His Kind of Love

by Kate Hawthorne

  At sixteen, Joel had been all pent-up rage, long limbs, and that fucking bright red hair. He'd stood up to Thomas in ways Gabriel hadn’t. Gabriel decided immediately that something needed to be done. Even though it had been years, he knew his brother, and he saw the man he had become. He knew enough of Madeline to see how toxic she could be, and Joel was too fucking pure for them. Truly, at first, he wanted to watch. Gabriel planned to keep tabs on Joel, so he could make sure Madeline didn’t do something crazy. When he received the Christmas card asking for money to send Joel to conversion therapy, was when Gabriel began to pull the strings.

  It started simply enough. Joel was only a handful of months shy of seventeen at that point, and would be out of high school the following year. Gabriel made some phone calls back home to Emmitsburg, arranging for a job offer Thomas wouldn’t be able to refuse that wouldn't be available until the next summer.

  He had one of his employees track down any family Madeline had in the area, which was when he located Marilyn, her mother, holed up in a ritzy Beverly Hills condominium. Gabriel wondered why Madeline hadn’t asked her mother for money to send Joel away, and further digging showed Marilyn had no money. The condo was left by her late husband, paid in full, but beyond her social security, she had no income.

  Gabriel decided to buy the condo across the hall from Marilyn, hedging his bets Joel would be forced to seek refuge with her. He ended up paying handsomely to get the former tenant to vacate in the desired time frame. It was worth it, though. Gabriel made sure he was never out in the hallway when Joel was around. At the time, he hadn’t intended to meddle beyond securing Joel's safety away from Thomas and Madeline.

  When he realized that Joel wouldn’t be staying with Marilyn for long, he had to come up with an addition to his plan. This was the most expensive change, and it involved purchasing a six-unit building in Echo Park and making sure Joel found the rent agreeable. Gabriel hired Phil, a friend of the employee who did Gabriel's investigating for him, to manage the units, offering him free rent in return for ensuring that the newly vacant unit ended up going to Joel.

  Once Joel was out of the condo and safe in the apartments Gabriel owned, he was able to step back and let Joel live his life, free from the constraints and abuse of Thomas and Madeline.

  Joel had grown into a handsome young man, even with limbs a little too long for his short stature. He was still small, and compact, but when he got frustrated, you could see his strength and tenacity radiate out like an exploding star. Joel was determined, but he was also reserved. Gabriel had hoped to see him blossom into his own once he moved into the apartment, but what he had seen was Joel turning in on himself instead. He had no friends, and he didn’t speak to his parents or grandmother. As far as Gabriel could tell, he got up, went to work, came home, and went to bed. On the weekends he would go to estate sales, and then go to work. One night, Joel had wandered to Hollywood, and that was the night he’d met Athena. Athena proved herself to be a loyal and devoted friend to Joel, and Gabriel loved her for it, but he was jealous of her, as well.

  It wasn’t until Athena forced her way into Joel's life that Gabriel acknowledged he had feelings beyond those of a protective uncle for Joel. Athena took care of Joel in a way Gabriel desperately wanted to. She was over at his apartment, late into the night, as they watched movies and laughed together. Athena was the one who had gone to an estate sale with Joel and sought out the oldest books she could find, before presenting them to him proudly as if she had found the Holy Grail.

  Athena got to touch Joel, smell his hair, and feel his skin. In the winter, Joel pressed his body against hers as they drank coffee together on the steps of her apartment. Gabriel fought hard to temper his resentment toward her, rationalizing she was only helping him care for Joel. She didn’t know it, of course, but that was inconsequential.

  Athena kept trying to set Joel up on dates, and Gabriel kept foiling them. Gabriel was so invested in Joel by that point that no one besides Gabriel himself would do. Gabriel wanted to be the one who was allowed to savor Joel's kisses, and enjoy the pleasure of sliding into his tight virgin hole.

  Gabriel began to obsess. His waking moments wrapped up in what is Joel wearing today, what is his work schedule, has Athena tried to tempt him with another unworthy cock? It was becoming exhausting and Gabriel ached with the need to be closer to Joel than he was.

  It was two days before stupid fucking Davis walked into the bookstore when Gabriel managed to steal a t-shirt of Joel's from the laundromat. Not just any shirt, either, but his favorite shirt. As soon as Gabriel caught the scent of Joel's bargain detergent on it, his cock became hard as granite. He’d raced home, barely making it through the door before he tore his pants off and jacked himself off. He’d buried his face in the shirt, gasping for breath and sucking in Joel’s smell, as he shot what felt like a gallon of cum all over the floor.

  Then Davis tried to insinuate himself into Joel’s life, like he had the right to be with Joel, to talk with him, or touch him. The idea of it drove Gabriel insane. For someone who was so fucking irrelevant, Gabriel could easily organize the Joel time line into two distinct categories. Before Davis and after Davis.

  Joel made the decision to go on a date with Davis and spent so much time pep talking himself in the damn car, he might as well have held up a neon sign saying, “Please Come Attack Me.” Gabriel followed Joel that night because he’d had no intention of letting him end up at that restaurant with Davis. Fucking around with Davis’s car was easy enough, and Gabriel was fairly confident he wouldn’t make it to Hollywood, but he knew Joel would. What he didn’t expect was to have to fight off a tweaker, out of his mind on meth.

  Gabriel decided after almost seeing Joel get his face smashed in with a crowbar that he needed to accelerate things. He was quickly falling for his Little Red, and Gabriel would absolutely not allow anything to come between them for one more day. When he got back to his own car, he called Phil, suggesting there might be a problem with the pipes, and if the building were to flood, the insurance would pay for it, before adding if the building were to flood, say, that night, there would be a nice Christmas bonus for him. Gabriel returned home, organized his things, and poured a glass of wine before cracking open his front door and putting on his favorite Vivaldi album, fingers crossed.

  When Joel showed up at Marilyn’s, extending the offer of accommodation to him was the easy part. Convincing the skittish and beaten-down boy in front of him to accept had been the hard part. Maybe Gabriel had made a faulty decision to stay behind the scenes for so long. Being able to talk to Joel face to face revealed some truths Gabriel had missed. He could see the exhaustion in Joel’s eyes. It was etched into the fine lines around his mouth, and the tension in his shoulders. Joel wasn’t used to having anyone offer him help, and as such, was unfamiliar with how to accept it. Gabriel tried coaxing, he tried ordering, and finally Joel's exhaustion got the better of him, so he accepted the offer.

  Now that Joel was his, Gabriel could fix the damage that had been done. He could heal Joel's wounds and love him back into a whole person. And that was the unspoken truth of it. Gabriel was in love with Joel.

  Gabriel's phone pinged with a text alert. He looked down to see it was from Phil.

  Phil: Your kid’s parents showed up. Asked where he was. I said I didn’t know and they left.

  What the fuck? What were Thomas and Madeline doing in California again?

  Gabriel fought down the panic rising up within him. It was imperative, now more than ever, that he come clean with Joel. But Joel had been so upset when they’d left his apartment earlier, it would be too much. Gabriel couldn’t do it yet. Fuck.

  He leaned forward on the couch, burying his face into his hands and releasing an exhausted groan of his own. He didn’t even hear Joel get up.

  “Gabriel?” Joel's voice was a whisper. It sounded detached and defeated, as if Joel had run a thousand-mile race in his head before he even opened his mouth.

  Gabriel looked
up, eyes softening as Joel stood there in red jeans that matched his hair and his favorite t-shirt.

  Fuck.

  His favorite t-shirt.

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Joel Questions His Sanity

  Joel twisted the hem of his favorite shirt between shaking fingers and stood as still as he could manage across the room from Gabriel. After he had gotten up and untucked himself from the warmth of Gabriel’s bed, he went down to the guest bedroom. The bedroom Gabriel had called “his” since the first night he’d stepped foot in the condo. Joel had intended to dig some clean clothes out of his duffel bag, then found he didn’t have any clean clothes left. He’d noticed a door in the corner of the room and he decided it must be the closet. He’d expected a large, mirrored, sliding door like the one in Gabriel’s room, and he hadn’t spent enough time in the room to realize it didn’t have a noticeable closet, only a small, unobtrusive door. Joel pulled it open to find an array of t-shirts, hanging neatly from wooden hangers. Gabriel wouldn’t mind him borrowing something to wear, but Joel also wondered why Gabriel had a closet full of t-shirts that were too small for him.

  Maybe they were from an ex-boyfriend, he thought. Of course an ex-boyfriend. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

  Gabriel was handsome, smart and accomplished. He said he was alone but he must have had lovers before. Joel felt stupid for ever thinking he was different or somehow better than anyone who had come before him. Angry at himself, and finally awake enough to recall all his second thoughts and self-doubt from the night before, he tore a shirt off the hanger and pulled it over his head. He was immediately assaulted with the familiar smell of the laundry detergent he bought at the laundromat for a dollar, and it struck him as odd that Gabriel would wash anything with cheap powdered detergent.

  Maybe his ex-boyfriend was a pathetic little kid like me. Maybe he likes a good fucking project.

  Joel squared his shoulders, ready to go search Gabriel out, break things off, pack up, and head to Athena’s, but he caught his reflection in the mirror above the dresser on his way out of the door.

  This shirt didn't belong to an ex-boyfriend.

  It smelled familiar because it was familiar. This was his favorite t-shirt, a simple tee with a colorful and stylized dragon across the front. He’d bought it when he was seventeen. It was the first one he wore after laundry day, sometimes twice. When he had gotten home from his last trip to the laundromat, it had been missing. It wasn't like him to leave things behind, either. He always double checked the dryers to make sure he had everything, since his everything wasn’t much.

  How the fuck did his shirt end up here? How did Gabriel…

  Joel eyed the stack of records in the reflection of the mirror. They were all ones he liked. His gaze shifted to the bookshelf. They were all authors he liked.

  Joel’s vision narrowed, as if the room was closing in around him. It was an overwhelming feeling of disorientation, and his breath started to catch in his throat. His knees gave way and he collapsed onto the floor. Joel's mind panicked, and he struggled to recall things that Gabriel had said or done that hadn’t seemed off at the time, but maybe in hindsight were.

  Even when they had gone to his apartment, Joel hadn’t given him more than two directions and Gabriel had managed to navigate them there without assistance. How did Gabriel know where he lived?

  Fuck.

  Gabriel had music Joel liked, and books Joel liked. He even had Joel's fucking soap in his shower. How did Gabriel know what kind of soap he used? Was Gabriel stalking him? Jesus, had he gone inside Joel's apartment?

  Okay, Joel. Calm the fuck down for a second, he thought to himself, grabbing furiously at his hair as if he could rip it from his scalp if he had the strength. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his calves so he could hold himself together, both physically and mentally.

  The past week he had spent with Gabriel had been nothing short of magic. Sure, the flood sucked, and the stupid phone that never worked had been a pain in the ass, but the actual being with Gabriel part of it? It was something Joel had only ever dreamed of experiencing. It was as if Gabriel could anticipate what Joel wanted or needed next, and was already there to offer it.

  Well, of course, you idiot. That's what crazy obsessed stalkers do.

  Convinced that Gabriel had, in fact, been stalking him, Joel tried to figure out when he’d first gained Gabriel's attention. It must have been when he came to stay across the hall with his grandma. Even though he didn’t remember ever seeing Gabriel during those couple of weeks, it wasn’t irrational to think Gabriel had seen him, and besides, stalkers weren’t up-front with their stalking or anything, were they? Was that what Gabriel was though, a fucking stalker?

  Joel figured as much, and he should have listened to the voice deep down that told him all along this was too good to be true. Gabriel didn’t meet Joel one night and inherently know what he needed. Gabriel had studied him, from a distance, for at least a year, and learned by observation.

  The longer Joel rolled the idea around in his head, the less it bothered him, and that bothered Joel beyond measure. In a sick and fucked-up kind of way, it sat well in Joel’s heart that someone cared enough to try to turn themselves into the kind of person Joel needed, instead of expecting Joel to mold to them. The longer he toyed around with the idea, the more fantastical the reality of the situation became. Joel began to feel flattered and important. Meanwhile, the voice of reason in the back of his head told him those feelings were fucking stupid, and reminded him that Gabriel was probably mentally unhinged. He didn't know what to believe, or think, or feel.

  The one thing Joel was certain of, was there were things Gabriel was hiding, and Joel needed him to come clean once and for all.

  And that was how Joel found himself in Gabriel's living room, in a t-shirt he’d thought he'd lost, staring at a man he thought he might love, but perhaps should be afraid of.

  But the only thing I'm afraid of is losing him. How fucked up is that?

  “We need to talk,” Joel managed to choke out. “Now.”

  Gabriel visibly paled. His eyes darted down to the t-shirt Joel wore and back up to his face. A look of utter defeat flashed across Gabriel’s features like a lightning bolt, before his entire body was overshadowed by preemptive disappointment.

  Joel sucked up the courage to cross the room, maintaining his eye contact with Gabriel. He was certain his heart was about to explode out of his chest. Joel rubbed his breastbone, trying to will his heartbeats to return to normal, and he scrunched his brow because he couldn’t pinpoint the cause of his excitement.

  Was it fear? Was he afraid of Gabriel? Could he ever fear the man in front of him, even if his assumptions were confirmed? Or was it still an all-consuming lust for and devotion toward this man, this handsome stranger who made him feel like the man he wanted to be?

  Joel sat down on the floor, cross-legged, between Gabriel's knees. As he placed himself beneath Gabriel, he looked up at the man above him, who even in his defeated stature, looked like the big bad wolf ready to eat Joel alive. A part of him quivered in fear at the idea, but a larger part of him liked it, wanted to be consumed and possessed and owned by Gabriel entirely.

  Was he even angry with Gabriel? He didn’t think so, even though his anger was justified. Was he scared? Maybe a little. And maybe he liked that fear, also, just a little.

  Maybe Mom was right. Maybe there is something wrong with me.

  Gabriel's eyes searched Joel's face for something, and when he didn't seem to find it, his gaze fell to the floor.

  “Gabriel,” Joel said softly, sounding braver than he was. “Tell. Me. Everything. Look me in the eyes, and tell me everything.”

  Gabriel raised his eyes up, lingering on the t-shirt Joel wore, before reaching his face. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and snapped it shut. Joel could see the feelings f
lash through Gabriel's eyes. He was scared, and he was overwhelmed with lust and with obsession, and he was trapped. They were all feelings that were mirrored in Joel’s eyes.

  Gabriel must have run his mind back through a catalog of events and happenings before he finally seemed to settle on a starting place.

  “I saw you, in the hall, when you had come to stay with your grandma.” Gabriel's voice was barely above a whisper, and it quivered with every syllable out of his mouth. “I just… Fuck.” He dropped his head and threaded his fingers together behind his neck. Joel sat, in a surprisingly calm silence, waiting for Gabriel to continue.

  “You were so fucking beautiful, Joel. When I saw you, it took my breath away.” Gabriel looked back up, and Joel recognized the utter truth of that declaration shimmering brightly in his eyes. “I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand, I mean, it wasn’t out of hand, it’s not out of hand now. I needed to know you were always safe.” His brows furrowed together, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepened, and Joel fought the urge to trace the lines with his fingertips.

  “You went in my apartment.” It wasn’t a question, but Gabriel furtively shook his head.

  “No? The soap, Gabriel. How could you know what soap I used?” Joel found himself tensing as he anticipated Gabriel’s response.

  “At the store. I saw you buy it at the store. So I bought it at the store, too.”

  That was believable enough, Joel supposed, but he wasn't sure it was any better than if Gabriel had been in his apartment. All that time I thought I was alone and I never was. A shiver ran through Joel.

  “The music? The books? The fucking t-shirt, Gabriel?” Joel's questions piled up like an inescapable weight on them both and he needed Gabriel to be truthful before they were both crushed beneath it.