thought, well, with the weather and the location, it’d be a perfect time to make it.”
He had a sip of his, it was almost too hot but just short of burning and he blew on it quietly. Another thought struck him. “I don’t mind doing dishes, you know,” he said casually. “I’m pretty fast at it and I could help you out if you wanted to. It’s the least I could do to thank you for having me with no notice and reading my cards on your day off.”
Putting the cup to his lips, he wondered if that was as weird as it sounded, offering to help a virtual stranger with their dishes, but he wanted to do something to make up for dropping in and, well, he really didn’t mind doing the dishes at all. He had always helped do them at friends’ houses and wherever he was invited, really… at parties and holidays, he wanted to make himself useful.