Jared Abitol is ugly, past his prime, and desperate for love.
Years of being hyper-aware of his own looks have made Jared develop social anxiety. When you look like Jared, love isn't easy to find. Jared might not have the looks or confidence, but h...
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The rest of the weekend was a blur. Darnell stayed over on Sunday, hanging around Jared's office as the man tried to prepare his notes for his lectures on Monday. Jared didn't mind him moving around in the background. He didn't mind Darnell singing or Darnell resting against his desk as he worked. He didn't mind any of it because it was Darnell. The positivity that he felt after Darnell asked him on a date on Saturday spilled into the week. He was a lot more cheerful, slow to irritation, and bubbly.
"What's gotten into you?" Abby asked, pushing strands of her blonde hair behind her ear. Jared paused explaining what he had been to look at her. Yes, he was so happy that he entertained Abby's stupid questions without much thought. Jared sat up, raising a brow at her in confusion.
Abby shrugged. "You look really happy," she muttered, using her pen to make a beat on Jared's desk. She had come to Jared's office hours expecting him to be cold and annoyed at her like he usually was but was pleasantly surprised when he wasn't. It took a while for her to notice that she wasn't the cause of that, and it had to involve the person he was seeing in some way.
"Forget I asked," Abby muttered, looking down at the desk. Of course, it wasn't like Mr. Abitol was going to talk to her about his love life. What had she been expecting?
Jared glanced at her, looking at her now red face and curved brows. She had dropped the ben and was fiddling with her fingers now. Her whole demeanor cried out regret for having asked him that question.
Jared let out a small sigh, deciding that maybe if he answered her question half-assed, she would feel less bad. "It's my partner's birthday soon." It felt weird calling Darnell his partner, but it wasn't like he could tell Abby about their arrangement. It was the truth — a half-truth. They were sex partners. Jared just dropped the word, sex.
"Oh," Abby said, her scowl relaxing as a forced smile took its place. "Are you getting her anything?" she asked, looking at Jared as the man blinked, a little stunned.
Her, right. Jared repeated the pronoun in his head, just remembering that Abby still assumed Darnell was a woman. "I should, shouldn't I?" Jared said, answering Abby's question with a question. He had thought of getting Darnell something, but he was afraid he would make a mistake and get something too expensive, too romantically meaningful, or something that Darnell would just plain out detest. They were going to a flea market, and he had been leaning on making Darnell pick out his own gift since Sunday.
"You don't know what to get her?" Abby asked, and Jared just nodded, playing along.
"Oh, don't you know anything that she likes?" Abby asked, making Jared rest back on his seat as he tried to think. Darnell was very simple. He liked old school music, he liked to dress up, he liked jewelry and he liked romance novels. That was all Jared could muster from his memory. He didn't know anything about novels or dressing up so that was scrapped before it was even considered. He could always get Darnell a vintage music player. Those weren't that expensive, but Darnell would need tapes for those, and getting tapes were hard to get. It wasn't something Jared could put together in a day
