Gabriel had understood then it was useless. There was no point in reaching out to Thomas, but he had decided in that instant, he was always going to make sure Joel was safe, even if the boy never knew he had someone watching out for him.
Gabriel clicked out of the folder and closed his laptop. He pushed his chair back from his desk and took a deep breath before he stood and returned to his kitchen.
CHAPTER NINE
Joel Indulges Himself
Joel wasn’t entirely sure of how long he sat rooted to the spot in the bed, body still only half covered by the sheets, before he blinked himself back into a state of semi-awareness.
That was weird, right?he thought, gathering the sheets into tight fists, then relaxing and letting the soft cotton sift through his fingers and fall back to his thighs. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing back the tears blooming behind his eyelids.That was weird, this is weird, and fuck this shit. Fuck this life. Fuck me for being the way I am and driving everyone away from me.He let out a barely audible groan of frustration, then threw his legs off the bed and went to search for his cell phone.
While Joel was appreciative that he had the day off work, he was not looking forward to all the adulting he needed to do. Pushing the home button on his phone, it illuminated, apparently deciding to work again, so he thumbed down his contact list to find his landlord's phone number.
Still no text from Davis, he noted with a disappointed sigh.
“Hello?” His landlord Phil said in his abrasively accented, New England voice.
“Hi, Phil. It’s Joel, in apartment 2D. I wanted to check in and see what was going on with the flood.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess, kid. I got the water turned off about an hour after you called last night, but it soaked through your place pretty bad, and the downstairs place too. They’re tryna dry it out, but it’s gonna take at least a few days to get it dry enough to dig into the drywall and the carpet. Do you have someplace you can stay for a week or two?” Phil sounded regretful, but not overly helpful.
“Um, no I don't, not really,” Joel mumbled, balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear while digging his fingers into his eyes, pressing hard until there were stars in the blackness behind his eyelids.
“Well, do you have renter’s insurance? That should cover a motel stay or something for you at least,” Phil offered the less-than-helpful suggestion.
“No, I can’t afford the premiums, so I don’t have any.” Joel pulled the phone off his shoulder and put it on speaker before throwing it onto the bed.
“Don’t know what to tell you then, kid. But I’ll give you a call when I can get you back in, okay?”
“Yeah, alright, Phil. Thank you.”
Joel hung up the phone without saying goodbye and threw his weight down onto the bed. There had to be something he could do, someplace he could stay. Athena wasn’t due home for another three days, and he knew if he called her, she would force him onto her brother. Even though he had known Athena for years, his relationship with Adonis was tentative at best.
Donny had a personality like Athena, but was tucked into a body half her size. Donny was as slender as Joel, and shorter, but Joel was nothing short of intimidated by the boisterous black-haired twink. Joel would feel out of place and miserable if Athena forced Donny to open up his house to him, and Joel didn’t think he could handle any more discomfort and awkwardness.
But what else can you do, idiot?Joel thought. He dug his phone charger out of his bag and plugged it into the wall next to the stack of records. He sat with his back to the wall and dialed Athena.
While the phone rang and he waited for her to answer, he picked up the top record and was surprised to find it was Sidney Bechet. He set it aside and flipped past Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra… all things Joel would love to relax and listen to on that high-priced turntable in any other situation than this.
“Baby J!” Athena’s voice shouted into his ear as the call connected.
“Hey, Theenie. How is New York?” Joel kept looking at the records, finding every single one to be from an artist who appealed to him.
“Oh my god, you wouldn’t even believe it! I’ve gotten to try on the absolute sexiest latex and I even got suspended from the ceiling for this one shoot idea the photographer had! He’s a total Dom, and he even has a vac bed he said I could try out when we’re done. It’s so dreamy.”
“A vac what? A vacbed?” Joel organized the records he had looked at into a neat pile, trying to understand if he’d heard Athena correctly.
“Vac bed, Baby J. It’s made out of latex on a PVC frame and it's solid, right? Just a little hole for a tube to stick out, and you get into it and put the tube in your mouth so you can breathe and then they suck all the air out of it! It’s like, full body sensory deprivation, Baby J. I’ve wanted to try one for years but I’ve never known anyone who has one.”
“You are a weird one, Athena Marie, and I love you very much.” Joel dropped his head back against the wall with a resounding thud.
“Anyways, though, we all know about my sex life, tell me about yours. It’s a Sunday, and we know Saturday is prime date night, so you better have seen your poet last night. Spill the beans,” Athena prodded him. Joel could hear the happy laughter in her voice.
Joel relayed the events of the previous night to Athena, making an attempt to sound nonchalant about his current living situation. “So I called my grandma and I got here and she hasfourfreaking cats now and I couldn’t even make it inside without sneezing, but her neighbor across the hall was all, ‘Oh, Marilyn, he can stay here, it’s fine.’ So I spent the night in this complete stranger’s house and it's like his spare bedroom was made with me in mind. I love it here and I don’t ever want to leave, but I can’t stay here, obviously.” Joel laughed, thinking how unbelievable his night sounded when he tried to tell the story to someone else. He decided to leave out the part about Gabriel walking in on him this morning. The last thing he wanted to do was fuel Athena’s fire when it came to getting Joel laid.
“A stranger, you say? Is he a handsome stranger?” Joel could hear the motivation in her voice. Apparently he didn’t need to mention jacking off to get her wheels turning.
“Out of everything that has happened to me in the last twelve hours,thatis what you pick up on, Athena? Seriously?”
