8. Gabe
EIGHT
GABE
There was simply not enough time in any of Gabe’s days to get sidetracked by thoughts that didn’t further his progress in his degree or help pay his bills.
Which is why his nonstop thoughts about a shy, sensitive, gay hockey player were so strange to him.
Gabe didn’t have time in his life to have a crush.
And yet…
He scrolled through the texts he and Brandon had exchanged in the couple of days after he came over to pick up the prints he’d bought from Gabe.
Gabe
I hope your game went well today!
Brandon
Thanks. I appreciate it. We won :)
How did you come out to people in your life?
Brandon was nervous, shy, and deeply afraid of being rejected by the people he loved.
He was twenty-two, according to the quick search Gabe did on him when they started talking, but the kinds of questions Brandon asked made Gabe feel much older than the three years they had between the two of them.
At twenty-five, Gabe was used to being the youngest one in his group.
Parker had two years on him, Duncs and Mac were both twenty-eight, and he thought Wyatt was also close to being thirty.
Brandon had a freshness to him that Gabe’s roommates lacked.
It was compelling.
Gabe had watched a couple of clips of Brandon playing hockey on YouTube, and on the ice he was confident, fast, and powerful.
Outside of hockey, he was so timid. Unsure.
Careful. Their conversations had surrounded stuff loosely categorized as “gay stuff,” but Brandon also had an endless interest in Gabe’s art.
And not just the sexy stuff. He didn’t have an artist’s vocabulary, but they had good conversations regardless.
Gabe wanted to take him to an art museum.
Brandon
I like the stuff you posted today. It feels like it’s been a while since you posted digital art.
He might not know much, but he could tell the difference between something made with physical media and something made digitally. Gabe was trying not to find that hot.
Gabe
I broke my Apple Pencil a while ago, and my iPad is so ancient it barely works anymore anyway. I borrowed Mac’s iPad for the afternoon yesterday to get some illustration homework done, and I did some doodles too .
There was a pause, and Gabe watched Brandon’s three typing dots pop up and disappear over and over until a message finally came through.
Brandon
Do you want to hang out for an hour or two today? Maybe get lunch? I’m not sure when I’m getting sent back down, so I figured it would be nice to hang out again.
Gabe didn’t know if he was being asked on a date or not, but…well, if Brandon was offering lunch, he was probably paying, right? Gabe had been trying to get some figure drawing in before his class the next day, but…honestly, he’d rather see Brandon.
Gabe
I am, weirdly, free right now.
Brandon
I guess it’s fate or something. I’ll come grab you in a half hour.
Gabe sped through some loose figure drawings.
He was supposed to draw from life—to look at a person who was actually in front of him—but damn, sometimes he just watched some TV and sketched what he saw, and he found no reason to let his professor know that.
He drew enough people’s bodies outside of this class already.
Of course, he loved the practice and the honing of his skills, but he was hardly a beginner.
He watched out the little window by his desk until he saw the white SUV Brandon pulled up in the other day park in front. He pulled his jacket on and headed out.
“I turned the heated seats on for you,” Brandon said when Gabe got in the car. It was a nice car. He felt fancy driving around Parker’s ten-year-old Prius. This car was like getting into a spaceship. He buckled in.
“I’m ready for takeoff,” he said, saluting Brandon.
“It’s Jackson’s car. I don’t drive something that looks like it could make it to space,” he said, laughing along. He got Gabe’s joke. His roommates usually got his humor, but new people didn’t always. He was used to people looking at him strangely before forcing a laugh.
“Where are we going to lunch?”
“I figured we could go to the mall and pick. There’s a bunch of stuff in and around Southdale. That’s what Ryan recommended.”
“The gay hockey husband,” Gabe said, still in awe that Ryan and Jackson were real.
“You should come meet them. They’d like you.”
“Would they?”
“They’re welcoming. Make it a point to make people feel included.”
“They make hockey players feel included.”
“They care about the queer community in the Twin Cities. They’re starting up a nonprofit to support queer kids in sports.”
“Oh,” Gabe said. “That’s cool. I’m probably too used to getting burned by people that sometimes I assume the worst.”
“I get that,” Brandon agreed quietly.
They ended up at a Mediterranean restaurant, and like Gabe hoped, Brandon bought lunch. He was surprisingly easy to talk to, but Gabe rarely had trouble connecting with people. Brandon was sweet, and not what Gabe would have expected from a hockey player.
“I bet it’s nice to live with your friends. ”
“It’s the best. I know a lot of folks want to live on their own, make all the decisions, get some quiet time, whatever.
But I love knowing that Parker is across the hall if I need a haircut, or Duncan is in the kitchen if I need to call him from the store and check to see if my cream cheese expired yet, you know?
Wyatt has saved my ass with whatever random charging cable I need more than once, since I lose them all the time. ”
“It’s nice being in Jackson and Ryan’s house. It feels a little like that. Like there’s life in the space.”
“Don’t you have a roommate in Iowa?”
“Yeah, but Skylar is almost never home. He’s usually bothering our captain or hooking up.”
“So, you’re mostly alone down there?” Some people liked living alone. Brandon didn’t seem like one of them.
“Alone a lot.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but he couldn’t meet Gabe’s eye.
“You’ll just have to keep getting called up, then.”
That got a smile out of him.
On the way out of the restaurant, Brandon touched his arm. “Do you have twenty more minutes? I need to grab something.”
“Yeah, sure, man. I don’t have class until six.”
“Thanks,” he said, leading them through the mall, getting turned around, and having to backtrack. He wouldn’t tell Gabe what he was looking for, which wasn’t helpful. And then the Apple Store was in front of them.
“Oooh, what are you getting?” Gabe asked, enticed by new toys, even if he couldn’t even afford to breathe in that store.
“Uh, an iPad,” he said, and Gabe pushed down his jealousy.
He was used to being around people with more money than he had.
That was the default. It wasn’t hard to have more money than Gabe.
He scrounged up some feelings of happiness for his new friend as a greeter found them a sales associate to talk to.
A woman with mermaid hair and a mandala tattoo on her forearm came to help them.
“Hi, I’m Steph. I heard you’re looking for iPads.”
“Uh, yeah,” Brandon said. He was nervous. Brandon was nervous a lot. Gabe wanted to hold his hand.
“What are you looking for? How will you use it?”
“Uh, Gabe is an artist,” Brandon said, his hand back on Gabe’s arm. Gabe didn’t understand what he meant.
“What do you need it for?” Gabe asked. Why did it matter that he was an artist?
“It’s not for me,” he said. “It’s for you. You said yours doesn’t work anymore. And the pencil is broken.”
Gabe wished they weren’t having this conversation in front of Steph. He felt like a trapdoor had opened under his feet. He didn’t know what to do.
“I’ll give you a few moments to chat about this,” she said, reading his mind. “I’ll be back in five.” She kept her smile locked in, even though Gabe was sure it was awkward.
“What do you mean?” Gabe asked. “You can’t buy me an iPad.”
“Okay. But I want to. I want you to have the tools you need for your art.” If Brandon was any less interested in his art, Gabe might have called bullshit.
“This is…a lot.”
“No one is forcing me to do this. I offered.”
Gabe weighed the options in his head. He could get a free iPad or keep having to borrow Mac’s every time he needed to use Procreate. He could use it for video calls too and stop bothering Parker. Or he could be proud and refuse.
Why though ?
“Are there…strings attached?” Gabe asked, seriously considering taking Brandon up on the offer. You can’t ask the universe for a sugar daddy and then turn down the iPad a rich guy is trying to buy you.
“None. I just want to do something nice. And selfishly, I want more of your art in the world.”
Gabe took a deep breath. Across the iPad display table from them was a kid diligently drawing baby Yoda. Not only was it heart-wrenchingly cute, but Gabe saw himself in that kid. He’d been the kid who took every available opportunity to draw on anything he could reach.
Plus, he was an art student. This was basically an educational expense.
“Okay,” Gabe said, eyes flicking back to Brandon.
“Awesome,” he said, his excitement sounding like he was the one getting a new iPad.
They had to wait a couple more minutes for Steph to come back over to them, and she helped Gabe pick out an iPad Pro, an Apple Pencil, and Brandon made sure he had a regular case and the case that had a keyboard on it—because he was a student—and Gabe nearly threw up when Steph told them the total.
Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck.
That was more than a few months’ rent. Should he have negotiated for rent instead? Gotten something he needed instead of something that was awesome but not mission critical? Like food?
Steph put it all in a white bag with a cute little logo on it and handed it over to Gabe. He took it, surprised by how heavy it was and feeling like he shouldn’t be allowed to hold this.
Brandon thanked Steph for all their help, and the two of them headed out of the store, back toward the parking lot .
“I am having a difficult time grasping reality right now,” Gabe said. The weight of the bag he held was the only indication to him that any of this was really happening.
“I’m excited to see what you draw,” Brandon said, smiling at him.
Brandon was reserved but always so genuine.
By now they had chatted a bit over text, and Gabe liked the way he talked about the people close to him.
His sister and his parents. His teammates.
Even his roommate, who he mostly complained about.
He was still kind about it. I know he’s annoying because he’s impatient, but he is genuinely a great player who is going to make it.
The way someone talked about the people they cared about said a lot about them, and what it said to Gabe was that Brandon wanted to get to know him better. Gabe felt the same way.
On the car ride home, he brainstormed what he could do for Brandon to say thank you, and by the time Brandon dropped him off at his front door, he’d decided.