He sighed, “At the gym,” in reply, leaving out the part about him getting rammed up against the shower wall. He shifted his duffel bag on his shoulder and wondered what she would have said if he had spoken his thoughts.
She grabbed his ear and roughly pulled him inside.
“Ow!” he shouted indignantly.
Glaring, Leslie growled, “Go to your room and think about how stupid you are!” She took his duffel bag before shoving him away.
He wondered he she noticed he was walking oddly. He went up the stairs where Preston was standing at the top, chuckling. Harrison wanted to hit him.
“Why are you limping?” He asked after Harrison walked past him and moved down the hallway, intent on making it to the guest room, which was unofficially ‘his room.’
He kept asking questions that Harrison did not want him to ask and definitely did not want to answer, “I think I pulled something while I was on the treadmill. I’ll put some muscle cream on it tonight and I’ll go see a doctor when I get the chance.” He knew they worried about him too much so if he didn’t tell them he would do something about it, they would automatically cart him off to the emergency room.
Preston just nodded and left him alone (for once). He went to his room and plopped on the queen size bed, grabbing the remote off of the nightstand. He turned on the TV a flipped through the channels until he found Most Xtreme Elimination Challenge on Spike. Life was good.
After a short while, Leslie came into his room, shutting the door behind her and leaning back against it, her arms folded across her chest.
“I pulled all of your clothes out of your duffel. They’re in the wash.”
“Thanks, Les.” She hated it when he called her that as much as he hated it when she called him Harry.
She unfolded her arms and held up an empty condom wrapper in one hand, “So is this why you were so late coming here from the gym?”
Harrison felt his heart freeze. It felt as though someone had poured ice in his veins.
“You found some girl and figured that sex was more important than your family?”
“Les, that’s not it. I’m really stressed-“
“It’s nice to know that you think about how we feel, Harrison. Guess that’s how you repay us for caring about you and opening our home to you, right? Blowing us off to screw some tramp in a gym? We were waiting for you, worried about you, and you were just too busy to think about that. What a wonderful thing to do!”
“Please, just let me-”
“I hope you’re happy, Harry,” she said, a sad expression warping her face. She dropped the wrapper on the beige carpeted floor and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Harrison felt absolutely horrible. Why hadn’t he thrown away the wrapper? He could remember the moment when the man had tossed it in his bag while grabbing a bottle of conditioner to use as lubricant.
He didn’t know it would hurt her that much…
Harrison turned off the TV and curled up on the bed. He didn’t take off his jeans. He didn’t get under the covers. He just laid there for what felt like hours, just thinking. He thought about everything; his Mom, his Dad, Preston, Leslie, pickles, Grant, Jimmy, his other employees, those teenagers, penguins. He thought about penguins a lot. And puffins. He loved puffins…
Eventually, he fell asleep. He dreamt he was a puffin. He swam around, ate, and slept. One thing mattered: survival. Life was so simple and single-minded. It was perfect. It was bliss.
And when he woke up that morning, all he could think was that he wished he was a puffin. He went downstairs, still wearing the clothes he had slept in the night before. Preston, Leslie, and Melanie sat in the warm, sunny breakfast nook eating thick, golden pancakes.
“Hey, Uncle Harry,” Melanie said pleasantly. He smiled and sat next to her where an empty place setting was waiting for him, wincing as his still sore behind made contact with the chair. It had been the first time he had ever bottomed and he had no doubt he would feel the effects for a few days.
“How’s your leg?” Preston asked before cramming a fork full of dripping pancake into his mouth.
“Its fine,” Harrison said quickly, using his fork to put pancakes on his plate.
Leslie frowned, “What was wrong with your leg?”
“He was limping around last night. Said he pulled it on a treadmill,” explained Preston, “It looked like someone had take a barbell and shoved it up his ass.”
Melanie laughed while Leslie gave Harrison a wide-eyed questioning look. He gave her a sad smile and stared down at his plate. Her jaw dropped and she rose from the table, “I need to go get some things from the laundry room. Harry, come help me fold.”
He sighed and followed her to the laundry room. As soon as he was in, she shut the door and frowned at him.
“Harrison, was that condom wrapper from having sex with a man?”
“Maybe,” he said quietly, “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
Her frown deepened, “Why didn’t you tell us you were gay?”
“Well, gee, I tend to lose my home when people find out so pardon me for hiding it,” he snarled, crossing his arms over his chest like a child.
Her jaw dropped in shock, “Is that why Grant kicked you out?” He nodded.
“I brought this guy home. It was the first time I had ever brought anyone home… Grant walked in and freaked out. Told me to get out. Told me he never wanted to see my revolting face ever again. Told me I was disgusting.”
Leslie pulled him into a hug. “You poor baby,” she said, kissing his cheek, “I’m sorry, so sorry.” He loosely hugged her back, glad for the comfort.
“What you did at the gym still wasn’t right, but I’m forgiving you just this once.” She kissed his cheek again and pulled away, “We’ll go get your things this weekend, ok?”
Harrison nodded and glanced at the clock radio attached to the wall, “I should be getting to work soon. And I have two important meetings today. We can talk about this more later if you want to, alright?”
She left and he dug around in the dryer, pulling out an army green t-shirt, a pair of extra long heathered gray slacks, and black and red argyle socks. He dressed quickly and found his beaten orange high-tops in his nearly empty duffel. He pulled them on and left the laundry room, walking on the cuffs of his pants.
He gave everyone a kiss goodbye, not even finishing his breakfast, and hurried out the door. He had to go to his old apartment and grab a suit. He dreaded facing Grant on his way over there, but found it was for nothing when he got there.
He grabbed his suit from his closet and hurried on to work where he shaved and brushed his teeth in the restroom they had in the back room for employee use..
Harrison had never been self-conscious about his looks. He knew he was attractive, but not in a conceited way. It was just a fact. He had smooth skin that tanned easily, a body he kept in shape, and a pleasant face. He had well defined cheek bones, a strong angled chin and a thin nose with a small dent in the bridge from a baseball incident as a child. People told him he looked like Orlando Bloom, but not girly-Legolas Orlando Bloom, but more like Pirates of the Caribbean/Ned Kelly scruffy Orlando Bloom. He didn’t really care, unable to tell if it was a compliment or an insult and not really bothering to formulate an opinion either way. He sighed and started getting the store ready to open before he hurried off to his meetings for the day.
His first meeting was with a rep from a leasing company that had a small store in a new commercial development. He was looking into opening his second store and thought it was the perfect place to do it. It was in a good spot, near a bunch of fast food restaurants and retail stores and a movie theater. That meant teenagers making and spending money and that meant business.
His second meeting was with the bank. He’d paid off the loan he’d taken out to open Turtle pretty quickly since the store had done so well and he was fairly certain they would give him a second loan to open a second store. He already had fifty grand saved up so it shouldn’t be too hard. When you didn’t spend half of your income it was easy to pay off debts and save up.
So he counted the drawer, straightened shelves, put new releases out on display and got ready to take his deposit from yesterday’s earnings to the bank.
It was half an hour till they opened when Keith, one of his employees, showed up with a grin, “Morning, boss.”
“I will never understand why you guys insist on calling me that,” Harrison replied. He didn’t really like Keith, but he had applied during a desperate time and the few others that applied had not passed the background check.
Keith took off his jacket and threw it into the back room without looking to see where it went and wrote down the time on his time card. He then put Yellowcard on the PA and started stocking the coolers with drinks. “So what’s on the agenda today?”
Harrison frowned, “Uuum, make the list of what I need to order form those food suppliers. Make up some sales or specials or something and…. Try and get rid of some of the promotional stuff we’ve got in the backroom. It’s just cluttering it up.”
Record companies would send them free samplers, stickers, download cards, and other things. Most of the time they didn’t have a place to put it and it just stayed in boxes in the back so it was just piled up back there.
Harrison went into the restroom and changed into his suit, a navy blue suit with a pale blue collared shirt underneath and a patterned blue tie. He felt like a GQ tool…
He wore a brown belt with a silver buckle and brown leather shoes and a fancy silver watch that made him look dignified and successful, just like Dad would have wanted. He had bought him the suit years ago and Harrison rarely wore it, once or twice a year at most for weddings or business meetings. He was just a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy.
Keith wolf-whistled at him as he left the back room, getting ready to go to the leasing company meeting, “Looking pretty hot there, boss,” he chuckled.
Harrison frowned, uncomfortable with the blatant leer on Keith’s face. “I didn’t realize you were gay, Keith,” he replied, trying to turn his apprehension into humor. Keith hadn’t been working there long and Harrison just could not like him and moments like this only made it worse.
“Technically I’m bi, not gay,” Keith replied, surprising Harrison with his bold honesty. After hiding his own orientation so desperately, someone who just came out and said it shocked him. He gaped for a moment.
Keith leaned over and pushed up on his mouth, closing it. “Don’t open it unless you man on using it, boss-man,” he chuckled. Harrison glared and he just smiled, “Unless you are making an offer, of course.”
Clenching his teeth, Harrison grated out, “Keith, I haven’t really made it a secret that I don’t like you. Now you are by all means sexually harassing me. I take it that you don’t like your job.”
With a wicked smile, Keith answered, “I love my job, Harrison. And I think you’re gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. I also know who and what you are. I think that you need me because if you keep a secret like that bottled up inside, it’ll drive you insane.”
Harrison glared heavily, then looked away to stare at the ground silently. Time ticked by as Ok Go played over the stereo.
He fled the store as quickly as possible.