“YOU’RE PLANNING on doing the shopping again,” Joy said, peering up at Chad from under his purple bangs accusingly, his pretty brow furrowed. On an impulse, Chad put his hands behind his back, trying to hide the shopping bags he’d meant to smuggle into his backpack. The bags were handwoven and a very bright orange. Joy hated plastic bags with a vengeance, and he loved his things handmade and colorful.
To his credit, he didn’t laugh at Chad’s feeble attempt at getting out of this. “It’s my turn to do the shopping, Chad,” he simply said. “You’ve bought our groceries five times in a row now.”
He reached out to take the bags from Chad’s hand, but Chad didn’t let go. Joy lifted a faultlessly plucked eyebrow at him. Struggling to ignore how intolerably pretty Joy was, and how close, Chad cleared his throat. “I’ve been sleeping on your kitchen couch for four weeks straight, and without paying anything like a rent.”
“We’ve been through this, Chad. I don’t want you to pay me, okay? You’re a friend who needs a place to crash. You’ve mended my car’s fender and headlights. And anyway, it’s not like I could rent out my kitchen couch, is it? It’s not like you were keeping me from making money.”
“Yeah, but… still,” Chad replied, hating how weak he sounded. His cheeks were burning with stress. It wasn’t easy to stand up to Joy. The man was a head shorter than Chad, but he sure knew how to make his point. And every inch of his dainty body was pure beauty, which made it so much harder to keep a clear head and come up with a coherent sentence in an argument. The faint wafts of Joy’s lovely scent that filled Chad’s nose when they stood this close didn’t help either.
Stepping back and attempting to hold his breath even while speaking, Chad tried again. “I’m imposing on you. And it doesn’t look like I’ll find a place of my own before Christmas. Please let me at least do the shopping. Please.”
For a second or two, Joy kept looking up at him. It felt as if his deep, dark brown eyes reached into Chad’s very soul and read his secret dreams. A shiver ran through Chad, and he was sure something was going to happen, even if he had no idea what exactly. But the next moment Joy simply smiled and gave a shrug. “Okay. If it’s that important to you. But don’t forget my almond milk.”
The shrug had caused his red tank top to slip over his bony shoulder. Chad felt his face heat up even more. He had the most peculiar, most powerful reaction to Joy’s shoulders. And to his slightly crooked smile, and to all the wonderful, perfect rest of him. Just thinking of Joy, the fine curves of his face, his soft hair, his lean hips, all of him, made Chad’s heart constrict with sick longing.
It didn’t do; it didn’t do at all.
Joy had saved Chad on the worst night of his twenty-two years; he had offered him shelter in his small apartment when Chad had come out to his parents, been asked to stop upsetting his mother with such nonsense and to go for a walk until he saw reason, and found it impossible to return to what would never again feel like home.
Yes, the day that should have been the start of a new, more honest and ultimately happier chapter in his family life had been the end of it instead.
Joy seemed to somehow feel responsible for what had happened. He’d called Chad the next morning, playfully asking why he hadn’t heard anything. And when Chad, who had spent the night in his pickup in the car park of the shopping mall, had told him what had come to pass and that he wasn’t returning home, Joy had instantly offered up his couch. Chad had accepted. He wasn’t prepared for more rejection, so he hadn’t had the nerve to turn to one of his friends.
It was like all of a sudden, he belonged nowhere.
Over the last couple of weeks, Chad had regained some sort of balance. He’d collected a few things from his room in his parents’ house one morning when he knew nobody was home and left a note telling his parents he’d decided to move out. For a while, he’d kept checking his phone for messages after that, but neither his father nor his mother ever called. There were repeated messages from his sister, Sarah, asking what was up. Which meant they hadn’t even bothered to tell her. He’d written back saying he was fine and that their parents could tell her everything she needed to know.
And each time he’d gotten a call or a message from a friend, he’d ignored it. He didn’t even return Dave’s calls, who’d been his best friend since elementary school, and he hated himself for it. But he simply didn’t feel up to giving any explanations, let alone to telling anyone the truth. He knew in his gut that he couldn’t face that horrible feeling again, the feeling of being a stranger to people who’d used to love him.
He didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about his future. There really weren’t that many choices for him to make at this point. Finally, the long hours he’d spent in his family’s garage tending to everybody’s cars paid off. He’d taken up a job as an assistant mechanic at the local garage. And he’d started sending out resumes to insurance and financial services companies. With the economy being what it was, it wouldn’t be easy to find a job, in spite of his good grades. He’d just have to keep trying, and meanwhile, find a room to rent he could afford with his modest paycheck from Motor Buddies. Yes. It was high time he found someplace new to live and stopped relying on Joy’s goodness of heart and secretly dreaming of being his live-in boyfriend.
Joy had shrugged into his oversized purple faux-fur coat, getting ready to leave for work. The coat was his only piece of winter clothing. He always said he was a summer being and seemed to have decided to simply refuse to acknowledge the reality of chilly December weather as best he could. With just his fingertips peeking from the coat sleeves, he grabbed his sequined purse and took a step forward. He waited, like he always did at this moment, to give Chad the chance to step up to him too, and they shared a quick embrace. And as always, it left Chad breathless and madly, foolishly wishing that Joy would stay.
But of course he didn’t; he was already slipping through the door. “Oh, when you go to the store, bring some whole-grain flour too, would you?” he called back over his shoulder. “The guys are coming by tonight, and I’m planning on making some oatmeal cookies. See you later.”
The door fell shut.
Chad’s heart sank. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Joy’s cookies, or his friends. Franky, Harry, and Mel were not only Joy’s colleagues but also something like his chosen family, and they dropped in every couple of nights for dinner or a game of charades. There was always a lot of laughter and teasing banter involved.
Just listening to the four friends’ endless joking made Chad feel beyond inadequate. The thing was, he simply wasn’t accustomed to this degree of fun and frolic. Everyone kept coming up with witty lines and puns. Chad was used to listening to the joking between Joy, Franky, and Mel from back at the salon, but Harry, who was never anything but calm and kindly reserved in his shop, surprised him with the way he could totally change gear as soon as the four of them embarked on a game of charades. He was every bit as clownish and quick-witted as the others, especially when it got late.
Chad usually sat in a corner gaming on his phone while the others played charades. He didn’t need to try to join in with the game to know he’d suck at it. Also, he hated the fact that he was taking up space in Joy’s kitchen and his life. He felt it wouldn’t have been right to impose on Joy’s time with his friends on top of that.
Of course, time and again, someone would shout something like, “Come on, Chad, help us out,” or, “Chad, we need you here.” But he always declined, arguing they had two teams of two, so it really didn’t make sense for him to join in. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have been keen on it even if he hadn’t been this intruder. The problem was, Joy and his friends didn’t confine themselves to simple pantomimes when playing charades but claimed that makeup was a mandatory part of the whole thing, and dressing up too. Including actual sewing. More than once, Chad had watched one of the guys stitch some remnants together at the speed of light until they resembled an actual costume. Franky was especially gifted at that. It seemed literally like magic to Chad. He was good enough with his hands; he was perfect with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, and he could change a tire in under ninety seconds if need be. But the mere sight of a sewing needle had him break out in a sweat.
And then there was the fact that he was way, way larger than Joy and his colleagues. Franky and Mel were the same type as Joy, short and thin, and even Harry, though taller than the rest, was slim and graceful. Just being in the same room with the four friends made Chad self-conscious in a way he’d never known. On the baseball field, he’d always fitted in with the crowd. He’d been just another burly dude, no different from all the others. In the company of these chatty, fine-boned creatives, he felt like an especially ham-fisted and tongue-tied Fred Flintstone.
Franky, forever bent on saying stuff at the cost of someone else, had a rather disagreeable tendency to address the way Chad stood out. Not a single evening went by that he wouldn’t tease Chad about his quiet ways or sheer size. He’d even called him King Kong once or twice. It wasn’t pleasant.
The guy also had a habit of pulling Joy onto his lap and kissing him on the mouth, which was way, way worse.
Joy said they were best friends and that Franky had just one true love, and that was his off-road racing chopper. But to Chad it looked a lot more like they were an item. The mere idea made his heart feel like a rock in his chest.
And he’d have to watch the two of them together yet again tonight.
He really needed to find another place to stay.
CHAD WORKED a late shift at Motor Buddies that day, meaning he only had to be at the garage at noon. Right after Joy had left, he drove to the shopping mall. It housed a big grocery store, along with lots of shops where he might find a Christmas present for Joy. It looked like they’d be spending the holidays together, and he needed something to give to Joy on Christmas morning. He’d been looking around for a while already but hadn’t found anything fitting yet.
After an hour of searching through beauty supply stores, bookstores, a pet shop, even a stall that sold Christmas angels of all shapes and sizes, he had to face he wasn’t making any progress. Small wonder.
For what on earth could be the right gift for someone who really was an angel himself?