There’s nothing quite like gay panic in the middle of the510Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHCBPHrlD3P
night.
Aaron stared at the sleeping figure, confused as hell. Just a moment ago that bed was empty, but the more he thought about it, the more his mind rationalized what had happened.
He must have been dozing off when this guy came in.
That didn’t make it okay though. Aaron was supposed to have this room to himself. He even paid extra rent for that exclusive right. So, what the fuck was going on? Did the landlord lie about him having a roommate so he could pocket the extra cash? That wouldn’t make sense though, because he would demand his money back if that were the case. This had to be some sort of mistake.
He should have been suspicious when he spotted the extra bed. Instead, he had convinced himself that it was just old furniture from the previous tenant. Maybe the low cost was too alluring for him to question his new living arrangement? After all, he just moved into a random townhouse with a bunch of strangers. It wasn’t even a fancy house at that. His room had that pasty yellow wallpaper with stained ceiling tiles. He had one small closet, which was full of boxes, and a small dresser, which was likewise covered in boxes. A random assortment of stuffed animals littered his bed, which pressed against the north wall next to the window.
Aaron scratched his head as he went over the strange situation for the umpteenth time that week. This wasn’t the first time this mysterious stranger had apparated in the guest bed, but it was the first time he got a good look at his face. And damn, he was handsome.
The man was hugging his pillow with one leg sticking out from under his covers. When he rolled over, the blankets slid down enough for Aaron to get his first real good look at the guy. His black hair was striking against his ivory skin. His lips were slightly parted while he slept, and his angular cheekbones made him look like some sort of model that Aaron could only ever dream of seeing in a magazine. 510Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdwJsN3sTzA
The other day he had asked his other housemates who he was sharing a room with, but none of them had any idea what he was talking about and just gave him quizzical looks. It had gotten to the point where he wondered if what he was seeing was just blankets clumped together to look like a sleeping figure. Tonight proved otherwise.
Aaron thought he’d met everyone in the house by now, but since none of the others knew who this was, he couldn’t help feeling like something was amiss. So far, he hadn’t filed a complaint because he had yet to even speak to the man. For the past few nights, he even stayed up late, hoping to catch him coming in so they could have a chat and figure out how they got duped into sharing a room, but somehow Aaron always managed to fall asleep right before he returned.
The strangest thing about it was how he was never woken up by the screech of the door hinge. It needed lubrication so badly and creaked so loud it could wake his other housemates. Surely that would have alerted him to this stranger’s return, but it never did.
His plans to file a complaint went out the window the longer he stared at the sleeping eye candy. He very much liked the idea of having a hot roommate. Even if his roommate weren’t gay, looking at him would be nice. Plus, their landlord was out of town, so he couldn’t contact him until he returned anyway.
Rolling over, he decided that he’d be ore persistent in starting a conversation in the future. They were sharing a room now, so the least they could do was get to know each other.
Aaron closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep while he devised a way to start a conversation with the man. By morning, his opportunity was gone, along with sleeping beauty, and once more the loose door hinge hadn’t awoken him.
Slightly weirded out, he got dressed and brushed his teeth.
Compared to his mysterious roommate, Aaron looked quite plain. He was 5’7” tall with brownish dark hair that he had styled into a fade cut. His figure was plain too, slender with no muscles nor curves. That didn’t bother him too much though because he’s not into the whole “body discrimination” fiasco.
Tossing on a basic set of jeans and a tank top, he made his way downstairs towards the living room where one of his housemates had already taken residence in front of the flat screen.
Cliff was a pretty nice guy. He was lanky with an infinity scarf wrung around his neck. He was as near-sighted as a bat and wore a thick pair of rimmed glasses that gave off strong hipster vibes. When Aaron first met him, he learned that Cliff found contacts too troublesome and preferred his glasses over poking his eyes out twice a day.
“Bonsoir.” Cliff greeted him.
“You’re aware that means ‘good evening’ in French right?510Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHIuxXbX28d
Good day to you too.” Aaron replied matter-of-factly.
They were both a bit odd, which was probably why they got along. Cliff was into a lot of obscure things that Aaron found interesting as well, though his overall sense of humor was dry compared to most
“You’re up kind of early today. Didn’t sleep well?”
“I slept okay I guess.” Aaron stopped behind the lumpy brown couch.
“What? Not enough gunshots in this neck of town?”
“Nah. Well, I mean yeah, but nah.”
Cliff quirked an eyebrow and Aaron relented. “One of my old neighbors would shoot blanks in the middle of the night to help keep the housing costs down. I’d say it was a brilliant idea.”
“Shit, why didn’t I ever think of doing that?”
“Because the cops wouldn’t approve? Or more like, you never held a gun in your life.”
“Guess that’s true.” Cliff shrugged and returned his attention to the car race on TV.
“By the way, did you or any of the other guys hear exactly when Calvin’s coming back?”
Calvin was the landlord. He didn’t live in the house himself. He just owned the = property and rented the rooms out. Aaron only ever met Calvin over the phone, and all he talked about was renting out the extra room.
“You’ll have to ask Todd. He’s like the self-designated ‘acting landlord’ anyway. Quite sure he’d keep up with that.”
“Right, I’ll ask him next time.” Aaron scratched his head and decided to grab some breakfast.
Aaron didn’t have a normal job as his other roommates did. Unlike them, he worked from home making online videos. Between the ad revenue and sponsorships, he was making more than enough without ever leaving the house.
And to think is parents thought he wouldn’t survive without a college degree.
He had graduated from high school a little over a year ago and was not in the mood for extending that nightmare. He enjoyed his alone time and spent the day writing out his next video script. He was considering doing something with the unpacked boxes he had all over his room when an idea occurred to him.
Before it got dark, he grabbed as many of those boxes as possible and piled them onto the spare bed. Up until now, the stranger would go straight to sleep without ever bothering to look in his direction, but with this, he’d have no choice but to move his stuff and potentially wake him up.
Sitting down on his bed, Aaron spent the rest of the evening flipping through a few online articles. He became amply distracted by the time something happened. The only light in the room was from his laptop screen, thus he couldn’t see much else without looking straight at it. So, when he realized there was a figure standing just a few feet from him, he nearly tossed the computer across the room.
With a yelp, Aaron pressed against the wall behind him. “Please don’t kill me!”
The figure held up his hands. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”
His voice was smooth and disarming, which only raised Aaron’s defenses even more before he realized who this was.
He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond his PC screen. Soon the man came into focus, and he realized it was his mysterious roommate. Once again, the guy had somehow gotten past the creaky door without making a sound.
The stranger gestured towards the pile of boxes on his bed. “Um, are these yours?”
Suddenly embarrassed by his scheme, Aaron nodded. “Yeah. I needed some place to put them earlier and forgot to move them back. I’ll do that now.” He got up and started to return his things to the foot of his bed as he frantically tried to think of a friendly conversation starter. Since he was such a shut-in, he didn’t have much experience in the way of getting to know someone. Luckily, they were sharing a room, so that gave him an ego boost somehow.” My name’s Aaron by the way.”
“Oh sorry! My name’s Caleb.” The man stuttered awkwardly before hurrying to help.
The conversation went dead almost immediately as the two worked to move the junk. Then Caleb noticed a particular body pillow tucked behind the bed. It had a picture of a muscular cartoon animal in a speedo flexing on it, and Aaron’s eyes widened as he hurried to explain. “It’s my sisters’!”
“..Uh.. huh..”
“It is!”
Caleb tried to hold a straight face but failed utterly as he broke down in laughter. Aaron quickly went over how he had a ton of strange props due to his sister visiting sometimes. That didn’t stop the guy from cracking up even worse and ultimately fell into a giggling fit.
“Sorry, I’m sorry!” Caleb rubbed the tears from his eyes. “If I start laughing, sometimes it’s hard to stop.”
Aaron tossed a stuffed owl at the man and missed. “So, you make videos for a living?”
“I thought you were watching while I was editing it earlier?” Aaron replied, readjusting his laptop and sitting back down. “What about you? What’s up with you sneaking in so late all the time?”
“I work the evening shift working at a call center, so I don’t usually get off till midnight.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Tell me about it.” Caleb flopped backward onto his newly cleared bed. “I had some drunk guy hitting on me the other night. I swear that guy could teleport the way he kept popping up in every aisle.”
“That must have been annoying.”
“It was sort of flattering actually.” Caleb propped his head upon his hand. “If he wasn’t drunk, I might have taken him up on the offer.”
Aaron eyed him skeptically. “You don’t have a problem with another man hitting on you?”
“No. Why? Should I?”
Interesting…
Aaron had trouble believing he was that lucky and had been leaning towards the guy being pissed about the boxes on his bed. Instead, he turned out to be cool about it.
They stayed up a few more hours discussing topics like work and rent and how much cheaper it was living with roommates. Eventually, they realized it was morning, so Aaron shut his laptop, and they went to sleep. By the time he woke up, Caleb had vanished yet again.
He really should ask how he got past the squeaky door.
Aaron couldn’t stop thinking about Caleb for the rest of the day. He made a few quick videos with his phone and uploaded them to his blog, then contemplated how to start their next conversation.
He worried he was growing attached way too fast and knew he needed to slow down before he came off as a total creeper. Sure, the guy was hot, but that didn’t mean he had to drool over him every hour of every day. It sucked that he could only see him at night, but that made their time together more special. He decided that he wanted to get to know him better, and for the next week, he did just that.
After their initial conversation, Caleb would show up out of the blue, standing beside Aaron’s bed with a flurry of questions. This was vastly different from his old habit of slipping in and going straight to sleep, and Aaron decidedly liked it.
Together the two would talk about random things, tell a few jokes, and watch a movie or two on Aaron’s laptop. Yet every morning it was as though the man never existed at all. He simply disappears without a trace. Aaron tried waking up extra early a few times to catch the guy before he left, but Caleb was never there after sunrise.
“Whatcha’ doin?”
Aaron promptly flipped the laptop upside down as he let out a pterodactyl screech. “What the fuck Caleb?”
Aaron had been sitting on his bed editing videos all evening and completely lost track of time. As much as he loved spending time with the handsome man, he was bound to break his computer one of these days the way he kept startling him like that.
Caleb just broke down laughing. “What the hell was that?”
“My flight reflex!”
The man fell to his knees, trying to keep himself together as he giggled uncontrollably. It was a fun quirk he noticed and one day planned to exploit.
Aaron grabbed his laptop back and repositioned it on his lap. Once the man regained his composure, he sucked in a breath and stood back up. “Sorry.”
“Meh.”
“What are you watching?”
Always happy to show off his content, Aaron tilted the screen so the other man could see. He was quite tall, so Caleb had to kneel to get a better view. This was the closest the two had ever been physically, and Aaron couldn’t help but notice a sudden gust of chilly air that washed over him.
As Caleb watched the screen, Aaron noticed that his heart began to pound. He soon lost focus on the video and became very interested in the way Caleb’s muscles strained against the sleeves of his shirt, and how strong his jawline was with just a little bit of stubble. The more the two talked, the worse it got and soon he realized why.
He’s crushing on Caleb.
His immediate reaction was to cut the conversation short and go to bed. Sure, he thought the man was hot, but having an actual crush? He didn’t know how to react to the feelings he was developing, especially since they hadn’t known each other for a very long time. Maybe it was just because he laughed at all of his jokes and never seemed to get angry.
Confused and desperate for advice, Aaron decided to consult with his other housemates.
Cliff was going to be his first option since Aaron didn’t have any open-minded friends to discuss such things with. Unfortunately, he wasn’t home and he instead bumped into his other housemate, Elijah.
“Well hello, sleepyhead!” Elijah chirped as he stood in the kitchen wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Half of his bleached hair was braided back, exposing a black ear gauge. The man had a bubbly personality with a constant grin on his face. He liked to tell radical stories about his life and would cook strange foods in the kitchen.
“Morning!” A third voice called as Todd popped his head up from behind the refrigerator door. His entire figure reminded Aaron of a broom. Tall, thin, and wooden. His brown hair was short and plain, with a crisp white shirt and jeans. Every now and then, the guy might change his shirt out for a blue one.
“Morning.” Aaron greeted unenthused before digging through the cupboards for something to eat. “You remember that guy I asked about? The one who was sharing a room with me?”
“Who?” Todd asked, grabbing a bottled water and closing the fridge.
“The roommate who’s not supposed to be here. I’ve been talking with him and found out his name is Caleb Morris.” He explained. He’s tall, kind and… I guess the reason you guys wouldn’t know about him is because he’s only home at night.”
“Did you just say Morris?” Elijah’s smirk instantly vanished. “Caleb Morris?”
“Wait, you know him?” Aaron asked, glad that at least one other person knew the guy. Then he was caught off guard by the man’s next words.
“Didn’t a guy named Caleb Morris go missing from around here?”
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End of Chapter 1
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