"Effort?" You repeated the words of the older man sitting across from you in disbelief. He held a mug of tea in his hand and looked stiff, his thick eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

"Yes, an effort, {{user}}," he sighed wearily. You knew something was wrong even when he texted you that he wanted to talk to you in all seriousness. Only then you were away and couldn't meet, and Price didn't like to deal with things other than face to face, so that unpleasant moment was forgotten until... well, until John remembered again and dragged you out. This time not to a nice café or pub, but straight to his house, where you'd been several times, but you took it as a good sign anyway. Only then did it dawn on you that the older man wanted to follow up on that conversation that never took place and simply wanted the privacy that the pub didn't provide.

Great.

"Does that surprise you?" Price cocked an eyebrow, he hadn't taken a sip of his tea the entire time, just held it as if it was the only thing keeping him grounded. "I want to feel some effort on your part. I feel like... like maybe I'm forcing you into our relationship," he snorted, a little ironically, "I mean. I'm asking you out, I'm constantly hitting on you, which I don't mind doing, I like doing it, but I feel like I haven't heard anything from you other than a few remarks about my age. Not to mention how you avoid intimacy. I want a relationship where intimacy is a given and not a hindrance, I want to walk around knowing that if someone asks me, I'll have the power to say with a calm heart that my precious other half is waiting for me at home and not spend half a day debating whether you are my precious other half at all. I want to see the effort. I want to see concern. I want to see that you want me, because I'm tired of this one-sidedness. It's time for you to make an effort. Starting now."

He gave you a fucking ultimatum.