Too Drunk To Fuck | Gabilliam

Chapter Twelve - Gap Year

Take-away coffee cup in hand, William sat on the train into the city by himself. He kept playing with the ring on his finger, wishing he could spend his birthday with his boyfriend. He tried to stop thinking about Gabe, knowing it would only make him more worried. Instead, he tried to add more positives to his list. By the time he got to his stop, he had seven.

***

Hayley was the only other person in when he arrived. There weren't even any customers - apparently eight in the morning is too early to be sniffing bath bombs.

"William! Thank goodness you're here!" Hayley threw up her hands cheerily, stepping down off the wooden stool. "I've been trying to put up more bottles but I'm sick of dragging this stool around the shop to reach the top shelves. Reckon you could get them for me?"

"No problem." he smiled, tying his apron and grabbing a few bottles from the cupboards at the bottom as Hayley took the stool into the storage room.

He liked Hayley. She was a sweet girl who always dyed her hair daring colours and put it up in cute hairstyles, and did amazing things with her makeup, and all three managed to constantly land her compliments from customers. He'd grown somewhat protective over her since he started working there. Occasionally some greasy old man would try to flirt with her, so William quickly adjusted to pretending to be Hayley's six-foot-tall boyfriend in order to get them to leave. Hayley liked how caring William was. She also liked that he would let her get on his back to reach the really high shelves in the back room.

"Taylor asked me to cover his shift," Hayley emerged from the storage room "So it's just me and you today."

***

Not many people came in, much to William's delight. A few teenage girls coming in to buy a few miscellaneous bath products, a man in his late twenties shopping for gifts for his girlfriend on their anniversary and asking Hayley for advice, a woman in her sixties shopping for her granddaughter's eleventh birthday.

William was constantly adding to his positive notes all day. For somebody who'd woken up feeling very negative indeed, he was having a really good day. He counted his positives - eleven so far, and it was only 12:04.

1. I can legally move out of my house and live by myself now

2. Hayley will probably do something really lovely like she always does

3. The woman at the coffee shop remembered me from yesterday

4. I was the only person in my carriage on the train

5. I didn't forget anything on my way to work

6. I do my exams soon, which means I leave school soon

7. That means Gabe will be back soon

8. Hayley made cake for my birthday, and since Taylor was off I got to eat more

9. Not many people came in to work today

10. I dressed appropriately for the weather (for once)

11. The buskers outside sound amazing

Working in a small Lush had its perks. Although it was harder to deal with mass amounts of people, nobody really knew this one existed, which meant that they spent a lot of their time just talking or thinking up new descriptions for the bubble bars.

"You've been playing with your ring a lot today." William hadn't even noticed he'd been touching it until Hayley pointed it out. "You've been spinning it around your finger non-stop for hours."

"Have I?" William asked, looking up from his skinny fingers "I hadn't really noticed."

"Is there something up? You just look really... concerned."

"It's Gabe," William sighed, pushing his hair out of his face, his eyes at his feet "He's not answering his calls, I think there's something wrong with him."

"He's probably just busy, Bill. You kn-"

"You don't get it. This isn't like him at all. If he misses a call, he always calls back. Always."

"Things will turn out just fine, trust me."

"But what if... What if..." William didn't want to think about what if. He wanted to know that Gabe was okay and - most of all - that he still cared about William.

"He cares about you a lot, William, he must have a reason for not answering. He wouldn't leave you without saying goodbye."

"Damn right, I wouldn't." William's head shot up at the familiar voice. Stood in the shop entrance was Gabe, a smug look on his face and a take-away coffee cup in his hand.

William walked over to him, standing so close that he could feel Gabe's breath on his nose. Gabe raised an eyebrow at him and smiled a hello, but William wasn't smiling. He was fighting back tears. Before he turned to run into the back room, before he started crying below the shelves of shampoo bars, before Hayley had to phone Taylor to beg him to come back in and cover for William who "really needs to go home, and there's nobody else who can come in", William looked his boyfriend straight in the eye and said one thing.

"What is your fucking problem?"