17. Gabe
SEVENTEEN
GABE
Gabe was behind the wheel of Mac’s pickup because Parker was unwilling to drive it. Mac had Parker’s Prius on a job with him, while Gabe and Parker were on their way to a stranger’s house to pick up an old dresser.
“Mac showed me how to use the orbital sander and the paint stripper before he left, so we should be good to go,” Parker said. “Thanks for doing this with me. I was too scared to try it alone.”
Parker was a person who appreciated a safety blanket, and today, that safety blanket was Gabe. He’d had a lot of safety blanket practice lately.
“No problem. It’ll be nice to do something with my hands after all the digital art I’ve made so far this semester.”
“I negotiated them down to ten bucks, and I think once we refurbish it, we’ll be able to sell it for two hundred.”
“We’ve already made more than that,” Gabe reminded him. When Gabe told Brandon what he and Parker were going to do that day, he’d received a Venmo payment “for supplies” for three hundred bucks. He was going to split it down the middle with Parker. It felt fair .
“I can’t believe he’s still sending you money. Just…because? When you went down to Iowa, did you feel like you were earning it?”
Gabe laughed. “No. I never feel like I’m obligated to do anything. If you think about him as my sugar daddy, it feels weird, but I think about him as a patron of the arts, and it’s less weird.”
“Hmm,” Parker said, clearly not agreeing. “So he just gives you money and you don’t have sex?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You had sex with him and didn’t tell me?”
“I have plenty of sex I don’t disclose to you.” That wasn’t super true. Parker loved gossip, and while he wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed one-night stands or short little flings, it didn’t prevent him from enjoying stories about them. “Plus, we didn’t really have sex.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You either have or have not had sex.”
“I drew him nude, and he got hard, and I asked him to jerk off while I was drawing. And then he jerked me off.”
“Oh my god.” Parker turned his entire body toward Gabe. “That is the hottest thing I have ever heard in my life.”
“It was the single most erotic moment of my life.”
“So you have had sex with him. That counts.”
“It was for art.”
“How much art were you making when his hand was on your dick?”
Gabe stayed silent.
“Do I get to see the drawings?”
“I promised him they’d stay private.”
“Where does he rank on the kiss scale?”
Gabe was particular about kissing, and Parker knew it. Pretty much anyone could get him off, but kissing him well enough for him to want more was the real feat.
“I haven’t kissed him yet.”
Parker sighed.
“You let that nice virgin man touch your dick and you didn’t kiss him? Does he not want to?”
“No. He wants to. I just keep thinking that he’s into me because I’m the first gay guy he came out to, and he imprinted on me. I don’t want to steal something special from him.”
“He’s an adult who you like enough to solicit orgasms from. If he wants to kiss you, and you want to kiss him, just fucking do it. Try for something real with him.”
“Maybe when I can get my mind past feeling like I’m taking advantage of someone brand new to the physical experiences of being gay.”
“You’re making it into too big of a deal,” Parker said. He was probably right.
Parker haggled the owner of the dresser from ten dollars down to free, and the two of them wrestled it into the back of Mac’s truck, nearly dropping it more than once, and smashing one of Gabe’s fingers between the dresser and the truck bed in the process.
At least it was on his left hand, so he could still draw and stock groceries.
They got set up in the garage since it was winter and there was snow on the ground. Parker put a tarp down and they moved the piece of furniture on top of it. The dresser was heavy and geometric, and Gabe hoped that it was an easy flip so Parker could get some confidence.
“All the YouTube videos I watched said to apply the paint stripper in a thick layer,” Parker said. He handed Gabe one of the heavy-duty respirator masks they spent their supply money on, which he put on to block out the fumes. Parker pulled his own over his nose and mouth.
Parker poured a glob of paint stripper on his end of the long dresser and passed the bottle over to Gabe so he could do the same on his side.
“I need to figure out what my ‘plot arc’ is for my story. I submitted my outline to my creative writing professor, and she said that nothing happens in it. Which isn’t wrong, but I don’t know how to make something happen.”
“What’s your story again?”
“A guy befriends a crow by giving him shiny things.”
“Your professor was correct.”
“What can I change?”
“Why is he giving the crow stuff? What does the crow need? What is going to change by this guy making friends with a crow? Maybe he thought the crow was a threat and wants to turn that around. Maybe the crow tricks him into giving away his valuables, and eventually he has enough to break a curse and turn back into a human. And they fall in love.”
“Do all your stories end in falling in love?” Parker was more interested in romance—though mostly theoretical at the moment—than anyone Gabe knew.
“All of them except my own.” Parker heaved a sigh. “I have a confession, but you’re going to be mad at me.”
“I’m never mad at you.”
“Lucas called me.” Lucas, Parker’s evil on-again, off-again ex. Just his name made Gabe’s blood pressure rise.
“How could you know that if you have his number blocked?”
“I unblocked him. ”
“Parks…”
“Listen, I get it. I’m not getting back together with him again, but it’s hard to find someone I actually want to have sex with. You know that. I figure, we can have some sex and just not hang out outside of that. I don’t need anything else.”
“You deserve someone who will love you the way you deserve.”
“When you stack weird gender feelings on top of an unwillingness to let strangers touch me, it’s a lot of work. Lucas was bad at being a boyfriend, but he never made me feel dysphoric during sex. And he can actually make me come.”
Gabe sighed. “If he sets foot in our house, Mac will kill him with his bare hands.” And Gabe would probably participate.
“He’s going to pick me up.”
“Jesus, you already have this planned.”
“Tonight.”
“Parker…”
“I’m an adult.”
“And you’re my best friend. Call me if you need me to come get you.”
“Are you going to tell Mac?”
“No. Unless he asks.”
“Thanks, Gabe. Make your character fall for the crow. And then maybe you can fall for your hockey player. And then with all the love swirling around our house, I’ll find someone too.”
“Duly noted,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes. If the paint stripper wasn’t so toxic, he’d flick his brush at Parker.
They got the dresser coated, and for the first time in their entire friendship, he saw Parker pull out a roll of Saran Wrap .
“What is that for?”
“You put it over the stripper and it holds in all of the… I dunno. It makes it work better.”
“I never thought I’d see the day.” He took one end of the plastic wrap and pulled it the full length of the dresser, sticking it to the stripper to hold it in place.
“The environmental impact of saving a piece of furniture that already exists from the dump outweighs using a little plastic wrap.” It sounded like Parker was saying it out loud for his own benefit.
“I think the years of composting you’ve done grant you some plastic wrap use.” Parker pinched his face in displeasure.
With no better ideas, Gabe grabbed his iPad from the drawing board Brandon had ordered him with express delivery and put it into the keyboard case. He climbed into bed, sat against his headboard, and opened a new doc just to watch his cursor blink.
In the handful of days since he came home from Iowa, things with Brandon had been so normal they were weird.
He’d slept in Brandon’s bed both nights, worn Brandon’s clothes, eaten the food he’d cooked for Gabe.
Their hugs had lingered, neither of them wanting to let go.
Gabe wished so badly that he could see into Brandon’s brain. What did it all mean?
They had ignored the orgasms they’d shared in the living room, but it still hung around them as Brandon checked in on how Gabe was doing, and Gabe sent sketches of what he was working on to Brandon.
He knew Brandon was on a road trip now, which was much less luxurious than they’d been in the NHL according to Brandon’s descriptions of the bus rides and sharing a hotel room, in contrast to private jets and your own five-star hotel room.
Gabe was a hard worker, but the idea of traveling so much for a job, regardless of private jet or Greyhound bus, was unappealing to him. At the end of the day, he wanted to fall asleep in his own bed.
Or in Brandon’s bed.
Which was a thought that came out of nowhere.
Gabe took a deep breath and started writing. He was going to use Parker’s love story idea because he thought his professor would like it. All he had to do was pass the class. He wasn’t writing Shakespeare.
He got three paragraphs in before his phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and promptly dropped it on the floor.
What was… He couldn’t possibly have seen that correctly. He bent over the side of the bed to grab the phone and there it was, right on his notification screen. A photo Brandon sent of his hard dick.
Brandon
I figured since you said you mostly draw from photos…
Maybe this was stupid, sorry. Just bored at the hotel.
Gabe’s heart raced. From a horny twenty-five-year-old’s perspective, he’d take all the dick pics (of dicks he liked). From an artist’s perspective, he wasn’t kidding when he’d told Brandon he had the most beautiful body. Gabe had the urge to draw him immediately.
Gabe
Not stupid. Literally putting everything aside to draw you immediately.
God you’re gorgeous
Maybe it was putting it on thick, but he believed in positive reinforcement.