Things happen so fast it can become a blur
#3 of Life Goes On Series
A simple first meeting goes much better than expected and lays the foundation for my life to open up and change in so many ways.
With his hand extended out to me he said, "Hey, my name is Chris and I noticed that you were the one who brought this and a couple other shows for all of us to watch." I'm sure my cheeks were a little red when I stuck out my own hand and shook his, but if he noticed he didn't point it out. With my ears and tail sagging a little from shyness I replied, "Uh, hi I'm Joseph, but everyone calls me Joey. Um, yeah I've got a bit of a collection, been gettin these things for the cheap on chibay" I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't stammering too much or tripping over my own words. "Nice, I've always just watched whatever few animes I could on T.V., the dvd's are usually a bit too pricey for me to get unless they are on sale. Maybe I should take a look around chibay like you?" he said with smile. I surprised myself when I said "Well, I have a good amount of shows lying around if you ever wanna borrow a few." Chris' ears and tail perked up at this and he said, "Really! That would be great, I've been wanting to see some new things." I surprised myself even more when I said "Would you maybe wanna meet up after school and hang for a bit to talk about it?" I mentally slapped myself at this thinking that I was going way too fast to be asking that already. It was Chris' turn to surprise me when he said, "Sure, why not. As long as you don't mind waiting around a little while til I get out of wrestling practice?"
-About an hour after school-
Sitting at the stone steps looking over the schools baseball field listening to my Ifad my mind was reeling at how my unforseen ballsiness had gotten me here. I had called my mother when school let out to let her know I was gonna be late getting home cause I was gonna hang out with a friend. She sounded surprised at this, but just told me to stay safe and let her know when I was on my way back. From where I was sitting I had the perfect view of the gym where I knew Chris would be exiting when he was done with practice. As I was listening to some trance I got to thinking about his practice. All of the hot sweaty guys grasping at each other, trying to pin one another down. As I was fighting to keep a boner down I realized I was glad that my ballsiness streak had stopped at just meeting Chris after school cause if I had kept on going and ended up asking to watch the practice too I'm sure I would have definitely come off as a creeper then.
After a few more minutes I noticed guys funneling out of the gym, obviously from the wrestling team. As I was taking in the site of all the lightly sweaty guys in shorts and tshirts under the guise of looking for someone I noticed Chris near the back of the crowd chatting with a very slim and slightly tall dalmation. As they were walking Chris turned and noticed me saying, "Hey Joey, this is Max, Max this is Joey." We exchanged our own hello's. "Yeah Max this is the guy I told you about with all the anime dvd's." My ears dipped a little in embarassment and I blushed as I said, "Well, I probably only have a few more than most people." Chris looks at me with a smirk and says, "Few more my ass, most of the people I hang with barely know what anime is." He shocks me when gives my shoulder a firm squeeze and says, "Hey, we still gotta shower, but instead of having Joey waiting here even longer how about we all go to my place. It's only three blocks away and I feel like using my own shower right now rather than the school ones." Max shrugs his shoulders in agreement and I nervously let out a, "Um, sure."
As we walk to Chris' place we chit chatted about some of the animes I have and am planning to get. It doesn't take long at all to get to his place. It was just an ordinary one story three bedroom house in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, the only real distinguishing feature about it was the bright pink paint job. Chris notices me looking at the house and says with a shrug, "Eh, the house was already that color when we moved in and we didn't feel like changing it. It's not so bad once you get used to it." As we walk in we are greeted by his parents. "Hey honey, who's your new friend?" his mother who is sitting in a recliner says with a smile. "This is Joey, Joey these are my parents Gloria and Victor." I walk up to shake his fathers hand first as he is sitting on a couch closer by. As I shake his hand he lets out a hearty laugh while saying, "Not a bad hand shake boy." He is a bit portly obviously a man not ashamed to pack away the food, but he pulls off more of a jolly old saint Nick look than slobbish. His mother was on the portly side too admittedly, but she carried it fairly well obviously not ashamed with the way she looked. When I went up to shake her hand as well she stopped me and said " No, no I much prefer hugs." as she held her arms out. I just shrugged and said alright and gave her a hug.
"Me and Max are gonna take showers and then we'll all be in my room." Chris remarks to his parents. With that we made the short walk down the hall to his room. Max led and along the way I made note of the bathroom as the only door on the left side, what must have be Chris' brother's room on the right side and in the far right corner a door that I assume leads into his parents bedroom. When we got inside Chris' room Max immediately laid down on Chris' bed and pulled a sports magazine out of his pack to read . Chris paid him no mind and just sat down along the edge of the bed, Max obviously having been to the house frequently enough to earn such privileges.
I stood at the doorway for a minute just scanning my eyes over the place taking it all in. The floor is relatively clean with no discarded clothing lying around to my dissapointment. There are a few posters of sports stars strewn about his walls and two of anime. His bed takes up about a fourth of the space in his room; another fourth was taken up by a large entertainment display complete with T.V., a large stereo, TBOT180 system with a shelf for several games, and some extra space for a good number of anime dvd's and a couple manga, and shoved in a corner was a desk for him to study at. Chris took my looking around as searching for a place to sit so he patted the bed and said, "Go ahead and sit on the bed with us it's plenty big enough."
As I sat down I thought to myself, "This is the first day I actually got to talk to him and I'm already at his house sitting in his bed?" I was amazed at how nervous I was on the inside yet I was somehow managing to keep myself fairly well contained on the outside. "So," Chris started, "those are the shows I've managed to collect when they were on sale." he says while pointing to the shelf. I notice that they are all giant robot themed and say as much to him. "Well, those were the only half way decent looking ones I saw whenever a sale was going on the others just looked kinda cheap." he says while rubbing his shoulder. "Well, how pretty the graphics look isn't really what makes a show." I say somewhat sarcastically while giving him a playful nudge. He returns the nudge while sticking his tounge out at me and says, "But I like the pretty graphics, but yeah I guess your right." He runs his fingers through his mane in a way that makes my heart pump a bit faster and says to me, "Well then mister expert, how about you educate me in the ways of good anime then?". " Maybe I will." I say back at him with a sly grin.
"So where do want to start? We can go with swordfighting first, or gunfights, if you want something lighter there are some good comedies, but then you'd have to choose between romantic comedy, slapstick, moe, or dark comedy, and then there are the sports anime and the..." Chris throws up his hands in an effort to stop me from continuing and says, "Alright, alright I get it there are a lot more things to choose from than giant robots just please stop with the listing already." He says this with a tone of irritation, but his smile is still there so I know that he knows that I mean well. After his little outburst he lets out a thoughtful sigh and says, "You know what, how about you just surprise me?". I give him a small smile and say, "I'll be sure to pick something good and with half way decent graphics too." I say the last part with a smirk. He rolls his eyes and says, "Bah, don't worry about the graphics I was only kidding, just make sure it's entertaining." "No problem, I got plenty to choose from. I'm sure there's something you'll like."
After my little anime nerd tirade Chris lets Max take his shower first while we chat some more. Then when Max is done Chris goes for his turn. As Chris is busy with his shower I am left alone in his room with Max. After a couple of minutes of silence between us I begin to feel a little awkward and wonder if Max doesn't like me much. I take a glance his way to check up on him and notice that the magazine he is reading is football themed. I decided to go for broke and say, "So, you like football." to which he responds "Yep." After another brief silence I decide to speak up again and say, "Well, I don't exactly know much about it, so, you mind explaining some things to me?" The way Max's eyes light up and his spotted tail begins to wag for the first time in front of me I know I hit the jackpot. I spend the next fifteen minutes having Max explain the ins and outs of football until Chris comes back from his shower at which point all my attention is directed back to him. I do notice as he grabs a different magazine from his pack that Max's happy attitude shifted back into his indifferent one albeit a little sadder seeming this time, but I don't think on it too much as Chris continues where we left off.
Chris and I end up spending about an hour and a half talking about various shows and movies both anime and not. Meanwhile Max just lays there reading his magazine, although he did nod off at one point and me and Chris decided to wake him up by tickling him. He shot up with laughter and shoved our arms away while giving us a dirty look all the while we just laugh our asses off. At around six thirty Gloria called out to Chris saying that she was getting dinner ready and if I would like to join. Chris just looked at me waiting for a response to which I said "Um, I should probably get going actually. My mom worries about me and I'm usually home around seven." Chris just smiled as usual and said, "Okay, sure." I gather up my bag and said bye to Max who looks up from his magazine with a smile and a small wave says "See ya around."
Chris follows me to see me out and as I walked out into their living room I said "Goodbye, it was very nice meeting you." to his parents who returned it in kind. As I walked out the door and turned to say bye to Chris he pulled me in for a one armed man hug which I returned. He then leaned against the doorway in a way that made him look so very cute and said "See ya tommorrow at the science room, I'll be lookin forward to whatever your showin next and to whatever you decide to lend me." I smiled and said back to him "Don't worry I'll be sure to make them good." And at that I turned away and started my trek back home across town happy in the knowledge that I had made two new friends but terrified by the thought of how Chris might react if he were to find out I was gay and might have a thing for him.
.....................
Still goin strong and trying my best. In this third installment I ended up letting my anime nerd self out a bit strong, but that is quite accurate to what happened at the time, if my memories aren't steering me wrong that is. I'm not sure if what has been happening so far would be very interesting to just anybody, but I do hope some people find it interesting and would like to see where this is all going. I do assure you that events do get more interesting and dramatic as things move along. I'm just trying my best to build the story and world as best I can so that when I do get to that point its not a big mess. Any words of encouragement, or criticism and suggestions are very much welcome.
