After leaving Joan Kinney's house, Brian and I practically sprinted down the street to get to his Jeep. We both jumped in and Brian quickly pulled away from the curb.

"Holy shit!" I yelled, breathing heavily. "You were right - your sister is a cunt!"

Brian chuckled. "Well, Claire has yelled at me plenty times over the years, but she's never hit me before." He rubbed his chest with his right hand. "I'm probably going to have some bruises."

I looked at Brian somberly. "So, uh... was it true what you said in there; about your dad, I mean?"

He nodded while continuing to look straight out the windshield as he drove. "The old man told me several times throughout my childhood that he never wanted me, that Mom should have gotten rid of me like he'd told her to. Mom, being the good Catholic that she is, wouldn't hear of it. Shit, they'd only gotten married after she got knocked up with Claire. It seems that they had used the ‘pull and pray' method of birth control, but they were a couple of Fertile Myrtles. Pop got a vasectomy after I came along."

I shook my head in disbelief. "My parents had to try for two years to have me the old fashioned way. My dad has slow swimmers."

"The sperm that became you was the Little Engine that Could, huh?" Brian asked with a smile.

"Apparently," I said with a laugh. "They had to go through a few rounds of IVF to have my sister eight years ago."

He whistled quietly. "That shit's expensive. I couldn't imagine wanting a kid so damned bad that you'd pay out the ass to get one. Fuck, I couldn't imagine wanting a kid, period. At least fags like us don't have to worry about that silly shit."

"Speak for yourself," I told him. "I may want to have kids someday. I couldn't imagine having one any time soon, but maybe in the future."

"Yeah, maybe you and Daphne could have a couple of rug rats someday," Brian said in a sarcastic tone.

"Why not? Even though I doubt we'd make them naturally, I'd love to share a kid or two with my best friend."

"Christ, are there no real homos left these days? First the munchers, then Michael..." He suddenly bit his bottom lip, as if he had said too much.

Brian parked the car somewhere and shut the engine off, but I was too interested in what he had to say to look to see where we were.

"What about the munchers and Michael? I know who Michael is, but..."

He looked at me and sighed. "You know that Lindsay - Miss Peterson - is a lesbian, right?"

I shook my head vigorously.

"Well, did you see the little short-haired woman that was with her at the funeral home last night - the one that looked like she had swallowed a basketball?"

I nodded.

"That's Melanie, Lindsay's lover. They've been scissoring for the last five years."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh..."

"And Michael, who's also gay and has been my best friend since we were fourteen, is the father, although that was accomplished with him wacking off in a cup and Linds using a turkey baster-type thing to impregnate Mel eight months ago."

"Artificial insemination," I stated.

"Thank you, Dr. Ruth."

"Dr. Ruth is a sex therapist, not an OB/GYN."

Brian stared at me blankly for several seconds. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"

I made the zipping my lips and throwing away the key motion.

"But before the girls went to Michael for his sperm, they - well, Lindsay - came to me first. She wanted me to be the father of their child and she wanted to carry it. I told her ‘fuck no,' even though I would have signed my rights away after the baby was born so Mel could adopt it and I wouldn't be financially responsible."

"Why did you say no?" 

"I reminded her of how bigoted the folks at St. James are and how they'd most definitely fire her for not just being an unmarried pregnant woman, but a dyke, too. They'd probably fire me along with her if they found out that I was the one responsible for making the bastard child. So that's how Mel ended up enceinte with Michael's spawn. She's been out and proud at the law firm she works at for years and Michael owns his own business, so neither of them has to worry about losing their jobs. I told Mikey not to do it, but he was so excited over the thought of having a wrinkled little time clock reminding him of how old he's getting that he didn't listen."

I thought about all of that for a moment. "But Lindsay and Melanie would have been the ones raising the baby, right? Why didn't you just donate your sperm for Melanie to carry it?"

"For one thing, I have absolutely no interest in being anyone's father."

"But you wouldn't have really been the father," I pointed out. "Just the sperm donor."

He leaned his head back on the headrest and sighed deeply. "Like I told Lindsay, the last thing this world needs is another descendent of Jack and Joan Kinney running around. It's bad enough that Claire has two of them."

"And for another?" I asked.

"Mel and I fucking hate each other with an extreme passion. I'd jump off a bridge before I'd procreate with that bitch."

I waited for him to elaborate, but it seemed like he was done talking about it. Instead, I finally looked outside the Jeep and noticed that we were on a street lined with buildings accented with rainbow decorations. Two men walked past us on the sidewalk, hand-in-hand.

"Where are we?" I asked, although I already knew.

"Liberty Avenue."

"I've never been on this street during the day before. It looks so... tame, compared to how it looks at night."

Brian gave me a tiny smile before opening his car door. "Come on, I'm fucking starving."

I walked beside him as we made our way towards the end of the block. "Why didn't you eat at your mom's house?"

"Because I lost my appetite as soon as I walked in the door."

Brian opened the door to a building on the corner, which upon walking in I noticed was a diner. It was around 1:30 by that point and there were several empty booths available on the right side of the room.

I followed Brian over to a booth and sat down on the bench seat across from him. Soon after, a woman with curly red hair and bright make-up approached us. She was wearing a rainbow-patterned vest adorned with several large buttons, one of which was a name tag that read Debbie. Her pink t-shirt under the vest said Stop Staring at My Tits in black letters. I quickly looked down at the table.

"Hey, sweetie," Debbie said to Brian. "How'd things go today?"

Brian shrugged. "Get the kid a menu and bring me some coffee."

Debbie turned to look at me. "Well, who is this gorgeous little thing?"

I couldn't help but smile at her. "Hi, I'm Justin."

"You're a little ray of sunshine, you know that?" She then turned to Brian and whispered, "Since when do you bring tricks in here for lunch?"

Brian looked up at the woman. "Who do I have to blow to get a cup of coffee around here?"

"Alright, alright," Debbie said before turning around and walking behind the counter on the opposite side of the room. She returned carrying a cup of coffee and a laminated menu. "Can I get you something to drink while you decide what you'd like, Sunshine?"

"Sweet tea, please," I answered.

After she walked away to get my drink, I said to Brian in amusement, "She called me ‘Sunshine.'"

"That's Michael's mom, by the way. She's been more of a mother to me than Saint Joanie ever was."

Debbie came back with my tea and I ordered a double bacon cheeseburger with everything and some onion rings. Brian ordered a dry grilled chicken sandwich and a garden salad with fat free Italian dressing.

"Are you on a diet or something?" I asked Brian after Debbie left to put in our order.

"Gotta keep my girlish figure," he said before taking a sip of coffee.

We spent our lunch time chatting about the upcoming holiday play and The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had finished reading over the weekend for Book Club.

Once Debbie came by to collect our empty plates, she asked me if I was interested in some dessert. I looked at the chalk board behind the counter and saw that they were advertising their apple pie ala mode, so I ordered that. Debbie brought it out to me a few minutes later and I dug in with gusto.

"Christ," Brian said. "How the fuck can you eat all that shit?"

"I'm a growing boy," I answered with a smile.

"You're almost eighteen," Brian needlessly reminded me. "You're probably done growing by now."

"Almost eighteen?" Debbie repeated as she sat our bill down on the table. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Brian! Since when do you fuck someone who's not even old enough to vote?"

"Relax, Mother," Brian said to her as he pulled out his wallet. "He's one of my students and I'm not fucking him."

"I kind of crashed his father's burial earlier," I added.

"Shouldn't you be at school, though?" Debbie asked me.

"Trust me, Deb, Justin can afford to take a day off. He's an honors student and scored a 1500 on his SATs," Brian said with a smile as if he took great pride in bragging about me.

"Well, good for you, Sunshine!" Debbie said. "And it was pretty sweet of you to be there to support Brian today. Me and all of his friends had to work unfortunately or we would have been there, too."

"Oh, don't worry," Brian said. "You didn't miss a thing... other than dear old Joan getting sloshed and Claire being an attention whore, making everything about her."

"Same old, same old," Debbie mumbled, rolling her eyes.

Debbie walked away a few moments later after the cook rang the bell. Brian tossed a stack of bills onto the table.

"How much was mine?" I asked him, reaching into my back pocket for my wallet.

"It's on me," he said. "It's the least I could do after what you witnessed at my mom's house."

I thanked him for paying my portion of the bill and after I finished my dessert and we waved good-bye to Debbie, Brian and I walked back to the Jeep. It had stopped snowing and what had come down earlier that day had not accumulated.

We only exchanged a few words as Brian drove me back to my house. I knew that I would see him again at school the next day, but I was sad that our time together was coming to an end.

Brian pulled the Jeep up in front of my childhood home and I suddenly began to feel extremely worried about him.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm just glad to be done with this whole fucking debacle."

"You're not going to do anything to, uh..." I began to ask, but I bit my lip before finishing my sentence.

"To... what?" Brian asked.

I sighed. "You wouldn't do anything to hurt yourself, would you?"

Brian chuckled. "Relax, Sunshine. I'm not going to go on a bender or anything just because my old man died. He's been gone for a few days now and I'm handling it fabulously."

I smiled a bit after Brian repeated the nickname that Debbie used for me. "Well, it's just that he's now dead and buried... it's like, more official now; that he's really gone."

Brian put his right hand on my knee and squeezed. "I appreciate your concern Mr. Taylor, but I assure you that you don't need to worry about me. I survived a life with Jack Kinney and I'm sure I'll survive just fine without him."

I covered the hand on my knee with my own. "Okay. Well, if you ever need someone to talk to..."

He gave me a smile. "Thanks."

Before I even realized what was happening, Brian's lips were locked with mine. It was a very tender, G-rated kiss, but it was the most amazing kiss I had ever received.

Brian suddenly drew back and grabbed onto the steering wheel with both hands.

"Shit... I'm sorry," he said in a panicked voice.

"No... it's okay," I said to him.

We both sat there like statues for several tense seconds before he finally said, "You should get going."

I tried my best to hide my disappointment.

"Yeah... okay," I said before removing my seat belt and opening the car door. "Um... I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Brian said, not daring to look at me.

I had barely closed the passenger door before Brian took off.