GFD: Fanboys - 2. Chapter 2

He walked into the store with the morning light bathing him in an ethereal glow that obscured most of his natural beauty from my eyes. At least until the door closed. And then I had to look away as I stifled a slight gasp and tried my best not to stare. Like me, he came to the store on his skateboard, and carried it by the top two wheels as he strolled up towards the front counter.

I was hoping that he would be like the last two little boys that came into the store. Just...walk in and start looking for whatever comics he was looking to buy today. But I found myself paralyzed with fear as he just got closer and closer to me by the second. Yikes!!! He's too close! WAY too close!

He looked like he was my age. Maybe a year or two younger. I say that simply because he was so damned 'pretty'. The kind of beauty that instantly made you feel insecure by comparison. His hair was a sensual shade of light blond, his eyes an inviting shade of sky blue. Stunningly beautiful without an ounce of ego. He carried his breathtaking good looks as if it was loose change in pocket.

Did he even know? He HAD to know!

As he approached the counter, just a few feet away from me, he gave me a brief smile and a nod. I wonder how many car accidents he caused on his way over here. There must be an apocalyptic trail of wreckage and twisted metal stretching from the front door of this hottie's house to the front door of this very comic book store. There's just GOT to be!

"Hey..." He said softly. So softly, that a normal person probably wouldn't have heard it at all. I only heard it because I was staring at the kissable texture of his sweet lips and became so fascinated that I could have read the most random words of conversation from a distance of ten blocks away. What the....what the FUCK was a boy like this doing just 'walking around' like us normal people??? He doesn't belong here. He belongs in the masturbatory fantasy of every gay teenage boy ALIVE! Jesus!

"Hi...." Omigod, did my voice tremble? How can my voice tremble when all I said was 'hi'. One word. Two letters. My voice didn't have enough time to tremble. Unless I was trembling before I even opened my mouth. Which is the most likely explanation, but messed up just the same.

He seemed to be looking around behind the counter, and then behind him at the aisles of the small store. He asked, "Do you know if Gary is working today? Um...I mean, like...the guy who's usually here?"

Get it together, Kevin. He's talking to you. Enjoy this while it lasts. "I know Gary." Wait...that doesn't answer his question at ALL! Arrrgh!!! "I mean...he got a phone call. I think he's taking care of something...you know...in the back." Was it cold in there? I was shivering like crazy! "He should be...b-b-back out in a minute..."

His bright blue eyes met mine, and I nearly had to shield myself from their alluring glare. AHHHH!!!! Don't look directly AT me! That makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable!

"Oh. Ok..." He said. But as I peeked back at him, I noticed him looking over my shoulder. And his eye got even more amazing as he smiled at what he saw.

WHAT? What'd I do???

"Oh wow...is that it?" He asked. And when I turned around, I saw the 'Resurrection' cutout standing proud behind me. "Oh my God, it's even better than I thought it would be! Do you mind if I take a closer look?"

Breathless, I asked, "You're...you're a fan of the movie too?"

"Movie, books, video games, side stories, toys...I'm all in! Hehehe!" That smile...I could lose myself forever in that smile. And the most amazing set of little dimples on top of it. Is this real? I'm just dreaming this, right? I'm probably at home in bed, sleeping through my alarm...and at any moment, this cute boy and I are going to start making out and stripping our clothes off...only to have me wake up in a warm, sticky, mess. Things like this don't just 'happen' at random. There are guys wandering around in Las Vegas right now who have to PAY to have something like this be even a temporary part of their lives!

"...ok..." What does that even mean? I said 'ok'. Ok to what? Who knows? I just know that he smelled really good as I stepped aside and let him take a closer look at my cutout against the wall. Like...really good. I don't know if it's possible for sunshine to actually have a fragrance of any kind...but if it did, that's what this boy smelled like. Just like sunshine.

"Whoah...it's bigger than I thought it would be. I'm not complaining though!" He said. "I can't believe they made it life-sized. That's so dope."

"Uh huh..." I mumbled quietly.

I saw him touching it. Lightly running his fingers over Adam Turner's chest in the picture. Then he pulled his hand back and said, "I can't WAIT until this hits theaters! I saw a few of the teasers on YouTube and nearly squealed out loud at how crazy it looks!"

"Um...uh huh..." I said again. SPEAK, damn you! What the hell am I doing?

Just then, Gary came back to the counter from the back room, and he smiled at the gorgeous boy standing between us. "Parker! What's up, man? I knew you'd only be a few minutes too late! Sold the last one. Sorry, bro."

The boy giggled and said, "Shut up! Don't even play with my emotions like that! You got it? I know you got them in today, because he's got one right here!" Did he...? Did he just refer to me indirectly? Oh man, I am literally going to melt all over this dingy comic book store carpet.

Gary reached under the counter, and gave the boy the same cutout package that he had given me just a few moments earlier. And just like me...the boy held it as though it were one of the last fine treasures left in the world. He actually hugged it against his chest and closed his eyes as he smiled and gave the package a little kiss.

Luckiest. Package. EVER!

That's when Gary turned to me and said, "Hey, the guy on the phone wants to buy one of the last three. I haven't even been open an hour yet, and we're already down to our last two. I told you they'd go fast."

The cute boy said, "As long as you put one aside for me, I'm happy." That smile. Seriously....that smile...

Gary said, "Oh! Kevin, this is Parker. Parker, this is Kevin. The one guy in town who can match wits with me on 'GFD' trivia any day of the week. Plus, he's got a pretty sweet collection on top of it. You two should swap info or something so you can keep ME in the loop on what's new and what's hot."

What's 'new' is me being in the room with a boy this goddamn sexy! What's 'hot' is the sweet, shapely, curve of ASS that I got a peek at when he had his back turned to me!

"Oh, really?" He smiled. 'Parker'....he smiled at me.

Gary told him, "Kevin here is a fellow collector of the 'real' stuff. Not just the lazy fan mag or the 7-11 Slurpee cup. Kevin is the real deal." I blushed as Gary's flattery caused Parker's smile to widen a bit more. Then he told me, "Parker hasn't been around these parts for too long, but he found the shop about two weeks ago. And I know a 'Day-hard' when I see one. True fans are easy to spot."

"I think he thought I was an amateur. Hehehe!" Parker said.

"You know, Parker...I told you that I could just as easily send this out to your house. You really didn't have to come all the way down here. Unless you don't trust me."

He said, "It's not that. It's just that I'm still getting my mail forwarded to the new house, and I'm sure we've already lost some stuff in the process. Or, at the very least, there were going to be some major delays. I didn't want to chance it. I need my Adam Turner/Julian Clarke sweetheart picture NOW!" Every time Parker grinned, I felt the slightest collection of jitters in my stomach. Fluttering with infatuation while I tried to keep from losing my balance and falling flat on my face right in front of him.

"Hey, Kev! Show him what you showed me!" Gary said.

"I...show...wait, what?"

"The thing you showed me on your phone." He said, and lightly placed his hand on Parker's shoulder. "Says it only cost him 75 smackers to nab this. check it out."

I took out my phone again and went to my photos folder, but found it extremely hard to breathe as I noticed Parker coming closer to look at my touch screen. I was almost hyperventilating at this point. He had to stand close enough to me for our shoulders to touch. And that warm, intoxicating, sunshine aroma made me weak in the knees.

My hands were shaking. My teeth chattering. But I attempted to keep a certain sense of cool on the surface. He was already looking at my phone, after all. I can't lose it now. not now.

"Um...yeah...so...I got this." I said, trying to speak loud enough for him to hear me.

"Wait...oh wow! DUDE! Is that a scribe???" He was excited! And he was close! And he directed those big blue eyes in my direction...with my elbow lightly touching his flat stomach through the soft fabric of his Summer t-shirt.

KISS HIM!!!!

Dammitt!!! Don't wait! Don't ask! Don't say anything at all! Just MASH your lips up against his and run out of that store before he even realizes what happens! Trust your instincts, Kevin! When you're on your deathbed 70 years from now, you'll be GLAD that you took this one idiotic and irrational moment of weakness and made it yours through a spontaneous act of pure insanity!

Do it! DO IT NOW!!!

"Where did you find this?" Parker asked me. How can he just ask me questions like this? He's fucking hot as HELL!!! Why is he talking to me???

"I...it was...online..." I whispered. Where did my voice go? This is dumb. I've been in this boy's presence for all of four minutes and I'm already willing to sacrifice my life to push him out of the way of a runaway train!

"Did you see the show? They changed it a little bit, but I kind of figured they would. Still, they made it look cool." Parker smiled at me again. His eyes really were hard to look at. They were like taking a bully's sucker punch to the stomach every time they focused on you.

"Yeah...heheheehehehehe...." Where the hell did that weird giggle come from? Was that me? Did that sound weird?

"Hey, check this out." Gary told him, ready to show him the Zero fish tank. I was so relieved to have those big blue headlights of his not looking at me anymore. I almost wanted to use the distraction to create a legitimate excuse to leave. I wanted to stay and gawk at him for as long as humanly possible, but I was also too nervous to trust myself anywhere near him. So my 'fight' and 'flee' responses were totally in conflict with one another.

I watched Parker as he and Gary shared a few grins over his 'GFD' windfall...but found myself gasping for breath as my eyes wandered over every inch of him from where I was standing. I mean...he was born with clothes on, right? There's no way that fate would be so cruel as to EVER let a boy this beautiful to ever be naked. I mean, am I right? I couldn't even imagine it. ME! A 15 year old boy who's probably broken GLOBAL records for masturbation in a single day! And I can't, for the life of me, imagine what this boy would look like without any clothes on. It was just a level of hotness that I had never been exposed to before.

I wonder if he'd object to me just hugging him from behind like the 'Resurrection' poster and sucking lightly on his neck. Just like on the cutout. Oh God, ok...now I'm getting hard. Let's not think about THAT right now!

Gary was telling him that he had other stuff in the shipment as well, and I saw Parker start rummaging through the stuff he had available. Fingers, so delicate. Arms, so long and smooth. Lips, so moist and warm. In a perfect world, he'd like boys as much as I did.

And in a perfect world, I'd have the balls to come right out and ask him.

That's when I heard the store phone ring, and Gary answered it. "Yeah. sure. I think we've got your order in the back. Let me just double check on that. Ok?" And off he went to take care of more of his morning duties.

That left me and Parker standing up at the counter by ourselves. The rest of the store was empty. And I began to fidget slightly, rocking back and forth on my feet for a few quick moments.

Feeling a bit awkward himself in the silence, Parker gave me another angelic grin. And he was like, "So...you got the first one out of the shipment, huh?" He nodded towards the cutout, and I bashfully nodded. He said, "Yeah, I was in a rush to grab mine too. I didn't want to miss this nabbing one of these for myself before they banned it for good."

"Me either..." I said.

Ok...that was good. This is good. All of it. Everything's good.

He asked me, "So...have you read the books too? Or did you just catch the movie last Summer?"

Talking. Saying words. Words that relate to the words said to you. Shouldn't be this hard. "Books. I read...I read all of the books. And...stuff."

"Yeah, me too." He grinned. "I'm so GLAD they didn't make Taryn a female in the movies. I think it would have taken something away from the whole theme of the story. You know? They had to leave out a few details, but that was to be expected."

"Uh huh..." Dammit!!! Stop SAYING that!!!

I hope I didn't look as stupid as I sounded. Because I honestly had no idea of where to go from here.

There was an uncomfortable silence that passed between us, and Parker giggled a little bit. Not for any reason. I think it was just to fill the void of merciless 'quiet' that had fallen between us. Then I found the courage to ask him, "So...I take it you've got a special place for this movie cutout...like...like I do?" It was frightening to keep talking to him so casually, but I forced myself to do it anyway.

Parker gave me the most adorable smirk. He said, "Kevin, I've got an entire wall full of 'GFD' stuff at home! Believe me! I'm actually going to put this right on my closet door in my bedroom so I can look at it every night before going to bed. I just wish I didn't have to ruin it by using a nail or a thumbtack to hang it up. I'll have to think of something else."

My breath still thin and running cold, I suggested, "There's some two side gummy tape thingies at the drug store down the block. I mean, I'm going to stand mine up, but if you were going to hang it, that would be the way to go. And it shouldn't cause any damage at all. It's pretty harmless."

"You think so? Cool. Do you know what the name of it is?"

Are we talking? Like...to each other? I feel faint.

"Yeah. I've used it before. It's actually really good. I can show you the stuff if you want." Wait...I didn't mean to say that. That slipped out.

But Parker said, "Awesome! Let me pay for this and check out the new stuff Gary brought in. Maybe you can show me where this drug store is? I want to hang this bad boy up today!" Oh wow. Oh God. What did I get myself into. Breathe, Kevin. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. No wait...now that's making me think of something else!!! Shit, now I'm getting a boner! THAT'S not good! Go down, damn you!!! Go DOWN!!!

So...at this point, my mind tried it's best to deconstruct this whole scenario into some kind of everyday logic. I mean, I don't remember finding a magic genie recently. So I highly doubt that all three of my magic wishes wrapped up in one boy just came sauntering into a comic book store just by chance. So let's take that idea out of the equation. It crossed my mind that Gary might be playing a joke on me. I mean, I don't know why he would, but he's definitely heard me whine and complain about how I don't have anybody in my life to love and understand me. Maybe this was one of his customers, and he thought it would be funny to fill him in on my one big passion...and at any moment, he's going to turn around and they're both going to scream, 'GOTCHYA'!!! I mean, that's always a possibility, right?

Or, maybe he's legit. Maybe he really is a fan of the books and the movie. Doesn't mean that he's gay. Nobody that beautiful is gay. Life just doesn't work like that. He'll either be straight, or riddled with a long list of emotional problems. Something to balance out the stunning good looks and trim physique. And he's got a LOT to balance out. He'd have to be a full blown psychopath just to get starteddown the road to normality like the rest of us.

Ok...how about this? Total whore. Right? That's got to be it. He's cute enough to get anybody he wants. He's got to be horny for, like, eighty percent of his day. He's probably got TEN boyfriends who all know each other but share because nobody wants to give him up. He might be 'Mr. Booty Call'. Oh wait, that's actually pretty hot. I'd be boyfriend number eleven if he'd let me. It ain't love, but I'll take it. Better than being a virgin for the rest of my life.

"Dude! Seriously?" Parker looked back over his shoulder at me, showing me one of the boxes. "'GFD' Nifty Archive playset! It comes with the little ropes and bookshelves and everything. Hehehe, I love it."

Ok, so....if this is a joke, he's pretty good at it. Because it seems real enough to me.

I think Gary noticed me being sheepish and quiet, wondering why I wasn't clawing my way through the boxes with as much enthusiasm as Parker was. And at that moment...I think he caught on. I mean, Gary may be straight but he's GOT to see how blazing HOT Parker was. It's not like he can just not be aware of the fact that the most amazing boy on the planet just walked into his store and smiled at him. That's not an option.

Gary looked at Parker for a second, then back up at me. A little smirk crossed his lips, and he said, "Parker...you know, seeing as Kevin here is just as big a fanboy as you are, if not more so...I'd be willing to bet he could teach you a few things." Um...what is he doing? What...what's going on here? "In fact, I was just showing him this sweet little love locket that we just got in. You know, with a little Taryn and Justin love charm on the end." Gary! Gary STOP!!! What is he DOING??? "You want to give it a look? Maybe you could grab one. Give it to your girlfriend. Or...you know...your boyfriend? Whichever." AHHHH!!!! NOOOOO!!!! Oh God, I'm going to run out of the store crying now! I can't believe he just did that.

Parker gave him a bit of a shy grin, and he just kept his eyes focused on the merchandise in the box. He said, "I might want to hold off on that. I don't have one of those yet. I'd be better off saving the money for something I can actually use." Wait...he doesn't have one of 'what' yet? A girlfriend or a boyfriend? Or either? Or both? Wait, that means the same thing. Wait, so...um...ok wait...

"That's funny, Kevin was just telling me the same thing. I'm never going to sell this thing." Gary said. I swear...he's, like...ten words away from getting a skateboard broken over the back of his head!

Parker sort of peeked at me over his shoulder, and I froze. Our eyes only connected for a moment, but he turned to look back in the box as the slightest blush came to his cheeks. "Did you get any new T-shirts in?" He asked softly.

"Not today. You might want to check back on Friday though. We're getting a flood of stuff with almost every shipment now."

"Ah...ok..." He said. His demeanor had changed slightly. He seemed a bit nervous. Don't get me wrong, it was insanely cute, but I couldn't help but feel responsible for him suddenly being so uncomfortable. "I'll come back on Friday. You know...to check." He paid for his cardboard cutout and I paid for mine, folding it back up and putting it back in the package. Parker seemed peek over at me once or twice during the whole folding process. I don't know if it was in a good way or a bad way. Was he wondering the same things about me? I was too scared to peek back at him for more than a split second.

"Kevin will show you where the drug store is. Won't you, Kev?" Gary smiled. That's it, I'm going to kill him. I'm going to literally cut his throat with the same blade he used to open that damn box!

"Ok..." Parker said. His voice had gotten so soft. So gentle. He is nervous, isn't he? Why is he nervous? I know why I'M nervous. But is he nervous in a good way or a bad way? I might be able to gauge some kind of reaction from him if I could find the courage to look him in the face. Jesus Christ, his eyes are so BLUE!

"Yeah. It's just...it's not far." I mumbled. I got my skateboard and he got his, the two of us leaving the store together.

I was surprised that he just held onto his board instead of dropping it down to the concrete right away. I mean, I thought he would just skate on over really quick and then strut his pretty ass right out of my life all over again. Instead, he chose to casually stroll by my side with a grin. The morning sun caught every last strand of spun gold on his head...giving him a divine halo of blond splendor that just took my breath away.

"So..." He started. And then there was a long pause, and he giggled to himself. "...I take it you have a special place for your cutout too, huh?"

"Uh huh..." FUCK! I'm never saying that again! I do have an actual vocabulary, I swear I do. "I mean, uhhh...I've practically got a whole shrine of 'GFD' stuff, so...it's going right in the center of all that madness."

Just breathe, Kevin. Just breathe. Oops...looked him in the eyes. Too much blue. Like an overdose of blue. Look away! LOOK AWAY!

"Me too. I'm a total 'Day-hard'. I'll have to make a bit more room than I expected to." He said. Then Parker paused for another moment, and he gently asked me, "Big fan of Adam Turner? Julian Clark?"

As a warm shiver ran through me, I tried to act normal as I said..."Uh huh..." DAMMIT!

"Yeah." Parker said. "I like them too."

Was that a hint? A clue? A confession? What was that? Why did he ask me that?

I think he peeked over at me again. This time I peeked back. And after a few awkward seconds of eye tag, we both shared a quick giggle as we continued down the block to the drug store. I don't know what this is, but it sure feels good.

This day may just prove to be interesting after all.