Chapter 38: A New Taste

"Get back together?" Jade said, sitting up & facing me.

"Yeah," I said quietly.

"Is that a good idea? I mean...with all THIS?" he said, rather incredulously.

I continued to stare at the water.

"I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Plus, didn't you just say that you were...kinda 'into' this Jared kid?"

"So, what? I can't wanna be with you AND be attracted to other people?"

"Maybe we should-"

"I don't CARE if it's not a good idea," I cut him off. He stayed quiet.

"All I know is that I want what I want...& what I want, is us to be together again. Ok? I'm willing to take a chance, but that's what I thought you DID for people you love," I said, turning to him. "You take chances, even when so much is going on. My heart is telling me that I want us to be together again, & that's what I want."

"Look, Noah," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. I turned my head away from him, feeling a few tears start to come forward.

"Usually, you're the one giving ME advice & helping ME out. It's been that way ever since we were little. But if there's anything I've learned from you, it's that sometimes, you have to think of what the right thing to do is."

"So you don't want us to be a couple again?" I said sharply.

He sighed. I knew his answer.

"I just don't think-" but I didn't let him finish. I stood up & walked back up the hill to my house, leaving him there.

As I walked into the house, I trudged up to my room & stripped my soaking wet clothes off. I changed into more comfortable clothes & fell down on my belly onto my bed.

Just then, my phone rang & with a sniffle, I reached over to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey! It's Jared," I heard the cheerful voice say on the other end.

"Oh hey, what's up?" I rubbed my nose.

"Not much. You all right? You sound down."

"Yeah...I'm all right, honest."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, just some...people problems."

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked sincerely, which was warming.

"Umm, you know what? I'm all set. But thanks, really."

"Any time. So I wanted to know if you were up for hanging out at some point?" he said.

I rolled onto my back.

"Umm, when?"

"I was thinking maybe tomorrow night? We could meet up in the city at the club we met at. Figure out what we could do from there. We could meet up at like 7 if you want?" he said.

I glanced out my window & saw Jaden standing up & brushing himself off. I watched as he started to walk back to his house with his head down.

"Sounds...good," I said.

**********

The next night, I was standing in front of my mirror looking over myself. I had a blue checkered plaid shirt on, with the top few buttons left open & a green shirt on underneath. My hair damp from my shower, I tucked it behind my ears & popped in a cough drop.

"Going out?"

I spun around & saw my dad standing there eating a doughnut.

"What?"

"I asked if you're going out. You looked dressed up a bit."

"Oh, yeah...I guess."

"Where ya goin'?" he said, biting into his dough toy.

"Augusta," I said. I didn't want this to turn into...something.

"Oh yeah? With who, the guys? You guys don't go into the city all that much."

"It's not with the guys."

"Jaden?"

I paused fixing my shirt.

"He's 'one of the guys' dad."

"Well I know that, but I thought maybe you considered him something else."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I shook my head. "It's not him either."

"Who?"

"Why do you wanna know?" I said as I walked past him to get my shoes.

"Just curious."

I plopped down on my bed & started to lace up my sneakers.

"I'm hanging out with this kid Jared. I met him when I went out with the guys. I'm pretty sure it's a date," I said.

"Ahh, ok then. How do you think it'll go?"

I shrugged.

"Is he the only person you've seen other than Jade?"

"I can't say I'm 'seeing' him but he's the only other person I've ever felt interested in."

"All right then. Well, what are you guys doing tonight?"

"I dunno. We haven't talked about it much yet."

"Ok. Well, whatever you guys do, have fun, be safe."

"YES DAD," I whined.

*****

"Hey!"

I turned around & saw Jared walking up the sidewalk toward me.

"Hey Jared," I smiled.

"Sorry I'm a little late, my car sucks," he laughed.

"It's ok. I don't have a car so I had to take a cab," I said.

"Yeah. Well! We're here, so what are you up for?" he said excitedly.

"It's up to you, I'm fine with whatever."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right then," he said, looking around. "Well I'm starving. You wanna get something to eat?"

"Ok. Where?"

"Well, I figure you can't go wrong with Chinese, so what about that place down there?" he said, pointing to a Chinese restaurant at the bottom of the hill.

"Sounds good to me," I smiled.

***

"So," he said, struggling to hang onto a load of noodles in his mouth, "how often do you go to that club?"

"The one where you & me met?" I said as I scarfed down a chicken finger.

"Yeah."

"Never. That was my first time. First time ever at a club actually."

"Ahhh so I guess I kinda popped your club cherry then," he grinned devilishly.

"Hahaha, yeah I guess."

Our waiter then brought over another order of our food.

"So how long have you known?"

"Known what?" I said, confused.

"Well when did you first realize you were gay?" he asked.

"Oh," I replied stupidly.

"Well," I started, "I guess it all kind of started when I was 12 & I realized that I was starting to see other boys as attractive. I started fantasizing about them & I knew that it wasn't right. I remember being scared of thinking things like 'why do I find these boys so good looking?' & other stuff like that. I thought for a little while that maybe it was just a phase but then it continued into the next year. In 7th grade I figured I must be bi."

"Yeah...I think pretty much everyone thinks that at first before they admit they're gay."

"Yeah. The scary thing though, was that I was never attracted to any girls so I remember PRAYING that I would start to like girls, but it never happened. So I ended up concluding that I was in fact gay."

"Who was your biggest crush? Somebody at schoooool?" Jared teased.

"Actually...it was my best friend."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Him & I were actually together for a while up until a little while ago."

"Aww, so you got to live out your dream by being with him?"

"Yeah."

"So what happened?"

"Well...it's complicated."

"We're here to share, aren't we?" Jared said with a smile.

"Well...he claims that I wasn't very supportive of him in doing things like joining clubs at school or showing any kind of interest in the things he started to get into. And yeah, I didn't have any interest in them so I didn't see a need to do stuff too. But that slowly would lead to us arguing about smaller things & soon we were arguing a lot."

"About what?"

I shook my head. "Just...the stupidest stuff. The way ALL arguments turn out. When you're upset, you just wanna find a way to win every single little fight. You want SOMETHING to hold on to, even if it means fighting with someone you love."

"I guess that sounds about right."

"I wanted to get back together with him but he didn't want to."

"Why not?" Jared said, surprised. "I mean you're a super nice guy, you're pretty hot, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, you've told me how you do in school...anybody would be lucky to have you Noah."

"Thanks," I blushed.

"Seriously dude, fuck him."

I felt a dull hit as he said those words.

"Well I mean he's still my best friend..."

"Then he should know better! If you're not up for something, then he shouldn't make you, & especially not make you feel bad about it."

I didn't know if I fully agreed with him or not, but it was certainly...uncomfortable to hear somebody talk about Jade like that.

"Hey ya know what?"

"What?"

"Let's get outta here," he said, leaning back.

"What? We haven't even finished eating yet!"

"So WHAT? Here," he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out several bills he had. "We've paid. Now let's go."

"Go where?" I said as we stood up & put our coats on.

"My place," he said as if it were no big deal.

Which it totally WAS.

*****

"Welcome to my humble abode," Jared said with a British accent as we walked into his home.

"So...what exactly are we doing here?" I said, hesitantly taking my coat off.

"Just continuing with this date," he said.

"Date?" I asked. I suppose it WAS now that I thought about it, but it still seemed just so weird to me.

"Yeah," he said, turning around as he walked into the kitchen. "Did you think it was something else?"

"Oh, well, it's just that...I dunno..."

"Hey, check this out!" I heard him call from the kitchen. I sat down on his couch with my coat on my lap. I turned to see what he was talking about. He came back from the kitchen with a bottle of red wine & two wine glasses. What was going ON here?

"Uhhh, Jared?"

He walked over to the couch I was sitting on & down next to me. He picked up a glass & handed it to me.

"Jared, I don't think we should be doing this."

"Doing what? Having a glass of wine? Our parents do it all the time to make a night go by, why can't we?" he shrugged it off.

"Because they're our PARENTS."

"It's not like we're gulping down Jose Cuervo, Noah. It's a glass of wine. It's Little Penguin."

"It's what?"

"Look, my parents are wine collectors & connoisseurs. They make their life drinking basically."

"Ok..."

"So OBVIOUSLY I've grown up around the stuff so they've let me...brush up on experience, you could say."

"They let you drink any alcohol they have," I said flatly.

"Don't act like we're under some freeway chugging booze or anything. It's a little wine tasting, it's not a bad thing," he replied.

"It's one thing to share a drink with your parents every now & then. It's another to take advantage of their trust & bring people home just to drink with them," I said.

"Noah," he said, putting his hand on my arm, "c'mon, just have a glass with me. Alcohol isn't a bad thing."

"That's a debate in itself but that's not my point. What if your parents come home any minute & catch us drinking their wine? I've never met them, they've never met me. I don't want them thinking I'm just here to celebrate their life work," I said, knowing that that wouldn't exactly make an ideal first impression.

Jared suddenly cracked a very evil grin that made me realize he had the cutest dimple on his left cheek.

"What?"

"Do you REALLY think that my parents would notice if we drank their wine?"

"What are you talking about?" I sighed.

"C'mere," he said, grabbing a hold of my hand.

He lead me through the living room & into the kitchen where I saw a big wooden cellar door in the floor. Jared bent down, unlocked the door & then began to lift it up. With a couple splintering squeaks, he rested the door against the wall. It was dark down there & I couldn't see what was down there. I watched Jared started to climb down a ladder, still with the wine bottle & glasses in one hand, into the dark abyss. I heard him scuffle around for a second & then saw everything light up from.

"Come on down," he said.

I walked over to the door & began to climb down the ladder. When I got to the bottom, which was only about 10 feet down, I turned around & stared in awe at the sight before me.

What must have stretched a hundred feet in front & to the side of me was a HUGE room filled with racks & cabinets full of wine bottles. there must have been HUNDREDS of wine bottles resting on the shelves & placers in here. It reminded me from the scene in "The Parent Trap" when they go downstairs into the wine cellar. Only this room was MUCH bigger.

"Something tells me they'd hardly even NOTICE if we had a little of their stuff," Jared said.

"Wow...this place is amazing," I exclaimed.

"I know right? Look," he said, grabbing a nearby bottle off a shelf, "this bottle came from southern France 90 years ago. 90 years ago! Can you believe that?"

"Cool."

"Here," he said, handing me my glass. He opened the bottle he had & began to pour a liberal amount of the scarlet juice into my glass. After he poured himself a glass, he raised it up for a cheer.

"To health & a good first date," he said proudly.

"Jared..."

"All right HUMOR ME at least," he said with a funny pout.

I sighed & clinked glasses with him. We took a few sips of our drinks. I found it to be like any other wine I had tasted; like grape juice with alcohol. But I suppose to him, & to his parents, it was much more complicated than that.

"Ahhh," he sighed. "That's some good stuff, huh?"

"I guess," I said.

"You need more if you wanna like it," he smiled as he put his hand under my glass & raised it up to meet my lips.

"Ok I'm pretty sure that's the epitome of peer pressure," I laughed.

Jared took another drink & I watched as he savored it, as if it was close to bringing him to an orgasm by the faces he made.

"Wow you really like that stuff huh?" I said.

"Mhm. Go check out that list on the wall over there. It's a list of all the wines we own," he said, pointing behind me. I turned around & walked over to the list. There must have been over 300 names of brands on here!

"Wow, you guys have some PRETTY fancy stuff down here," I said sarcastically. Like I knew anything about wine. I didn't hear him say anything so I added, "Ya know Jared, I still don't think we should be down here. I don't think your parents would like it if they came home & we were in their cellar especially when they don't know me."

I turned around to see him but when I did, he was MUCH closer to me than he was before. He was standing only about a foot in front of me & I immediately saw that he had his shirt all the way unbuttoned, exposing his taut chest & flat stomach. He light bronze skin was so soft & flawless that it seemed to be begging to have my warm tongue glide across it.

"Jared, what- what are you doing?" I said nervously. He walked up closer to me.

"I'm just trying to make this night as fun as possible for us."

"You can't POSSIBLY be drunk after three sips of wine," I said, slowly backing up as he advanced.

"Of COURSE not, but I'll admit that it certainly helps to light the mood," he said with a cool tone.

"Look, Jared-" I felt my beck up against the wall, with no where else to go.

"What is it?" he said, clearly not caring what my answer was.

"I just, I don't think we can do this...I mean, I'm not, I'm not ready yet..." I stuttered, feeling myself begin to sweat profusely.

"What, are you a virgin?" he asked, his eyes lighting up at the untapped possibility.

"Uh, heh, no, not exactly," I laughed nervously, wiping my brow. "It's just...I can't do this."

"Why not?" he asked quietly. He was inches from my face now. I stood there with an open mouth as I felt Jared's hands gently hold my arms. I felt him pull one of my hands to his bare waist. My fingers melted as they lay on his hot, soft flesh.

I braced myself as he leaned into me & rested his soft lips against mine. I closed my eyes as I felt him move into me.

Without meaning to...

...I kissed him back.