Yeah, I’d seen the piece of paper there yesterday, but how was I supposed to have known it was meant for me? Or that it was about something important?
If I had to guess, the delivery I’d missed was probably some of that immigration paperwork he’d been waiting on, which I already knew had been stressing him out. And now, fuck. What? Did he get kicked out of the country? Just because I didn’t read his damn note? No wonder the dude hated me.
“Sorry,” I said, which I meant, even though I also knew it did fuck-all to help and he probably thought was just me brushing him off. “Uh, what now? Won’t they redeliver?”
“I need ittoday, Jordan,” he gritted out from between clenched teeth, his face tight and pinched-looking. “Which means I now need to call in to work for time off to drive over and pick it up in person, and—”
“I can go get it for you,” I interrupted, seeing the chance for some redemption here. I mean, yeah, Dev would be pissed if I blew off filming with him, but since Paulo actually made sure shit like our rent getting paid on time happened, I figured it was probably the lesser of two evils. Plus, like, Ihadfucked up. As usual. This was on me.
But Paulo just shook his head, slashing a hand in front of his chest. “Não, I do not trust you with something this important.”
Fair, I guess, but it still stung. Gotta admit I was kinda relieved when he turned and stormed out, though. Sure, I’d like to make shit right if I could, but since I generally couldn’t and we both seemed to get that, I was just going to call it a win that this hadn’t been the inevitable straw that broke the camel’s back.
Eventually, Paolo would get tired of putting up with how craptastic letting me live here made his life and how many details of basic adulting I “forgot,” and I’d have to find yet another new place to live, but since that day apparently wasn’t today, I compartmentalized the fuck out of the sick feeling that lingered in my stomach, shoved it down with all its brothers and sisters, and slammed the door on it.
Luckily, I had plenty of practice at never letting that kind of shit show on my face, because Dev showed up just as Paulo slammed out of the apartment, which meant it was time to put my one and only asset to use and make some money. Thank fuck for YouTube. I certainly didn’t have much else to be grateful to my parents for, but at least they’d made me pretty… and since I wasn’t good for much else, it was a good thing the internet gave me a way to make “pretty” pay the bills.
“Looking good, Jay,” Dev said with a calculating smile when I let him in. Not hitting on me, just making a mental tally of how it would film, no doubt.
“Yep,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go get you some more subscribers, dude.”
He’d just started his own YouTube channel, and even if he wasn’t my favorite person in the world, I’d agreed to do some holiday videos with him on mine to boost his visibility, since, as he'd reminded me, I owed him for letting me crash on his couch a few years ago.
“What’s this?” he asked, scooping up some mail I’d tossed on the shitty futon I slept on when I took him back to my room. I wasn’t a huge fan of having him in my personal space, but since I’d set up the other half of my bedroom to film in, it was inevitable.
“Mail,” I said, stating the obvious as I snatched the envelopes back from him. Bills? Junk? A long lost grandfather trying to get in touch and tell me I actually had a family member who cared about me? Who the fuck knew?
“Yeah, butwhat?” Dev asked, eyeing them hungrily. “More product sponsorship offers, do you think?”
Probably not, since that shit generally came in online. Dev seriously had a lot to learn if he wanted to monetize his channel, but it was like everything I’d tried to show him other than actual dollar figures went in one ear and out the other. Whatever, though. Hopefully, he’d back off once we got through the holiday series I’d agreed to and let me get back to doing my own thing.
He tapped the mail in my hand. “This one’s from that sporting goods store downtown. Do you think they want to pay you for some unboxing videos? Model their gear? And you get to keep all the stuff, right? Do you resell it? Can you hook me up with—”
“Dude, let’s get started already,” I cut in, keeping my irritation on lockdown and giving him one of my winning smiles instead. “What are we on, day five?”
I knew we weren’t, but it did the trick.
“Six,” Dev corrected me, finally switching gears and heading over to the other side of the room to get set up.
I’d switched up the Christmas-themed shit from the last time we’d filmed to keep it fresh, and the set and looked pretty lit. Not that I was a huge fan of the holiday or anything, but I could still sell it. Theillusionof it, at least. The real thing, though? In my experience, that was basically a recipe for disappointment… or at least it had been, back when I’d still hoped for good shit to happen just because there was supposed to be some kind of holiday magic in the air this time of year or whatever.
Now, though? I’d smartened up enough to figure out that wasn’t the case, so no disappointment if you already knew that and had no expectations going into it, right? And with my bestie living too fucking far away now and my parents a non-factor in my life, I fully planned to hole up and ignore the day when it came around this time.
But for the channel, of course, I could fake some enthusiasm.
Dev and I were doing a “twelve days of Christmas” challenge based on viewer suggestions, one per day, with the only requirement being that it had to be something holiday themed. Nichol had pointed out that the actual twelve days of Christmas were a thing, and weren’t actually at the beginning of December like we were doing, but whatever. It was just marketing. It might even have been fun if I’d been picking out which of the challenges to do myself... but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t keep up with Dev when he rattled off the comments he liked and read the rest to himself silently, so it was just easier to just go along with whichever ones he wanted to do.
Within reason, at least. I’d nixed all the X-rated ones, obviously.
My viewers were generally either here for the workout videos I’d originally started the channel with, or else followed along because pretty gay boys were all the rage nowadays… especially hot gay couples, which was maybe why, over the past few years, my fans had gotten kind of obsessed with my single status, and so many of the challenges they’d been suggesting for this holiday thing had to do with changing that fact.
Including today’s.
“Did you set up your profile on the app?” Dev asked.
“Yep,” I said, glad he’d agreed that I should do that off camera. It was bad enough that we had to do the other part live, but I could roll with it. I always did.
Dev swung around to face me, smirking. “How kinky did you make it?”
