Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:18:45 -0600
From: Cameron Maxx <cameron.maxx@gmail.com>
Subject: Growing Up Josh 2

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This story is a work of FICTION. While actual people and/or events may
inspire some characters and situations, no implications are intended or
should be drawn. Any similarities to actual events or persons are strictly
coincidental.

THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF CONSENSUAL SEXUAL ACTS BETWEEN
TWO ADULT MALES. IT IS INTENDED FOR A MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY! IF YOU FIND
THIS TYPE OF MATERIAL OFFENSIVE, IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, OR UNDER THE LEGAL
AGE TO VIEW SUCH MATERIAL THEN PLEASE READ NO FURTHER.

Copyright 2007 All original material contained here within is copyrighted
by the author, Cameron Maxx, and may not be reproduced in any form without
express written consent. The Nifty Archive is granted a non-exclusive,
worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, and non-cancelable license to display
this work.

PLEASE NOTE: Feedback, both positive and negative, is welcomed and greatly
appreciated. Abusive correspondence or flames of any kind will, of course,
be strictly ignored - cameron.maxx@gmail.com
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INTRODUCTION

Thanks to everyone who contacted me about Chapter 1. The response was
totally unexpected and much appreciated. Who knew so many people would read
a newly posted story and respond in such short order? Not me!

For the reader who suggested the story lacked focus and continuity, please
rest assured that there will be fewer jumps back and forth in the timeline
in coming chapters. As the story progresses it will be a more straight
forward narrative, but for now at least I feel there is no other way to
establish the characters as I want to without going back and forth.

Please keep reading and, as always, feel free to contact me at any
time. Thanks, again!

-Cameron


CHAPTER 2

When the phone rang on a balmy night in early August I was sitting on my
bed hunched over my laptop concentrating deeply on the lecture I was typing
for my upcoming fall semester classes. I didn't look at the caller
I.D. before answering, "hello?"

Abbey's voice answered from the other end of the line, "hello to you."

Hearing her voice a smile spread across my face and I immediately put the
computer aside. "What are you ... why haven't you called me back the last
couple of weeks?"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's just been crazy busy at work and Cadee's
been at the school until 9:00 every fucking night for the last week. I
swear to Christ, Alex, that drill team is going to be the death of me."

I chuckled. "Please, you know you love being the mother of the senior
captain of the drill team. Don't even fucking lie to me. You eat that shit
up."

"Uhhh ... I don't know why I'd expect any support from you. Why did I even
call you?"

"Probably because you knew, if you didn't, I was just going to continue
leaving threatening voicemails until finally you'd be afraid to even check
your messages anymore."

I heard her laugh softly that she replied, "I know. I'm the worst friend
ever. I've just been so tired by the time I get home all I can do is
collapse on the bed with a glass of wine and start snoring like the middle
age bitch I am."

"Whatever, that is no excuse. I always call you back the same day no matter
what shit I have going on. You totally are the worst friend ever."

"Fuck off, you big homo. If you were a single mother of two kids we'd see
how much energy you have."

"Bitch," I replied.

"And, I don't know where you get off thinking you can rate anyone's
friendship," she continued in a deeply sarcastic tone. "As I recall, I
wasn't the one who left his best friend and broke her kid's hearts to move
to California and follow his own selfish dream."

"Oh, you bitch!" I laughed out loud. "How dare you, madam? That was a low
blow."

"I know. Sorry, but I just had to nip that self-righteous bullshit of yours
right in the bud."

"Okay. Fair enough. So, other than you being the overworked mom of the
year, what else is going on? I was really starting to think you all had
forgotten me."

"Really? Cadee told me she'd just e-mailed you like last week."

"Yeah, she did. But it was really brief. She gave me an update on the
latest boy toy and gave me all the details about the high kick routine
they're doing this year for competition. But that was it. She didn't
mention anything about you or Josh."

The was a longer than normal pause before Abbey said, "Listen, Alex
... uhhmmm, that's actually why I'm calling you. It's about Josh."

I felt a rush of confusion mixed with, despite my best efforts to push it
away, a little panic invade my gut. "What about Josh? Is he okay? Is
everything okay?"

"Yes. Yes, crazy. Everything is okay. What is it with you two?"

"Well, it's just that I haven't heard from him in over a month and then
when you paused you just sounded ... I don't know. It's just - what do you
mean, what's with the two of us?"

"What I mean is that Cadee and I always feel like we're the fucking go
betweens for you two. I mean, you worry about him like a goddamn mother hen
and he gets, I don't know, weird whenever one of us talks about you. It's
enough to drive someone crazy. I don't know why you can't just talk to each
other like you used to."

I thought about her words for a minute. "Abbey, you know it's always been a
little strange since I left Austin. I mean, you know we've stayed in touch
but it just seems like he's always harbored a certain ill will towards me
since then. Plus, we're dudes. Dudes don't just decide to talk their shit
out all the time."

"Yeah, but you're gay," she laughed. "You should be better than all that
normal dude talk."

"Oh, boy. There you go with the gay stuff again. ANYWAY! So, tell me what's
going on with him."

Her pause stretched out until it became an almost uncomfortable silence. I
was about to ask her again when she said, "well, here's the thing. And, I
know this is a really big favor to ask of you, so please know that you can
say no. I mean, you need to be honest and just say no if you don't think
it's a good idea."

"Abbey, I know I can say no. Fucking just spit it out, will you?"

"Okay," and then another long pause.

"Abbey?"

"Okay. As you know he's done his first two years of undergrad here at on of
the local colleges and, I don't know if he's told you this or not, but over
the last 6 months or so, he's been applying to other out of state
universities."

She stopped there as if she was expecting me to jump in, but I had no idea
where she was going. So, I simply ask, "and?"

"Well, he got accepted to a couple of them including UCLA and that's the
one he really wants to go to. Now he's got a couple of small scholarships
and student loans, of course, but with the out of state fees and everything
... I mean, it's just too much money for me to swing so, uhhmmm - we were
wondering if maybe he could live with you?"

I don't know what I was expecting her to say, but it certainly was not
that. Completely caught off guard my brain couldn't quite keep up and I
didn't say anything at all.

After a moment Abbey said, "listen if you need to say no I'll totally
understand of course and ..."

I cut her off while she was still speaking, "is Josh okay with this? Have
you even talked to him about this?"

There was only a brief pause before I heard her take a small breath and
then she said, "Alex, it was his idea."

----

In the four years that passed between the day I left Texas and that night
in August when Abbey called, much had changed. That, I guess, goes without
say. My life in California felt very blessed and I loved waking up everyday
under those blue skies and being so close to the ocean. The life I'd left
behind in Austin felt almost alien. It was like I'd watched somebody else's
life happening; like I was watching from an outside point of view instead
of actually living day to day behind my own eyes. As much as I loved my
friendship with Abbey and all my other friends, my life in Austin had just,
in the end, been so unfulfilling and disconnected from who I really was
that it was hard to feel a sense of time wasted when I looked back on it.

Joshua was, in particular, a real bright spot in those years. He was a
great fucking kid and I'd come to love him like he was my little brother
and had been from birth. I enjoyed talking to him; I enjoyed listening to
him. He was both very smart and a real smartass. He made me laugh. I was
very protective of him and had to fight an irrational urge to kill anyone
who hurt him in any way even if it was done unintentionally. I'd have done
anything for him and couldn't have loved him more had he been my own flesh
and blood. Even though he rarely expressed it in any verbal or concrete
way, I knew he cared a lot for me, too. Abbey told me from time to time
about something he'd do or say that let her know how much I meant to
him. Even though he still got a kick out of pushing my buttons and pissing
me off, at the end of the day it was still plain to see that he wanted my
approval and attention. He liked the fact that whenever we were in a group
of people together, he always got my attention first and foremost. I knew
that I was probably a little too indulgent with him and Abbey would have to
gripe at me on occasion reminding me that Cadee loved me, too. But it was
true, without a doubt, that having him around made the bad days a little
better.

But, much of that had changed when I left for California. While I still
talked to Abbey and Cadee via e-mail or phone at least once or twice a
week, I heard from Josh only sporadically. It would sometimes be over a
month between our conversations. I'd get an e-mail out of nowhere from time
to time, almost always brief, giving me a quick updates on sports or other
high school stuff. Later, after graduation when he was going to college
there in Austin, those same brief e-mails would be about the classes he was
taking or something like that. They almost never mentioned anything
personal and I came to think of them as his "business updates."

Then there were the phone calls; the middle-of-the-night-out-of-nowhere
phone calls that would come maybe 4 or 5 times a year. These I coined
"dispatches from the land of Josh," and I'd always smile when I said
it. Taken out of context these calls could be considered inconsiderate at
best and just really rude at worst. He'd usually call me sometime between
midnight and 3:00 in the morning. Most of the time the call would come on a
Friday or Saturday night but it did happen on weekdays every once in a
while as well. Those weekday calls were, I must admit, somewhat less
charming. And yet, it was solely my choice to leave the cell phone on all
night long.

The dispatches were always entertaining at their least and absolutely
heartwarming at their best. Josh was almost always in a good mood when he
called and talkative to the point of being a little giddy. I didn't know if
he drank or not, and knew better than to ask, but always thought he was at
least a little buzzed when he called. He was chatty, energetic, and
funny. The conversations came easily and we'd usually laugh a lot. On
almost every occasion he'd have that energy, that childlike enthusiasm that
I remembered from before I told him I was leaving Texas. It was refreshing
in a way that few things are.

At the end of one of his dispatches that had come about a year or so before
he came to live with me, he said something he'd never said before. It had
been a particularly long phone conversation and we covered a lot of
territory. It was probably the longest we'd been on the phone with each
other since I'd moved. We'd covered everything from our old, favorite topic
of music to most everything in between. He'd even told me about the girl
he'd been dating for a few months; her name was Andrea and he seemed to
really like her.

As the conversation wound down and after a short, comfortable silence he
said, "I miss you."

Without a moment's hesitation I replied, "I miss you too, buddy."

A moment passed before he said, quite sober sounding now, "I really fucking
miss you and I have since that day you left."

It was the first time, in all these years, that I'd ever heard him say that
word. For a kid his age he very rarely cussed and when he did it was never
that word. The impact of hearing him say that word in addition to
everything he was saying left me momentarily speechless.

Finally, I said, "Joshua, I'm sorry."

He answered almost immediately, "Don't be sorry. You didn't do anything
wrong. I just ... I just should have said something a long time ago. I just
- I just wanted you to know."

A few days after the dispatch that had ended so dramatically I got a call
from Abbey saying that she and Cadee were coming for a visit in a couple of
weeks. It had been over two years since I'd last seen them and I was
thrilled to hear they were coming. I assumed Josh was coming, too. I was
wrong. He didn't.

In fact another five months would pass before I heard anything from him at
all. There were no phone calls, no e-mails; nothing at all.

----

I told Abbey that, of course, Josh could live at my place. That night on
the phone we worked out some other details. She wanted to pay me rent; I
insisted that she not. Then she wanted to pay for all his living expenses,
too. Again I refused. After another hour of debate and haggling we agreed
she'd pay me $200 a month to help with additional groceries and other
assorted sundries. I still didn't want to take it, but realized it was
important to her to do so and finally accepted.

His first semester at UCLA would start at the same time as my classes at
USC. That was only two weeks away. Despite promising Abbey that I wouldn't
do anything special, I never the less did a lot. I fleshed out my guest
bedroom into something that would be a more suitable full time suite for
him. I got a new mattress for the queen size bed and all new bedding. I
should have stopped there, but didn't. The room only had one small dresser
which I knew wouldn't be enough, so it got sold to a friend and I ended up
buying a whole new group of furniture including three and five drawer
dressers as well as two side tables.

I remembered his favorite color was blue, so ended up doing some repainting
in the room, too. Half way through the paint job I paused, sweaty hair
sticking to my forehead, and looked at myself in the mirror sitting atop
one of the new dressers.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked my reflected image. It didn't
answer. I knew I was acting like a crazy person and couldn't quite explain
why. I decided it was too late to worry about that now and went back to
painting.

Josh and I exchanged a few e-mails during those two weeks. We didn't talk
about too much. He gave me his thanks for agreeing, told me how excited he
was about the move, and a few days before he was to fly out he sent his
flight information so I could pick him up at LAX. I hadn't seen him, not in
person at least, since that day four years ago in front of the house in
Austin. In fact, the most recent picture that Abbey had sent me was from
Christmas two years ago when he was 18. So, while I didn't know quite what
to expect I had no worries about picking him out of the crowd when I got to
the airport.

I awoke early the day he was to arrive, too early. I was tired and rather
annoyed that my eyes had popped open. Giving up on trying to go back to
sleep, I got up and hopped in the shower. His flight should arrive at about
2:00 that afternoon so I figured I'd do a little tidying up around the
house before heading out. I'd also gotten a small LCD flat screen TV for
his room and it was going to be delivered sometime before noon.

After my shower, I did something I rarely did. I stood naked in front of
the mirror and appraised my 35-year-old body. It could be worse. In fact,
it had been worse. Growing up I'd always been the fat kid. After graduating
from high school, my mom had paid for me to have a personal trainer and
during my first two years at college, I'd lost some 83 pounds. Standing at
6'4" I was lucky that I wore the weight better than I would have had I been
even a littler shorter. In straight world I would have been a little
chubby; in gay world I was fat. Even after dropping the weight, I was still
wore a size 36 pant. I wanted to be a 34. After I finished up with college,
during the years I was working with Abbey in Austin, I'd let myself go to
some degree and had put back on about 40 pounds. When I left for
California, I knew I needed to make a change. And I did.

After getting settled in, I joined a gym and ran every day. In less than a
year I'd lost those 40 pounds again and in the next year lost an additional
40. I finally fit in those 34 pants I wanted. Sure, I couldn't breathe too
deep when I wore them, but I could wear them! Looking in the mirror now, I
fought the urge to look away. For better or worse, in my eyes I'd always be
the fat kid. It was a deep personal shame that ate at me everyday. I think
part of the anxiety of Josh coming to live with me was what having a
healthy 20 year old bouncing around everyday might do to my own self
image. I took one more look in the mirror. After one long, deep breath I
walked away.

I got dressed, ran some Toni & Guy product through my short, spiky hair and
set about getting the house ready. It was a little after 12:00 noon when
the doorbell rang. I was in the process of loading the dishwasher and was
starting to get a little pissed that they weren't there with the TV yet.

"Finally. Fuck!" I swore under my breath as I walked towards the front
door, drying my hands on a dishtowel as I went. My bare feet padded softly
on the concrete floors.

I was looking down at the towel as I reached for the knob and swung the
door open. The first thing I saw were a pair of feet in some white Nikes
and a huge suitcase sitting behind them. My eyes traveled quickly up his
legs to his torso. He was holding two big bags, one on each shoulder. At
last I met his eyes.

"Hey," Josh said.