Juniper Blue (NaNoWriMo2023; manxman)

Chapter 13

Gabriel

As I stepped out of the shower, I noticed an extra toothbrush and comb on the bathroom sink. They'd probably been there all week and I was just realizing it now. What did that say about Juniper? What did that say about us? We had incredible chemistry together with incredible sex, but our relationship had reached a new level, one that wasn't just about sex. I laughed to myself as I wandered around my apartment, picking up random pieces of Juniper's clothing. His messiness proved he wasn't perfect.

Even though we spoke all the time and saw each other two to three times a week, my heart stopped for a second every time his name lit up my phone. My hands became clammy like a lovesick teenager. In the middle of picking up Juniper's clothes, my phone buzzed and I happily answered it, relieved it wasn't the hospital again. I'd been working too much. Yesterday I worked fourteen hours, from three p.m. to five a.m. I slept for five hours before getting up to take a shower. I barely knew what day it was. The day before yesterday, I worked sixteen hours.

I'd always answer the phone for Juniper. "Hey," I said.

"You wouldn't believe the size of the turkey my dad caught."

His enthusiasm and excitement brought an even bigger smile to my lips. I wished I could be as happy as he was.

"It's like the biggest one I'd ever seen. You gotta come over for Thanksgiving."

Every year, Ronnie Doiron caught, prepared, and cooked the turkey. There were no shortages of turkey in the area, that's for sure.  One morning, I woke to a gaggle of turkeys outside while Juniper slept right through the noise. I'd never had wild turkey before. I heard it tasted slightly different than regular turkey, or at least that's what Juniper said.

I was working the overnight shift before Thanksgiving, so I was hesitant to accept Juniper's invitation to spend Thanksgiving Day with him and his family. No man had ever invited me to a holiday dinner. I tried to forget about last Thanksgiving. Cole had just checked himself out of a rehab after only three days. I volunteered to work so I didn't have to think about anything. I came home to find Cole sitting on the couch nodding off. Right before he went to rehab, I found him overdosing on the bathroom floor, forced to administer Narcan to save his life. He promised he'd go to rehab and stay there 'until he was clean,' but he broke his promise like he always did. A week later, my prescription pad went missing.

Juniper hated the idea of me being alone. I didn't mind the idea because I planned on sleeping all day. For the past month, my parents guilt-tripped me every time we spoke for not taking time off to spend the holiday with them. It'd been four years since I spent Thanksgiving with them. I didn't have enough seniority at the hospital to request multiple days off. I hoped to visit them in a couple of weeks. "Maybe next year," I told them.

If Juniper and I simply had a sexual relationship, then I'd consider myself still 'in lust' with him, and while our physical attraction toward each other was intense, I realized we weren't merely 'in lust.' If that was the case, then we would have done nothing else but fuck. When we shared a bed, whether it was at my place or his, we didn't always feel the need to fuck. Sometimes just being together was enough. We enjoyed each other's company, and we made each other laugh. He no longer talked incessantly. He let me talk and he actively listened.

Juniper and I talked every night. Neither of us used work or bad phone service as an excuse not to talk. I called him on his landline as soon as I got home, whether it was five or six o'clock in the evening or at midnight. If it was midnight, Juniper usually grunted hi and bye. I didn't blame him for not willing to have a lengthy conversation.

I called him because I wanted to hear his voice, to find out how his day was, and to discuss anything and everything. He made me laugh every time we spoke. I looked forward to telling him about my day.