freefromsin | (Open - At the edge of town)

Caleb scrambles out of the car before it even comes to a complete stop. With his backpack clutched in one hand, he slams the door shut with the other. "Fuck you!" The car takes off, tires squealing, and Caleb gives its bumper a kick as it flies past him, shouting after it, "Fucking perv!"

He rubs one gently trembling hand with the other and stares after the car, making sure it's well and truly gone. Heart hammering in his chest, Caleb lets out a breath and glanced around. It's not cold, but he hugs his jacket closer to his body all the same, wishing he was wearing more than just a tank top underneath. There's probably good money to be made in prostitution, but he hadn't gotten quite that desperate yet. He guesses his good hitch-hiking luck had to run out at some point, and of course it had to happen now. But that's okay, because at least he's gotten to his destination, and he hopefully won't need to do any more hitching right away.

It's dusk, the start of a nice, clear night, but too late to look for his old friend. Street lights bathe him in pale yellow, as he heads father into town. Better find a place to spend the night.

[ooc: Hi! I'm new and so is Caleb. Feel free to tag him when he forcefully ejected himself from the car, or when he's somewhere in town. He's mostly just gonna wander until he finds a public bench he can crash on for the night. Also I guess if you could read his Permissions page before tagging that'd be cool. Unfortunately I'm gonna be gone ALL DAY tomorrow, but I'm impatient and wanted to post this now. So any loose threads I'll get back to on Sunday. ...And this OOC section is about to be longer than my post so I'll stop now.]

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Caleb startles out of his thoughts when a little dog practically barrels into him, jumping up against his leg.

"Hey little guy," he says, reaching down to pet the dog. At the sound of a human voice, he looks up at the guy who must be the dog's owner with a friendly smile. "It's okay. He's cute."

Caleb grabs up the leash and straights up, offering it over. "He must have used his super dog strength to get away from you, huh?"

Joel laughs softly, his cheeks flushing faintly in embarrassment as he gestures down to Dane, whose cries seem to have tapered off, at least for the time being. "I'm afraid I'm, um... I'm easily distracted at the moment," he says, passing one hand gently over Dane's small head as the baby gives another loud squawk.

Reaching for the leash, he smiles, still a bit shy. "Thanks." Huxley doesn't seem like he wants to leave, though, instead choosing to jump around at the stranger's feet before he rolls over onto his back and shows his belly, his tail wagging furiously.

Caleb reaches down to pet the cute puppy again, since the little guy clearly wants him to. He looks up at the dog's owner. "First time father?" he guesses. The baby must be awfully young to fit in that little chest carrier thing.

"Yeah, is it that painfully obvious?" Joel asks with a laugh, although he doesn't mind at all. He thinks it must be obvious, between how easily distracted he is and how much time he spends staring down at Dane's perfect little face. He already has a head full of dark hair, making him very obviously Joel's son.

"I'm Joel," he says. "Um, Joel Waters-Baker. I own the bookstore?" It's said as a question, simply because he's never seen the young man before and doesn't know if he knows the town at all.

"Just a little," Caleb says with a small grin. Even someone like him, who hadn't exactly spent a lot of time around dads, recognized the signs.

A bookstore? That piques his interest. "I'm Caleb. I'm new to the area by like twenty minutes, so I haven't seen the bookstore, but I already know you have the coolest job in town."

Joel laughs again, but a compliment to the store, even from someone who's never seen it before, is enough to put him at ease and he feels a little less awkward with the statement. "It's a pretty great job," he agrees, pleased. "Better yet that I get to share it with my husband."

Because Crossroads had been nice before, but with Spencer there, it's far better.

"You've only just arrived, though?" he asks. "Do you have somewhere you need to be? I mean... is someone meeting you?"

"Oh..." Caleb is too startled by his comment to hide his surprise. He's known gay people, obviously, but none of them have been married, or...had a baby.

"Sort of. I'm looking for an old friend, though he doesn't know I'm here. I wasn't exactly able to get ahold of him, so...if I can manage to find him: surprise," he says with a wan smile. He has no idea how Gabe will react to him showing up out of the blue. He's not even sure how to feel yet.

"Who is it, if you don't mind me asking? I just... I've lived here a long time, I see a lot of people with the store, I might know him and be able to tell you where to find him," Joel offers, bouncing Dane gently as his crying finally starts to taper off. Huxley seems content enough now just to sniff around and Joel can actually give to full attention to Caleb.

He's not sure if Caleb means it will be a good surprise, not with that smile he's wearing, but if he's here he's going to find him sooner or later. Joel doesn't mind helping him make it sooner.

"Oh, really? His name is Gabe, last name Fletcher. He'd be pretty new, a couple of months at the most," Caleb says, hopeful that Joel knows him. It'd make his search easier, anyway, as his first stop was going to be wherever The Cove offices are located.

"Oh," Joel says, a little surprised. "I do know of him, actually. I think he works at the pub."

Beyond that, he really doesn't know much about Gabe except that he fell asleep on their couch at their baby shower and that he made Spencer deeply uncomfortable with his comments about their marriage, but if he and Caleb are friends, Joel doesn't want to mention that. He has held a grudge, however, disliking that anyone upset his husband during their baby shower.

"Oh, cool," Caleb says, feeling a spike of relief, followed by anxiety. He has a lot of mixed emotions involving Gabe, but he pushes them aside for the moment.

"Um, the pub? Does this place only have one bar?" He glances around, wondering if this is just a tiny beach town, or what.

"Well, there's Finn's Pub and then there's Watersong, but Watersong isn't quite like anything else," Joel says, thinking of Lara's place with a faint grin. It's been awhile since he's been in there, not that he'd ever been much for going to bars in the first place, but when he'd wanted a drink it had been the best place to go for the company more than anything.

"We're not that big a town," he admits. "Especially in the winter once the tourists are gone."

"Oh really? In what way?" Caleb asks, more interested in an exciting bar, than what this place is like in the winter. He's not gonna be around by then, for one.

He isn't sure telling someone the bar is run by a siren matriarch is the best introduction to the town, so he settles on saying, "There's an escort service run out of the bar as well and the owner is perfectly capable of kicking someone's ass should they make her angry, but she's also a very good friend to have." There's really no other way to describe Lara. She's loyal and fierce and brilliant. For a long time Joel's mother had clearly hoped they might end up together, but he'd never been able to explain to her why it was better he and Lara were friends instead of anything more.

An escort service? Not such a sleepy little town after all.

"Thanks for the heads up, I might check it out. ...The bar, not the escort service," he says, and is still the guy he was a few months ago enough to blush a little when he says it. "Although the book store sounds even better. Is it close by?"

"Yeah, not far," he says, then shifts so he can point toward the boardwalk. "Just down that road a few blocks, closer to the boardwalk. It's called Crossroads." A little over a year ago it would have been easy to miss with the way he'd kept it dark and closed off, but now that Spencer is there with him, they open the shutters and the windows, often leaving the door wide open in the warm summer months. It's become a little harder to miss.

(Open - At the edge of town)

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