Florian didn’t understand any of this. Why was William getting a new place? Didn’t he like it here? Had.. had Florian done something that made William want to move further away from him? Was he at his place too often? Being too.. commanding? After all, he was always the one mentioning about cleaning and no shoes inside and no legs on the table and so on. Was he being too nagging? Like a naggy little wife? Oh no.. Florian really was a nagging housewife. No wonder William wanted away from him and all..
Florian ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to understand all this. He almost felt like crying right now, just because this all felt so weird and uncertain. He had thought things were good between them. That they really were doing well and all.
And then William came back home. Florian looked up to him and decided not to say anything. Not right now because he might end up yelling and he definitely didn’t want to yell. Plus that big happy smile on William’s face made it impossible for Florian to say anything right now. He loved this man way too much to actually be angry at him when he looked like that. It was impossible to be angry at William when he was being like that.
Florian glanced at his boyfriend when he jumped on the couch with him pushing his hand away and asking the questions way too happily. William really was into the idea of getting a new place and even though Florian tried to smile it started to get hard. William was so excited and the place that was his favorite and it was so far away from where Florian’s place was. It was like.. way too far.
Inviting everyone over was the point when Florian had to turn his gaze down to his hands from the computer screen. He didn’t want to know who all William would invite into his bed and to that new apartment of his. Most likely the reason why it was so far from the old one was because that way Florian couldn’t be there as often. So William could throw all possible parties he wanted. With who ever he wanted. Florian wasn’t a party person anyway so.. it’d be okay.
“Yeah, nice..” he said without even looking at the screen. He didn’t want to see more. He didn’t want to hear more. William clearly had decided he wanted the apartment and there wasn’t anything to stop him from doing that. He clearly wanted space between them and who was Florian to deny that.
His mother had known there would be disappointment. From the moment he told her of the planned moving Mrs Charming had scolded her son to not have too great expectations, knowing very well how excited and obsessive William could get. In a way he still was the child playing with a far too expensive toy and realising too late how vulnerable it was. As it shattered on the ground young William's smile vanished as well. Now, roughly twenty years later Mrs Charming would be able to find that very same crestfallen look on her baby boy's face. "You hate it." It wasn't as much of a question as it was a realisation on William's part. The excitement had left his voice entirely and in a reflexive manner he shifted away from Florian. Oddly, William felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He blinked a couple of times, staring down at the screen and the apartment he liked so very much. It was his type of apartment, but maybe that was where the problem was at. Was he being selfish? Had he been looking only for something he wanted? William wanted to blame his mother for failing at thwarting the bachelor part of his brain, but he was dating Florian not her. He should know what his boyfriend would want.
"I am sorry," William muttered under his breathe and leaned a little forward to be able to look into Florian's face. A soft apologetic smile started growing back on his lips then. "I guess I just didn't think you'd be hating it as much..?" Matter of factly, William had found the apartment to be fitting for both of them. Where the terrace looked personalised for William the living room could've been designed by Florian himself and so on. But again maybe that was where the problem was at? It looked like they both lived there, not like they'd live there together.
"There's another one my mother sent me today," William said, willing to keep talking until he found a way to turn the frown on his best friend's face upside down. "I didn't really consider it first, because-" The flat had a flaw, in William's eyes. It'd sound ridiculous to everyone who did not know of his excessive manwhore days ( alias his father who gave his unusual insecure son a questioning look ) but it was too big. It had one extra room --- which would be fine, really, if the two of them did not sleep in the same bed, but like this William felt like it had to mean something and truth be told, he was terrified of this one single room carrying too much meaning. He was continuously growing up into the responsible adult he should've been years ago, but for some reason he felt panic cripple down his spine when he thought of the non-essential room. His own mother suggested they could make an office out of it, a walk-in wardrobe, a storage room, even a gaming room or whatever, but while she had counted the endless possibilities William found himself only concentrating on the one she left out.
Rubbing his left earlobe between the index finger and thumb of his left hand as he did on the rare occasions when he was nervous, William had opened a new browser tab and navigated through his e-mail account to find the mail his mother had sent him this morning. "It's pretty though," he muttered, barely realising he hadn't even finished the prior sentence. It was an underestimation as well. The apartment looked taken straight out of a magazine and a good combination of both their tastes. It looked like it had potential for a couple to create good and bad memories in, for two people in love to begin the new adventure of living together in, for best friends to enjoy life for however long it'd keep them in this place. It looked like a place you'd always look back fondly to even after moving on. It looked perfect.
Finally, William opened the mail and clicked onto the link attached, yet again opening a new tab by doing so. "Look at it, read all of it and tell me what you think, alright?" William gave another smile and as he stood up he pressed a kiss on top of Florian's head, "I'll make dinner real quick and be right back. You can't make big decisions on an empty stomach." That being said, he grabbed the groceries bag from the floor and swiftly disappeared in the kitchen.