If you are not of age of consent in your area (18 or 21), please do not read on. I never got that rule, I mean who needs access to erotica more then lonely gay teenagers? Anyway, it's not my rule. If you're offended by gay men having sex, or being in love, then what the heck are you doing here? Go away.
This is my story, I wrote it from my own mind. Any relations to events in real life is purely coincidental. Do not reprint this story without permission.
This is going to be a multi-chapter story, there will be no sex for the first couple of chapters, sorry to disappoint.
I wrote this story as if it were separate from Finally Home, but then I got paranoid, the details of Toby and his boy's lives are so clear in my head that I couldn't tell if I was leaving any back story out of Growing Up, so I decided to post it with Finally Home. Anyway, I apologize for the repetition.
Also, sorry it's taken me so long to update this one, no excuses, I'm just a spazz.
Please be nice. If you don't like it I don't care, unless you can tell me why you don't like it. Then I am very interested. Thank you.
Mason mason0201@yahoo.com -- email me to if you want to be added to my mailing list as well.
Chapter 4
Back to Brian's POV:
I wasn't going to go to the Birthday party. I had decided. It was final. It just wasn't a good idea. Being around James was too hard these days. Seeing him like this was even worse then before the kiss. He was sad and withdrawn. Every time we were close I found myself wanting to touch him, hug him, kiss him, any kind of contact to put the sparkle back in his eyes. A couple of times, at the center, I actually reached for him and had to pull my hand back. I found myself avoiding him, but that hurt too, seeing him, being in the same room with him brought me at least a little peace. But there was absolutely no way I was going to his party. That would be too hard. I didn't want to make him feel awkward. He should be able to have fun. He would get over me. I knew he would, it became my mantra.
But then he asked me, all puppy dog eyes and dark beauty, and the look he gave me ... made my carefully built wall crumble. I found myself agreeing. The grin that spread across his face when I finally caved in was gorgeous. I wanted to kiss him so badly at that moment that I had to turn away.
So now I had to get him a birthday present. I tried for a week to think of something, anything, I'm a terrible gift giver, Michael usually supervises my shopping, but this time I wanted it to be special, just from me. I was also feeling very apprehensive about going to the party at all. So I think it was clouding my thinking. Basically I was a nervous wreck.
It was Friday, one week before the party that something happened that started to change my thinking about the whole situation. I was in my office at work trying to concentrate on my latest staff evaluations when one of my cashier's came back and told me I had a visitor.
I went to the front of the store and found Louise Cleveland, Toby's grandmother, standing there on the arm of her chauffer, Irving, who we've decided is like Lurch with an English accent. Louise had visited me once before at my work, and as before I was struck at how odd this proper old lady looked standing in the middle of a sporting goods store. The last time Louise was here was just before Toby and Michael got together, when they weren't speaking, each thinking that the other didn't want him, Louise and I had hatched a plan to lock them in a room together until they were finally honest with each other. It obviously worked since they are together, but I was quite curious as to why she was here this time.
She was wearing a purple pants suit, her long white hair was swept back in a bun. I greeted her with my first authentic smile in days. "Louise, what a pleasant surprise."
"Brian, my dear boy." She hugged me tight. "You have rearranged your store, how will I find the wheels for my skateboard now?" She joked.
I regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "Worn them out already?"
"Actually my dear, I have come to bring you some more of my cook's wonderful cookies, and I thought we would share a cup of coffee." She took my arm and Irving handed me a small picnic basket and Louise and I went back to my office.
Louise and I had a coffee date similar to this when she came to talk to me about Toby and Michael, so I was suspicious that something was going on but I decided to go with the flow. I set up our little picnic at the table in my office.
Louise and I chatted through two cups of coffee and the plate of chocolate chip cookies she had brought. Mostly we talked about our childhoods. She told me stories about her childhood, her children, and Toby growing up, and I talked a little about some of the crazy shit Michael and I would pull growing up.
Finally she came around to her husband. "Did you know that I was only 16 when I met my Harold?"
"No I didn't know that."
She nodded, "I was 16 and he was 25."
"Wow, that's a big difference." Warning lights started going off in my head.
"Yes, and Harold was nervous about dating me because I was so young. But he just needed to get to know me and then he understood that in many ways I was more grown up then he was."
I spent a moment being shocked and wondering how she seemed to know what was on my mind before I decided to ask how they managed to work it out. "What did he have to understand?"
"I was the oldest girl, I had one older brother, 5 younger brothers and 3 younger sisters. Ten of us in all, my mother died when I was 14, and in our big farm family that meant that my childhood was over. So I quit school and became the mother. I owed it to my family and to my mother to take over, and I did just that. My baby sisters even grew up calling me mama."
"Wow."
"The thing of it is Brian, I was suited for it. I loved keeping the house, and caring for the children. I didn't enjoy school, my marks were fine, but I was bored sitting at a desk all day. I was ready to be an adult. Some people are like that Brian. You aren't, I don't think, you took longer to grow up, when you were 18 you still weren't sure who you were, but there are people in this world who are forced to grow up more quickly then others. Take some of Toby's boys from the support group. They have had to grow up quickly, like James." My head shot up at the reference, but Louise continued evenly. "He sounds to me like a boy who has seen enough life and hardship to be an adult, and even though society doesn't see him as an adult he sounds like a boy who is already quite grown up."
"Why are you telling me this Louise?" Suddenly it began to sink into my thick skull that Toby was behind this, but how would Toby know about James and I?
"I thought it was something you needed to hear." She stood and began collecting her coffee cups and everything else she had brought. She paused and looked at me intently "Brian, my Harold and I had 52 happy years together because he was smart enough to admit that he was wrong in his opinions."
My heart was pounding all of the sudden, she continued. "I hear your James will be 18 next week, perhaps if you can get over your own wrong opinions you can make his birthday truly a happy one." With that she picked up her basket and left without giving me a chance to respond.
I sat for a long time thinking about what she said. Finally I smiled to myself, and thought of part of her last statement. My James, I only hope he'll give me another chance.