If anyone had asked me to describe the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery—or IMAG—to them, I wouldn't tell them about its aggressive modernness. Or about the dominant, smooth, coppery curved façade that catches the light with a warm, almost molten glow. Or even about the angular blocks of pale gray panelling and a tall glass-fronted section. I wouldn't use the words sleek, curved, metallic, or impressive.

Ominous.

I would call it ominous.

"It is a mix of Highland history, Pictish stones, Jacobite rebellion memorabilia, Inverness silverware, and Caithness glass, plus landscape paintings and rotating contemporary art exhibitions," Elliot said from beside me as we stood at the large entryway. The place was somehow bustling at ten in the morning, although visiting an art gallery while trying to wake up seemed a bit counterproductive to me.

But then again, I knew fuck all about rich people.

"It's located inside the 500-year-old Inverness Castle overlooking the city."

I glanced at Elliot to see if he was reading from one of the many brochures that he was carrying in his bag. But of course not. He was just reciting it like that was how humans were supposed to talk. Except now, I was no longer creeped out by it, but had a sudden urge to kiss him on the lips and see him lose all his bearing and logical thoughts.

"It's... big," I remarked.

"It is very big," Elliot agreed, leading me into the gallery.

We walked into the stuffy white corridor, lined on either side by glass cases and picture frames. A few people glanced at us once before turning away. I tried to ignore the odd prickling sensation at the back of my neck. Nothing weird about two dudes coming to visit an art gallery. 

Even though one of them still had bite marks on his neck that matched the teeth of the other.

I glanced sideways at Elliot, who was incidentally wearing a salmon turtleneck that brought out the color of his eyes. Making him look sophisticated, like he himself could enter any of the prettiest paintings on the wall and no one would be able to tell the difference. 

We stood in front of a large painting with a modern, yellow brick building and water-green grass painted in front of it.

"It is supposed to show the contrast between modern architecture and the rural life it has sacrificed in order to build it," Elliot said from beside me. "You see, the orange is meant to signify blood. The green, life. They clash and compete against each other on the watercolor."

I gulped.

It was just a fucking house.

"Profound," I nodded.

Elliot didn't move, his eyes narrowing as he studied the painting that apparently was not made by a twelve-year-old drama school club reject. I followed his gaze, and soon felt his cold fingers tugging at my sleeve. I looked down at his hand brushing against mine and glanced at him. His face was pink, his eyes bright, before his fingers intertwined with mine and he turned to look at the fuckass painting again.

I squeezed his hand, assuring him it was okay, and he beamed at the stupid painting.

He pulled my hand and brought me to another artwork, this one much easier to admire even through my untrained eyes.

"Blue hydrangeas." Elliot glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "You know what they mean?"

I shrugged. "You mean symbolically? No."

"They are rather underrated, I believe," he said, narrowing his eyes and taking a sharp breath, the way he did when he was focusing. "They have many meanings. I think the most beautiful is gratitude— specifically for being understood."

"That is...very specific," I chuckled.

"I... suppose. But they are beautiful." He said, tilting his head slightly as he looked at the painting of the hydrangea flowers in a valley, soft pink light painted on the sky above it.

"It is." I agreed honestly.

By the time we made it to the upper floor, I was fighting to keep my eyes open. The last hour had been spent with Elliot talking in a monotone about why the curtains were blue, and the grass was actually emerald and not forest green.

But I couldn't stop him. He was so... diligent. He paused at every painting, in front of every glass case, reading the minuscule writing, looking up stuff on his phone, and sharing it with me like I was supposed to give a fuck. When he spoke, I focused more on his lips and his shining eyes, the way his cheeks became pink when I gazed at him. It was easier to listen to fatally boring tales in his voice. 

I almost did not pay attention to the snooty people with upturned noses. Especially when I realized I may as well be in deep shit with the snooty person on my arm. 

After the museum of torture, Elliot decided to take me to a fancy, high-end restaurant that I felt extremely underdressed for in my black sweatshirt and black jeans. We walked from Inverness Castle to the city centre for a few minutes before reaching Rocpool Reserve.

"Chez Roux is an ultra-chic, multi-award-winning boutique hotel. It is set in a beautifully renovated Georgian mansion with views over the River Ness," Elliot stated as we made our way on the cobbled streets hand in hand.

Inside the restaurant, soft music played from somewhere at the back. Being lunchtime, it was decently crowded. I had a mini visual throwback to the Casa Morelli dinner with Elliot and made a mental note to not eat any suspiciously green mush.

True to Elliot's words, the restaurant was on the ground floor of what looked like an old mansion—all tall windows and pale walls the color of nothing in particular. It should have been less intimidating than it was. There were no chandeliers, no gold, none of the stuff I'd have expected from somewhere this expensive. Just soft light, and linen so white it looked untouched, and a single pale flower standing in a thin glass on every table.

That was somehow worse. This was quiet, and careful, and every small thing in the room seemed to know exactly what it cost.

There were maybe a dozen tables, most of them empty, spaced far enough apart that you'd have to raise your voice to be overheard—which nobody did. The whole place ran at a hush, the kind of silence that felt like it was watching you. Cutlery I didn't recognize sat in rows on either side of the plate, more forks than a person could need in one lifetime. Beyond the windows, the River Ness slid past, gray and slow, like even the water outside had been told to keep it down.

A man in a waistcoat pulled my chair out for me. I sat down as the man turned to Elliot and repeated his movements, except with a wider smile.

"Mr. Hayes," he beamed, "It is an honour to have you back."

"Thank you, Mason," Elliot, who apparently knew the server by name, said. And then, without a pause, without so much as glancing at the folded menu the waiter had set down: "We are celebrating, so we will do this properly. For me—the heritage tomato consommé to start, and then the roasted celeriac, plain, no truffle, nothing on top of it. Just the celeriac. And bread, the sourdough, with olive oil on the side rather than any spread." He said it all evenly, the way he'd recite a lineup—no apology in it, no self-consciousness, just specification.

The waiter didn't blink. "Of course, Mr. Hayes."

I scanned the menu with what I hoped looked like confidence, found something in French that sounded fancy and expensive and therefore probably good, and pointed at it.

"I'll start with the—" I squinted. "The rognons blancs."

Elliot looked up from his water.

"Luca," he said. "Those are testicles."

I froze. "...What?"

"Rognons blancs. White kidneys." He said it with the patient tone of someone explaining offside.

I almost threw up but managed not to imagine white, glistening, bulbous, buttery—

 "It is a culinary euphemism. They are testicles. Bull, typically." Elliot tilted his head. "Would you still like them? Some people enjoy the texture."

I wasn't sure how to tell him a bull's balls in my mouth was not my idea of a date.

"No—" I set the menu down like it had bitten me. "No, I would not still like them. Why—" I lowered my voice, leaning across the table. "Elliot. Why do they even have that? On the menu? At a fancy place? Who is walking in here going, yes, I would love some bull balls in my mouth?"

He let out a breathless giggle, his eyes sparkling. I admired the way a soft pink flush rose up his cheeks as he shook his head. "It is considered a delicacy."

"By whom?"

"Historically, by—"

"That was not a real question, Elliot."

He blinked at me, then closed his mouth. A small, pleased smile tugged at the corner of it anyway, like he'd enjoyed that.

I looked back down at the menu, deeply suspicious of all of it now. Every word on it could be an animal part in disguise. I picked the shortest, safest-sounding thing I could find.

"I'll just have the soup," I said.

Elliot glanced at the menu, then at me, and I could see him clock that I had no idea which soup, that "the soup" was not a thing that existed, that there were four of them and every one was named something I couldn't pronounce.

"He'll have the heritage tomato consommé as well," he told the waiter, before I could embarrass myself further. "The same as mine, to start."

The waiter nodded and left.

"What's a con-so-may?" I said warily. "And be honest with me. Is it an animal's... anything?"

"It is a clarified tomato broth," Elliot said. "There are no testicles in it. There are no glands, no organs, no reproductive material of any kind. It is tomatoes, Luca. Strained until clear. You will like it."

I let out a breath. "Okay. Tomato water. I can do tomato water."

"You have ordered no sides or entrées with it," he clicked his tongue, placing his phone on the table beside the unnecessary forks. "You should take a look at the menu."

I didn't take a look at the menu, deciding to take a long sip of the water instead. It was, thankfully, normal-tasting.

"Would you like some wine?" Elliot asked me as he beckoned the server to the table again.

I shook my head, my jaw clenched as I glanced back at the several fancy bottles of wine I knew would cost an obscene amount of money. 

"A bottle of Château Margaux, please," Elliot said as the server nodded and retreated at once. "It is good wine; you will enjoy it."

"I don't want it." I cleared my throat to stop sounding like a cranky child. He sounded so calm and confident, like he knew everyone, like everyone knew him. This was probably true. And even though I was in an infinitely better financial place now— it felt like I was still wearing my holey, turned-in socks and cutting fungus off a slice of bread. And everyone around me somehow knew that. 

"It is okay; this is my treat."

Blood pounded in my ears. I had to remind myself that he was, in fact, not being a snob or an emasculating dickhead. But it didn't change the fact that it made me feel like the smallest man in the room.

"I can afford it, Elliot," I said quietly.

He blinked. "Of course I know that." He nodded his head once. "But since I invited you and I picked the place, it would be common date courtesy—"

"Date?" I scoffed, taking another sip of the water as the back of my throat dried up rapidly.  Everything felt wrong. The warm, fuzzy feeling I'd cradled in my chest since the morning dissipating in a cloud of smoke. 

He faltered. "Is that... not what it is?"

"I guess," I said finally. "Sorry. I'm just... a bit overwhelmed with all this—" I waved a hand at the opulence of a place I clearly did not belong to.

"If you want," Elliot began, "we can go to a place of your choice post this? You will still be hungry with the soup."

"I'd rather just go back," I replied honestly. "Not to say I didn't enjoy the, uh, brushy strokes and... painterly patterns."

"Oh, the art?" Elliot said as the server poured a glass of wine for each of us. He lifted the glass to his lips, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Yes, it was rather intricate, no? Especially the... painterly patterns."

"And the way the light reflected off the... very good textures," I said lamely. "Very brushy and stroky."

He placed the glass back on the table and let out a breathless giggle, his eyes bright, the apples of his cheeks flushing pink as he laughed.

"What?" I asked, all my annoyance instantly evaporating.

"It was deathly boring," he said, laughing some more, the sound whimsical. "I was messing with you."

I groaned, raking a hand through my hair. "You mean to tell me—you did not enjoy all that stuff and dragged me along for a whole hour just to mess with me?"

He giggled again, nodding, hiding his mouth behind a clasped hand.

I let out a deep sigh, throwing my head back for dramatic effect and groaning. "Ugh. You're the worst, Elliot Hayes. I hate you."

His smile dropped instantly, his lips parting open, his eyebrows knitting slightly.

"No..." I laughed weakly. "Fuck. Of course I don't—" I shook my head, reaching out to squeeze his hand on the table. "I was also just messing with you."

"Oh," he said, smiling immediately. "We call it even?"

It was not even. Not even close.

"Nope," I said, taking a sip of the rich, bubbly wine and placing it back on the table. "You might need to... persuade me a little more."

"Oh," his eyebrows knitted further. "How so?"

I didn't answer, smirking as I lifted the glass of deep, rich wine to my lips again and licked the cold glass rim slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on him.

His face flushed almost as red as the wine, and he quickly took a large sip, swallowing it slowly and looking anywhere but at me. I revelled in the surge of power I felt in making him lose his composure like that.

The server arrived with our food, and Elliot launched into a monologue again. "Expect something clean but deceptively complex. The flavor is concentrated—all the sweetness and acidity of ripe heritage tomatoes, clarified until the broth runs completely clear. You will taste the tomato more intensely than you would if you were simply eating one, without any of the pulp or weight." He thanked the server and eyed me as I took a bite of the deceptively clear tomato broth.

He was right about it being clean and bright, the tomato hitting sharper and more concentrated than anything that clear had a right to taste.

"It is yum," I said plainly. That seemed good enough for him as he nodded like I had given some deeply convoluted food description and went back to his food.

We ate the rest of the food in comfortable silence, Elliot stealing glances at me from the top of his wine glass like I couldn't see him. I let him have that dignity, not returning his gaze and basking in how flustered he became anytime I did look at him. I debated with the idea of teasing him a bit more, but the red wine and his face were soon competing with each other on a redness contest. So I decided against it. 

We left the restaurant an hour later, our fingers intertwining again as we walked through the quiet streets, our shoulders brushing together like a single second without contact was too much to bear.