Epilogue
GABE
Graduation, finally, was within reach. He wouldn’t recommend taking seven years to get through four years of school, but there was no turning back time. Plus, his longer-than-normal path meant he’d ended up in Brandon Gatlin’s creative writing class over a year ago.
“I’d be nervous about this, but I think you’re nervous enough for both of us,” he told Brandon as he put the finishing touches on the installation of his show in the student gallery.
Nisha, the woman in charge of all on-campus galleries, had made sure everything was perfect and hung exactly the way Gabe had imagined it, and his show opened in thirty minutes.
Gabe’s senior show was an exploration of the human body, how life changed it as people went along and how they made meaning with it.
And it wasn’t just giant nudes of his hot boyfriend.
Though, of course, that was part of it. The biggest canvas was of Brandon, the bruise he’d gotten from a blocked shot on full display.
Next to that canvas, an animation of how the bruise faded played in a loop.
He’d painted a self-portrait of his post-crash seat belt bruises, and a portrait of Mac looking away from the camera, his nautical half-sleeve the focus of the piece.
Parker had let him paint his chest—his top surgery scars in their current state as they were beginning to fade into his skin a few years after surgery and the lack of nipples that he called his “Kyle XY moment”—his eyes staring down the viewer, equal parts confident and combative.
“I’m not nervous,” Brandon lied, staring at the giant painting of himself, which was only a couple feet shy of going floor to ceiling.
“Nothing sexy about any of this nudity,” Gabe said. “The human body is beautiful, blah blah,” Gabe said, giving Nisha a thumbs-up to confirm everything was exactly as he’d imagined it.
Along an empty wall, a local charcuterie small business was laying out a massive spread of meats, cheeses, spreads, nuts, olives, crackers, fruits, and who knew what else across a long table.
Usually senior shows had a somewhat sad-looking array of appetizers catered from the cafeteria, which was still unreasonably expensive, but Brandon insisted on getting something fancy.
Especially now that he was making NHL money.
Brandon was busy as fuck this season, and they weren’t even halfway through yet.
The only thing that made it tolerable was living together.
Gabe hadn’t given up his room at Slater House yet—and sometimes stayed there on longer roadies—but he and Gabe had picked out a two-bedroom apartment at the end of last season.
One of those bedrooms was Gabe’s art studio.
He wasn’t exactly pulling his weight financially yet, but Brandon was predictably unconcerned about Gabe’s lack of contributions, and if something went south, he’d always have Slater House .
Gabe’s phone rang and he beamed, seeing it was Ashley’s FaceTime. He’d told her to call before the show started so he could do a private tour for her.
“Hi, Ash,” he said, Ashley’s sweet face filling up the screen. Next to her was Logan. They had just moved in together too, to a place that was still close to her and Brandon’s parents in case of an emergency, but still gave her agency and privacy.
“Save Brandon for last,” she said, giggling. If this was an erotic show, Gabe would have felt weird about showing the painting of Brandon to his little sister, but the human form was beautiful, and they were all adults.
Adults who giggled a lot about it.
He went down the line, making sure she and Logan got a good look at everything as he talked about each piece. It was good practice for the informal speech he’d give in about an hour.
“You can skip me,” Brandon said as they approached the painting of him.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Gabe said, panning his camera over to the painting of Brandon.
“Wicked bruise,” Logan said, squinting and leaning closer to the screen. Gabe brought his phone closer to the canvas. It was a Sports Illustrated Body Issue pose, anything sensitive covered up. The pain of being an athlete.
“Gabe, you’re so good at this. It’s absurd,” Ashley said, and Gabe flipped the camera back around to face him. She was gassing him up, but it was nice to start off on a confident note. He found Brandon again before he hung up, and they promised to come out to Utah for a visit during All-Star Break.
The first people to show up were Gabe’s classmates who lived on campus, who went straight for the charcuterie.
There was a time in his life when Gabe would have smuggled as much of that out of a senior show as he could fit in a zip-top bag he brought for that exact purpose, so he understood.
His roommates showed up next, Parker looking as mortified as Brandon looked.
He hugged Gabe. “It’s beautiful, I say reluctantly.”
“Thank you,” he told Parker seriously. “Don’t tell B, but it’s my favorite piece.”
“I don’t regret letting you paint me, to be clear, but it’s weird seeing it up here in public.”
“It’s only up for a week,” Gabe said in reassurance. “And none of these yahoos know who you are.”
“Except Mac and Duncan and Wyatt.” He looked especially mortified when he said Wyatt’s name. Wyatt had a tiny plate of food in his hands as he slowly took in each of the paintings.
“When are you going to feel normal about him?”
“Only time will tell,” Parker said, breaking off to go bother his brother.
When he turned around, he saw Jack and Ryan had made it, and Brandon was showing them around the gallery. It wasn’t packed, but there were a lot of people there. It was exactly how he imagined it.
He spent the first hour talking to (what felt like) everyone he’d ever met, including his academic advisor, who looked like she was going to cry.
Getting the approval of all of the art professors he’d had over his time here was gratifying, and even some professors he’d had outside of the art department showed up.
At seven, Professor Bradley introduced him, and Gabe gave a brief speech, paraphrasing his artist’s statement and thanking pretty much every person in the room for all of the help he’d received over the time he’d spent on his degree in general, and on this show specifically.
From there, the show wound down, but he still stayed until the end, when the student union closed at 8:30 p.m. He was tired on his feet and let Brandon lead him back to the car. He made a stop at Gabe’s favorite Italian restaurant to pick up an order Gabe didn’t know he’d made.
“That smells so good,” Gabe said, the aroma of tomato sauce and fresh bread filling up the car. “We need to get a candle or something that smells like baking bread. I miss it.”
“We could get par-baked loaves and put them in the oven,” Brandon suggested. If Gabe knew him at all, it would be two to five business days before a box of bake-it-yourself bread showed up on their doorstep.
They parked in underground parking, next to the empty parking spot earmarked for Gabe when he was ready to drive.
Brandon said he’d buy him a practically bulletproof vehicle when he wanted it, but he was getting along fine without a car at the moment, now that he didn’t have three jobs to get to.
He could take the bus to school and back pretty easily.
Brandon carried Gabe’s backpack and the giant bag of takeout up to their apartment, then he bundled Gabe onto the couch immediately.
In moments, he had a plate full of lasagna and fresh bread in his hands, and Brandon turned on the terrible reality competition tattoo show they’d been watching lately as he settled in next to him.
Only in the past couple of weeks had Gabe noticed that the bags under his eyes that had become part of what his face looked like to him had faded.
He no longer jittered through several rounds of caffeine to bolster his weird hours.
It was barely past 9 p.m., and he knew he and Brandon would be in bed within the hour .
Yes, Brandon would have to wake up and get on an airplane, but Gabe got his best work done when he was longing for Brandon.
Plus, when he was gone, Gabe could focus on his Patreon and the commissions he’d started offering recently, now that his hand was feeling mostly healed.
Brandon put him on his health insurance when they made it official, and NHL health insurance was no joke.
They covered the extra PT that had been recommended, and it helped the pain and his mobility a lot.
It wasn’t perfect, but he had hope, and the infrequent residual pain could usually be knocked out with an Advil.
He thought about the money he’d hoarded through the first eight months of his friendship with Brandon.
He had spent some of it out of necessity, of course, but he’d held on to most of it because his brain was in survival mode.
Having an emergency fund was a luxury. Recently, that money had gone from feeling like a parachute to feeling like a possibility.
He knew what he wanted to spend it on. Now he had to figure out what Brandon’s ring size was.
For now, he’d fill himself with pasta, fall asleep next to the man he had the privilege of loving, and get through his last week of school ever.
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