The Tattoo (Troyler AU)

Chapter Twenty Two: Tyler

My foot shook as I sat at my desk, bored out of my mind. Zoe was off, I hadn’t had enough sleep, and I had about three assignments to complete. I had been staring at my computer screen for the last half an hour, praying to pretty much every deity in existence for something to get me out of this hell. Everything around me was the typical hum of exhausted office workers, nothing out of the ordinary. The coffee next to me sat untouched, even drinking coffee couldn’t alleviate the throbbing that had occurred in my head as a result of the glare of my laptop. 

“Tyler? Can I come in?” The small voice had come from Phil, one of the guys in the tech department. His black hair sort of covered his face, and I didn’t really know him that well. He seemed nice enough, and was one of those guys that would always just be there, one that you could almost take advantage of, as awful as that sounded. 

“Yeah, yeah of course, make yourself at home!” My sweeping hand gestures and overly enthusiastic tone didn’t fool him, and he sat down in Zoe’s chair with a small smile on his face. He looked over at my screen, and raised one eyebrow. Following his line of sight, I saw that I’d leant on the keyboard, leaving a mishmash of unintelligible letters at the bottom of my screen. I ran a hand through my hair sheepishly, wanting to distract him from the blush that was steadily creeping up my neck.

“Uh, I was, um, having a break, you know?” At my hastily said words, he let out a quiet giggle, and I smiled just from the second-hand happiness that just seemed to radiate from his very being. Why didn’t I spend more time with him, he seemed like such a lovely person? Oh right, I only associate with guys who date assholes. Phil simply didn’t fit that criteria.

“Sure Tyler. Sure.” I burst out laughing at his assessment at what I’d been doing, and simply hoped that he wasn’t here because he needed one of the assignments which I was meant to finish. 

“Basically, I’m here because I can’t be bothered to do any work, and by the looks of it, neither can you. So, do you want to go to lunch? My friend and my, uh, other friend are going to be there too, if that’s ok? They’re really nice, and really accepting, and I think you know one of them, Louise? I don’t know, I just thought that you’d like to come because Zoe isn’t here today. Not that I’m only inviting you because of that, I’d invite you anyways, just I thought you might be lonely. Oh god, I didn’t mean that you don’t have any friends either, and I’m such an idiot, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to and-“ 

His ramblings were cut short by me falling off my chair from pure hysterics, this guy was too adorable. That was probably a bit rich coming from me, a guy who had pastel-coloured hair, but Phil was almost childlike in his enthusiasm for everything. From the recent way my life had been, I needed someone like him in my life, just to brighten it up from the dark and miserable place that it was quickly becoming.

“Yeah, thanks for the invite, to be quite honest, if you hadn’t asked me, I probably would have ended drawing myself in that cup of coffee. So, who’s your other friend?” I had obviously asked the right question, Phil’s face practically lit up as he started describing him.

“Oh, his name’s Dan, Dan Howell, he’s a really good friend of mine, he has brown hair, which is like mine, but the opposite way, and he’s really sarcastic and loves to take the piss out of everything and he’s kind of amazing and I don’t know what I’d do without him, I’ve known him for ages and, oh, he’s my soulmate.”

My only display of surprise was an over exaggerated blink, my brain had been too busy attempting to process the onslaught of information to react in any other way but that. A smile fought it’s way onto my face as I saw how happy Phil was thinking about this Dan guy, but at the same time, my heart sank at the thought of being around another happy couple while I inevitably broke down internally over Troye.