Out There - 2. Chapter Two: A Whole Bunch of Brady

There, I put it out there. I had just invited him to hang out on a Friday night with my friends and I. Ok, so it wasn’t much, just a trip to the movies and then going to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Lil’ Mickey’s. I know it sounds sleazy and somewhat tacky, but our town really isn’t that big. It also helps that it has the most killer cheeseburger I have ever eaten.

That’s not the focus right now anyway. I had just asked some one that I found extremely cute to hang out with my posse and I, on a FRIDAY. Okay, so it wasn’t a big deal, but to a single, gay sixteen year old, it was.

“Uh… you’re friends won’t mind will they?” He questioned as he turned his gaze from his window to my eyes. There they were those solid stone gray eyes. I liked it when he set those eyes upon me. I stopped at a stop sign and locked the gaze between our eyes.

“I know they won’t.” I assured him, sounding as confident as I could, although I was really weak in the knees at that particular moment. “They are just as friendly as I am.” I broke the graze to start driving again. “But if you really don’t want to go, you don’t have to.” I offered him a way out, because I wasn’t too sure if he wanted to go. He just continued to look at me.

“Oh I want to go.” He reassured me with his heart-melting smile. “I just need to make sure its okay with my dad first.” He said as I turned down his street. “I just need to check and see if my curfew hasn’t changed since we moved. Do you have any idea what time you guys are leaving?” He asked in his smooth masculine voice.

“Not really sure.” I replied while sneaking a peek at his groin. He looked amazing right at that moment. The way he was positioned in the passengers seat, his jeans were pulled to tight and they hugged him in all the right places. “But I know it will be some time around six, because we want to go to the seven fifteen showing. We are also going to go to Lil’ Mickey’s. We are going to eat first, we will probably do something after the movie lets out. But everyone’s curfew is at twelve any way.” I said as I brought my focus back to the road.

“That sounds good. I’ll give you a call after I talk to my dad about going out with you and your friends tonight.” He said as I turned onto Emerson Boulevard. “It’s that house right up there.” I followed the direction of his finger to the big brick house with my eyes. This was one of the nicest houses in on this street. It looked as if it were designed for royalty.

I made a sharp right turn to go through the tall Iron Gate to pull in his drive way. I came to a stop right at the front of his door. I noticed the big black SUV from yesterday parked outside of the garage. He turned back to get his bag and I couldn’t help but to notice the way his bicep flexed underneath the long sleeved polo that he was wearing. ‘God, he has nice arms’ I thought to my self as he turned to catch me looking at his muscled arm.

“So, I’ll call you then?” he asked as he lifted the door handle to get out. He smiled at me and lifted his arm to look at it. “Just making sure there wasn’t nothing on my sleeve.” He said as he lowered his hand and began to step out.

“Yeah call me, I’m sure that you’ll have a good time if you come.” I reassured as I felt my cheeks burn from the blush that had just spread across them. “I’ll see you later.” I said as he began to shut the door.

“Yeah, later.” He smiled, shut the door, and turned. He then proceeded to walk to his large, white front door. I watched his ass as he climbed the front steps and began to drive after the show was over.

*****

When I got home I took my bag up stairs to my room to put away for the weekend. As I entered I looked around to take in the view of my tidy room, every thing was where it should be and I liked it that way. I dropped my bag by my desk and went straight for the bathroom to get ready for our Friday night on the town. I made sure that I looked extra good, that way I might have a chance of impressing Brady.

Wait, did I say impress Brady. I could never do that, just because I was gay didn’t mean that everyone was gay. I have a hard time grasping that sometimes, especially when I see a cute guy, I can’t help but to think that I might possibly have a shot, until I see him with a girl. I had a feeling this was what was going to happed between Brady and I. So I didn’t put much more thought into what I was going to wear.

As I buttoned the top button on my shirt I picked up the phone and dialed the only girl’s number I had ever asked for, Ally’s. As it began to ring I started to slip on a fresh pair of jeans.

“Hello?” I heard the soft voice answer after the fifth ring.

“Shit.” I cursed as I dropped the phone to my feet. I had lost the grip that my shoulder and ear had on it while I was trying to button those damn button fly jeans.

“Sorry.” I responded as I place the phone back to my ear. “I dropped the phone.” I told her as I turned to put some cologne on. “Is it cool if some one else comes along with us?” I asked her as I placed the bottle back down on my dresser.

“Yeah, did you meet a hot little chick in detention?” She teased as I heard her slip a tee shirt on over her head.

“No.” I said bluntly as I turned to set on my bed, and stared putting my shoes on. “My new friend, Brady Williams, didn’t have nothing to do tonight and so I invited him to come.” I finished as I placed my right foot on the floor.

“He’s the hot new guy who came into our biology class late on Thursday, wasn’t he?” She questioned.

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. I didn’t like that she was calling my future husband hot. Wait, did I just say my future husband. God, I have to get a grip on reality before I get too wrapped up in something that doesn’t even exist, and probably never will exist.

“I don’t mind if he comes.” She said I could hear her digging around in a drawer for something. “Hey, I’m going to get off of here and fix my hair, so I’ll see you around six fifteen at Lil Mickey’s. Oh yeah I’m going to pick up Brent. So I’ll see you later.” She said.

“Okay, bye.” I replied and turned the phone off. I looked at the clock and seen that it was five forty and decided to head down stair. I went to the kitchen to get a quick glass of water and found Tyler bent over in the refrigerator trying to find something to eat.

“You know, there is not a damn thing in here that doesn’t have to be cooked.” He stated as I looked over his shoulder to see what he found so interesting.

“Here you go lazy ass, mom left this for you this morning and told me to tell you to order a pizza tonight if you wanted to.” I reached him a crisp twenty from my wallet and proceeded to the sink for a quick drink.

As I turned the running water off and leaned up against the counter, I looked at the clock on the stove, it read five fifty. I thought that Brady would have called by now, but I hadn’t heard his voice since he closed my car door. I was beginning to worry if he really wanted to come with us at all. I mean this was his first week in a new town, maybe he didn’t feel like making new friends yet or maybe his dad wouldn’t let him go with us, because he really doesn’t know us. I was starting to get worried because I would have to leave here in a few short minutes, if I were to be on time. I wouldn’t normally worry about it, but I never did give him my cell phone number to call if I had already left.

I started to make my way toward the door that lead into the garage when I was caught off guard by the phone ringing. I ran to the end table by the sofa and picked it up.

“Hello?” I answered in a rushed voice.

“Sounds like I just caught you.” The deep smooth voice said in a chuckle.

“You waited to the last minute to call didn’t you.” I scolded while placing my hand on my hip.

“That’s my style I guess you could say.” He said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“I think I should just leave you at home alone tonight.” I said in a serious voice. I heard him sign into the mouthpiece. I could tell that was bad so I added, “I’m just playing.”

“Oh.” I heard the smile come back across his face. There was a silence that followed that I enjoyed, all I could hear was his soothing breath as I was standing next to the table.

“Well I have to go.” I broke the silence. “I’ll be there in a minute.” I assured him before I hung up the phone.

I was backed out of the garage and pulling into his drive way two minutes latter. As I sat there staring at the front door of his house, I couldn’t decide if I should honk the horn or go to his front door and ring the bell. I faced to look out the front windshield and started drumming my fingers on the steering wheel in time of the song that was blasting on the radio. If I went and rang his door bell that would seem more date-ish, you know like I was picking him up to take him out to buy him dinner or something sweet like that. If I honked the horn that would be more of the friend way to do it, it would seem a little ruder, but that was the two options I was stuck with. I really didn’t know what to do. I wish that I was a little smoother at these things, but I become a damned nervous wreck and I hate that.

As I turned to look at his front door, I realized that I didn’t have to worry about that, because he was setting in the passengers seat already with his seat belt buckled.

“I didn’t know if you were going to come back to Earth and join us anytime soon.” He said as he released and small chuckle and just continued to stare at me.

I couldn’t help to smile at him as his gray eyes settled on my blue ones.

“You know you have the most vivid eyes I have ever seen on a person. They are very intriguing.” He turned to look at the clock in the dash bored, before I could even processed what he had just said. “I thought we were supposed to be there a six fifteen.” He stated as I came back to reality.

“Yeah I’m running behind.” I said in a sort distant tone. I looked at the clock and realized just how late we where. “Shit.” I cursed and began to drive.

It was six twenty-seven by the time I finally stopped out side of Lil’ Mickey’s.

“So this is the place we are eating at?” he asked as I got out of the car and started to make my way to the door. He followed suit.

“Hey, don’t judge you haven’t even eaten here before. This place has un-freaking-believable cheese burgers.” I said as I pushed open the door and held it open for him. He stepped in and I could tell that the smell had hit him. I loved the way this placed smelled, like a fresh grilled cheeseburger and vanilla cheesecake. I forgot to mention that the cheesecake at this place was the bomb. It was to damn good.

As I looked over the heads setting in the booths and tables I finally spotted Ally and Brent.

“Over there, they are.” I told him as I began to maneuver my way through the maze of table. I’ll say one thing, the feng shui of this place was not great, but the food made up for it. I looked over my shoulder to see that Brady was still standing in the doorway, looking somewhat lost and confused. “Come on, we need to hurry, we’re already late.” I beckoned to him.

He slowly began to walk and finally caught up with me. We made our way to the table were Ally and Brent were placed at. I slide into the empty booth and made myself comfortable. I looked up see that Brady was just standing there at the end of the table with a sort of helpless look plastered on his face.

“Umm… I think that it will be alright if you set down.” I told him.

“Oh… yeah… um… right.” He babbled as he sat down beside of me. I didn’t know what had him acting this way till I looked across from me and saw the scowl on Brent’s face. Brent probably scared him shitless.

“Everyone this is Brady, he’s new and didn’t have anything to do tonight so I invited him to come with us.” I introduced him.

He blushed and gave everyone a small wave. In the short time I have known him I had never seen him this shy, well he wasn’t with me any way.

“Hey there handsome.” Ally said as she winked at him. This caused his blush to deepen even more.

We sat there, ate and laughed for close to an hour. Well all of us except for Brent, but he was just like this with new people. It was sort of hard for him to open up to new people, he was just kind of backwards like that, and I didn’t give it that much thought.

As we finished up our food and paid we made our way down the street to catch the movie that we had planned on seeing. We bought our tickets and went in to set down. I was the first one down the isle and sat in the center, Brady took the seat to my left and Ally took the seat to my right, leaving Brent to take the remaining seat beside of Ally. I looked over at him and smiled and the furrow in his brow just deepened.

I made a mental note to call him tonight after we got back home and ask him what his deal was. But I didn’t focus on it much longer because the dancing cell phones lit up the screen and started singing a jingle to remind the audience to turn off their cell phone. It was incredibly tacky. I turned to look at Brady and seen his eyes bright with laughter.

I put my arms on the armrest, just as I normally do when I watch a movie, but my left armrest seemed to already be occupied. I looked down to see my arm on top of a pair of large masculine hands that was gripping the edge of the piece of plastic attached to the seats.

I looked up to see Brady staring at me. I looked at him for what seemed to be an eternity, before I returned my gaze to the movie and removed my arm from his.

The movie was good and it was over around nine so we still had three hours till curfew and nothing to do.

“What time do you have to be back?” I asked Brady as we exited the movie theaters.

“Not until twelve.” He replied with a big smile.

“That’s our curfew too.” Ally pointed out with an excited squeal.

“You’re being over dramatic again.” Brent scolded while rolling his eye. Someone was in a bad mood tonight and I had no idea why. At that moment I wanted a cream filled pie that way I could have thrown it in his face. He had been an asshole all night, and I did not know the reasoning behind it.

“Well, we still have about three hours to kill before we have to been home, how should we waste it?” I asked looking around at every one’s faces in the dark.

“Well, I for one feel like calling it a night.” Brent interjected. “I think that it has pretty much been ruined any way.” He said giving a very pointed look in Brady’s direction.

I had no fucking idea what was eating at him but it was really starting to piss me off. I couldn’t help but to think that he had a problem with Brady, but I don’t know why. Am I the only one that has looked at him? It is damn near impossible to not notice this boy’s beauty, which should make anyone like him. At least for vapid and shallow reasons anyway.

“Well, I do have to get up early in the morning.” Ally stated. “I have to take my little sister to something, I really don’t know what the hell it is, but my parents told me that I had to take her there.” She said as she started rummaging through her high fashion, sparkly purse. She brought her hand up a few seconds later holding her car keys. “So I think I will take Brent home and call it a night too.” She said as she started walking toward her vehicle. Brent was quick to follow.

“Uh… Well we can all hang out at my place tomorrow if you want to.” I offered while Brent ducked his head into the car with out paying any attention to me what so ever.

“Yeah, sure, that sounds awesome.” Ally offered as she got in and shut the door.

I was stunned. They had left with out even giving leaving early a second thought. It wasn’t Ally’s fault she had to leave so early, but Brent was being a major ass. I was definitely calling him when I got home to give him a piece of my mind.

“So what do you want to do?” Brady asked me in his easy to listen to voice. I looked over at him, his eyes were staring at me, and I liked it.

“I don’t know. I’m not the one that usually decides these things. What do you want to do?” I responded and looked up into his beautiful gray eyes. He had a nice jaw line. It was square, but not boxy. His cheek bones where high, and all I wanted to do at that moment was lean into him and let his arms embrace me in his warmth. That was my deepest desire at that precise moment in time.

“Well how about you show me around?” he said as I was snapped back into reality.

“Huh?” I asked dumfounded. I had just been off in wet dream land and was oh so brutally brought back.

“Uh… would you show me around, you know that way I don’t get lost if I decide to venture out on my own?” He asked and looked at me with a pleading look.

“Of course I will show you around.” I reassured him and we turned to get into my car.

I took him to were everyone that I knew hung out. We made our way to the bowling ally, then to the mall where he bought a new tee shirt, then to the park.

I always liked the park at night. It was, in my opinion, romantic and I knew that for the first date that I ever took a boy on I would take him to the park that way we could lay on top of one of the grassy hills and just look up at the stars and hold hands. It sounds really corny, I know, but to me that would be the sweetest thing that a guy could ever do for me, but I always knew that I would have to share this with a guy and not vice verse.

I pulled into the park and shut off the engine and got out. Brady soon followed suit as I went over to the swings and took a seat. I lost my self in the sky and didn’t realize that I had until the familiar voice that I had grown fond of brought me back.

“I used to go to the park all the time in my old town.” He said as I looked over to see him occupying the empty swing next to me. “I would go there at night all by my self and just look up at the stars and think about life, and what ever else popped into my mind.” He revealed to me as he looked up at the big dipper.

“I really hope that you like it here.” I informed him in a quite voice.

“I think I will.” He said as he took his gaze from the sky and focused it upon me. “I really think that I will.”

I broke our gaze and looked back up at the sky to notice that it was a full moon and if I wasn’t imagining it, it looked bigger.

I don’t know how late we stayed at the park but I had never had anyone to star gazing with me. I decided that I liked having to share the vast open sky with someone else. It would never bother me to share anything with Brady. We finally decided that we should get back seeing how it was eleven thirty, because we didn’t want to be late for our curfews.

The drive back was filled of conversation about our childhoods and what it would be like to be like to go skinny-dipping. No, it’s not what you thinking, I did not have any dirty thoughts during this topic. Maybe.

I pulled into his driveway and looked over at him. He was already looking at me.

“I had a really good time tonight. Especially at the park.” He said, I noticed that he had nice full lips. I would have given anything to let those lips be the first ones that I had ever kissed.

“Yeah me too.” I told him. “It’s usually a bit more fun but Brent was just having an off night.” I reassured myself more than him.

“I-I better get in the house that way you can leave. I wouldn’t want to make you late for your curfew.” He said looking at me. I met his eyes and just gazed openly and longingly into them. I don’t know how long we just sat there staring at each other before he turned a lifted the door handle yet another time to leave me and go into his house.

“Bye.” I said as he shut the door.

Realization hit me on the five-minute drive home. I was falling for this boy and I mean hopelessly falling for this him. I was not in lust with him any more, I was in, and I guess you could say, like. I was attracted to him, but my feelings ran deeper than physical attraction, I most defiantly found that out tonight. This was the first time that I had ever felt this way about any one. There were guys that I found myself attracted to, but I never had anything more than pure physical attraction for them, and that was it. But this boy had some how in two days come in and conquered my mind and my heart.

I pulled into the garage, shut off the engine and let the door down. I just sat in my car and thought about what all had happened tonight. I had let him in on one thing that no one knew about me, my star gazing addiction. I really liked this boy.

I finally got out of the car and went in the door that led to the living room, to find the TV still on but all the lights were off. I went and looked down at the couch to see my little brother fast asleep with a pizza box open in front of him along with the empty DVD case of his favorite movie.

I covered him with the blanket that I usually placed over my mother when she crashed on the couch and I made my way up to my room to change into more comfortable clothes.

I sat down on my bed, grabbed my cell phone and dialed Brent’s number.

“Hello?” he answered in a groggy sounding voice, after the third ring had finished.

“What the hell was your deal tonight asshole?” I wasted no time in showing him how pissed I really was.

“Damn it, I didn’t have a deal.” He replied equally as hateful.

“Sure could have fooled me. You acted like you had a ten foot pole rammed up your ass.” I scolded him. “Brady probably thought that you were an asshole.”

“Well sorry that I didn’t behave myself in front of Brady the Great.” He shot sarcastically.

“Oh my freaking god, you are jealous of him, aren’t you.” I said beginning to give him the fifth degree.

“No I’m not.” He said but I could tell by the tone in his voice that the green-eyed monster wanted to rear it’s ugly head.

“You know just because I made a new friend don’t mean that I will drop you.” I reassured him. “Plus he hasn’t got any friends and I figured he could hang with us.”

“We don’t need anyone else.” He said flatly.

“Well I know that we don’t need anyone else, but he is new and he don’t have any friends and I didn’t want him to be home alone on a Friday night.” I gave him an explanation.

“He took my seat.” He stated in a very immature voice.

“I’ll sit beside you the next time.” I told him. “There’s not a reason for you to worry, I’m not trying to replace you. I could never do that, we were friends before we were born.” I reminded him

Brent and I had been friends since we were born because our mothers had been best friends since they were in high school. So when we were little, we were always around each other, and that is the way things had turned out. I liked it that way too.

“I know.” He said with an ashamed tone. “We have been best friends since we could walk. I just get overly jealous sometimes and you know that. I promise I will give Brady a chance.” He informed me.

“That’s good you little shit.” I told him.

“Chris can I tell you something?” he asked.

‘Uh… yeah shoot.” I gave him permission to say what he wanted to.

“Let me off phone so I can go to bed you dirty son of a bitch.” He demanded.

“Good night then prince charming.” With that I hung up.

I laid my phone on the nightstand beside my bed and turned on the TV. I slowly fell asleep during my thoughts of Brady dripping wet in nothing but a towel.

I was rudely awoken by the sound of my phone vibrating against the wood of my nightstand. I looked over at the digital clock that read one fifteen, picked up that wretched phone and answered it.

“This better be good.” I said somewhat hatefully into the mouthpiece.

“Was you asleep.” I heard the voice that could lift my spirits at anytime.

“A little.” I replied in somewhat sweeter tone.

“Oh…” He sighed. “I guess I’ll let you get back to sleeping.”

“No, no, don’t do that.” I said a little to hastily.

“Good, I was bored and couldn’t sleep. I am really sorry about waking you up though.” He apologized.

“Really, it’s no problem.” I said sitting up. “I like midnight phone calls.”

“I wanted to talk to someone and you’re the only person whose number I have.” He said quickly into the phone. That made me sound like I was his last resort, but I looked over it.

“Well what do you have on your mind to talk about?” I asked him.

“Have you ever flown any were?” he asked.

“No, but that is on my to do list though, because I really want to travel when I grow up.” I told him, this was a weird thing to call and ask someone about at one thirty in the morning. “What about you, have you ever flown any where?”

“Yeah, but only here.” He informed me. “I used to live in Connecticut.”

“Wow. Were did you used to live in Connecticut?” I questioned, trying to get more information about the boy that I was infatuated with.

“In a small nameless town. You would have never heard of it before.” He informed me.

“Why did you move here?” I pushed further, so I could have all the questions that I wanted answered, this way I could get to know him better.

“My dad’s job caused him to transfer here. He works for a big law firm and they have offices all over the nation. They told him that they wanted him out here in Kansas to head up the firm in this state.” He told me.

“What does your mom do?” I further asked.

“Uh… she’s not with us any more. She died when I was twelve.” He told me. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world for asking about his mother.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, uh… I didn’t know. I really am sorry.” I apologized through my foot filled mouth.

“Its ok, seriously, you had no idea man. It’s alright.” He assured me.

His mom really missed out, and I felt sorry for him, because I know it must be hard to lose a parent when you are young. My dad leaving us never really affected me that much because I didn’t know him, but I could still imagine that it would have had a great impact if he would have waited ‘till I was older.

“So… you play basketball?” I asked.

“Yeah. I do.” He confirmed and went into detail about his old high school basketball team and how they had made it to region finals but lost to a prep school that probably gave the referees an extra “tip”.

******

“So where do you see yourself twenty years from now?” he asked as I lay on my bed. I looked over at the clock and it now read five thirty. I have just spent the past four and a half hours talking to the boy that I was obsessing about since I met him. I found out a lot about him so far, and it just didn’t seem enough. I knew that his favorite color was electric blue and that his favorite topping on pizza was pineapple, which I would have never guessed. Also that when he was a little kid that he asked for an easy bake oven for Christmas, but his dad had made his mom get him a toy machine gun instead.

“I know that I will be settled in my business and I will probably still be living here.” I told him.

“Are you going to get married?” He asked. Oh, no. He had to stray to the topic of marriage and the only way that I would ever be married is if they legalized same sex unions, but I couldn’t just tell him that.

‘Uh… I don’t know, I’ll have to see when I get there.” I told him, deciding that was a good enough answer with out fully lying to him. “What about you? Where do you see your self twenty years from now?” I shot back.

“Well… hmm… I will be a successful lawyer like my dad. I will be a big shot in my law firm and will probably live here unless my work moves me else where.” He said through as stifled yawn.

“So you like it here that much do you?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I really think I do.” He said and I could tell that sleep was about to over take him. “I have made a new best friend and two other friends that I have a feeling that I will get close to.”

“I’m sorry that Brent was being an ass tonight. He never acts like that besides for when he gets jealous.” I informed him.

“So he was jealous of me?” he asked seeming somewhat shocked.

“Yeah, but I talked to him and straightened everything out, so every thing should be cool tomorrow when you all come and hang out with me at my house.” I told him.

“So I left that good of an impression on you, a second hang out session in two days. That’s good.” He told me. There was silence after that, not an uncomfortable one, but a silence that said that he was happy to have made a new friend. I wonder if he would ever like me the way that I liked him, but yet again, his voice brought me back down to earth.

“You do know that it is almost six in the morning don’t you?” he asked as I took another look at the clock. My eyelids suddenly felt heavy and I knew that I needed to get to sleep.

“Yeah.” I managed to get out through a yawn. I didn’t realize how sleepy I was until that very second. But I was really tired.

“I think I am going to get off of here and go to sleep. I think that I am totally worn out.” He said.

“Well have a good night.” I told him

“I am really glad that you’re my friend Chris, really I am.” He told me and hung up.