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Joel almost missed it.
He was walking home after a particularly tiring day at work, and had decided to take a detour and get himself some ice cream for his troubles. He thought maybe he could even take a walk across the tiny shopping mall where his favorite parlor was, a mall that sat comfortably close to his home and just out of range of the rest of the city.
It was a much needed break, he’d told himself. And as he licked his strawberry ice cream, he really thought he’d been right.
It all came crashing down when he spotted it, though, just to the left of some antique store he had been half heartedly staring at before his attention was forcefully picked up and relocated.
A record shop.
Joel didn’t really have much of a fascination for vinyl, or anything of the sort, really. But he’d had a record player in his childhood home, and remembered the care with which his father had held his own records when Joel was young enough to understand that art made people feel things, but not old enough to truly experience it.
The record player was gathering dust in his apartment, now. Records reminded him of delicate hands and reverent eyes, of his dad singing along to his favorite songs even though he had an awful singing voice, and of the feeling of home.
Inside that record store, tucked between other records and almost out of sight, sat Joel’s favorite album.
The ice cream was finished quickly as Joel looked from the distance, and he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone at what point he had finished it and thrown away the napkin, but suddenly he was inside the shop, standing in front of the record he’d seen, admiring the way it felt between his fingers, imagining the way the dark cover would look once the plastic wrapping it was out of the way.
Not ‘once’, he chided himself, but ‘if’. Records were expensive. He also remembered that.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
And really, the worker’s voice was soft, and his tone was polite, calm, and quiet, so Joel had no excuse for the way he jumped like someone had just screamed bloody murder right by his ear.
“Sorry,” the worker said, sheepish. He ran a hand through his bleached hair, and Joel was suddenly reminded of basic human decency.
“It’s alright,” he hurried to say. “I was just distracted.”
“What caught your eye?” the worker asked. Etho, Joel read on his name tag.
“Just…” he drifted off, gazing back at the record.
“It’s a good one,” Etho said, nodding along. He was also staring at it, almost fondly, and Joel realized that maybe, just maybe, he’d found himself someone who understood.
“It’s my favorite album,” he said, and he thought he could see Etho smile even through the mask he wore.
“Mine too.” Etho reached towards the record, picked it up in careful hands, and set it down in front of them. “It’s the deluxe edition. Comes with a 12x12 photographic booklet and three extra songs,” he said.
It would be more expensive, it meant. But it was also more exciting. He knew, right then, that hearing it play on his record player was not a simple desire anymore. The heaviness of his life hit him at once, right then in the middle of that shop he’d stumbled upon, and it felt like he could drown if he wasn’t careful.
“I think it will be in capable hands, if you buy it,” Etho said, and he was visibly smiling now. The weight eased, just a bit. “By the way you stared at it alone. If someone is gonna buy it, I’m glad it’s you, uh…”
“Joel.”
“Joel,” Etho repeated back at him, smiling again, softer this time. It made Joel look at him properly for the first time, to set the thoughts of the vinyl aside for a second to focus entirely on Etho.
He was very pretty, Joel realized.
He was a pretty guy, polite and hard-working, and also shared Joel’s music taste.
And under normal circumstances, Joel would've immediately gotten nervous and sprinted out of the store, but Etho was gentle and warm, and Joel felt safe enough to stay.
It made Joel tilt his head, blink repeatedly in an attempt to make sense of it all.
“I'm not sure if I should buy it,” Joel said. He wasn't intending to say it out loud, but it was true. The record was expensive, and the money Joel could actually spare was barely enough to cover it, so buying it wasn’t the responsible thing to do.
But goddammit, the image of it playing on his father's record player had entered his mind, and the thought of his favorite songs playing around his apartment, as he sang along to them even though he had inherited his father's terrible singing voice, was almost enough to convince him. He'd imagined finally making that one-bedroom apartment feel like home, and he wasn't sure he could just leave it, now.
“I do think it's a good idea, but it's expensive, yeah,” Etho agreed. “If you can spare a bit, though, I'll always recommend getting a record. Especially your favorite album.”
“Do you own one of these, then?” Joel asked, and tried not to make a face as he realized the question might be a bit rude.
“I’ve been saving to get it, actually,” Etho replied easily, and Joel relaxed.
Except… He frowned. “But it’s the last one.”
Etho simply shrugged. “There’ll be more at some point.”
Joel pursed his lips.
“No, really!” Etho hurried to reassure him. “I don’t know when there’ll be more, but I want you to have it, anyway.”
“Why?” he asked and Etho paused.
“Because,” he said slowly, carefully. “You looked at it the same way I do. And I would hate to keep you from it when I know how much a record can mean to a person. I may not know what a record means to you specifically, not yet, but I’ve seen enough that keeping it from you would go against everything I believe in.”
“Oh,” Joel breathed out. He looked away, and his eyes found the record on their own. “It means home, I think. And the album means safety.”
Etho nodded like he understood, and Joel believed that he did.
“It means love, for me,” he confessed. Joel’s eyes focused on him again; he was looking at the record, too. “And the album reminds me of what art looks like.” His eyes snapped back up to Joel’s, and suddenly he was sheepish again. “Sorry, you didn’t ask.”
“I wanted to know,” Joel told him, and now he was the one calm and collected, warmth in his chest and flooding until it leaked through his voice.
Joel stared at the record in silence for a few seconds longer. He really could not spare so much money, not without having planned ahead. And he wanted to hear it play inside his home, he really did, but one look at Etho was enough.
“I’ll leave it for you,” he said, and Etho’s eyes were locked on his. “But you have to promise we’ll listen to it on my record player at some point,” he said, and it was a risky request, and really just an offer at most, but Etho smiled, warm and heavy and not like he was a customer he’d just met, and, truly, Joel was a bit entranced by the look in his eyes when he looked back at him.
“Okay,” he said. Joel could hear the smile in his voice. He thought he’d like to hear it more, and see it, too, if Etho would let him.
He reached for something behind the counter, and it was only when he handed it to Joel that he realized it was a small piece of badly cut paper with a number hastily written on it.
“Message me later so I can save your number and let you know once I get the record,” he said, and his eyes were still calm, still warm, and Joel was drowning in him.
“I will,” he said. He smiled at Etho, and was sure that his eyes betrayed it all, and was delighted when the corner of Etho’s eyes just crinkled further.
He left the store. There wasn’t a bag in his hands like he had hoped, but there was a tiny piece of paper clutched between his fingers, and the weight on his chest had lifted.
So maybe, and just maybe, the little detour had actually been worth it.