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Joel had done many questionable things in his life: he’d gotten himself another job at a gasoline station in his junior year of high school so he could still afford his blasted Pornhub subscription, which he had sworn to his sister he’d canceled the moment he’d gotten busted. He’d stolen a DVD copy of The Prestige from their local convenience store and had to work there to compensate for getting caught. He’d also broken his arm once when he was ten, trying to do a cannonball in the lake near his and Grian’s old elementary school. Quite possibly the stupidest thing he ever did, and still currently practiced, was maintaining an odd and very suspicious relationship with his long-term, now ex-boyfriend.
Although the time he’d gotten matching tattoos with said ex-boyfriend could also deserve a star on the list of Joel’s Most Extremely Irrevocably Stupid Decisions of All Time.
His and his ex-boyfriend’s relationship (ha) wasn’t that interesting; their story started with a typical cliché. Joel got together with Etho, the resident basketball captain, in his junior year of high school, where Etho was a senior. Joel wasn’t the sporty kind of guy, as you could probably tell by his stature and his frequent debate competitions, but he did enjoy watching them. He couldn’t deny that his school’s sports teams were good enough to spend his time after school watching their practice games. Plus, Joel’s best friend Jimmy was also on the basketball team, and he tended to play better when his friends were watching.
Although many people assumed that Joel made the first move, Etho was the one who approached Joel first and kept making all the shots early on in their relationship. Etho did all of the firsts, but that wasn’t believable now, was it? Joel could narrate how he and Etho officially met perfectly from memory, and no one would believe he was telling the truth.
But if you desperately and honestly wanted to know—like he knew you did—fine, he’d tell you.