Page 105 of Out of the Storm

Gary

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Gary biked to the mall. He’d had a busy morning hosting his show and then biking around town selling advertisements. And every minute that he’d been away from Jeff, all he’d been able to think about was seeing Jeff again.

When Gary arrived, he took a seat in the food court. Over the last few months, he’d learned that Jeff came by the food court often, typically to pay random visits to Brandon in between his times cleaning the restrooms and emptying trash cans. Hopefully, Gary would catch him soon.

While Gary was waiting for Jeff to make an appearance, he noticed Brandon behind the pretzel stand and waved. Brandon motioned for him to come over.

Gary stood back up and headed toward the pretzel stand. “Hey, Brandon,” he said as he approached. “Think Jeff will be by soon?”

“Nah, he couldn’t come in today,” Brandon said. “He called me this morning. Told me to tell you. I think he said he left a message on your machine, but he still wanted me to know too in case you were too busy to check.”

“Oh.” Gary sighed, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “Yeah, I haven’t been home since ten. Did Jeff say why he wasn’t coming in?”

“No, sorry. Probably because of Don, though.”

Gary tilted his head. Did Jeff tell Brandon that Don had called?

“What makes you say that?”

“Don fucking pestered him yesterday, I think, but I can’t be sure. Last night, I saw Don over at O’Henry’s, and he was all ‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Brandon, especially since Jeff turned his nose up at my invitation.’ Guess that must mean that Don talked to him or something. Fucking Don. God, I hate that piece of shit.”

Gary rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, me too.”

Darn, Jeff had seemed fine earlier in the morning. Or... mostly fine? Geez. Maybe he wasn’t fine. Gary had half a mind to follow through with punching Don in the nose.

“I better bike to his house and check on him,” Gary said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem.” Brandon handed Gary a pretzel. “On the house. Tell Jeff I said that Don’s a shithead. I mean, he knows that, but still.”

Gary smiled a little. “Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

After scarfing down the pretzel on his way out of the mall, Gary hopped on his bike and rushed over to Jeff’s. Sweat formed on his brow as he pedaled through the city, the sun relentless in the late spring sky. All of this running around was really helping him burn through the mountain-sized amount of caffeine he’d had this morning. But worry was fueling him too. Hopefully Jeff was okay. While Gary liked keeping busy when he was upset himself, he knew what it was like to betooupset to work. Heck, he had nearly been too flustered by the business with his family to even host his show last night. He couldn’t really blame Jeff for being too upset to clean toilets right now. Still, he wished Jeff would have come back over to be with him, rather than staying home by himself.

Gary’s stomach sank when he pulled up to Jeff’s house. Jeff’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Maybe he wasn’t home? After parking his bike, Gary ran up the steps to knock, but no oneanswered. Worry twisted inside of him. God, what if something had happened to Jeff?

Holding onto the tiny hope that maybe Jeff was waiting for him at his house, Gary biked home. Unfortunately, when he got there, there was no sign of Jeff. He hurried inside to check his answering machine.

“Hey, radio man. I’m calling out of work today. I have something I need to do this afternoon. Just something I forgot about. I’ll come by later, okay?”

Well... that was kind of a relief. Jeff sounded... happy? Excited? Optimistic? Whatever it was, he sounded better than he had this morning. Hopefully that meant everything was okay. Or maybe even better than okay.

Even though Jeff’s message probably should have put him at ease, nervousness continued to cause Gary’s stomach to roil, and he ended up feeling sick for the rest of the day. Hosting his show proved to be a bit of a distraction, but every half hour, he found himself checking the window to see if Jeff would simply show up in the middle ofTell Me S’more. In between checking the window and trying to be a moderately entertaining radio show host, Gary kept an eye on the clock too, counting the minutes until his show was over, when he hoped Jeff would either come by or call. Sitting with low-level worry in his stomach for so many hours was proving to be a special form of torture.

Finally, one minute after eleven, the phone rang.

“Hello?” Gary answered.

“Hey,” Jeff said.

“Thank God.” Gary let out a forceful exhale. “I was worried.”

“I’m okay,” Jeff said. He hesitated for just a second before adding, “But I think I’ll stay here tonight.”

“Oh.” Gary’s stomach was suddenly churning with worry again. “Is everything okay?”

“Not . . . really.”

“What’s wrong?”

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