Brian handed Justin his keys as they walked down the sidewalk to the Jeep.

"Like you said, you should drive," Brian mumbled.

They barely made it one block before Justin started apologizing.

"Brian, I am so sorry," he said, trying not to cry after what had just happened at Les Munchers. "You told me to write the check and get the fuck out, but I had to run my big mouth. It was absolutely none of my business. I had no right to-"

"Will you shut the fuck up?" Brian growled.

Justin snapped his mouth shut.

"Turn left here," Brian said as they approached the next intersection. He directed Justin to his favorite Thai restaurant on Liberty Avenue. It was a few blocks outside the unofficial border of the gayborhood, but it attracted both gay and straight customers.

Justin ordered yellow curry with chicken while Brian chose green curry with beef.

"So..." Justin said after the waiter left to put in their order. He didn't know what to say but was unable to stay quiet any longer. "We both like curry."

Brian glanced up at the younger man. "Yeah."

Justin looked down at the cowry shell bracelet on his right wrist. "I like this bracelet of yours, it's really cool."

"Thanks," Brian said as he stared at something on the wall behind Justin.

"Where'd you get it?"

"Mexico."

Justin searched for the next thing he could ask. "Um... what's your middle name?"

Brian finally met his eyes. "What's with all the fucking questions?"

"I've asked you two questions. We agreed earlier that we should get to know each other, remember? Does the ‘A' on your license stand for Asshole?"

Brian sighed. "Alastar, after my maternal grandfather. It's the Gaelic form of Alexander, it means ‘defender of mankind.'"

"I like it," Justin said with a smile.

"I hate it. Kids at school made fun of me for it."

Justin waited a few seconds for Brian to ask him what his middle name was but was left disappointed.

"My middle name is Craig, after my dad. Uh..."

Brian looked down at Justin's cheap watch on his left wrist. "When is that fucking food gonna get here?"

"We ordered like, two minutes ago. Food takes time to cook."

Brian sighed again.

Justin asked Brian about his favorite movie (One-Eyed Jacks), his favorite band (The Cure), his favorite drink (bourbon, preferably Jim Beam), what he liked to do in his spare time (fuck, of course), his favorite zoo animal (lion), what he wanted to be when he grew up (either a rock star or the president), his favorite historical figure (a tie between Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde), his most embarrassing moment (when he was pantsed during a soccer game in middle school, leaving him in his jock strap in front of hundreds of spectators), and his favorite childhood memory (going to Disney World with his parents and sister at age ten) before their steaming plates of curry were brought out.

They settled into a comfortable pattern of chatting about Brian's friends between bites.

"Emmett is the gayer one, right?" Justin asked.

Brian chuckled. "Well, Theodore is pretty gay, too, but not nearly as obvious on the outside. He loves opera, musical theater, and gay porn. I've seen him in the backroom a few times over the years. He can swallow a cock and take it up the ass like a champ. I hear he's versatile, but I've never seen him top in public. He's closeted at work since he's terrified his asshole boss will fire him for being gay. Emmett, on the other hand, is a prime time bottom, one of the loudest and proudest queens I've ever met. He works at a clothing store down the street from the diner, so he's free to be his nelly self."

"What about Michael? He doesn't seem very gay, either."

Brian nearly choked on his next bite of spicy beef. "Mikey is a straight guy who just happens to love nothing more than a big ole cock up his ass. He hasn't topped in nearly a decade."

"When was the last time you bottomed?" Justin asked, remembering how Brian had said the previous night during their unsuccessful attempt to fuck that he hadn't bottomed in a long time.

"Probably not since you were in preschool. I never enjoyed it and was rarely asked to do it, so I stopped a couple years after losing my virginity. When you're hung like I am, you don't have to bottom."

Justin did the math in his head. "So you were what, fourteen when you lost your virginity?"

Brian nodded.

"Wow," Justin said, feeling like some kind of freak for still being a virgin a month shy of eighteen. "It sounds like you and Michael are perfect for each other since you only top and he only bottoms. He's obviously in love with you, so why-"

"He's my best friend," Brian said. "I don't fuck my friends, the few I have. I love him like a brother, no more than that. Mikey was there for me when we were teenagers, when I needed him. I don't know what I would have done without him before I finally got out of my asshole father's house."

"What about now? Now that you're adults, he seems to need you more than you need him."

Brian had to agree with the kid. He constantly felt like he had to carry Michael everywhere, as if the man couldn't do anything without him. Debbie often told him that he was responsible for Michael and never hesitated to chew him out when something went wrong in her son's life. He also had to admit that maybe he was a little too affectionate with Michael from time to time, which may have led him to believe that he had a shot with him. Too many lingering hugs, kisses on the mouth, and gropings while dancing at Babylon.

"Maybe you need to tell him that he'll never have you," Justin suggested.

Brian pushed his food around with his fork. "Maybe I do."  

Justin drove them back to Brian's building after lunch, where Michael was waiting for them in his car. Michael saw the Jeep creep by and waved at his best friend in the driver's seat, which was actually Justin at the moment.

"Fuck, where should I park?" he asked Brian, horrified to see that there weren't any open spots on the street that he could easily maneuver into after driving around the block.

"Looks like you're gonna have to parallel park, Sonny Boy," Brian said, covering his mouth to hide an amused smile.

Justin looked in the side mirror and saw that there weren't any cars behind him. Recalling what he learned in Driver's Ed and the hours his parents spent yelling at him while attempting to teach him how to parallel park, Justin stopped the Jeep when he was parallel to the car in front of the only open space near the building, which just happened to be Michael's Pontiac Grand Am.

"Brian!" Michael yelled through his open window, as if the men in the Jeep hadn't already noticed him.

Justin flicked on the right turn signal and put the Jeep in reverse, taking a deep breath as he tried to ignore Michael and the sweat breaking out on his brow.

"Take it slow and you'll be fine," Brian said. "Turn the wheel hard to the right and ease your foot off the brake."

Justin did as Brian told him. He gasped a bit as the ass of the Jeep began to swing to the right and the vehicle crept backward.

"You're doing great," Brian said as hoped to any and all gods that may exist that this boy didn't crash his car. "Now stop."

Justin pressed the brake, the Jeep now at a forty-five degree angle.

"Turn the wheel to the left one and a half times to straighten it, back up a little bit more," Brian instructed, his voice calm despite his heart pounding in his chest. "Stop. Turn hard to the left and move us into the spot. Good, good, now stop. Shift into drive and pull up so we're an equal distance between these two cars."

The boy continued to do as the older man said, happy that he was almost done, that he didn't crash into the car behind them or roll up the curb like he did in his last test.

"We made it. See? You can parallel park!" Brian said, his voice full of pride for his student.

"I did it!" Justin yelled, making sure to put the Jeep in park.

"Yes, you did!" Brian confirmed.

Before he knew it, his arms were wrapped around the boy and they were kissing. The beautiful moment was interrupted when Michael knocked on the driver's side window.

"Brian!" he yelled out again. "What the fuck are you doing?"

The men reluctantly separated and got out of the Jeep.

"What's the matter, haven't you ever seen two guys making out before?" Justin snarked as he walked over to the sidewalk.

"Where were you?" the shorter brunet asked.

"Uh... when?"

"The gym, duh! You know, where we meet every Saturday at eleven to work out?"

"We had some stuff to do that didn't involve watching you, Emmett, and Theodore barely break a sweat while the three of you gossip for an hour," Brian explained.

Michael gave the blond a nasty look. "How the fuck-"

Brian stepped in front of the snarling man and got right in his face. "Michael, Brian is in a relationship now, okay? He doesn't have time to babysit you every day. He has a life of his own that doesn't involve you. Maybe you should find someone you actually have a chance with and get out of Brian's ass already. You're never gonna get it."

Michael looked over at the tall brunet, the man he thought was his best friend. "Are you hearing this shit?"

Justin snapped his fingers next to his right ear as if testing his hearing. "Uh, I'm not deaf. I heard everything he said, loud and clear. I agree with all of it."

"What the fuck is so special about this kid?" Michael asked, inspecting the blond teen from head to toe. "Out of all the guys you've fucked, which has to be well in the hundreds by now, what is it about him? You've never had a boyfriend before and you've mocked me when I've had one in the past. You loathe the concept of commitment or monogamy. Now, this little twink has come into your life and changed your entire outlook... why him?"

Justin turned and made a show of checking out the body of the blond teen standing in front of him, too. "Well, are you seeing what I'm seeing? He's fucking beautiful, Mikey."

Brian couldn't help but laugh, knowing that Justin was only complimenting his own body.

"The hair, the eyes, that smile..." Justin continued. "And his ass, woo! It's perfect. He has a beautiful dick, too."

"Ugh!" Michael said as if the topic of dick grossed him out all of a sudden.

"And he's a great kisser. He has the softest lips I've ever kissed and such a talented tongue."

Playing along, Brian demonstrated his kissing prowess with Justin. It soon grew quite heated and passionate, and they almost forgot Michael had been standing in front of them until they heard his car screech away from the curb.

Both men laughed.

"Well, that takes care of him," Justin said.

"No, he'll go straight to Emmett or Deb and repeat everything we said to him. This is only the beginning."

They took the elevator up to the loft and took off their jackets.

"I'm sorry," Justin said.

"For what?"

"About what happened with Lindsay. I know I already apologized earlier, but it's still bothering me. I'm also sorry for any trouble I'm making with you and Michael. I had no business to-"

Brian walked over and kissed Justin, effectively shutting him up.

"Thank you," Brian said after coming up for air.

Justin tilted his head in confusion.

"I'm glad you were there at the Munchers' house today. Of course, in our present predicament, you had to be there, but still. I've always been a pushover when it comes to Lindsay. She's like the female version of Mikey in my life, always needing my help for something. It's hard for me to say no to her. Christ, I had a kid with her and I fucking hate kids. Everyone, even Mikey, told me not to do it, but Lindz talked me into it after stroking my ego. ‘Oh, you're so good looking, Brian. Think of how beautiful a child of ours would be.' Melanie never wanted me to be the father, but Lindz said it was me or nobody."

Justin scoffed. "Sounds like she's in love with you, too."

"Yeah, which is crazy since we're both gay and she is firmly attached at the cunt to Mel."

"You said you fucked her in college," Justin reminded him.

Brian waved his hand. "That was purely out of drunken curiosity. Neither of us had been with someone of the opposite sex before and alcohol makes you do things you wouldn't normally do... plus it makes you horny. We both soon realized that I'm a homo and she's a lesbo. Anyway, I only agreed to give her my sperm when she said I would have zero responsibility for the kid. I was the one who offered to help financially. I've only seen Gus a few times since he was born, but every time I hold him, I fall in love more and more. I didn't think it was possible."

"Do you actually want to keep your parental rights?"

"I don't know, it's a big decision to make. I do know that when Lindz brought it up earlier, it felt like someone had punched me in the chest. Still, if I was in my own body and you hadn't been there to tell her off, I probably would have agreed to sign my rights away and still given her the money. That gravy train stops today. As far as the bit with Mikey downstairs, that needed to happen."

Justin kicked off his shoes and settled further into the couch. "So, what do you normally do on a Saturday afternoon?"

"Hang out with Mikey, either here or his place. We watch movies, read comic books-"

"Comic books?" Justin repeated before snorting out a laugh. "I would never have guessed that you're a geek!"

"I am not a geek," Brian said defensively before launching himself across the couch and tickling Justin, who burst out laughing. "Say it, say I'm not a geek!"

"I'm not a geek!" Justin shrieked as he tried to wiggle out from underneath the tickle monster. Being the bigger man between them, Justin managed to overpower him by rolling himself and Brian over. Unfortunately, the only place to go was on the floor.

"Oof!" Brian said, the wind knocked out of him when Justin landed on his chest.

Justin looked down at the man he was lying on top of. "Shit, I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

Brian laid there motionless for several seconds before resuming the tickling, Justin shrieking and laughing again.