The story below is a work of fiction, set in the format of reality. Any resemblances to real people, alive or in the hereafter, is entirely coincidental in nature. It is not meant to accurately reflect upon persons, in towns, cities, countries, nor governmental areas, which the story is staged. If a sexual scene involving male-to-male relationships offends you, then you should not read this story. Additionally, if you are under 18 years of age, in most state and countries, you are not allowed to read this story, by law. Check with your local laws regarding such. % Sexual safety matters. Remember guys, this is fiction. In real life, use protection.
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"For Sale By Owner" 35 wriTten by T. Chase McPhee
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"Hey Alex, ya gotta here this!"
"What's up, Derek? You get mugged or something?" Alex asks.
"No," the nineteen year old Latino tells him, carrying in two big bags to the kitchen of the Coffee Bean cafe.
Taking one of them from Derek, Alex reiterates, "What's up then?"
"Well, you know how Mr. Miller asked me to go down to Pesado's and pick up some extra milk?"
"No, I didn't know, but obviously that's what's in these bags," Alex says, looking into one of the brown paper sacks, seeing the side of one of the gallons, reading `Whole Milk'.
"Forget the milk, will ya?" Derek says with excitement, as Alex passes the two gallons in his sack to him, an assemblyline to the fridge.
"Will you get to your point, pa-lease?" Alex puts in his bid for the final time he's quizzing Derek.
"Okay. Ya see, as I was entering Pesado's, I realized all the workers were new."
"New?"
"Yeah. Seems like in a week's time they changed hands. Mr. Pesado sold the business to his cousin from Ecuador," Derek explains.
"No kidding. So, what are the new people like?"
It was the question which led directly to the point Derek was trying to get at.
"Nice, but I didn't meet Mr. Pesado's cousin."
"This is going nowhere," Alex said, turning to walk out of the kitchen.
"No, listen Alex," Derek said, his right hand glued to Alex's left shoulder.
"I have to get back to work. Billy-boy is walking around with a chip on his shoulder."
"Okay. I'll make it quick. Pesado's nephew..."
"From Ecuador..." Alex was already getting the picture.
"Yeah, from Ecuador, well he came over to wait on me."
"We're not talking about some eight year old kid, are we?"
"Alex, whatd'ya think? I'm a child molester or something?"
"I've only known you for two weeks, Derek," Alex busts his chops.
"Me?" Derek exclaims, both hands laying against his chest. "You think I could be capable of..."
"Calm down. I was only kidding. So, how old is Mr. Pesado's nephew?"
From the aghast look, Derek's whole demeanor melts, into this softened mood.
"Around my age, but that's not the point."
"Then what are you getting at here, Derek?"
"I'm in love!" Derek proclaims.
"In love? Not more than an hour ago, you were in love with Carlos." Says Alex.
"I didn't even meet him yet."
"Thanks for cluing me in. I have Kyle out there planning dinner for tonight, for four of us and you're supposed to be meeting Carlos."
"Oh?" Derek says dumbfounded.
"Right and I've already called Carlos, inviting him over. I already have the guy built up to meet this hot guy named `Derek'."
"Oh," Derek says on a more somber note, adding, "sorry."
"So, I guess this means you're not meeting Carlos for dinner. Not even giving the guy a chance?"
"Sorry," Derek's soaring excitement divebombs, crashing in between the two thoughts.
"Last time I'm fixing you up with a guy," Alex says, making his exit.
"Alex, I'm sorry," Derek hounds after him.
"Sorry about what?" Mr. Miller asks, slipping in between Alex's exit and Derek on his tail.
"Nothing, Mr. Miller."
"Wasn't it last Thursday I reprimanded Ian for fooling around with guys on the job?"
"But, Mr. Miller, it wasn't....."
"Do I have to warn you also, Derek?"
"No Mr. Miller. I swear. Alex and I were only talking while I fetched the milk and brought it in here to put away."
Then Bill Miller smirks, saying, "If you weren't such a good go-for, Derek, I'd have canned you long ago. Get back to work!"
"Yes, sir," Derek replies, diving for the kitchen door.
Back at Kyle's table, he has broken the code of Scott's frustration.
"You never got the letter telling of the tuition hike?"
Playing with his fingernails in his lap, looking down at them, Scott reports, "Nope. When I left Paradise Valley, I left enough time to visit my sister at the Jersey shore. It probably came while I was in transit."
"Paradise Valley? Exactly where is that?" Kyle asks, pulling his bagel in half.
"Pennsylvania. At the foothills of the Poconos," Scott supplies the answer.
"I wonder if that's near where Alex is from. Ever hear of Lake Quinn?"
"I think. It's a little town not far from the Delaware Water Gap, right?" Scott guesses.
Thinking on it, Kyle says, "I'll have to ask Alex if he's ever heard of your town."
But Alex never came back to wait on them. A large party of patrons entered, having Alex march at double-time, pulling together three tables, refitting them with tablecloths, then resetting them with flatware and water goblets. His substitute appeared, Ian.
"It's been like this all day. Never a break," Ian says, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "Can I get you anything else?"
Without saying anything, Kyle hands Ian his American Express card.
"I can pay for my own," Scott insists, pulling three dollars out of his wallet.
Thinking fast, Kyle doesn't know exactly how to convey to Scott three dollars would cover his first cup of coffee!
"It's okay. I got it. You can give it to me later."
When the bill comes, Scott strains his eyes to look at the check upsidedown.
"What?" he leans in to Kyle and exclaiming in a wispy voice, "Five dollars for a bagel? Holy smokes!"
"Yeah, The Coffee Bean is a little pricey, but didn't you enjoy your bagel and coffee?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Then don't worry about it."
During their `lunch', which sunk into the mid afternoon, Kyle learned a lot about Scott. His lifelong dream to attend some prestigious cooking school, fill his brain to the gills with learning and then open up his own restaurant. It's a dream of reaching high from where he was and now is. He's been determined, since the tenth grade of following his dream and harnessing it. Another tidbit, he found out Scott was from a single parent family of three, low on the income totem pole. Most of the money he's saved since eighth grade, accumulated from doing outdoor work, working at the local Army and Navy store and the culmination of family gifts.
"Don't forget your book," Kyle said, when they got up to leave.
Still down, Kyle patted him on the back, saying, "Let's go home and start dinner."
"Dinner? Home? I've gotta catch a train to my sister's house."
"Why don't you put it off til tomorrow. Derek is coming over for dinner and our friend Carlos will be there."
All along, Scott has been guessing here. Once they stepped out on the sidewalk, where a thousand voices prevailed, crisscrossing over each other, Scott bravely asked, "Um, I've been meaning to ask something, Kyle."
"Shoot!" He gave the go ahead.
"About you and Alex..."
"Yep," He says, before it's out of Scott's mouth.
"I didn't even ask you anything, how could you...."
Saving Scott a lot of words, Kyle says, "We're boyfriends."
Saying almost the same thing, in other words, Scott replies, "You both are gay?"
"Yep. Bother you?"
"No," Scott says, still trying to grasp upon the idea and applying it to himself, with question.
A few blocks up and over, they come to Kyle's wheels.
"Nice car," Scott tells him, standing at the passenger side, not wanting to touch the late model silver Sebring.
"Thanks. Hop in."
Once inside, the heat has it's effect on the two. Kyle looks down, unbuttoning buttons down to the beltline, pulling his shirttail out and finishing the job. Pulling it back on the sides he revels a partial view of the front of his bod.
"Whew! That feels tons better," the eighteen year old says, now looking to pull out of his parking spot.
As Kyle keeps busy with the onslaught of the New York City traffic, Scott keeps glancing in his direction, noticing Kyle's smooth chest, the prominent thin, dark stripe dividing his abs, aimed straight to the folds in his lower stomach. Just by seeing another man's flesh, it starts to make tingly sensations under his zipper.
"One thing I hate about New York," Kyle says, insinuating the driving, suddenly alerting, "Hold on, Scott."
Scott does, as Kyle weaves to the center lane from around a garbage truck, steps on the brake, then quickly turns back into the right lane, ahead of the truck, then steps on the gas, accelerating to about 40, hanging back at a red light.
"Damn, I thought I was going to make it!" His reaction, a tap on the horn, elicits `the finger' from the cabbie in front of him.
Looking over to the passenger side, Kyle sees a horrified Scott.
"Okay, Scott?"
"I'm alright," he says, gulping, starting to relax.
From Kyle's view, Scott's shirt is all sweated up in the middle and at the pits, even though he's turned on the AC.
Finally, Scott lightens up, asking, "What are you having for dinner?"
"That's the part we have to figure out. I like making `Italian'. I thought chicken parmesan, with spaghetti as a side dish. Hey, how are you at whipping up a dessert?"
"Fine," Scott replies, then panics, "Oh shoot!"
"What?"
"I left my backpack in a locker at Penn Station."
Tapping Scott on the forearm, Kyle said, "Don't worry about it."
Biting his lip Scott prepared himself for another joyride as Kyle took a left hand turn, across several lanes of oncoming traffic.
"Um, you weren't a race car driver in a previous life, were you?"
Kyle laughed his ass off, followed by Scott loosening up and smiling, even though he kept his guard up for the possibility of being suffocated by an airbag at any moment.
Double parking, Kyle turned off the AC and unrolled his window while waiting for Scott to dash in and out of the train terminal. Finding his shirt highly uncomfortable, all sweated up, damp from the AC, he got out of his car, stripped it off, tossing it in the back seat, getting back in. After about ten minutes, Kyle commented to himself, I hope Scott remembered where I parked'. Just then a patrol car pulls up. He curses to himself. Soon, at his door there stands an officer who leans down, asking for license and registration. Kyle smiled to himself as he sat there, fishing the square identification papers out. The officer, his waist at eye level thought he detected some movement behind the zipper. After explaining why he was standing in a yellow zone where the sign explicitly said no standing', the cop gave him a warning, stating if he came around the block and Kyle was still there he'd be forced to give him a ticket. Kyle really got worried when the digital readout put Scott at being gone for twenty minutes. Yet there was nothing he could do except wait. He professed, `I'm gonna give you five more minutes, Scott, then I'm finding a parking space!' Four minutes later, somebody knocked on the rear of the car, as if knocking on a door. Scott's hand fit the door latch. Opening it, he tossed his backpack and another sack in the back.
"What took you?"
"I got mixed up. Forgot where I came into the building, so walked outside along the perimeter. I figured I'd find you sooner or later, but I was going in the wrong direction. When I finally figured it all out it had taken me fifteen minutes. I'm really sorry."
"No problem. I just got fidgety thinking you got lost or something else happening to you. I'm so happy you're alright."
"Me too. I mean, for just meeting you, you already seem like a friend to me," Scott says, tenderly. After making the discovery, he says, "You took your shirt off."
"Yeah, it was all sweaty, then the AC made it so damp. Do the same, if you like."
Never having been as forward to do what Kyle has done, even to open the buttons, exposing part of his bod, Scott sat there mulling it over. At least the thinking took his mind off of Kyle's wicked driving.
"Red light," Kyle shouts out.
"Huh?" Scott says, dropping his chin to let the word flow out.
"There's a car next to us. You can jump out and strip off your shirt, if you want."
"Here? In the middle of Manhattan?"
"Sure. You see it all the time." Waiting, Kyle then bursts out with, "Hold on. Next red light," he warns, as he steps on the gas and passes under the green.
"Rats!" Kyle called out, the yellow swiftly turning to red. "Now's your chance, Scott."
Seeming it his only chance... last chance in the world to jump out of the car, strip off his shirt, Scott still pondered over the idea. Between avenues, he had prepped himself, unbuttoning from neck to navel, all ready to make the manoever. His hand on the door, Scott forgot about the reckless abandon and opened the door. Once he had taken the step there was no turning back. Peeling his shirt back over his shoulders, he exposed his teen bod. Immediately, from the sidewalk, cars, a guy on a bike, he got looks and catcalls. Two women at an outdoor restaurant seating got up out of their chairs, her friend pointing out the guy stripping off his shirt in midtown traffic. More embarrassed than anything Scott dove for his seat. It's then he realized there were no cars in front of Kyle's.
"They love ya!" Kyle yells out, tooting the horn, peeling out straight on course.
"I... I never did anything like that before in my whole life!" Scott says, fastening his seat belt, feeling emotional responses of embarrassment mixed with laughter, then resorting to giggling.
"I've seen lots worse," Kyle tells him.
"Really? Like what?"
"This one time, during morning rush hour, some exec jumps out at a light, strips off his tee shirt and whips out a white dress shirt. Seeing the traffic at a temporary standstill, even though the light's green, he buttons up, opens his fly, stuffs his shirt tail in, then zips up. You think you got a response!"
"I don't believe it."
"But what you did, it's vogue."
"Vogue?"
"Sure. Guys jumping out of cars, stripping off their shirts and getting back in. By the end of a hot sunny day, even with jumping out of an air conditioned building, into AC, there's always that gap where the car is blustery hot. Like what happened to us."
"I guess," Scott replied.
At the next light, something else weird happened, which got Scott to thinking on Kyle's plane of it could only happen in New York'. A guy on a bike, dressed only' in a speedo, treads on his feet, knocked at Scott's window.
"What do I do?"
Kyle shrugs, saying, "Open your window," but Kyle does it for him, depressing a button.
The first thing the guy compliments, "Nice car."
"Um, thanks," Scott replies, adding, "it's his," pointing his thumb across the divide.
"Here," he then addresses Scott, handing him a flyer. "Maybe you or your college buds might have an interest in this. My names at the bottom. I'm Reiko Richter," the blond, built like an Adonis mentions. He sticks out his hand, but then withdraws it when the traffic flow picks up yelling back, "See you guys some night!"
"Prolly some stripper club advertisement," Kyle tells him, as he peels out, eyes darting to the right, checking out Reiko on his bike, til he's absorbed into the traffic.
"No, I don't think so," Scott replies, looking it over.
"What is it, then?"
"Looks like Reiko is director of a bicycle club. It says here, meet Thursday evenings at seven, at the Gay Pride Center, fourteenth street. Hey! How did he know we're gay?"
Kyle realizes Scott's slip of the tongue. He wonders how long it will take, if ever, for it to sink in, where Scott's concerned. Waiting numerous moments, glancing at Scott reading over the multi-colored flyer, he summises either Scott is panicking, wondering what words to followup with, or he plainly doesn't know he gave himself away.
"Well, I don't even have a bike, so that leaves me out," Scott replies.
Smiling a toothy grin, Kyle now knows Scott hasn't the foggiest of what he just revealed. Looking out the front windows, Kyle's side, his own, Scott wonders what put the grin on the driver's face.
"Did I miss something, Kyle?"
"You sure did!"
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Copyright 2007 T. Chase McPhee This story may not be sold, nor made part of any collection, without prior consent from the author.