The twenty year old sits in his truck at the stop light waiting for the green so he can turn onto the street that will take him to his destination. Some part of him his telling him to turn around, it's been too long, too little contact, too much history that's been buried away in recesses of the mind to suddenly turn up without notice. But, the other part is telling him, he has to go, he has to see for himself, what time has done. More than four years without any kind of contact with or information about the person he going to see. Then the news from his father, now he's home from school for a couple of weeks and he finds himself here at the stop light, at the cross roads of a street that's going to take him back to a place he has not been for quite some time.
He pulls up to the house and while he's parking he thinks that there was still time to change his mind and keep going. Something won't let him though, so he decides to not fight it and just go with his feelings. He gets out of his truck and stretches, looking at the front door of the residence, then he walks up and takes a few moments before he rings the doorbell.
Maybe no one is home and he'll be saved, or the person he is visiting won't be in and he can make an excuse that he'll come back again. He isn't quite sure why he feels so nervous but he does and when the door opens his breath caught for a moment.
"Hi can I help you "says the woman who answers the door.
"Ms. Foster "says the young man.
Stef looks up at him with a puzzled face and then she covers her mouth with her hand as she realizes.
"Oh my god, Miguel is that you?" she squeals.
Before he could answer she throws herself at him and pulls him into a welcoming hug.
"I can't believe how much you've grown, how tall are you? She says and asks.
"Six three" he replies.
"Really, your dad told me you had grown a lot, but I never imagined. You look great and even more handsome than I remember" gushed stef.
"Oh, you're making make blush" he said as he started getting flushed in the face.
"Come in, come in" she says and takes him by the hand and leads him inside.
She leads him into the living room where he sees two younger boys playing a Wii video game. They both stopped and stared at him.
"Boys introduce yourselves, this is Miguel, he used to be friends with Jesus when they were younger. I'm going to go up and get him, I don't think he can hear me with those stupid head phones on." Says Stef as she heads for the stairs.
He notices the boys are still staring, looking up at him with their mouths open. His eyebrows wrinkle, puzzled at why the two younger boys seemed to be entranced. Still they haven't spoken. This is strange he thinks but then again, not really, this is something he has had to deal with since he became a teenager, maybe earlier, being stared at. Girls flirt and boys stare. He decides to break the ice.
"Hi guys, I'm Miguel" he says as he walks over, his hand extended.
"I'm, I'm Jude, Jesus's younger brother" stuttered the smaller slender boy as he shook his hand.
As he took the hand of the other handsome athletically built boy he heard him say
"I'm …gay… oh my god, Connor, Connor my name is Connor" he squeaked.
Miguel shook his hand firmly and chuckled with a smile as he said "Hi gay Connor."
"And by the way, that's ok" he added.
The boy threw both his hands over his face and he started turning tomato red by the second.
The other boy, Jude, stood there with his mouth wide open in disbelief, looking at his friend with a look that said; "you ass".
"What are you guys playing?" he asked trying to lighten up the air.
"Connor you wanna take this one since you feel like sharing" said the one named Jude.
"Umm, Major League Baseball 2K" Connor replied softly, still embarrassed.
"Great Game, I play ball in college" he responds.
"Me too, I play ball at school" replied the Connor boy.
He notices that the boys are back to staring again and he follows their eyes. No, it can't be, he thinks. They couldn't be looking there, could they? They were not staring at his face like before.
"Do I have something on my pants?" he asks as he looks down at himself.
When he looks back up both boys have averted their eyes and both of them are turning red.
"Oh boy, they were" he thinks to himself. This is something he used to also, people looking him in the face and then their eyes dropping just below his belt. The fact that he was wearing slim fit jeans that hugged every curve of his long muscled legs and needed just a little more room in the crotch area for modesty, did not help things. It used to bother him some, but he's become comfortable with the fact that he's a lot more gifted than most and that it shows. But he can't help feeling a little embarrassed at being ogled by the two younger teenage boys. Soon he's a little pink in the face too. So he decides the best thing to do is to sit with his hands folded in his lap.
"Can I get you something to drink" the little one named Jude says, without making eye contact.
"Yes, do you have bottled water?" he responds, thankful for the icebreaker.