Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 17:55:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan R <danrl1099@yahoo.com> Subject: Me & Justin 20 "Hey man, I am really sorry." I said as I approached Chris' locker. I put my hand out to be shook and he did. I pulled him close and gave him a hug. "Listen man. I don't know what happened, and, well, I guess I like playing with you than against you. You are good." I said. He kindoff blushed. "I really didn't want to fight you Brian, but you gave me no choice. So, let's leave it at that and be friends again." He said. That was fine by me, in fact, the whole thing went a lot better than I thought. I had a big knot in my stomach all morning dreading seeing him. I went off to Law class and sat down to my new partner Melissa. I apologized to her and told her that I will try super hard. She was happy with that and asked me if I was going to the party at Doug's house over the weekend and I said I would. "Do you wanna hang out beforehand and work on the new assignment?" She asked. "Sure. Why don't you come over to my house around 3 or so and we can do that, then go over to Doug's house. " I replied. We chit chatted back and forth and she talked about how much she liked going to the hockey games and all of that. Which was cool. We had a game on Friday and we smoked the team we were playing, so all was well back in the hockey world at least. Jeff and Ryan stopped being pissed off at me on how I treated Rusty too, so that was good. On Saturday, Melissa came over to my house and we sat at the kitchen table working on our case. I remember having a really fun time doing so too. I didn't really have any friends that were girls. My friends girlfriends were my friends, but not really. When we finished our assignment, my mom asked if we were hungry, which we were. It was only us three for dinner because Dad was out of town, so we ordered a pizza and ate that. I think mom was happy that I had a girl for a friend. They were talking like they were old friends about this and that and the other thing. When we told mom of our plans to leave for the party, she seemed somewhat disappointed, but made Melissa promise to come back and visit sometime soon. She promised and we were off. We were stopped at a stoplight and I glanced over her while she was chatting away. She was a very good looking girl I thought. Plus she was smart and a lot of fun to be around with. That was cool to me. When we arrived at Doug's house, there were a few people around, but it was pretty early. "Hey Brian!" I got yelled at by Doug and he came up and gave me a hug. "No Drama tonight, OK!" I smiled at him and laughed remembering the last party at his house. I went and got a couple of beers and gave one to Melissa. She was talking to some friends, so I went downstairs to play pool. I did that for awhile and eventually Jeff and Ryan showed up with their girlfriends and we proceeded to get very drunk playing quarters on the kitchen table. Melissa was hovering around talking to her friends. I got up and started to weave around the kitchen and Jeff grabbed me and forwarded me to one of the bedrooms. I took off my shirt and shoes and laid into bed and laid on my back. The room was spinning around fast. I just layed there and Melissa came in the room to check on me. I told her I was fine. Just messed up. She sat down on the bed and took her hand and rubbed my chest and proceeded to move her hand down to my pants and started to unzip me. "Melissa, don't." I asked. But she just kept going. I sat up quickly and asked her why she was doing this. "I guess I thought this is what you wanted. I mean, I think I thought we really connected." She replied. "Melissa, don't get me wrong, I really like you. But how do you not know I am gay?" I asked. She looked at me and laughed. I told her that I was serious and she started laughing and leaned into me and gave me a hug. "Ohhh man. I feel so stupid. Now the whole Rusty thing makes sense to me. You two were together?" I told her the story and she got up to leave. "Melissa, you don't have to leave. We can still sleep together, just not have sex." I said. She smiled and layed down next to me as I zipped back up. We talked for what seemed like a long time and we fell asleep. When I woke up, she was in her cloths and I was only in my boxers. How did that happen I wondered, but then I remembered getting up in the middle of the night to piss and got out of my pants. I went back into the bed and Melissa was awake. "Hi. Sorry about last night." She said. "No problem. I guess I thought you knew." I replied. She gave me a hug. "Well, this morning you were sleeping on your back and you had a boner and it was sticking out of your fly. I could have seduced you, but I was a good girl and covered you up." "You are a perv!" I laughed. We hugged again and got up and went out to scrounge for food. When we walked into the kitchen together, all sets of eyes were on us thinking we were up to mischief. We laughed really hard and sat down and ate. We drove home and I dropped Melissa off. When I got to her driveway, she looked at me and told me how much fun she had, and that she had a cousin from a different school that she wanted me to meet. She told me that she thought he was gay, but she wasn't sure. I told her that was cool, but I really didn't want a relationship anytime soon, and I was serious. Ever since Sean died, I was a total cock hound and I wanted to be alone for some time, probably until the end of hockey season. She smiled and gave me a kiss on the cheek and went inside her house. I watched her walk away and was glad that we were friends. I really had to find one of my friends to set her up with. She was way too cool to be single, that is for sure. ---------- I got home and told my mom why I didn't come home. She was cool with that. She didn't mind the drinking, but she couldn't tolerate me driving when I was drinking. I told her some small details about what happened with Melissa and she grinned at me. I told her that I was going to take a shower and take a nap, which I did. My head was pounding. I woke up around 3 in the afternoon to a knock on my door. I said to come in and it was Chris. I looked up from my pillow and said, hey, c'mon in. I don't have the flu, I'm just hung over. He sat on the edge of my bed and the waterworks just started up. He was crying uncontrollably. "Hey.. Hey..hey. Chris. Settle down. Everything is going to be ok man." I didn't even know what the problem was. It turned out that he told his girlfriend that he didn't want to see her anymore and what we did when we were in Fargo. Christ, I hated being brought into the middle of stuff. "That isn't the worst thing Brian. She called up my dad and told him all of this." "He called me downstairs and told me to get out." He blubbered. "What do you mean, get out? He kicked you out of your house?" I asked. "I guess. He just looked at me and told me to get out. I didn't know what to do or where to go, that is why I am over here." he said. "Ok man. Just stay here for a couple of minutes. Let me go upstairs and talk to my mom for a second. OK? I promise, everything will be ok." I pleaded. He nodded and I went upstairs and found mom. I told her what was going on and she had a very angry look on her face. I saw her walk to the phone in the kitchen and filter through the address book. She shooed me downstairs back to my bedroom, so I did, but I stayed around the corner to hear her talk. She was talking very quietly so I couldn't hear much. I did hear this though. "He is your son for crying out loud. How in god's name could you do that to him.?" "Let me talk to your wife!" "You are the most stubborn man I have ever talked to." Then she slammed down the phone and I could here her walking downstairs, stomping as she went. My mom never got mad like this. I never heard her yell at anybody besides me and my brother when we deserved it. "Brian, I need to talk to Chris. Why don't you go upstairs and watch tv for awhile." She said. I did and I went back upstairs and tried to listen what was going on, but mom had closed my door, so I went and found some aspirin and laid down on the couch. After about 30 minutes my mom walked up the stairs. I learned that my mom had told Chris that he was going to stay at our house for the time being until everything gets settled down and figured out. He was going to stay in my brothers room. My dad arrived home later that day and he was updated on the drama of the day. Man, he was mad. I didn't even want to be around him, he was seething. I imagined that some guy that he had been to probably 1000 hockey games with would do this to his own son. "I don't care. I am going over there." I heard him yell, and the door slam, and his car leaving. Chris was a wreck. I could only imagine. One day his life was normal and the next he got kicked out of his house for something I didn't even think was a big deal. What if my parents treated me like that? What would I have done? I tried to comfort him but he just seemed to get worse. After about an hour, my dad came back into the house. He had two big garbage bags in his hands and they looked really heavy. I met him at the door and grabbed one of them. They were full of Chris' cloths and his goalie gear was in the trunk of my dad's trunk. We brought everything downstairs to Chris' new room. He started to sift through the belongings my dad had retrieved and we walked into my bedroom. My dad closed the door. "Dad, what happened? Why would his dad throw him out of the house like that?" I asked. "Brian. Your gonna learn as you get older that people aren't always open to things like being gay and all of that. Sometimes parents are cruel for the wrong reasons. I tried talking sense into Chris' dad, but he just threw those bags of cloths and his hockey gear on his front lawn and told me that if I wanted to deal with it, I could." He said softly. "So now what Dad? I mean, what about Chris?" I really didn't know what was going to happen. "Well Brian. I am going to go talk to him and be very honest about everything to him. I am going to ask him if he want's to stay here, or if he has other relatives that he would be more comfortable staying with." he replied. It turned out that Chris' family had called up everybody in his family and they were super religious, so that was a no-go. But I think that Chris wanted to stay with us anyways. That night, I went to Chris' room. He was just staring down at the floor. I sat next to him and tried to console him. It didn't seem to be working. I asked him if he wanted to sleep in my room for the night with no monkey business. He looked back at me with tears in his eyes and just buried his head on my shoulder. He cried and cried, then I started to cry for him. Once we were cried out, we walked over to my room and stripped and got into bed together. We lied down on our backs and I turned over and rubbed his chest and stomach and he just sighed. I leaned over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and told him that everything would work out. It always did. For the first time that day, I saw a little smile on his lips. He leaned over and gave me a big hug and a rub on the back and we fell asleep. Whew! What a day I thought when I woke up. I looked over and Chris was still sleeping. I got up got up and walked over to his side of the bed and gave him a peck on the nose and he stirred. I told him I was going to take a shower and that we had to leave for school in 30 minutes. After I showered and he showered, we both got dressed and I gave him my cologne to wear. Before we walked up the stairs, he grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. "Brian. Thanks man. I don't know what to say." Then he pulled me close and we had a close hug. I returned the hug and looked at him in the eyes and gave him a quick peck on the lips. He smiled and we were off to school. To be continued...