CRIMINY!

“I used to stress myself out trying to pretend I was straight and cover up the gay, but...”

He sighs, almost like he’s a little exhausted.

Gently, Joe presses the ice under his eye, where a bruise is quickly darkening over the swelling skin.

“I mean, she was on drugs, but she was still a lady,” he explains, and then frowns. “I wasn’t going to hit a lady.”

He shifts the pack so the soothing coldness can touch the bridge of his nose, too.

Then again, what life? It really seems like he’s just in the passenger seat while someone else drives his existence, and not in a Jesus-take-the-wheel way. More like he’s just letting things happen, and can’t bring himself to care about the outcome. 

His sexuality comes into question (nothing new) and Joe’s brows shoot up.

“Asexual? I---I, well, no---not---” he clears his throat, “---I’m not asexual. I’m plenty interested in using my---dick, just, not for any of that.”

Joe purses his lips, and mulls over his own words; he sounds confusing. He doesn’t want to use his dick for his wife?... Where does that lead the mind?

Gosh, this fellow already knows he’s a porn star. And what are the chances he’ll ever see him again?

Here I am, once again. I’m torn into pieces. Can’t deny it, can’t pretend. Just thought you were the blog.

That’s what Kevin sees when he looks at Joe? It has to be what he’s seen over time, because even if he’s insecure about how he comes off, Joe knows there’s no way he’s that transparent in every day life. 

His gaze drops, and his jaw goes a little slack. Without looking at it, he reaches for the bill to slide it closer to himself. 

“Gee...sure...” he mumbles, one hand resting idly on the bill while he grabs his wallet with the other. 

Part of him is horrified to hear things he hadn’t even processed fully in his own head before. The other part is tickled that his companion would be so raw and honest, and that he seems to know Joe better than he knows himself. 

Mostly horrified, though. Because hearing all that out loud makes it sound ridiculous. Like he really thinks he’ll just be straight again when he gets back home? He sounds like an idiot. Maybe he is one. 

Maybe it’ll be a few days before he can call Lisa again. 

The bill is paid and Joe remains stuck in his thoughts another moment or two, and stuck in his seat. Finally, after he scrubs a hand over his face, he rests his elbows on the table and looks at Kevin with his chin in his hand. 

“Am I a total dummy? The guy you just described sounds clueless.”

He looks down at the table, like the answer is written there.

“How’d you do that? How---how’d you---”

His voice goes out for a moment, and he can’t find the words.

“---just---gosh.” He raises his eyes back to look at him. “Should I be losing sleep over...us? Is that what you’re saying? Do you want me to stress about it? And---and I’ll never---never be---” he lowers his voice, “---straight, you’re right. You just---gosh---you just---you just kind of blew up my whole little world, there.”

He covers his face. 

But---is it just Kevin that can tell he’s not that kind of guy? It’s only obvious to him because Joe has confessed as much with steamy and sweet kisses, and over-the-pants stuff, and intimate words and loving affection...

Right?

“No... no offense taken,” he lies, and lowers his hand to look across the table. “But c’mon, you don’t have to be vulgar...”

You know you’re right, he thinks.

Slyly, he shifts his foot under the table to rest it beside Kevin’s, giving it a little nudge. Lisa used to try and play footsie all the time when she’d come over for dinner. Joe would pretend not to notice, and try to keep his distance, because it made him too nervous. But now, he sees the fun in it. And the comfort.

But, he really wants to shift the focus from Lisa. Isn’t that the whole point of ignoring her call tonight? And he’s really, kind of, sort of extremely anxious about that, and its repercussions. He needs Kevin to talk about something else.

He forces himself to stop touching the ring, and clasps his hands with the roll of his eyes. It wasn’t that arranged. He did have a say in it. And he decided to go ahead with it even after knowing the truth about himself. He’d just really been hoping the truth could be bent, or better yet, changed.

It couldn’t be, though. Everything is still the same, he’s just put himself, Lisa and Kevin in an unimaginably painful position, and everyone is suffering because he wants to seem like he’s doing the right thing. He couldn’t be further from that, though. 

While last night was especially bothersome, it’s nerve wracking every time she calls. Even if they aren’t in the heat of the moment, and they’re just tangled on the couch making up investigators or tossing grapes at each others’ faces to catch in their mouths, the shrill ring of the telephone always kills the mood. It’s a gross reminder of the real world, a needle prodding at their perfect bubble to burst it wide open.  Even just the mention of her threatens to take the wind right out of their sails. 

It’s not even allowed, technically, so Joe asks himself internally why he answers every time. Why does he build his schedule around her calls? It made sense when he first got there, because talking to her and preserving her feelings were his top priorities. 

What about Kevin’s feelings? Joe thinks it hurts more to see his companion’s mood plummet than it does to imagine Lisa going to voicemail. Before, he would argue that not answering her call would immediately raise suspicion. But now that he thinks about it, he’s never really lied to Lisa before... why wouldn’t she believe some excuse about why he missed her call? 

And it won’t be nearly as scary as lying to the Mission President. He doesn’t have to look anyone in the eyes or worry about his body language giving him away. What’s the worst that could happen?...

“Let’s not worry about that today,” he says after a moment, watching the road so maybe Elder Price won’t see the little bit of anxiety on his face as he consciously makes the decision to ignore Lisa for the night. “I mean... maybe our meeting ran over. Or we had to switch times. Or the phone broke. I don’t know...”

Speeding up, Joe starts toward their sushi spot. 

“C’mon, slowpoke!”

“You don’t have to---to not be a prude!” he assures him. “Listen, I’m a prude. I’m a Latter-Day Saint! You know---a Mormon?”

That could have been enough of a sufficient answer, but Joe has even more proof of his sexually-puritan ways: he holds up his hand to show off his wedding ring.

“I’m married---and I don’t even sleep with my wife.”

He keeps his eyes on the ring---the lie---on his finger, twiddling it a little as he speaks. That sentence sounds a lot worse out loud than it did in his head. It makes him sound---totally gay. Or maybe just like a weirdo... but in his paranoia, he quickly changes the subject. Kind of.

In his haze, Joe remembers a joke his bishop used to tell, and his panic begins to quell. He doesn’t even have enough awareness to notice/be horrified by the fact Saint is using his feet to hold Joe’s shoulders down, and he hates feet.

“Hey---” he starts, and a tiny smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “You know, I’d---I’d rather have ab---a bottle in front of me...” ---his smile grows wider--- “...than a frontal lobotomy.”

His eyes watch closely for a reaction.

“Get it?”

And his expression falls once more.

“He asked about Mindy Sanders...” he answers, with a slight roll of the eyes. “I almost confused her story with Mandy Patterson, but then I remembered the whole point of having two easily confused names.”

It had been on purpose, because who would lie and make up two people with such similar names? It was so obvious it was clever. They’d concocted the two women together, then made up a whole story about how they had trouble telling their names apart.

“Patterson---patty-cake---children. Mandy has a baby (out of wedlock--but she can be forgiven!) and Mindy is a teenage lifeguard. Sanders---sandy---beach---water. So, Mandy has the baby and Mindy is the lifeguard.”

The mission president had gotten a real kick out of it and even shared an anecdote about his missionary days and how he had three investigators named Bill, Will and Gil. Joe might have laughed a little too hard at it, since he was so relieved that their lie went undetected.

“But don’t worry, alright? I’m plenty capable of keeping our cover, Elder. I went to school for this, y’know. Sort of...”

As he pulls his bike from the rack outside, his forehead creases and he lowers his voice.

“I mean, I didn’t think I’d use my degree to lie to my mission president, but, hey, life throws you lots of curves, right?”

As they start down the street, Joe swerves to ride a little closer to his companion.