Can I Take You Home?

“Fuck you!” Alan yelled, throwing popcorn at his laptop screen. He was sick of movies lying to him. Even 500 Days Of Summer, his favourite movie ever, seemed to bring him down these days more than it made him happy. It seemed so unfair that these people in movies got their meet cutes and their romantic gestures and their true love and all Alan got was Saturday nights alone in his apartment watching chick flicks.

It wasn’t as if he’d never been in a relationship, he dated a girl in high school for a couple of months, but that hardly counted. She’d liked the idea of a boyfriend more than she liked him and he was mostly just sick of feeling lonely and when she dumped him it didn’t come as a surprise, more of a relief. That wasn’t the point though, the point was that Alan was twenty years old and alone and he didn’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a best friend or even a cat because his building wouldn’t allow pets and it fucking sucked.

He fell asleep still clutching the bowl of popcorn and woke up from a fucking weird dream involving chopsticks and a herd of vicious llamas to a bed scattered with popcorn, a headache and really nasty morning breath. At least it was a Sunday and the store opened late so he still had an hour to clear shit up before he had to be at work. He sighed and rolled out of bed, trying to ignore the popcorn squishing into his blankets underneath him. It was going to be one of those days.
He arrived at the pet shop where he worked to find Justin feeding the goldfish. “Hey Alan, maybe you should try some of this stuff,” he yelled from the back of the store, waving the container of fish food around wildly “maybe it’ll enhance the orange in your hair. Or the gold. Or something.”

“Fuck off Justin,” Alan smiled tiredly at his co-worker. Justin was a good dude, Alan just wasn’t really in the mood for his lame sense of humour today. He wasn’t really in the mood for anything today. On the bright side it seemed like it was going to be a slow day so he didn’t feel particularly guilty climbing into the kittens’ playpen and sitting down to cuddle them. They’d grown up so much since he’d started working here, they looked more like awkward teenagers than anything now. The ones that were left, anyway. What had started off as thirteen tiny little balls of fluff was now three teenage cats and four babies from a new litter they’d got in a few weeks ago.

“It’s okay Noodle, no one wants to take me home either.” Alan said softly to his favourite of the remaining cats, holding her up to his face and rubbing their noses together as she mewed quietly.

“Woah, I wouldn’t say that!” A voice came from near the door, almost startling Alan into dropping Noodle. He’d been too absorbed in the cats to notice Cute Nose Ring Guy come in. He was a pretty regular customer, coming in at least once a week when Alan was working to buy cat food or treats or toys or sometimes just to play with the animals. To say Alan was a bit smitten would be an understatement.

“What?” Alan asked, looking up with wide eyes at Cute Nose Ring Guy. Cute Nose Ring Guy wasn’t actually his name, obviously. But Alan had always been too shy to ask for his real name and the guy was both cute and had a nose ring so it fitted him.

“I wouldn’t mind taking either of you home.” Cute Nose Ring Guy said, blushing a little. They’d talked before, maybe even flirted a bit, and every time he smiled at him Alan wanted to die. Cute Nose Ring Guy had this completely ridiculous smile where he’d bite his tongue a little and all his teeth would show and his eyes would crinkle and Alan’s heart just couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t doing that smile now though; it was a smaller, nervous smile that still made him internally swoon.

“Dude if you took Noodle home I think I’d cry. She’s like the only reason I can bring myself to get up at 7am to get to work on time.” Alan laughed shyly, trying to brush off Cute Guy’s implication. He couldn’t have meant he liked Alan. Alan was shy and weird and it was popular belief that his kind had no soul; no one wanted to date him, especially no one ridiculously tall with awesome tattoos and a smile that could melt hearts.

“That’s why I’d have to take both of you!” Cute Guy grinned at him, stepping closer and leaning over the fence that kept the kittens in to rub Noodle’s tiny head. His fingers brushed Alan’s for a moment and his breath caught in his throat.

“You do know I’m not a cat, right?” Alan asked, really unsure of what to say. Was Cute Guy messing with him? Had he realised that Alan had a weird I-hardly-know-you-but-you’re-really-cute-and-you-seem-nice-and-funny-and-I’d-like-to-go-out-with-you-sometime-and-maybe-make-out-on-my-couch-afterwards crush on him and so he was messing with him? Did he mean it? Alan really did not know what to make of it.

“Are you sure? You’re cute and fluffy and orange, all you need is whiskers and you’re set!” Cute Nose Ring Guy laughed, ruffling Alan’s hair. His brain was a continual loop of oh god cute guy called me cute, cute guy called me cute, cute guy called me cute and Alan could not handle it.

“You should see me on Halloween.” Alan crinkled his nose, trying to play along. He did not know how to flirt, he didn’t know if he was making an idiot of himself or not, he just hoped that Cute Guy liked him half as much as Alan liked him.