Well. Work time was over. And it was starting to get late. All Leon wanted right now was to cool down and relax. The menthol helped that quite a bit. Especially here outside. On this nice and cool bench. Today had been especially boring. Nothing went on. Everything was peaceful. So much so that on a few separate occasions Leon just thought about leaving. But that wouldn’t leave a very good impression with the boss. So he had to suck it up.
Haaaaaahhhhhh.....
As the smoke escaped his mouth and lungs, the blonde slumped down on the bench. Now he particularly looked like a good-for-nothing gang member. But that was just because of his appearance which did not help him out in the least.
From day one, Devon had caused his parents trouble. It would seem impossible for a days old baby to cause problems for adopted parents, but who he had been naturally born to would be a shadow that haunted both him and his adoptive parents until his disappearance at seventeen. The teenage daughter of a drug lord had become pregnant with the child of a hitman for the other side of the drug world. That father, a very dangerous man, was who had visited the Reed’s that day, just to see his son once. He’d left, without harming anyone, but not without terrifying the Reeds. Devon, now the son of a posh, previously infertile couple, grew up in the best neighborhood, went to the finest schools, and had a fantastic future ahead of him.
Or, he would have, if he hadn’t been involved in Lacrosse, which had taken him out of his posh, northern suburb to the inner city LA streets. If there hadn’t been a boy on the inner city team with a roguish smile and wicked eyes that drove him mad every time he met them. If he hadn’t started missing the bus home to sneak over to the boy’s house. If he hadn’t learned about underprivileged people and hunger and homelessness. If he hadn’t been given a black eye and sent permanently away after offering to buy groceries for the family. He’d told his parents that he’d been beat up by a homeless man, had gotten lost on his way home, and they’d bought it.
It was in his junior year that Devon decided he didn’t want the life he’d been given. He decided he was going to run, but also knew that he needed to be practical about it. He’d begun systematically withdrawing cash from his parents accounts; they were both too loaded and too busy to notice, and he’d stashed it in a lock box in the back of his closet. It had taken a few months and knowing the right people, but before his 17th birthday he’d managed to learn who he really was, the true story of his birth, and to create a new identity for himself.
Reed Davis
The day that Devon Reed turned seventeen was also the day he disappeared. He’d been home alone at his parents house, had walked out with a plain black backpack and hadn’t been seen again. The authorities have been searching but no results had been found. A young man who went by the name of Reed sat at a bar, waiting to talk to the general manager when this story aired. His name was Reed Davis, he was nineteen years old, and he was looking for a job to be able to pay Rent, to survive in Los Angeles. He’d run away from Miami, run away from family that didn’t support that he was queer, that he didn’t have a sexual preference that he could define.
As he learned more about himself, got settled into his new life, Reed experimented, sometimes he danced at a local strip club, sometimes he wanted to crossdress and so sometimes he did, he’d get better tips as a bartender at the bar he worked at that way, with eyeliner and makeup to make him look more like what the customers expected of a lower-end bar. He wouldn’t go to Stanford and go to law school, he had enough money in the bank to make it through if things went south, and he worked to pay his rent. He’d reclaimed the streets he was born on, and he loved every minute of his life. Devon Reed was gone, he wouldn’t be found, his parents would be sad and looking for their lost little boy for the rest of forever. Reed was free, and there was no going back.
