Sun-Kissed

I got into the passenger seat of Victor’s car. He just sat there for a minute, presumably gathering his thoughts. I couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking or how he was feeling. The only emotion I got was confusion. He sat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He must have opened his mouth to start talking about three times, only to stop and rethink his thoughts.
“Danny, I’m...I’m not going to pretend that I understand why you chose to be like this…”
“Vic, I didn’t choose to be like this. Do you really think I would choose to have half of the country hate who I am, to risk being tortured at school every day if someone ever found out, to possibly be disowned by my own family? You think I really chose this?”
“Maybe you did choose it, maybe you didn’t. You’re my brother and I love you, but...it’s not natural. I won’t tell dad. This...This would break his heart. I can’t believe you actually told mom. And she’s okay with this?”
“I should go. I don’t need this.”
I started to leave, but he grabbed my arm. “Danny, please wait.”
“No, if you can’t accept me the way that I am, what I am, I don’t need you in my life. Have a nice day.”
As I got out of the car, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I ran into the house and shut myself into my bedroom before anyone could see me crying. Victor and I were never really that close, but I had never felt rejection from anyone before and it felt really awful. The only thing I could think of doing was to call Owen. I really needed to see him. He could tell on the phone that I was upset so he told me that he was going to be right over.
I actually felt so bad that I fell asleep while waiting for him, which couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. I woke up to a knock on my door. Owen announced himself. I sat up and called for him to come into my room. He walked in and he looked as handsome as ever. I assumed he had to have been working out because he came in a tank top and gym shorts and his tank was sweaty. He closed the door behind him.
“Hey, are you ok? You sounded upset on the phone,” he said, coming to sit next to me on my bed.
“Hey, I’m sorry, I fell asleep,” I told him while I sat up.
“Your sister let me in. Apparently, your mom is out. Is everything ok?”
“I came out to my brother.”
“Oh...I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”
I shook my head. “No,” I started to cry again. Owen put his strong arms around me. I instantly started to feel a little better. “I’ve never felt rejection like that. Owen, it felt so shitty.”
“I’m so sorry, Danny. I can’t imagine how that feels. I can’t believe your own brother would reject you.”
“He said it wasn’t natural, that I wasn’t natural.”
“Fuck what he said. You’re...you’re the most beautiful person I have ever met and anyone who can’t see that can go fuck themselves.”
As I was in his arms, I could smell his sweat. Mixed with the scent of his deodorant, it was the most amazing smell ever. I wiped my tears on his tank so he couldn’t tell that I was sniffing him.
“Shit, sorry I’m so sweaty. I was at the gym with this guy Tommy from the team.”
“It’s ok. I like it.”
He chuckled. “You do?”
“Yeah, it smells like you, but like more intense. I’m sorry I took you away from the gym.”
“It’s ok. I told Tommy I had an emergency at home.”
“You don’t have to stay. I’m better now that I’ve seen you.”
“You trying to get rid of me, Garcia?”
I squeezed him tighter. “Never.”
He wrapped both his arms around me in a hug. “Don’t let your brother get to you. Let’s get your mind off of it. Do you wanna watch a movie?”
“Now?”
“Yeah,” he said, getting up to look at my movie collection. He picks out a movie. “Oh, I wanted to see this one. It looked like it had some sick car chases.”
He hands me the movie. It was Drive, another movie with Ryan Gosling that had come out the year before. “Do you have a thing for Ryan Gosling or something?”
“What? No way!”
“Is he your type or what?” I started to laugh.
“Whatever, you know my type.” He looked at me as if to tell me that I was his type.
“You know, this movie isn’t what you think it is.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, sitting back down beside me.
“I mean, it’s not like a car chase movie.”
“But the trailer was like super action-y.”
“Yeah, it was like a big thing when it came out. A lot of people were mad. But critics loved it.”
“Obviously you did too if you bought it.”
I got really excited. “Oh my god, it is amazing. But really slow and intense.”
“I can do slow and intense,” he said with a mischievous
I smiled. “Okay,” I said as I got up to put the DVD in to play.
The movie started off and I knew that Owen would be excited by the very tense getaway chase at the beginning. After this chase, we kind of got distracted. We were sitting on the floor beside my bed again. He put his arm around me and down around my waist. He started to lightly rub his hands slightly on my wait. It was so light I could barely even feel it. I leaned into his body and rested my head on his chest. I could feel his heartbeat against my ear. It started to beat faster and harder. It made me feel good to know that I made his heart beat so fast.
I think he eventually got bored with the movie because he reached down to my head, put his hand under my chin and brought me up to him to kiss him. As our kiss got deeper and longer, I could feel myself getting a boner. I put my hand on his thigh and worked my way up. I could feel his boner too. When I put my hand on it he kind of jolted, but not a lot. He didn’t stop kissing me, he just put his hand on top of mine as if he wanted me to move it. That’s when there was a knock on our door. We immediately jumped off of each other.
“Hey, I don’t know what you guys are doing in there, but I thought you’d want to know that mom is on her way home,” said Lorena through the door.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Thanks, Lori!” I turned to Owen. “You should go. Unless you wanna meet my mom this soon.”
He laughed nervously. “Yeah, maybe I should go.”
“There’s actually something I should probably tell you. My mom really wanted to meet you. I was able to put it off for a little while, but only until after our third date.”
“So I have to meet your mom after our third date?”
“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with a lot of people knowing about us. You know I’m not out yet and it’s scary.”
“I know. You don’t have to meet her if you’re not ready. I’ll let her know your situation.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
He sat there, not really moving. “Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, it might take a while before I can get up.” He motioned to his boner.
“Oh, right.”
Once Owen left, Lorena came into my room. I was sat at my desk, reading. I turned around in my chair. She sat on my bed.
“So things are getting serious between you and Owen, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Hey, come on, I finally have a sibling I can talk about guys with and he doesn’t want to.”
That made me smile. I walked over and sat on my bed next to her, bringing my knees to my chest. I never thought the idea of talking about boys with my sister would sound so fun to me. I had been so terrified to even look at a boy, but now it’s all in the open.
“Well, I guess they are getting serious, but he doesn’t want people to know about us.”
“Well, is he out yet?” Lorena asked.
“No,” I answered, shaking my head.
“Well, that’s why he doesn’t want anyone to know, dumbass.”
“I know, but I guess I’m a little paranoid about it.”
“It’s not like he won’t be seen with you. You guys go out in public.”
I knew that she was right, but something about the way Owen reacted when I told him that my mom wanted to meet him was suspicious to me. I didn’t want to be that kind of guy, the one who is suspicious, but there was something bugging me about it. I didn’t want to tell Lorena about it, because if she agreed I knew she would make it her mission to get to the bottom of it.
“Listen,” Lorena continued. “Boys are very simple creatures. If he says that he doesn’t want a lot of people to know because he’s not out, the chance that that’s probably the case is like ninety-eight percent.”
“What about the other two percent?”
Lorena rolled her eyes. “Owen seems like a good guy, Danny. I’m sure he’s not in that two percent; and if he is, then I’ll kill him. Or I’m sure Robbie will.” She smiled and gave me a playful punch in the arm. “Listen, this is your first boyfriend. It’s going to be a little scary.”
“Boyfriend?” The word terrified me. We had never talked about what we were.
“Well, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I’ve gone on dates, before, but never second or third. I’ve never gotten this far with a guy before.”
“Haven’t you talked about it?”
“Not at all. We’ve just been, like, going on dates and getting to know each other. We’ve only been on two dates. I don’t think that’s something that’s even on the table yet.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “That’s very adult of you.” She put her hand on my knee. “You’re sixteen, Danny. You’ve got plenty of time to be adult and serious. Just have fun with him.”

* * *

My next date with Owen was towards the end of July I tried to tell him not to pick me up at my house but he insisted. He showed up at my door even though I told him to just text me when he got there. Of course, my mom answered. Maybe, in hindsight, I should have told him that my mom was home, but I tried to get him to not do everything he did and he insisted every time. Maybe I subconsciously wanted him to run into my mom. At first, I didn’t want him to meet my mom so soon, mostly because of how embarrassing it would be, but after he basically sounded horrified by the idea of meeting her I kind of wanted to see how he would react.
When I got to the door as when he arrived. He was in the foyer talked to my mom. He looked really cute. He was wearing this grey tank top with an American Flag on it that really showed off his chest and arms. His eyes were really wide and he seemed really nervous. My mom was clearly grilling him. So I stepped in to rescue him. The relief on his face when he saw me was really cute.
“Hey mom, we’re gonna go out for a couple of hours. We’ll be back later.”
I grabbed Owen by the arm and pulled him out of the house before my mom could protest.
“Dude, you should have told me that your mom was gonna answer the door.”
“I tried to tell you that I would meet you wherever you wanted, but you insisted on picking me up. Then, I tried to tell you to just text me when you were here, but you insisted on coming to the door.”
“You still could have told me.” He looked a little mad. I felt shitty for not telling him. It made me really sad. He must have seen it on my face. “I’m sorry, babe. I just felt really blindsided.”
BABE. “Babe?” I asked
He smiled, grabbed my waist and pulled me close to him. He smiled and my knees buckled. I almost lost my balance, but I was able to play it off so he didn’t notice. He went in for a soft and lovely kiss.
“Is it okay that I call you that?”
“Uh, DUH!”
We both laughed and made out way to his car. While he was driving, he took my hand and held it. On the way, we chatted about what we thought about new tv shows and what summer movies we were excited to see. He was excited to see The Dark Knight Rises. I was excited to see that too, but I was more excited to see Killer Joe with Matthew McConaughey. It wasn’t a mainstream movie, but that’s kind of what I liked about it. It was almost completely dark out, but he was taking me to the beach. When I started to park was when I realized that he still had my hand. He never once let go.
“Wait here,” he said as he finished parking.
Owen took my hand and kissed the top of it before leaving the car. I watched him as he rummaged through the trunk. There was a lot of banging and scraping but nothing that I could see because the hood of his trunk was blocking my view, plus it was dark. He disappeared onto the beach and around a corner of rocks. He was gone for about five minutes before I saw him come back around the corner. He came around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. He bowed and let out his hand for me to take.
“Sir,” he said in a British accent.
I took his hand and he helped me out of the car.
“Owen, what is this?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, back to his own voice.
He led me around the rocks he had disappeared to before. What was there was probably one of the most amazing and romantic things I’d ever seen. He had two tiki torches lit up around a blanket on the sand with a picnic basket and a portable cooler on top, plus some pillows and stuff to lay on.
“What is this?” I asked in surprise.
“It’s a picnic on the beach, Einstein.” He laughed.
I playfully punched him on the shoulder. “You know what I meant.”
He pecked me on the lips, took my hand again and led me to the blanket. We sat down, using the pillows as backrests. He pulled the picnic basket towards us and placed it right in the middle. He opened it and took out a container with grilled chicken inside.
“One thing you might not know about me is that I love to cook and bake. So I thought I would make us a little dinner to have by the ocean.”
“I can’t believe you can cook and this is the first time you’re cooking for me!”
“Well, I wanted to wait to make it special.” He pulled out more containers. “I made some grilled lemon chicken, roasted parmesan potatoes, and grilled asparagus. I hope you like asparagus. I took a chance.”
“I do like asparagus,” I said with a smile. “What’s in the cooler?” I asked.
“Well, I snuck a bottle of champagne from my parents’ stash. And I have some strawberries and cream for dessert. I was going to bake something, but I thought I would keep it simple.”
“Owen this is amazing.”
He brought out some plastic plates and served both of us a little of everything. It was a really delicious meal. Knowing that Owen cooked it made it even more delicious and it made me care for him even more. I could feel myself falling in love with him. It scared and excited me at the same time. At the time I didn’t know it was love because I had never felt that before. I just knew that Owen made me feel so happy.
When we were both finished with our food, I scooted over and sat between his legs and leaned up against him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder so we were cheek to cheek. It felt so good to be in his arms. I felt safe. He scooted back a little to dig through the cooler.
“So,” he said as he began to pop open the bottle of champagne. “I wanted to ask you something.” The bottle opened with a giant pop that made both of us jump a little. He began to pour some champagne into small plastic cups. “Tomorrow, my parents are taking my little brother Sam to Disneyland for his birthday. I decided to stay behind because it’s just not my thing. Anyway, they’re spending the night there because they’re going to spend two days in a row so I’m going to be alone in my house for the weekend and I was thinking that maybe...if you wanted to...if you were ready...that maybe…”
“How about I come over and whatever happens...happens?” I suggested in order to try and put him out of his awkward misery.
He smiled in agreement and we clinked our cups. One sip and the both of us spit out the champagne projectile style. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever tasted and I’m sure that from Owen’s reaction it was his too. We decided to just eat the strawberries and cream. He would take a strawberry, dip it in the whipped cream and then feed one to me. At the time I thought I knew the arrangement that I had made with Owen, but little did I know that that weekend was gonna be one of the best I would ever have.