Now that Joel was his, Gabriel could fix the damage that had been done. He could heal Joel's wounds and love him back into a whole person. And that was the unspoken truth of it. Gabriel was in love with Joel.
Gabriel's phone pinged with a text alert. He looked down to see it was from Phil.
Phil: Your kid’s parents showed up. Asked where he was. I said I didn’t know and they left.
What the fuck? What were Thomas and Madeline doing in California again?
Gabriel fought down the panic rising up within him. It was imperative, now more than ever, that he come clean with Joel. But Joel had been so upset when they’d left his apartment earlier, it would be too much. Gabriel couldn’t do it yet. Fuck.
He leaned forward on the couch, burying his face into his hands and releasing an exhausted groan of his own. He didn’t even hear Joel get up.
“Gabriel?” Joel's voice was a whisper. It sounded detached and defeated, as if Joel had run a thousand-mile race in his head before he even opened his mouth.
Gabriel looked up, eyes softening as Joel stood there in red jeans that matched his hair and his favorite t-shirt.
Fuck.
His favorite t-shirt.
“We need to talk. Now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Joel Questions His Sanity
Joel twisted the hem of his favorite shirt between shaking fingers and stood as still as he could manage across the room from Gabriel. After he had gotten up and untucked himself from the warmth of Gabriel’s bed, he went down to the guest bedroom. The bedroom Gabriel had called “his” since the first night he’d stepped foot in the condo. Joel had intended to dig some clean clothes out of his duffel bag, then found he didn’t have any clean clothes left. He’d noticed a door in the corner of the room and he decided it must be the closet. He’d expected a large, mirrored, sliding door like the one in Gabriel’s room, and he hadn’t spent enough time in the room to realize it didn’t have a noticeable closet, only a small, unobtrusive door. Joel pulled it open to find an array of t-shirts, hanging neatly from wooden hangers. Gabriel wouldn’t mind him borrowing something to wear, but Joel also wondered why Gabriel had a closet full of t-shirts that were too small for him.
Maybe they were from an ex-boyfriend,he thought.Of course an ex-boyfriend.It was the only explanation that made any sense.
Gabriel was handsome, smart and accomplished. He said he was alone but he must have had lovers before. Joel felt stupid for ever thinking he was different or somehow better than anyone who had come before him. Angry at himself, and finally awake enough to recall all his second thoughts and self-doubt from the night before, he tore a shirt off the hanger and pulled it over his head. He was immediately assaulted with the familiar smell of the laundry detergent he bought at the laundromat for a dollar, and it struck him as odd that Gabriel would wash anything with cheap powdered detergent.
Maybe his ex-boyfriend was a pathetic little kid like me. Maybe he likes a good fucking project.
Joel squared his shoulders, ready to go search Gabriel out, break things off, pack up, and head to Athena’s, but he caught his reflection in the mirror above the dresser on his way out of the door.
This shirt didn't belong to an ex-boyfriend.
It smelled familiar because it was familiar. This was his favorite t-shirt, a simple tee with a colorful and stylized dragon across the front. He’d bought it when he was seventeen. It was the first one he wore after laundry day, sometimes twice. When he had gotten home from his last trip to the laundromat, it had been missing. It wasn't like him to leave things behind, either. He always double checked the dryers to make sure he had everything, since his everything wasn’t much.
How the fuck did his shirt end up here? How did Gabriel…
Joel eyed the stack of records in the reflection of the mirror. They were all ones he liked. His gaze shifted to the bookshelf. They were all authors he liked.
Joel’s vision narrowed, as if the room was closing in around him. It was an overwhelming feeling of disorientation, and his breath started to catch in his throat. His knees gave way and he collapsed onto the floor. Joel's mind panicked, and he struggled to recall things that Gabriel had said or done that hadn’t seemed off at the time, but maybe in hindsight were.
Even when they had gone to his apartment, Joel hadn’t given him more than two directions and Gabriel had managed to navigate them there without assistance. How did Gabriel know where he lived?
Fuck.
Gabriel had music Joel liked, and books Joel liked. He even had Joel's fucking soap in his shower. How did Gabriel know what kind of soap he used? Was Gabriel stalking him? Jesus, had he gone inside Joel's apartment?
Okay, Joel. Calm the fuck down for a second,he thought to himself, grabbing furiously at his hair as if he could rip it from his scalp if he had the strength. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his calves so he could hold himself together, both physically and mentally.
The past week he had spent with Gabriel had been nothing short of magic. Sure, the flood sucked, and the stupid phone that never worked had been a pain in the ass, but the actual being with Gabriel part of it? It was something Joel had only ever dreamed of experiencing. It was as if Gabriel could anticipate what Joel wanted or needed next, and was already there to offer it.
Well, of course, you idiot. That's what crazy obsessed stalkers do.
Convinced that Gabriel had, in fact, been stalking him, Joel tried to figure out when he’d first gained Gabriel's attention. It must have been when he came to stay across the hall with his grandma. Even though he didn’t remember ever seeing Gabriel during those couple of weeks, it wasn’t irrational to think Gabriel had seen him, and besides, stalkers weren’t up-front with their stalking or anything, were they? Was that what Gabriel was though, a fucking stalker?
