Chapter One
Hi, I'm Brady, a closeted 32 year old gay man. This is my mostly true story about me and my "buddy" Mitch.
I'll never forget the day Mitch walked into my life. He was 19, fresh from Army Reserve training. Mitch's good looks caught my attention immediately. He was drop dead perfect gorgeous... a 5'8" baby-faced vision of fresh young meat; black hair in a military cut, big brown eyes and the cutest nose and lips hairy arms and a few whisps of hair popping over his t-shirt. We were introduced by the person training him and although I can't remember exactly what he said, I knew immediately that I liked this kid... a lot.
Over the next few months we developed a friendly working relationship. Mitch was a pretty quiet kid. Generally, he pretty much kept to himself at work. I was his boss, and although not customary in our workplace, I encouraged him to call me by my first name. During lulls in work, I would often talk to Mitch about various things... classes, how our favorite sports teams were doing, our social lives (mine was almost non-existent, Mitch had a very rich circle of friends). With every passing day, I found myself more and more attracted to Mitch... not just for his good looks, but for his personality, his kindness and his intelligence. I was ready to take our relationship beyond the workplace, I just needed a catalyst.
When final grades were posted that December, Mitch sought me out a work to tell me that he got a 4.0 that semester. Pretty impressive for a first semester pre-med student. This kid really had his act together. I also realized that this was a rare moment when Matt actually initiated a conversation. That was the foundation of a new friendship.
After that, Mitch began to open up more and more. I was learning new things every day about my newest little buddy. On the night of his 20th birthday, I had to work. That night, some of Mitch's buddies had a party for him. He had a few drinks and then called me at work just to chat. We talked for quite awhile. It ended with me wishing him a "Happy Birthday" and "Talk to you later." Me and Mitch were quickly becoming good friends. It was definately time to take our friendship beyond the workplace.
The rest of that night, I could not get my mind off of Mitch and his phone call. My heart was racing, my crotch was stirring. I had to get to know him better and I had to do it outside of work. Thank God there was no work policy against fraternization.
By the end of the night, I had the perfect ice breaker. Every year I go see a couple of NBA games. It is a two hour drive to the nearest NBA town. Mitch loves sports, four hours round trip... plus dinner... plus the game. What a great way to work on forging a friendship (or more).
The next time I worked with Mitch, I offered him my extra ticket, and he eagerly accepted. We made our plans for the road trip and two weeks later we were ready to go. I met him after his last class let out, dropped his car off at his house and we were off.
The trip was a total blast. We chatted the entire way down. We had an awesome dinner and the game was great (double overtime victory for the home team)... not to mention we were sitting next to three drunk guys that were hilarious.
On the way home, we were talking about Mitch's communications class. He had somehow gotten stuck doing a speech about homosexual behavior. During the course of this contversation, Mitch made mention that he was totally against the gay lifestyle. It was wrong and he didn't understand how two men could find each other attractive. I was deflated. By the end of the game, I had high hopes for Me and Mitch. But hearing that, I realized that we would be friends and there would be no "next level" after friendship.
To be continued...