Chapter 8

Wow, you people are probably really going to hate Tyler now.... Enjoy!

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Chapter 8: Kent's POV, Sunday morning at Kent's house

I was busy studying for some upcoming tests this week at school when I felt my phone start to vibrate from an incoming text. It was from Tyler.

I grinned and blushed at the thought of how nice he was to me. I really think that I was starting to like him even more, even if we hadn't been on a real first date yet. Silly me....

I read the text about how he would pick me up at seven, and I texted him back, saying that I'd be ready.

I went back to studying for my Calculus exam tomorrow. I was about to finish an entire problem, when a small knock came from my door.

“Yeah?” I called out and turned around, surprised to see Paul running to me with a bunch of intricately folded papers.

He handed all of the papers to me. “Hey, Kent, you can give all of these to my big brother, right?”

“Sure, no problem, but what are these, Paul?” I asked. What could a mere eight year-old boy want to give to his brother that required so much paper?

“They're letters,” Paul grinned from ear-to-ear.

“Ah, sure, I'll do that,”

“Thanks,” Paul gave me an extremely tight hug, to the point of almost suffocating me. And then he left the room.

I looked at the clock and realized that I still needed to get ready to go with Dad to lunch where he and Cole would discuss some legal things. I kind of wanted to see him and just talk to him and be there to listen to him vent out all of the things that he was holding inside of himself. And now I had to give him a bunch of letters. Maybe I could also ask hi about relationship advice while he was there too, since my Mom and Dad weren't great with that kind of stuff, but they were totally accepting of it, as long as it didn't interfere with my grades.

I closed my books and went off to the shower to get nice and clean. Then I changed into something nice because, knowing my Dad, we would probably be going to some fancy restaurant for lunch. So I eventually settled on wearing a simple blue button-up shirt, with a black tie, and black pinstripe slacks with a pair of black dress shoes.

Dad called me downstairs, where he was waiting for me with a briefcase surely full of blank notepads and papers.

“Are you ready, son?” He asked as he called the driver to the front door.

I nodded in response, checking my pockets to make sure that I had all of Paul's letters and my phone just in case Tyler sent me a message. I followed Dad into the limo and sat down on the plush, leather seats and grabbed myself a bottle of water and took a big gulp from it. I was feeling a bit warm for some reason....

Something had been bothering me for the past few days: every time that I thought about Cole, my pace just quickened, and I felt my knees grow a bit weaker with every passing second. But wasn't I going out on a date with Tyler later tonight? Should I call off the date now, or would that be really rude to him? Tyler was really nice, and he had never done anything wrong to me before, so why should I be the instigator of trouble?

We had finally arrived at the restaurant by the beach, and it was, as suspected, one of the nicest restaurants in town. And since it was about one o'clock, the place was jam-packed with people. At least the restaurant had a nice view of the sand and surf just mere meters away from the restaurant.

The woman at the podium immediately saw Dad and then beckoned for us to come closer to talk to her as she spoke to Dad. “A young man appeared just a few minutes before you arrived, and said he was here to see you, Mr. Whitman. Is that true?”

“Yes, yes it is,” Dad adjusted his tie ever so slightly. “Please show me where he is now,”

“Of course,” the woman smiled at us and led us to a table right next to the window, where Cole was already sitting with a glass of water. “Please enjoy your meal,” she said right before she scurried off back to her podium.

“Hello, Mr. Whitman,” Cole said as he stood up from his chair, shaking my dad's hand.

“Please, call me Josiah. There's no need to be so formal with me,” Dad sat down in his chair, and so did I.

“Hey, Kent,” Cole casually said to me, allowing my heart to skip a beat...or several.

He looked stunning in the suit that Dad had gotten for him; he had picked the classic, black and gray, Giorgio Armani suit with the matching white dress shirt and dark blue Calvin Klein tie that matched his eyes perfectly. He looked like a model; no wait, he looked even better than a model; he looked like a dream with his tall height, dark gold hair which just went past his ears, dark blue eyes which looked deep enough to swim in, and his extremely well-kept physique was evident even through his clothes.

Yeah, he was hot. Wait! Wasn't I going on a date later today with a guy who actually was actually showing his interest for me? Ugh, boys are so confusing, especially when they're good-looking.

I was really drifting off and clearly not paying any attention to what Dad was saying to Cole because none of the thing that they were talking about made any sense. I shifted a bit in my seat casually and heard a crinkling of paper coming from my pants.

I then realized that I still had Paul's letters in my pocket, so I dug into my pocket and took out all twenty-seven of them, yes, I really counted all of them.

Cole and Dad had stopped talking long enough for me to hand the papers to Cole and explain to him what they were. “Uh, Paul wrote all of these for you, and he told me to give them to you, so, here,”

“Thanks, Kent,” Cole smiled at me, and all of my body heat immediately moved to my face. How embarrassing; not only was it in front of the guy that I had a crush on for several years, but also my father. At least he knew I was gay.

“Excuse me for a moment, another client is calling me with a pressing matter,” Dad said as he got up from the table and went off somewhere secluded.

Cole looked at me with a mix of judging and longing as soon as my dad was out of sight. He angrily took another bite of his steak.

“Is something wrong, Cole?” I asked tentatively; he looked fairly upset.

“Aw fuck,” Cole muttered just loud enough for me to hear. He sighed with visible frustration and looked at me in the eyes again, but this time his eyes were not the warm, dark blue eyes that I knew, but cold, stony eyes that threatened to paralyze me if I tried to escape. “How was Friday night?” Cole was starting to grip the silverware tightly to the point where his hand was terribly pale.

“Excuse me?” I was confused, what was wrong with Friday night?

“I said, 'how was Friday night?' You know, what did you do,” He tried to talk casually, but it seemed very...forced and fake, were those the right words? I looked at his face; yeah, forced and fake fit the bill perfectly.

“Well, had my swim meet, and then after the meet, I went to a party with some teammates from the team.” I still didn't know what was so wrong with me going to a party, unless...no, he didn't...did he really see?

“Kent, you're not telling me something,” Cole's voice had turned into a taunting growl which both scared me to death and turned me on in quite a few ways. I'm so horny and have such poor self-control, it's almost laughable, I thought to myself as I took a drink of water.

“Well, I went with, well,” I was trying to phrase it so that he wouldn't freak out more than he already was now. “Let's just say that I went to the party single, kissed someone for a bit, and now I'm going on a date with said person tonight.” My sentence came out really rushed and I felt really warm all over my body.

“And who was this 'said person'?” Cole arched one of his perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I don't care if it's a guy or not, it really doesn't matter to me at all, because I'm not really in the position to judge someone by their sexual orientation myself, now that I think about it.”

“Uh, his name is Tyler,” I was looking at my plate of food and moved a lone carrot across my barren plate. I could feel the tension from Cole as he looked at me.

-Cole's POV: Sunday afternoon, at the beach-side restaurant-

“Um, his name is Tyler” At hearing that name, it took every ounce of strength that I had to not tell him how awful Tyler really was.

I gritted my teeth together and managed to speak coherently. “Oh, I didn't know you were gay. Anyways, are you looking forward to it?” I still was surprised, he didn't seem over-the-top like the stereotypes were, but more of a regular guy. But at least I had a shot now, since we were batting for the same team.

“Yeah,” Kent blushed even more. “Hey, Cole, so you have any advice for me? It's my first date, so, I don't really know what to do,”

“I think you need to be yourself, and then he'll fall in love with you for being you, not something else, like a certain someone already has,”

My will was slipping even more with every change of Kent's skin color to an even darker shade of red. I truly liked him, and maybe now should tell him now, before it's too late....

Kent beat me to it though. “Are you gay, Cole?” He looked at me with those light green eyes of his that made my heart melt. How was it that he could have this much of an effect on me? His lips, damn, they looked so good right now, so soft and kissable....

I managed to clear my head of how much I wanted to kiss Kent right now. “Yeah,” I said, not even caring if he knew. At least I'd have a shot at kissing those good-looking lips when he eventually ditches Tyler. Hell, he might even come to ask for forgiveness of why he never asked me out in the first place and be the one to instigate a kiss; one that, hopefully, would lead to more.

“Ah, ok,” Kent finally was looking at me, and I could see the emotion in his face, was it joy? “Are you the someone that has already 'fallen in love with me', Cole?”

“Uh, no,” What the hell was I saying? Why was I denying my feelings for this guy? I could feel the atmosphere grow tense, so as much as it pained me to tell Kent this I forced the sentence out of my mouth...partially.

“Well I hope you enjoy your date with,” I was struggling to force the bastard's name out of my mouth. “Tyler,”

“Thank you, Cole,” He smiled that innocent smile that I had fallen for not so long ago.

Just then, Mr. Whitman returned to the table, and so did the legal discussion of how to get Paul back into my custody and care, or at least to the point where I could see him whenever I wanted without someone being present. Preferably the first though. Not a day went by without me thinking of him and my thoughts just hoping he was thinking of me, but more importantly: that he still loved me.

After a bit more of Mr. Whitman taking notes on my case, he finally said, “Well, I'll start putting your case together tonight, and then I'll call you when I'm ready to go to the next step with this and file it as a motion.”

I said my thanks and went back to my truck and drove back to my hotel room. Upon entering, I sat down on the bed and took out all of Paul's letters and opened all of them carefully and slowly, allowing my eyes to savor every word and letter written by my younger brother.

It took me just a little over three hours to read all of them, and I found myself tearing up after reading them. The letters were really just descriptions of how his day was, how much he liked living with the Whitmans, making more friends at school, and the best thing of all: Paul writing about how much he missed me, how much he loved me, and how he will never stop loving me.

I smiled as I slipped all of the letters onto the nightstand by the bed. I would keep those letters forever.

I, looked at the clock to see that it was nearing six o'clock, and I still needed to do something tonight.

-Time-skip: Sunday evening, six fifty PM, outside of Kent's house-

I was in my truck waiting for Tyler to take Kent out to their date at seven, so I came just a bit early to ensure that I could follow them and still not get caught.

When I saw a blue car pull into Ken's driveway, I pressed my face against the window to see Tyler get out of his car and go get Kent from his house. Kent looked amazing as usual in a simple polo and dressy jeans. I just sat and waited for them to get a good half-block ahead of me before I began to follow them.

When they stopped, I realized that Tyler had taken Kent to Olive Garden. I sighed, knowing that I'd have to go inside and eat too and spend some of the little money that I had.

Luckily when the waitress sat me at a table for one, I hate being alone since it makes me look like an outcast, luckily, I could watch Kent perfectly from my seat.

I'm such a stalker.

Unfortunately, their date seemed to be going flawlessly, until the bill came.

I watched in horror to see the following argument ensue:

“Oh, dammit,” Tyler grumbled as he checked his pockets for his wallet.

“What's wrong Ty?” Kent asked with genuine concern. I felt my heart shatter, again, when he called the bastard by that nickname. Why couldn't he call me by some cute nickname like that?

“I think I left my wallet at home and forgot it on the way out of my house, sorry,” Tyler had a perfect face of true regret. Too bad for him that I was good at seeing through liars like him. “Do you mind paying this one time, Kent, I'm really sorry again,” I cursed Tyler's puppy eyes. They looked really truthful too.

“It's ok, everyone does that sometimes,” Kent smiled as he pulled out a credit card, probably with an unlimited amount put on it, no doubt. Kent was too sweet for this free-loading player. He wouldn't stand a chance.

I really wanted to get up and punch him right in the face for making Kent pay; wasn't he the one who asked Kent out in the first place?

I knew that if I was able to go out on a date with a guy as perfect as Kent, I would never make him pay, no matter how little money I had in comparison to him and despite the debate that would probably occur for him fearing for my economic well-being. Kent was just too perfect for this bastard.

Eventually, they left the restaurant and so did I, making sure to be able to see them, but so I was just another person minding my own business: Kent's well-being.

I watched them get into Tyler's car and begin to drive back to Kent's house. And being the faithful stalker I am, I followed them back to Kent's house.

Then, there was something that would haunt me for the rest of my life: Tyler leaned in to kiss Kent, and Kent went along with him, kissing him back; I could practically see Tyler licking Kent's tongue!

How dare that fucking bastard taint my Kent! He was supposed to be mine, wasn't he, or am I already too late?

Oh, Kent, please don't let me be too late to make you mine....

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So, what do you peoples think about Cole's feelings now? And was I right about you hating Tyler even more now? Anyways, vote and comment please.

~Michael