Tied Together [Book 2 In The Dom and the Daddy Series] ON HIATUS

Chapter 5: The Chance Encounter

🔅FLASHBACK🔅
3 years before meeting Mew.

This takes place a few months after Gulf ended up on the streets.
Keep in mind he is still a scared seventeen year old boy trying to survive after everything he knows has been ripped away from him.

Gulf had been working as a dish washer at a hole in the wall chicken shack. The manager had offered to let him sleep on the sofa in the tiny break room if he worked for half the pay and kept the place clean. At seventeen, with no money and no high school diploma, Gulf didn't have any other viable options so he agreed.

Every night Gulf would curl up on that lumpy thread bare sofa, hugging his backpack to his chest and cry himself to sleep trying to understand how his once happy life had become such a total shit show. The dreams were always the same, they played out in his mind like old home movies.

Dinner around the table with mom and dad, church bar-b-cues and bake sales, school trips and birthday parties, all normal family stuff. Until he decided to drop the mask and be honest. Huh what a shitty idea that turned out to be.

Gulf's family had never been rich or even what you would consider "well-off" but they were comfortable in their cozy 2 bedroom house. His dad was an office worker desperately trying to climb the ladder to middle management and his mom worked as a receptionist at their church.

Both his parents were devoutly religious and very involved with their community. Image was everything and straying from the path was not an option. Gulf had been attending catechism classes since elementary school and was never allowed to miss service. He was always an obedient and respectful child and his parents often bragged about him to their friends and co-workers. Everything in their world seemed perfect.

However cracks in the foundation of that perfect world began to appear when Gulf, at twelve years old, discovered that he enjoyed watching the football players more than the cheerleaders at the school games. He was very aware of how the church and his parents viewed homosexuality. In his innocent, childlike mind he told himself it was a mistake and if he prayed hard enough it would go away. But no matter how hard he prayed the desire never faded.

For the next 3 years Gulf managed to hide his feelings. He played the part his parents and all their friends expected him to play and even dated the prettiest girl in school, the Pastor's daughter. He excelled at sports and kept his grades up earning many awards.

Behind his bright smile and boundless popularity the truth loomed like a snake ready to strike. During morning assembly on the first day of his sophomore year it finally did, in the form of a new transfer student.