Chapter 9
2268words
“California, eh?” Ralph spotted Axel, and turned towards him. “Axel, these two moved here from California.”
Axel knew little about California, other than his life would be easier if he lived there. “Cool.” He handed Ralph a pouch containing papers and a car key. “This one’s ready.”
Ralph handed a key to Axel. “Theirs is the blue electric one out front.”
“An electric car?” Those were extremely rare in Jefferson. Axel knew as much about electric cars as he did about California. And it would take days for any replacement parts to come in. “We never do those.”
“A car’s a car,” Ralph said to him, voice lowered for only Axel to hear.
“They’re made differently. I don’t know anything-”
“They say they need new tires. That’s not much different.”
“The tires themselves might be.” Axel once heard that EV tires were wider, with higher inflation pressure. Something to do with the cars being heavier.
“We’ve got plenty of tires that’ll fit on their car.”
“But none that support the weight. We’ll need to special order some.”
Ralph stared at him. Axel stared right back. He refused to take shortcuts when it came to tires, and Ralph knew it. “Fine.”
Ralph returned to the customers. “I just spoke with our mechanic, and he says electric cars need special tires we don’t carry.”
“You don’t fuck around when it comes to tires,” Axel added helpfully, then cringed inwardly. Why did he say something so stupid? The younger man laughed. There was a sort of sparkle in his eye that made Axel’s knees wobble. He focused back on Ralph, but noticed that the younger man had all his attention on Axel.
“The other place we went to said the same thing,” the older man said. “About not carrying the right tires, I mean. They weren’t even able to order them for us. Can you?”
“We should,” Ralph said. “But it’ll take at least a week to come in. And they won’t be cheap.”
“We’ll have to go with it.”
Ralph did some tapping on the tablet next to him, and asked the older man for personal information. Axel learned his name was Will Williams, and his son was named Jake.
“Can I look at the car?” Axel asked Jake. He wanted to see what he would be up against, and also if it would be safe to drive until the new tires came in. But mainly he wanted to be alone with Jake. Jake gave him the feeling that he might be just as interested in Axel, as Axel was in him. Men interested in men were as rare as electric cars, much less men actually interested in Axel.
“Sure.” With a smile, Jake led him out the door, while Will continued talking to Ralph.
At first sight, the blue car didn’t look any different than what Axel was used to. Though he knew there were different components to it. He wondered what these men would do if one of them failed. They might bring it here again, and it would become his problem.
Axel bent over to check the rear passenger tire first, checking the tread with his tire depth gauge. Though he could tell without the tool that it should be replaced sooner than later. He moved on to the front tire, which was perfectly fine. In the corner of his eye, he caught Jake staring at his ass. Face flushed, he whipped around to face Jake. Somehow in the process, he tripped over his own foot. Luckily he caught his balance instead of falling on his face.
“You okay there?” Jake fought back a smile.
“Yeah.” Especially now that Axel’s suspicions were confirmed, though he couldn’t believe how obvious Jake was being. He’d seen people get beat up for less. Axel turned away to check the tires on the other side. This time, the front was bad and the back was good. He turned back to Jake, who still had his eyes on him. “Ralph will try convincing you to replace all four tires. But you only need these two.” Axel pointed at the offending tires with his tool.
“Thanks for being honest, but won’t your boss get mad at you for telling me that?”
“Not if he doesn’t find out.” Even if Ralph did, he wouldn’t be hard on him. There was only one other mechanic, so he needed to keep Axel around. Axel set his arm on top of the car, leaning his body into the vehicle.
Jake stepped towards Axel, mirroring his pose. Except he placed his arm on the trunk of the car. He was too short for his arm to comfortably rest on the roof. Plus Axel took up too much space. “I’ll make sure he won’t.” His eyes met Axel’s. “How old are you?”
“24. You?”
“20. But I’ll be 21 this summer.” Jake paused for a moment. “21 and 24. That’s not too bad of an age gap, both early 20’s.”
Axel thought of himself as being in his mid-20’s, not early. But he didn’t care about age gaps. As long as the man was an adult, which he had assumed. “You’re new here?”
“Yeah. My dad and I moved here a couple weeks ago, from California.”
“I don’t know much about California,” Axel said. “Other than they’re progressive and gay-friendly.”
“That they are. There’s also a large latino population. It’s the opposite of here. You’re actually the first latino person I’ve seen.”
It wasn’t much of a selling point. Axel knew a few latino people back in high school, but he struggled to fit in with them. It felt like they knew things he didn’t. He nodded along anyway. “Sounds accurate. I’m the only latino person I know. Even my parents are white.”
Jake laughed until he realized Axel wasn’t joking. “Seriously?”
“Yep. I was adopted as a baby. I never knew my birth parents.”
“Do you know where they might be at? Maybe you could meet them some day.”
“No and I doubt it. I don’t know anything about them, other than my mom was locked up in some immigration detention center. She gave birth to me in there, and they took me away to adopt me out.”
Jake stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. “That’s fucked up.”
Axel rubbed his elbow, regretting to have let part of his depressing backstory slip out. Now Jake had gone from admiring him, to pitying him. He never thought it was that big of a deal. “A little, I guess.”
“A little? That’s the most fucked up story I’ve heard since I moved here.” He paused for a moment. “The second most fucked up story, I mean.”
Axel wondered what the first story was, but wanted to move away from messed up stories, and onto exchanging numbers. If Jake was even still interested in him.
“Do you know which detention center?” Jake asked. “Maybe you could find records or something.”
“Somewhere in Texas.”
“That’s far. How’d you end up over here?”
“I don’t know. My parents were looking to adopt a baby. They found an organization that adopts out babies born in immigration detention centers.”
“This happens that often?!”
“And they liked the idea of raising a poor hispanic baby because they think they’re progressive, picking a non-white baby. So they ended up with me.”
“They think they’re progressive for that?”
“Yep. And then they go and kick me out for being gay. That’s how progressive they are.” Axel did not mean to let that part slip out. But it felt good to state his feelings out loud, after so many years of bitterness.
An awkward silence filled the air.
“I’m sorry,” Axel finally said. “I totally killed the mood.”
Jake chuckled. “It’s fine. Your backstory sounds a lot more interesting than mine.”
“What’s yours?” Axel asked.
Before Jake could answer, Ralph and Will appeared.
“How long does it take to check a few tires?” Ralph asked Axel. “We’ve been waiting forever.”
“Sorry,” Axel said quickly. “Uh, only two of them need to be replaced.” He emphasized two, and directed it towards Will. He didn’t want Ralph to get the chance to rip the customers off. “You can still drive on them for a couple of weeks, until the new ones come in. But only if you have to.” Axel handed the key to Will.
“We’ll call you when they come in to set up an appointment,” Ralph said.
Will and Jake thanked him, and they all exchanged goodbyes. As Ralph walked back towards the store, Axel stopped Jake before he could get in the car.
“I could give you my personal number. You can call me if you want to know what’s going on with them.”
“Your personal number, huh? Couldn’t I just call the main line?”
“You could. But then you’d be talking to Ralph instead of me.” Axel leaned forward, the two only inches apart from each other. His eyes landed on Jake’s lips. God, he wished he could kiss them. “Maybe I want to hear about your backstory.”
“Or I could tell you in person.” Jake gave him a flirty half-smile.
Axel returned it. “You’d still have to call me to set something up.”
“True.” Jake tapped at his watch, and held it out. Axel tapped his own watch, navigating to the “give phone number” button. Then, pressed his watch against Jake’s. It transferred instantly.
“You should go,” Jake said. “Your boss is waiting for you.”
Axel glanced over his shoulder to see Ralph standing outside the door to the shop, arms crossed. “Yeah. Hope to hear from you soon.”
“You will.”
Sebastian laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Part of him wanted to play a video game. Another part of him wanted to continue doing nothing. The fact that playing a video game meant getting up, turning his monitor on, and powering up a console kept him from doing so.
He could always watch something. But that would also mean getting up and turning on his monitor. What would he even watch? He’d probably spend more time scrolling through the lists.
His watch beeped. It was a text from Axel. Sebastian’s mood improved slightly as he tapped to hear the text.
“Can I call you?”
The thought of talking to Axel made him feel better, but anxious. Sebastian sent a response. “Sure.”
His phone rang from his dresser. Sebastian sighed. He’d rather not have Axel on speaker, but he still had no desire to move. So he tapped the “answer phone” button on his watch.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“I have amazing news,” Axel said. “But first, you have to tell me how you’ve been.”
“I’m alright.” Hopefully the amazing news would make him feel better.
“Just alright?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Good.”
“What were you doing before I called?” Axel asked.
“Why do you want to know?” Sebastian would rather not reveal how boring his life was. And clearly, Axel had something far more important to share.
“To make polite conversation before sharing my awesome news. Also, I want to leave you in suspense.”
“It’s working. Tell me.”
Axel took a deep breath. “The hottest man ever came to my work today.”
Sebastian turned down the volume on his watch, lest his father walk by and hear a man’s voice talking about hot men. “Okay?” He didn’t know what kind of news he had been expecting, but it wasn’t that.
“I caught him checking me out when we were in the parking lot, looking at his car. His eyes were on my ass, dude.” There was a hint of pride in Axel’s voice. “He liked what he saw.”
Sebastian wondered if he could ever be so bold as to stare at a man’s ass. Especially Axel’s. He didn’t even know what it looked like.
“And I checked him out. He’s so damn sexy.”
A flash of an emotion struck Sebastian’s chest at those words. An emotion he didn’t know how to pinpoint. “Oh.”
“We started flirting.”
The mysterious emotion grew stronger. “Okay.”
“I wanted to kiss him so bad. And I think he wanted to kiss me too. But I had to go back to work.”
Sebastian clenched his jaw at that. Along with his fists.
“I gave him my number,” Axel continued in a joyful voice. “He said he would call me.”
“I shouldn’t tie up your phone, in case he does.”
“Oh, it’s fine. He’ll probably start off with a text anyway.”
Sebastian did not want to hear another word about Axel’s interest in some stupid man. “I need to go. I have to… do… something.”
“Bye!” Sebastian hung up on him. He felt a twinge of guilt, followed by rage. Rage towards the mysterious man who Axel wanted to kiss. It should be Sebastian he wanted to kiss.
No! Sebastian was not jealous of the man at all. Not in that way. It was most likely because someone was coming in between their friendship. Axel might ditch Sebastian in favor of a new boyfriend. That was where the anger and jealousy towards the man came from.
Sebastian did not have a crush on Axel.
