Inside the smell of mold tickles my nose, and my gaze snags on his water stained ceiling and the black mold growing in the corners. The carpet is threadbare and the furniture looks like it came from a dumpster. There’s a stack of boxes in the living area with two large suitcases, a couple of smaller suitcases, and a duffel bag. That’s all there is besides the furniture we don’t need and will not be taking.
Gael gestures to the stack of his life. “There’s not much, but the stairs are a bitch to navigate. We can probably fit it all in your car if we play a good game of Tetris with it.”
Gael’s life fits in my car. I slide my hand into his, preventing him from grabbing his first load, and tug on his arm to turn him toward me.
“Gael.” The word escapes me in a harsh rasp.
He meets my gaze with a smile full of tenderness. “I barely spent any time here. It worked for me because the neighborhood is full of people who spend a lot of time enjoying carnal delights. It helped educate my palate, so to speak.” He pauses and shakes his beautiful head. “Well, I made a good effort to educate mypalate, but I needed to be here, and my neighbors have all been kind to me. Don’t judge them because of their income limitations.”
I’m not judging the people here. I’m privileged to have never known poverty, but I am not judging the ones who do. “You never needed to do that. I am yours. I always have been and I always will be, and it offends me that you chose this over me.”
Gael didn’t need to choose this; his parents gave him his trust fund when he gradua?—
No. It wasn’t when he graduated from college; they gave it to him when he moved away from me. Maybe that’s why…
Gael pulls me in close and taps a kiss to my lips, taking all my attention and focusing it on him. His beautiful eyes peer into my soul and ease the ache of rejection that I’ve struggled with for the past few years since he chose to move away from me. He’s moving into our house now. We’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. This place is behind him as soon as we get his things in my car.
“Sin. I never chose this over you. I chose you over me. In hindsight, I could have made different decisions, and I’m never leaving you again, but I don’t regret giving myself the opportunity to grow. I’m a picky eater, and I always will be, but now I know myself better, and I’m better at differentiating different kinds of energies around me. I love you; I have never chosen anything or anyone over you. Not once.”
I press back and kiss him, sliding my tongue into his mouth and welcoming his in mine when he reciprocates. I surrender as he slides an arm around my neck and pulls me in so tight that I wish we were already at home where we could comfortably discard our clothing. I chase after him when he pulls back, but his laughter stops me from pushing.
“The faster we get this loaded, the faster we can finish this,” he teases, stepping out of my embrace and dislodging my gripon his ass. I guess my hand found its way there without my conscious effort.
“Better hurry then,” I tease back. “Wouldn’t want my boyfriend to get too hungry.”
Gael laughs, and it brightens the apartment up like even this place would be acceptable to live in as long as he was here. I think any place would be fine as long as he was with me.
We each pick up a couple of boxes in one hand and a suitcase in another and head down the four flights of stairs to my car. I walk up a lot of stairs on campus, but four flights is going to be a bitch for this. I think we’ll have to make three trips altogether to get everything down, and I’m right. The third trip, we each only have a suitcase, and as we finish stacking everything next to my car, one of the guys watching us work approaches.
He’s wearing a long white t-shirt over loose jeans and a white do-rag. His ears have diamond studs in each lobe, and I don’t have to wonder if they’re real or not. Everything about the man tells me he wouldn’t wear earrings if he had to wear cubic zirconia. Around his neck, he has three thick gold chains of various lengths, and one delicate chain with a tiny pink crystal pendant, and he’s added a variety of gold rings to each of his fingers. Without even knowing who he is, I know that I’m talking to the guy in charge here.
He up-nods Gael. “My man, this that friend you always talking ‘bout? The one learning all them languages?”
Gael throws his arm around my shoulder. “Sin, yes. He’s getting ready to graduate with his Masters in Linguistics. Sin, this is King; he’s the guy in charge of security around here.”
I reach out and shake the man’s hand. He’s a couple years older than us, and when he smiles, it’s with teeth that have diamonds implanted in them. No fake glitz for this man, he’s got the real thing.
“Nice to meet you,” I greet him.
I haven’t heard of him, and normally that would make me think that Gael isn’t fond of him, but Gael hid this entire living situation from me, and he might not have told me about King because it would be difficult to hide living in a neighborhood like this when he’s talking about a friend who’s possibly a gang leader.
“Same, same. Listen, we got this lady in here. She’s been going on for days. Ain’t nobody knows her language. You good to see what’s up with her? She Asian like you.” The request doesn’t sound like a request, but I don't mind helping. King is clearly the type of person that expects people to do what he says within his domain.
“I’ll help; let me get Gael’s things sorted.”
“Nah man, my boys’ll load your car up while you do this for me. They don’t mind helpin’ one of our boys moving up in the world.”
Gael releases me. “We got this,” he assures me, kissing my cheek.
King clocks the affection but doesn’t seem upset by it; he just jerks his head in a gesture to get us moving. I hand Gael the keys to my car and follow King back into the apartment complex. As we walk up the steps, King takes the opportunity to say whatever he’s decided he needs to say.
“Gael’s been life in this place. It ain’t gon be the same without him. You treat him like a prince. He deserves that from you. I know you known him longer’n me, but I ain’t gon see him unhappy. This place’ll always have room for him, but if I see him back here, you better be dead, you hear me? You’ll treat my boy right.”
If I doubted that King was a dangerous man, that unsubtle threat would have erased that uncertainty. I can’t say that I mind because he’s doing so in defense of someone important to us both.
“I met Gael in Kindergarten,” I start, keeping my voice low enough that it doesn’t echo in the stairwell. “I’ve been Gael’s since that first day. The only reason you even met him is because I give him anything he wants, including the space to live apart from me. I’m never letting him leave me behind again. He should never have been living in an apartment with mold growing on the walls. If he ends up back here, either I’m with him or I’m dead. Gael is everything to me, and I love him more than you have ever loved anyone.”
King scoffs at that, but I hold up a hand, stopping our upward progress and looking him in the eye. “People say, ‘I’d die for you,’ but dying isn’t the noblest thing a person can do, is it? Dying is done; it’s over; a sacrifice once that you never can make again. I live for Gael. I would follow him into the darkest parts of the world and stand with him; I would live in abject misery for him; I would sacrifice everyone and everything in this world for Gael and live with the burden of that sacrifice on my soul. I live for him, King, and I will continue to do so until I am forced to surrender to death’s embrace.”
