Chapter Text
It’s an ordinary night in April when Nicky wakes up out of a deep sleep, gripped by the sudden realization that when Joe had him over for dinner the previous November, it was a date. Joe—visiting his family in Amsterdam for the week—is mercifully not sleeping beside him to be woken by this realization, and Nicky swings his legs out of bed to sit on the edge of the mattress and think as hard as he’s ever thought in his life.
A date.
It was so clearly a date.
Joe was wooing him and Nicky hadn’t a clue.
Nicky falls back against the bed and claps a hand over his eyes, cursing softly. He struggles to reconcile the part of him that can’t believe he was so obtuse and the part of him that understands exactly why he would never have imagined Joe was interested. And as he pulls his hand away from his face, letting his arms drop back against the mattress, he’s struck by how much has changed in so few months. On this side of being loved by Joe he knows that there is so more meant for him than isolation and neglect. His heart hurts to think back to November, to all the dull pain he carried, and he shakes his head and thinks of Joe and Andy and Nile and the warmth they’ve spun around him every day.
“Oh, Joe,” he says into the darkness, and resolves then and there that he will take Joe on a date, and it will be the best date, and that it will make up for the fact that he has never taken Joe on a formal date, and that he didn’t know Joe was trying to date him back when he was.
Nicky glances at the clock on the bedside table – it’s 4.10am. “Tanto vale,” he tells himself, and peels himself off the bed to head to the bathroom and begin the day.
*
The doll’s house has three floors, including attic space, and a crooked chimney perched upon a wood-tiled roof. Nicky rounds his bench to look at it from all sides, noticing the window boxes and rotten sills, the stretch of broken eaves and the missing windows. “May I?” he asks the woman—Rebecca—to whom it belongs.
“Please,” she says, gesturing toward it awkwardly before she clutches the strap of her handbag again.
Gently, Nicky unlatches the hook-and-eye holding the front of the doll’s house closed, and helps the whole front wall swing open. One of the hinges is sticky with age, but he’s glad to note that the structure is mostly sound. He makes sure the wall is steady before he looks inside, and when he does, he sucks in a breath.
It’s not an empty structure, but rather a house filled with rough-made furniture crafted by inexpert hands. There are beds and wardrobes in all the bedrooms, and tiny bedside tables, and upholstered chairs. There are pieces of art on the walls, and curtains at the windows, and small metal pots and pans cluttered in one corner of the kitchen counter. There are rugs in the dining room and living room, a fireplace, and tiny books on shelves.
“This was made with love,” Nicky murmurs, and Rebecca shifts foot to foot beside him.
“My granddad,” she says, and Nicky looks over at her with a smile.
“For you?” he asks.
She nods. “My sixth birthday.”
Nicky shakes his head in admiration and looks back at the house, at the dust and the cobwebs clinging to the ceilings of the rooms. “This will take more than my skill alone,” he offers. “But between us, I think we can make this shine.”
“Oh, thank you,” Rebecca says, and her voice is unsteady. “I just . . . if I can give it to my grand-daughter, she’d . . .”
Nicky reaches for her without giving it a second thought, pulls her against his side in a one-armed hug. “She will be overjoyed,” he confirms with a nod of his head, and lets her go—he has learned that the British deal with affection best if it’s expressed in small doses—and pulls over a stool for her to sit on as he begins to work out the maths of a doll’s house restored. He’ll ask Joe to repair what art he can and paint new things for the walls, ask Nile to clean the vases, dishes, and plates, and make new what can’t be salvaged. Andy can make new pans, and rework the hook and eye and the railings by the garden path. He calculates time and materials and takes off a little for the chance to do something as a team, presents the estimate with a flourish and beams when Rebecca accepts.
“It will take us a little time, but we will take excellent care of it,” he tells her.
Rebecca nods. “I trust you,” she says, and that’s the best part of all.
*
On Sunday, Nicky heads to the outdoor market—a habit, he supposes, by now; something he does when Joe is away—and loses himself in the art and the hubbub and the second-hand wares. He always forgets to bring his knives to be sharpened, remembering when he sees the cutler at his wheel, but there are other compensations, like the kebab he buys from the food van and eats while it’s still too hot, cursing softly when he burns his tongue. There’s nothing in particular he wants or needs, save the opportunity to wander and browse the stands of books, and the morning eases by pleasantly amid the jostle of pushchairs and the conversations around him.
Nicky doesn’t notice the name on the awning above the stand selling furniture, but can’t help but overhear the vendor telling a woman that the lap desk she’s carrying is too damaged to repair. Curious, Nicky wanders closer, and half looks at the tag on a rocking chair to disguise his real interest. He glances at the desk while the vendor’s distracted.
“Oh no,” says the woman, clearly disappointed. “I had hoped . . . my friend said you’d helped her before.”
The man lifts one shoulder in an apologetic hug. “The water damage is too deep,” he says, in accented English. French, Nicky thinks. “I cannot make it new again.”
Nicky is taken aback by the lie. He can see that the veneer on the desk is stained and curling, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be replaced.
“If you’re interested, I’d be happy to buy it for the wood,” the man offers. “Antique cherry is always hard to come by in my job.”
Nicky’s heart kicks up a beat with indignation, and he straightens up, makes a motion to cut in.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” says the man, fishing a business card out of his pocket and offering it to Nicky before he takes the lap desk in hand. Nicky looks at the card—Sebastien le Livre— and flips it over to find the business information for Merrick Antiques on the other side.
Nicky knows his own faults. He holds grudges, and right now all the people who’ve come to the barn after being insulted or turned away by Merrick and his staff come vividly to mind. And now this—that someone from such a terrible excuse of a company is purposefully misleading people into giving up the things they love . . . Nicky bristles as Livre passes a handful of twenty-pound notes to the woman who owns the desk, and she signs a sales slip and walks away.
“Can I help you?” Livre asks, stuffing the sales slip in his jacket pocket.
Nicky clenches his jaw then deliberately releases it. “I . . .” He gestures to the chest-of-drawers in front of him. “This seems overpriced.”
The man isn’t offended. He chuckles as he pats the item with one hand. “Let me guess, you’re a woodworker. A hobby, am I right?”
Nicky arches an eyebrow but nods in response. “I try,” he manages.
“The thing is,” Livre continues, “that restoration is much more complicated than people think.”
“Ah,” Nicky offers. “I see.”
“The time involved, the sourcing materials . . . the mark-up is significant.”
“Hmmm.” Nicky eyes the price tag again. It’s easily 50% more than the chest-of-drawers is worth. “Was this very badly damaged when you found it?”
Livre waggles a hand. “A little woodworm. A little rot.” He offers a half smile. “I bet you can’t find the repairs.”
Nicky badly wants to scoff, but stops himself. “Not a bet I should take,” he says, offering his own cautious smile. “But I do have some items at home that might benefit from your attention. You’re here every week?”
“First and third Sundays of the month,” Livre says. “Here—” He takes the card back from Nicky’s hand, scribbles something on the back and returns it. “If you want a house call, just ring me. Happy to oblige.”
Nicky looks at the card, at the mobile number scrawled beneath Sebastien le Livre and the nickname below. “Booker?” he asks, feeling slightly stunned.
“Everyone calls me that,” says Livre. “If you’ll excuse me . . .” and he wanders to the other side of the awning to talk to another potential customer, leaving Nicky blinking in his wake.
*
Joe’s flight lands at eight that evening, and Nicky drives his car out to the airport to pick him up. He spends the entire journey rehearsing how to tell Joe that he’s met Booker, and that Booker is involved in fraud, but while the story feels simple his speech quickly devolves into cursing. By the time he reaches short-term parking and texts Joe his location, he’s sweating a little and feels sure that his hair is standing on end. “Booker,” he grinds out to himself, caught between the discomfort of imagining telling Andy and a vague sense of guilt for having benefited so spectacularly from Booker’s betrayal. “Madre di dio,” he says to himself, fumbling with his phone, opening up the KLM flight app to check whether Joe’s on time.
Someone tries the passenger door, yanking it with a vengeance, and Nicky yelps.
Suddenly Joe’s peering through the window. “Open up!” he says with a grin, and Nicky hurriedly unlocks the doors, feeling breathless and nervous and one-hundred-percent off his game. Joe throws his suitcase onto the back seat, closes the door, and then he’s climbing into the front, and he smells so good. “You smell good,” says Nicky without thinking, and then he feels his face begin to burn, but Joe simply laughs and reaches to cup his jaw, says “Hello, I missed you,” and kisses him with a fervor that makes Nicky’s toes curl. Joe kisses him and kisses him and Nicky can’t breathe, and when Joe pulls back Nicky gasps and sucks in air, and then he’s chasing Joe’s mouth and kissing him again. He’s missed him—god he’s missed him—and to have him close and warm and laughing against his lips is almost more than he can fathom, so he kisses him again, and then his elbow strikes the horn and startles them apart, and Joe grins at him wickedly and says, “take me home.”
Nicky swallows hard and says, “I think I’ve forgotten how to drive.”
Joe’s smile is so dazzling that Nicky’s heart turns over in his chest. “Bed, or right here,” Joe says, and for the sake of public decency, Nicky turns the key in the ignition and hopes he can get them home alive.
They make it unscathed, and Nicky balls his hands into fists as he follows Joe up the stairs to his flat, trying to make sure he doesn’t reach out and grab him, press him up against the wall and let some of his pent-up feelings escape. He follows Joe into the flat, hears Joe drop his keys on the kitchen counter, and then he’s shoved unceremoniously backwards, the door slamming closed behind him.
“The things you do to me,” Joe mutters, grinning, his hands busy with Nicky’s belt and fly, and then he’s sliding to his knees and taking Nicky in his mouth, and Nicky lets his head fall back against the door, all his breath escaping at once.
“Fuck,” he manages, one hand curling around Joe’s shoulder to steady himself. Joe is focused on speed, not finesse, working him over with his mouth and making pleased little noises that go right to Nicky’s dick. “Joe,” he manages, but he can’t say more, and he’s not even sure what words he’d use, or what he wants to say. He closes his eyes, gasping, desperately turned on and hurtling toward an orgasm that five minutes before he didn’t know was in his future. “Oh my god.”
Joe pulls back and replaces his mouth with one hand, jerking Nicky efficiently. “There’s no privacy at home,” he says, panting. “A whole week and I haven’t . . . but I’ve thought about you and . . . fuck,” he finishes before taking Nicky back into his mouth and doing something around the head of Nicky’s dick with his tongue that makes Nicky curse and shudder head to toe. Shivering, he comes.
Nicky doesn’t remember sliding to sit with his back to the door, but when he blinks and focuses that’s where he is. “Cazzo,” he manages, chest heaving, and reaches to grab Joe by the collar of his jacket to pull him into a kiss. Joe moans extravagantly into his mouth, and Nicky fumbles a hand to Joe’s crotch, barely pressing his hand to the outline of his erection before Joe shudders and comes. It’s the hottest thing Nicky has ever witnessed, and his own dick twitches feebly, as if there were some way he could possibly go again.
Joe steadies himself with his hands wrapped around Nicky’s upper arms and after a beat grins with obvious delight. “That was great,” he says fervently, and Nicky snorts with laughter.
“You cannot be comfortable,” he says, cupping Joe’s face in his hands and kissing him briefly.
Joe hums as the kiss breaks. “No regrets,” he says happily, and Nicky laughs again.
*
When Nicky wakes up the next morning, it’s to find the familiar weight of Joe against his back, Joe’s arm thrown around him, hand tucked beneath his side. It’s intimate and comforting, and he lets himself drift for a while, idly cataloging the dozen little aches that testify to their fun the night before. He smiles a little to consider that despite the fact that they’d only spent seven days apart he’d missed this—missed the particular scent of Joe’s skin, the texture of these sheets, the steady press and give of Joe’s breathing. He lets out a long, contented sigh, and feels Joe stir gently.
Joe grumbles. “Time is’t?” he asks, his voice rough.
“I have no idea,” Nicky replies.
“Mmmph.” Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s bare shoulder, and then another. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Nicky pulls Joe’s hand to his mouth, kisses his knuckles. “Why are you awake?”
Joe yawns and stretches, rolls onto his back. “Time zones?” he offers as Nicky rolls over to look at him. He’s beautiful like this, sleep-soft and drowsy, his curls in disarray, and as Nicky watches he frowns a little, looking quizzical, and reaches to thumb the tip of Nicky’s nose. “What are you thinking?”
“That you’re beautiful,” Nicky says honestly, and Joe smiles at him, beaming under the compliment.
“Takes one to know one,” he offers, and Nicky laughs.
“Such poetry.”
“It’s early,” Joe says, tugging him closer. “It’s all prose before coffee.”
They kiss softly, a gentle morning press of lips, and Nicky pulls back to look at Joe again, at the lines beside his eyes and the arch of his eyebrows. “What are you doing on Saturday evening?” he asks.
Joe blinks and says nothing for a moment. “On Saturday?” he repeats.
“Hmm.”
“Spending it with you?”
“Good.” Nicky leans in to brush their noses against one another. “I want to take you on a date.”
Joe raises both eyebrows. “A date, huh?”
“A real one.”
“Because the others have been fake . . .”
“Hush.” Nicky shakes his head. “I will pick you up at 6.30.”
Joe meets Nicky’s gaze, then looks appreciatively down the length of his body and back up again. “I think you already picked me up.”
“That was a terrible line,” Nicky says, straight faced. “Terrible.”
Joe grins. “You love me.’
“I do, I do,” Nicky agrees, trying to sound put out about it and failing.
They fall back into their morning rhythm easily, taking turns to shower and to dress, trading conversation in the hallway and then lapsing into companionable silence. Nicky has his own toothbrush in the bathroom, and clean shirts and a spare pair of jeans in a drawer that Joe cleared out for him. The scent of toasted bread and warm espresso pulls him to the kitchen, where Joe’s perched on the counter, nursing a tiny cup between both hands.
The knowledge that he has to tell Joe about Booker sits heavily on Nicky, and he blows out a breath as he crosses the kitchen. No time like the present. “I have to tell you,” he says, reaching for the espresso pot and pouring his own coffee. “I met Booker yesterday.”
Joe freezes, one eyebrow raised, with his cup half way to his mouth. “. . . you did what?” he asks, sounding strangled.
“I met Booker,” Nicky says apologetically, and not knowing what else to do, sits on the counter beside Joe.
Joe’s mouth works soundlessly as Nicky settles. “How?” he asks at last.
“Merrick has a set of stalls at the Sunday market,” Nicky says. “Booker was . . . .well.”
Joe lowers his cup. “What?”
“He was defrauding people of their property,” Nicky says quickly. “Telling people their things were irreparable, and offering them too little money to give them up.”
Joe sighs and stares into his cup.
“I didn’t confront him,” Nicky says, and sips his espresso.
Joe’s face does something complicated but he says nothing.
Nicky watches him closely and reaches out to rest a hand on Joe’s knee. “I never asked before because it felt intrusive. But . . .”
“You know all we know,” Joe says, shaking his head. “He left overnight. No explanation.”
“And Copley didn’t find . . .”
“Nothing. The books were clean.”
Nicky feels his heart ache in empathy. “I’m sorry to have brought up bad memories.”
Joe lifts one corner of his mouth. “Not your fault.” He sets his cup down on the counter. “It’s just that when I think about it . . .”
Nicky lets silence spill out between them.
“It still hurts,” Joe says, lifting a hand and letting it fall. “Like a fracture, and if I’m not careful every bit of anger I’ve ever felt will coming rushing out.”
Nicky leans to press a kiss to Joe’s bare shoulder, lingers there for a second. “I can let this go.”
“Can you?” Joe asks with an amused huff.
“Yes,” Nicky answers. “If it will cause more hurt . . .”
Joe turns his head to look at Nicky directly. “No.” He shakes his head. “It won’t. And you sh . . . we should intervene if we know that he’s . . .” He blows out a breath. “We should tell Andy.”
“I know.”
Joe nods. “Let me do it.”
Nicky studies his face for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
Joe offers a flicker of a smile. “For some value of sure,” he says, and his eyes flutter closed right before Nicky leans in and kisses his jaw.
Their drive to the barn feels especially long that morning, the traffic particularly tiresome. Joe turns on the radio—by shared agreement, their means of asking for time to think—and Nicky doesn’t try to make conversation. The silence between them is warm, at least, and Nicky loves Joe desperately for it, loves that he needn’t fear that there are things going unsaid. There are too many shadowed places in his memory filled with frost and regret. It moves him, more than he knows what to do with, that Joe isn’t lashing out despite his obvious pain.
Nile’s not yet at her workstation when they get to the barn, and Joe sets his bag down by his bench, says “I’m going to find her,” and leaves Nicky to his work. It’s quiet without anyone else in the space, and Nicky closes his eyes for a moment, listens to the silence of the spring morning, to the faint whinny of Andy’s horses, and the barest whisper of the wind in the trees. When he opens his eyes to the familiar interior of the barn, he feels overwhelmed by affection for the posts and beams, the skylights and slate, the sawdust that already clings to his boots. He isn’t sure how anyone could walk away from such a place.
Rucksack stowed, Nicky rolls up his sleeves and eyes the doll’s house at his station. He’s already removed the roof, worked the stubborn hinges from the front panel, and cleared out the furniture from all the rooms. He crosses to the kitchen sink, fills one of Joe’s paint-splattered jars with water, and tears a corner from the sponge by the mugs. With care he wets the tattered wallpaper in the attic, and with a dull blade scrapes the walls until they’re clean. There’s paper to remove in the hallway, the bedrooms, and the parlor, and he loses himself in the repetitive work, barely looking up when Nile arrives, but relaxing all the same when she plugs in her headphones and he can hear the faintest whisper of music from across the room.
Nicky looks up when Joe wanders back inside. “How did it go?” he asks.
“Okay,” Joe says, nodding. “She’s making a battle axe.”
Nicky nods. “Seems fair,” he says in reply.
*
Two days pass uneventfully before Nile calls an all-hands meeting, buzzing with an excitement she can barely contain.
“We need an Instagram,” she tells them. “And a website. And . . .”
“Why?” asks Andy, and gets a punch in the arm from Quynh for her question.
“Join the twenty-first century, love,” Quynh says, grinning broadly, and Andy raises an eyebrow.
“Are you in on this?” she asks.
Quynh lifts a shoulder and tries to look as though she’s above the fray. She fails. “Maybe.”
“She’s not ‘in’ on anything,” Nile says. “She’s the photographer.”
“I know she’s a photographer,” Andy says.
Quynh sighs. “The photographer. You’ll need new images for the website and material for the Instagram. I’ll shadow you all.”
Nicky frowns and opens his mouth to ask a question, but Andy’s not done.
“Shadow us,” she repeats, over-enunciating the words. She looks over at Nile. “I don’t even understand why we need . . .”
“It’s marketing,” Nile says simply. “We’re doing great work, people should know about it.”
“To bring in more jobs?” Joe asks.
“Yeah. And to stop people heading to Merrick as a first port of call. We’ve all spent too much time cleaning up his mess.”
Joe glances at Nicky, then away. “I hear he’s started hiring interns. Pays them a pittance, tells them they’re being compensated in experience.”
Quynh snorts. “I hate that guy.”
“We all hate that guy,” says Andy. She turns her mug around in her hands, looking grim. “How much will this cost?”
Nile grins, and pulls a folded sheet of paper out of the back pocket of her jeans. “It’s all here.”
“Can we go back to the part where Quynh will be taking our picture?” asks Nicky.
“People are going to love you,” says Quynh, closing one eye and pretending to frame him in a shot.
Nicky mutters a small prayer under his breath.
*
Nicky finds it’s tricky to make plans for a surprise date when you work with, and spend a considerable amount of time outside work with the person you’re taking on the date. He’s grateful that the restaurant he’s picked out has an online reservation system, and on Thursday afternoon he feigns a bad headache to go home early and take his suit to the cleaners. (It’s hard to break free of the habits of a lifetime, and so he spends most of the rest of the afternoon cleaning his flat and offering himself reassurance after reassurance that he is not a terrible person because of his small lie.) With the time he has left to himself, he makes a playlist of songs that make him happy, and songs that make Joe happy, and songs that remind him of Joe. Every song that makes it onto the list reminds him of some moment between them, the stories they’ve shared, a handful of apologies after a handful of fights, the memory of Joe singing in the shower. He feels shot through with affection as he selects song after song, and by the time Joe lets himself into the flat to check on him he’s flushed enough that Joe asks if he has a temperature.
“I’m glad to see you,” Nicky says instead of answering the question.
“Okay,” Joe says, smiling but bewildered, and Nicky has to kiss him to distraction for both their sakes.
He spends most of Friday in the company of four tiny wardrobes from the dolls’ house. Each needs some kind of repair—a crack in too-dry wood; a splinter missing from a door—but as he works Nicky becomes convinced they need more. He doesn’t want to replace them entirely; the labor that went into them deserves deference. But they’re plain and solid where the house needs lightness and grace, Nicky thinks, and after studying them intently for more than half-an-hour, he roots out his tiniest tools and begins to shape the doors into elegant curves with tiny carvings along the base.
“Shit,” says Nile at his elbow half way through the afternoon.
Nicky blinks at her as he comes up for air, spots dancing before his eyes as he tries to focus on her face.
“These are amazing,” she says, gesturing at the two wardrobes that are finished. “How’d you make the carvings so small.”
Nicky pushes his glasses up onto his head. “The same way you’ve painted filigree on tiny plates,” he says with a smile.
“Spite?” she asks. That startles a laugh from him.
“Patience,” he says, and Nile makes an exaggerated face of agreement.
“That too,” she says grinning. “Want some tea?”
While Nile heads to the kitchen to put on the kettle, Nicky crosses to Joe’s bench and waits for him to notice he’s there. The oil painting Joe was working on that morning is leaning against the wall, reframed and beautiful, without a hint of the tear that an enthusiastic fencing foil had ripped. Now Joe’s painting long strips of paper with tiny roses and even smaller vines—wallpaper for the biggest bedroom in the doll’s house.
There’s a beat before Joe looks up and squints at Nicky, then he puts down his paintbrush and rubs his eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey,” says Nicky. “We’re having tea.”
“And biscuits?” asks Joe hopefully, rinsing his paintbrush.
“Of course,” Nicky replies. “But if there are too-few bourbons, it’s a fight to the death.”
Joe blinks at him again, then lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Sounds reasonable,” he says, managing to keep a straight face for a second, then ruining it with a wide, infectious smile.
Andy drifts in, summoned by a text from Nile, and there’s teasing, and a search for biscuits, and sugar stirred into tea. They settle one by one around the table, absorbed in amiable conversation, until Nile sits down, the last of them to do so.
“So, what are we going to do about Booker?” Andy asks bluntly.
There’s a long pause as Nicky exchanges glances with Joe and Nile.
“Do we have to do anything?” Nile asks.
Andy shakes her head slowly, staring into her tea. “No.”
Nicky shifts awkwardly in his chair.
“I feel . . .” Joe clears his throat and leans forward. “Responsible somehow.”
“You’re not responsible for . . . we don’t even know why he . . .” Nile gestures as if that can do what her words can’t.
“He’s in trouble,” Andy says.
“How do you know?” Nicky asks.
Andy hitches one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I’ve known him for fifteen years. Something happened, something . . .” She pauses, chewing on her bottom lip. “He wouldn’t work for Merrick unless something was wrong.”
“Nobody here did anything that means he had to go to Merrick,” says Nile. “Much less start screwing people over.”
Andy nods and meets Nile’s gaze. “I know.”
Nile sighs and says nothing for a long moment. “Has anyone heard anything from him? At all?”
“I reached out,” Andy offers. “Left a message. The next time I called, the number wasn’t in service.”
“I tried,” Joe says, and Nicky blinks in surprise. He’d had no idea. Joe looks over with an apologetic expression, but Nicky shakes his head. It’s okay.
“It just feels wrong,” Andy says. “Something about it . . .”
Nicky sets down his mug. “What is it that we want to do? If he is defrauding customers it’s probably with Merrick’s knowledge.”
“I hate that guy,” says Nile.
Andy gives a small smile.
“What if I go talk to him?” asks Joe. “He’ll be there next weekend. He can’t make a scene on the street.”
Andy scoffs softly.
Joe tilts his head. “My odds are better there than anywhere else.”
“He’s right,” Nile says. “Start small.”
Andy looks at them in turn, then nods her head. “Okay. We start small. But if I need to go in with . . .”
“No battle axe,” Nicky says firmly, and Andy laughs a little.
“Won’t be finished for a while yet,” she says. “We have time.”
Nicky nods, and catches sight of Joe’s hand extending toward the plate on which there is one bourbon biscuit left amid a sea of digestives and three custard creams.
“Ah-ah!” says Nile immediately, just as Andy smacks the back of Joe’s hand.
Joe pouts a little, but it’s for effect, and Nicky smiles into his tea and does not defend his boyfriend’s honor.