Morning Shift

Noah Centineo Movies

        Nicky had been watching Priya choose between two equally shitty movies for five minutes, and if Jonah wasn't there, he would've slapped the remote right out of her hand.

        He squirmed around in his seat, trying his best to subtly move away from the side of the couch where Jonah sat with his long legs criss crossed, but Priya insisted she needed her space to be able to properly watch a movie, so she sprawled out on the couch and took up the other half. Nicky propped his legs up on the table, trying to save the last of his personal space bubble that hadn't popped, but it was no use. No matter how he sat, Jonah's knee was always going to bump up against his thigh or his hand was always going to brush Nicky's arm, and then he'd half to take a deep breath in order to kill the butterflies moving around in his stomach.

        Who knew a stupid little crush would make you that crazy?

        "Pick a fucking movie, Priya," Nicky said as he leaned his head back against the back of the couch and let his eyes flutter shut. It was the first Friday after break, meaning they'd been stuck at school all week with only an hour or two to see each other a day when Priya and Jonah's weekday shifts overlapped. It also meant Nicky only had the late night for himself, because he spent the rest of his after school day taking care of the little guys with no help from his extremely exhausted parents. But of course, when Jonah called at eleven o'clock and asked if he'd like to come over and hang out with him and Priya, he couldn't say no. It's not that he didn't want to say no, because he definitely could use a little alone time, it's just that the second he opened his mouth to say it, Jonah's smile popped into his head, and then he just couldn't get the words out.

        "Well this ones about a journalist who's going to her hometown in Texas to write a story, but then she finds true love and-" Priya explained.

"Fuck no," Nicky said at the same time Jonah whispered a tired, "please no."

        "Why don't we watch Rocket Power? It's on for another few hours," Jonah suggested.

        As if they read each other's minds, Nicky and Jonah stuck their hands out, wiggled their fingers, and mumbled, "woogity woogity woogity."

        "Here we go," Priya said as she clicked on some Noah Centineo movie Nicky didn't catch the title of, "this should be good."

        Two minutes into the movie, Nicky's eyes shut completely and his head lolled all the way back, and he decided whatever movie he was being forced to watch wasn't worth losing sleep over, so he let everything slowly fade away until it was simply background noise to his own thoughts.

        He was just about fully asleep when he felt a weight on his shoulder, which he ignored until something soft tickled his cheek, and only then did he pry an eye open to see what was going on, purely out of the fear that there was a giant tarantula getting comfortable on his face.

        Luckily, there was no massive spider. Instead, there was Jonah, sound asleep with his cheek pressed up against Nicky's shoulder, squishing the rest of his face. With each deep breath, he blew a piece of hair out of his face that was just long enough to touch Nicky's cheek and send tingles spreading all across his face and down his back.

        He wished he had the energy to push him off, but every ounce of his strength had been used to keep him awake at school. He also knew Jonah had his first practice today, because he went straight from his after school shift to the rink, and he texted he was done when Nicky was nearly finished making dinner, so would it really be a good idea to wake him up?

        No. It wouldn't.

        As much as he wanted to, there was no way Nicky could go to sleep now. Even though Jonah's mouth was buried under the hem of his sweatshirt, every soft breath would fan Nicky's neck, and it was causing his hair to stand on end. Plus, Jonah's hand was resting on his thigh, which was making him more antsy than he liked to admit. He tried his best to break the stereotype that teenage boys were, as his (now fired) Sex Ed. teacher liked to put it, "driven by their dicks," but this was testing him big time, and he felt pretty disgusted with himself when he thought about that.

        To put it simply, Nicky felt like some kind of sixteen year old pervert. He didn't want to think about anyone in that way, and he never had before. Honestly, he didn't think he'd have to worry about it until he was much, much older, but there he was, repressing his growing sexuality like every other teenage boy he used to think he was better than.

        He slowly lifted his arm up, hoping it'd wake Jonah up just enough to come to his senses and move off so Nicky wouldn't have to worry about his dumb hand or his stupid curly hair, but he only succeeded in pushing Jonah more onto himself than he wanted. Jonah's head slipped down until his forehead stopped on Nicky's neck, and then Jonah was laying down on his chest. He prayed that Jonah was too busy dreaming to feel his heart, which was practically pounding up against his ribs.

        Nicky sighed and lightly placed his arm around Jonah, telling himself he'd pull his friend off, but the second he put it down, he knew he wouldn't be going anywhere for a long time. He didn't want to feel so comfortable with Jonah using him as a human pillow, but he couldn't help but smile a little bit.

        "What are you doing?" Priya asked with a chuckle, snapping him out of his own little world.

        Nicky shushed her and nodded down to Jonah. "He's asleep," he whispered.

        "Why are you cuddling him?"

        "I can't put my arm anywhere else, can I?"

        She shrugged and turned back to the movie as Nicky looked down at where his hand rested. Jonah's sweatshirt had ridden up a tiny bit when he moved, leaving a sliver of tan skin out in the open between his joggers and his sweatshirt, which— out of pure coincidence— was where Nicky's fingers laid.

        Almost unconsciously, he moved his thumb up and down the bare skin of Jonah's side, barely even touching him. But Jonah woke up, and he picked his head up to look at Nicky, who was completely paralyzed, his hand hovering above Jonah's body.

        "Don't stop," Jonah mumbled, his eyelids half shut and a lazy smile on his lips, "feels nice."

        So Nicky didn't stop, and he was too tired to pretended like that wasn't fine by him.

———————

Before anyone judges me for choosing noah centineo for the movie, I just want y'all to remember how good he was in To All the Boys and forget about literally everything that happened after

Idk if I'm feelin this chapter, but it's okay. What are your opinions? Nicky's bein soft for once :) that's gonna start happening a lot more. Is that a good thing for y'all?

Thanks for reading!!

~Teddy