AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the reviews! Glad yall are enjoying it so far. As I said last time, this chapter picks right up where the previous one left off. Usually, there will be a passage of some time between the chapters. Also, make sure you check out the important note at the bottom.


CHAPTER TWO

Dr. Riley smiled. He always smiled. Sometimes, it was just a way to let the other person know that he was listening and comprehending, but most often, he'd smile because he truly felt the patient's joy, and in this case, he could understand and appreciate how Kendall had changed Logan's life. "When did you start to feel that you wanted more than a friendship from Kendall?"

Once again, Logan looked to the ceiling as he gathered up an answer. "A few years later. It was in junior high, so we were about thirteen or fourteen. Things had gotten so much better for me by then. I mean, people were nicer to me, they didn't pick on me as much. I guess when you need an A+ to pass eighth grade science, you learn to be nice to the smartest guy in school. So yeah, things got better."

"Do you feel that being friends with Kendall helped that?"

"Absolutely," answered Logan. "Definitely. People looked at him, still, as this great, popular guy, and so when they realized that he was pretty serious about being friends with me, they started to think...you know, maybe I wasn't such a dork after all. And plus, I finally got rid of that hideous name."

"What name?" Dr. Riley asked.

Logan winced a little, preparing for a loud giggle fit to come from the doctor. "Hortense."

Dr. Riley stared blankly. "That was my grandmother's name."

Logan's eyes widened. He didn't know how to or if he even should respond to that.

"But this is good!" Dr. Riley suddenly said. "I'm glad they were able to see that you are indeed a good person." It was a very nice compliment, but it was sincere and honest.

"Thank you." He blushed a little but continued on. "I learned to loosen up a great deal, especially around Kendall. I felt much more comfortable around him. We'd had enough sleepovers and camping trips to really get to know each other, and so I finally accepted that he really was my friend because he wanted to be my friend. Not because he pitied me or felt sorry for me. This was also around the time we started hanging out with Carlos and James. They'd always been around, and neither one of them had ever been too mean to me, so I guess the more we got to know each other, the more the four of us became friends."

"Did you ever feel threatened by them coming into the friendship you had with Kendall?"

"You know, I might have, but only for a second. No matter how close we all got, and we have gotten extremely close, I always knew that what me and Kendall had was on a different level, and it was just an understood thing. We're all friends, but Kendall is my best friend."

"Okay, good. Continue."

Logan took a minute to get back on track. Thinking about how different his friendship with Kendall was from his friendships with the other two - not to mention, their friendships with Kendall, and even their friendship with each other - made all of those butterfly feelings float around in his stomach again. What he and Kendall had was different...it just was.

"I can't believe it!" Kendall exclaimed. "The first rain-free day in weeks, and we're stuck here washing my mother's car."

It was in the middle of summer, but it was indeed the first beautiful day in weeks. The sun was out, the birds were singing, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was hot as hell, but it was what summer was all about. Thirteen-year-old Kendall had imagined he and Logan going to the city pool or something, but he'd forgotten a promise he'd made to his mother. She hadn't forgotten, though.

"You made a promise," Logan said as he soaked his sponge in a bucket of soapy water. They began to wipe the car down.

"Yeah, I guess," said Kendall. "You really don't have to help, you know. Isn't there some kind of mad scientist thing you could be doing right now?"

"Har har," Logan deadpanned. "No. Besides, it's too hot to stay in the house."

"Wow. I never thought I'd hear you say something like that."

They scrubbed and scrubbed all over the car. The wheels, the doors, the windows, the hood, the trunk, the roof, and everywhere else. They worked in silence because the heat made it too much work to talk. The work would get done faster if they refrained from getting sidetracked anyway.

When they were done, the car sparkled in the sunlight. A perfectly spotless navy blue. All that was left was ridding the car of some stray soap suds.

"Watch out," Kendall said as he grabbed the hose. Logan was getting some final grains of dirt off of the hood ornament. He backed out of the way so Kendall could rinse the car off, but, without warning, Kendall pointed the hose straight at him and turned it on full blast. The water shot right at him, instantly soaking him from head to toe. Logan was livid.

"Kendall! What do you think you are doing?"

"Having a little fun!" Kendall yelled like a wild man over the sound of the spraying water. He laughed like a giddy schoolgirl as Logan tried unsuccessfully to get away from the stream of water.

"You little-!" Logan screamed and charged at Kendall, who dropped the hose. The water shot straight into the air, falling down on them like their own personal shower. It wasn't long before Logan's anger dissolved into laughter.

"I'm gonna get you back!" Logan swore. He picked up the hose and pointed it at Kendall, who was way too bold to be scared of a little water. He pretended Logan was a photographer, the hose his camera, and he posed right in front of it like a model, making Logan giggle even more. "You're such a ham."

"Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful," Kendall affected.

The excitement died down, and by the time it was all over, they stood as two waterlogged monsters, but neither one seemed to care. What could have been a boring hour spent washing a car had suddenly become yet another one of their hilarious adventures.

"I need to get out of these clothes, or I'm gonna be sick," Logan said as they sat on the ground.

"You worry too much," said Kendall. "It's just a little water."

"And I can contract just a little pneumonia!"

"Fine, then. Strip. Take it all off!" Kendall rolled up his towel and snapped at Logan's scrawny chest. "Show me some skin!"

"Great, then I get melanoma," Logan awkwardly retorted, pointing to the bright orange sun. He couldn't keep his eyes still as Kendall began to take his own shirt off.

"Jeez," Kendall said playfully, getting up to start drying the car off. "Go get a shirt out of my room...Hortense."

"I told you not to call me that!" Logan shrieked as he got up and started for the house.

"Then stop acting like a Hortense!" Kendall called back at him. He quickly grabbed the hose and sprayed it at Logan before he could get inside.

In the Knights' kitchen, Logan stopped and turned to look out the window. In just a few tiny minutes, an average day had turned into one he'd never soon forget. He felt so silly because all they'd done was shoot some water at each other, but he didn't care...it was fun.

He looked at Kendall. His body, his face, his hair. It was the way every guy wanted to look...just perfect. No wonder all the girls wanted him...Logan could totally understand why. Of course, he couldn't possibly be attracted to Kendall "that way," but he could certainly see why girls would be. But most of those girls only wanted Kendall for his body, for his status in their school. Only Logan knew the real inner beauty of Kendall Knight. Only Logan could connect with him on a deeper level. He had something that none of those girls would ever have...good memories like this one. He knew that he and Kendall would look back on this day years later and laugh just as loud as they had today. Together.

"Everything in my life was going great," he continued. "Except for one thing. Girls. Kendall and James and Carlos were crazy about them. Me, though? Not so much. And it's not that I didn't like them or anything, it's just that...I didn't really care. I was too busy thinking about other things."

"Kendall."

"Organic chemistry." A beat. "And Kendall."

Dr. Riley made a knowing glance.

"Yeah," said Logan. "See, when I'd see Kendall with girls...talking to them, flirting with them, hugging them...and when he'd tell me about the dates he went on, I'd just feel like...that was supposed to be me! The one he was spending all of this time and energy on...that was supposed to be me."

He thought for a moment, making himself go unwillingly back to stress-filled days of realization.

"Of course, I fought it at first," he said to Dr. Riley, trying his best to explain how his fourteen-year-old mind had worked. "I mean...come on, this was my best friend. I knew him too well. I'd seen him drool, I'd seen him vomit, I'd heard him fart a million times. How in the world could I be...you know...how could I ever like him that way?"

"But how could you not?" Dr. Riley asked, knowing full well that Logan knew full well just how and why he could love Kendall. "After all of the things he had been to you and for you, how could you not?"

Logan smiled and nodded. "We knew each other so well. He knew I wanted to be a doctor before I did!"

"You want to be a doctor?" asked Dr. Riley, brimming with a sudden pride.

"Yes! A real doctor, though, not like..." Logan said, but then he caught himself. "I mean...um...yes, I want to be a doctor. And that was the plan. He'd be pro hockey, and I'd be a surgeon."

"Oh, a surgeon." Dr. Riley rolled his eyes. "That's a 'real doctor.' Fine."

"I'm sorry about that. I really didn't meant to-first, with your grandmother, and now this-"

"Oh, it's fine, Logan!" Dr. Riley exclaimed, letting go of his pretend resentment. Jeez, this kid really didn't know how to take a joke sometimes. "Continue."

Logan reset himself. "The more I accepted it, the more it made sense. I mean, he was the only person in my life, besides my parents, who really cared about me. Carlos and James were great, and they still are, but Kendall was just different. And it drove me nuts. I'd see him, and my heart would start beating a thousand times per minute. Which, by all accounts, should have sent me into cardiac arrest. See, the heart should only pump-"

"Just continue, Logan."

"Sorry," he said. It was easier to talk about the actual human heart than it was to talk about the romanticized concept of the heart. "My palms would get sweaty, I'd start to stutter. Any time I was around him, I'd get much more self-conscious. I'd always worry about saying the wrong thing or doing something stupid. And it had been like that before, earlier on when I was still nervous about just being friends with him, but now it was different. It was less about wanting him to think I was cool as much as it was about wanting him to look at me as someone he could...someone he could be with."

"You were in love."

Logan nodded sullenly. "I was."

Sophomore year. They were fifteen years old.

The football team had just won their seventh straight game. They were undefeated, and all of the students were high on excitement and pride. Kendall had dragged Logan out of the house to go to the game, but now, as they were filing out of the stadium, he knew his best friend had enjoyed every minute of it.

"I never knew football was such a mathematical sport," Logan said with a deep-seated energy in his voice. "The angles, the yard lines, the scoring system...it's all very exciting!"

"Sure," said Kendall. He never made fun of Logan for being such a math geek, but he could never help but be amused by how fervent numbers and symbols could make him. "Hey, you wanna walk to the park?" he asked.

"The park? Isn't it a bit late to go there?" asked Logan.

"So?" Kendall said. That one word, with the question mark planted firmly beside it, made Logan's heart flutter.

They trekked to the nearby park and sat on the swings.

The sky was reaching midnight blue, with only a crescent moon providing illumination. The fresh Minnesota air was crisp and cool, and it made them both tremble a little in their jackets, but Logan trembled just a little bit more. He sat there trying his hardest to keep his cool, trying his best to seem normal, to seem the way any typical guy would seem when sitting and talking with his best friend, but he knew he wasn't normal, and neither was the way he felt about Kendall. He just couldn't say it, not even to himself.

They both looked out into the night, but Logan could see Kendall through the corner of his eye. The image of mellowness, coolness, and placidness. The image that stirred within himself a melee of emotions.

"The world's a big place," Kendall suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"I said the world's a big place. But I guess someone as smart as you knows that."

"Yeah," Logan answered, glad that there was now a conversation to take his mind away from his thoughts. "Surface area of about two hundred million square miles, actually. Give or take a couple million."

Kendall laughed. "I figured you would know." Pause. "You see those two stars up there?"

He pointed to two particularly shiny stars right above them, and Logan nodded.

"I think we're the only two people in the whole wide world who's looking at them right now," Kendall said.

Logan got carried away for a second in the romantic nature of what Kendall had said, but then he came back to reality because any romance had to have been purely unintentional. "I'm sure there are a few million people looking at those stars tonight."

"Nope," Kendall said matter-of-factly. "It's just you and me and those stars right now, bud. I can feel it. No one else in the world knows about them but you and me."

Logan just looked at the two stars. He couldn't bear to look at Kendall because then he would have wanted to do something or say something he'd regret. Hell, even just looking at the stars made him want to do and say those things. He wanted to touch Kendall's knee, his hand...he wanted to say exactly what he felt at that moment. But what did he feel? Was he ready to finally admit it to himself, at least?

I love him, Logan thought. I love him...and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

The words he needed to say aloud to Kendall, though, were never said.

Logan shook his head furiously, trying his best to rid the memories from his mind. No, no, no, he told himself. I wasn't supposed to feel any of this anymore...I came here to get rid of these thoughts.

"What's the matter?" Dr. Riley asked.

"I'm just...I'm remembering stuff that I've been trying so hard to forget," Logan said in anguish. "Stuff that I really don't want to talk about."

"Okay," Dr. Riley said quickly and without argument. "We don't have to talk about it."

He was a bit let down that Logan was ready to abandon the story at this point. There were questions still unanswered - how had his feelings for Kendall changed since they moved to California? Did they change? But as a professional, Dr. Riley knew that it was always best to let the patient guide the session. The answers would come in time.

They sat in silence for a while.

Logan needed a minute to sort it all out. God, he loved Kendall. He loved that damn boy, and it was tearing him apart piece by piece. Every freaking smile, every freaking glance, every freaking accidental body-on-body contact. Kendall was there every single day, not always a ray of sunshine, but still a loving and loveable presence. Kendall and his drive, Kendall and his gallantry, Kendall and his rebellious nature, Kendall and his refusal to let anything ever stand in his way, and then the Kendall that few people got to see. Kendall and his compassion, Kendall and his grace, Kendall and his comforting words, Kendall and his loyalty, Kendall and his...intimacy. His arm around your shoulders when he knew you were having a bad day, his readiness to make his own happiness completely dependent upon yours.

But none of this was new to Logan...he'd been feeling this way about Kendall for so long that it was just natural now. But regardless of how much he loved Kendall...regardless of how much he wanted to show Kendall the depth of his love, in those erotic ways that require no words, he knew he couldn't. That would be too much drama, too many risks, and too many explosions happening one after the other.

Once upon a time, he'd let himself think that Kendall could share his feelings. Oh, the dreams he'd have of the two of them living together until the end of time...but self-control had always been there to remind him that those dreams were never going to be anything more than just that - dreams. Kendall Knight, the hockey player, the ladies' man, Mr. All-American, could never be in love with a confused little boy like nerdy, dorky Hortense Mitchell.

And so he'd come to a conclusion. The only solution, the only real option here, was to grow up, get over it, and move on with his life. Kendall had been an incredible friend, but that was all he would ever be, and it was time Logan realized that. At least, that was what he'd been telling himself. Truth be told, there was a much more concrete reminder that Kendall could never be his, and her name was Jo Taylor. Logan didn't hate her, but he didn't like her, and it wasn't even jealousy as much as it was the way she treated Kendall - lying to him, bossing him around, being too damn stupid to realize that he would never do anything to hurt her. Either way, she was there, and even though she didn't know it, she was the ultimate personification of Logan's heartbreak.

Logan knew that pining away for Kendall for the rest of his life wouldn't be living at all, but he had no clue how to go about erasing all of the deeper feelings he had for Kendall. He didn't want to lose Kendall as a friend...he couldn't bear the thought. But he knew drastic measures would have to be taken because Kendall's friendship was enough. It was enough to make him love the handsome devil, and it was enough to stop any efforts to get over him dead in their tracks.

So he had a problem. Logan was the smartest person he knew, and he could figure out a word problem in thirty seconds, balance an equation in a minute, list all of the US Presidents in order of their birthdays in five minutes, and write a hundred-page essay on the complete works of William Shakespeare in a day. But when it came to matters of the heart? He had not a single clue.

"I need help," he said in a serious tone. "I need to get over Kendall, and get over whatever feelings I have for him, and make it so that when he smiles at me, I can smile back without...without going completely crazy."

A concerned Dr. Riley nodded valiantly, also taking a moment to think. This poor boy, he said to himself. This poor boy thinks he has the answer, but he's nowhere near the mark. He wanted so badly to tell Logan the truth, that he was wrong, that this whole idea of getting over someone you love never works. But his own self-imposed practices required him to stay quiet and let his patients make their mistakes. Only then could they learn from them.

"Well," he said hesitantly, noticing the clock, "it seems to me that you know what you want to do."

"It's what I have to do," Logan answered immediately, trying to convince himself as much as the doctor.

Dr. Riley nodded again, still concerned. "We're out of time for this session," he said regretfully. He rose and went to his computer. "Now that we've discussed some of the background of your problem, next week we should be able to think about how to solve it."

"Okay," said Logan. In that moment, he knew that his choice to come here and get help had been a great one. The perfect first step into the right direction. Sure, it'd take a little time, but it'd be worth it. Things could be normal, and he wouldn't have to worry anymore.

Dr. Riley pulled up his appointment calendar on the monitor. "Tuesday afternoon, three-thirty," he offered.

"That's good," Logan agreed.

"Great," the doctor replied. He entered in the appointment then turned to Logan. "Until then, I want you to think about the things you've talked about today. Don't dwell too much on them, but just keep thinking. Perhaps you may start to see things a little more clearly."

"Oh, I think things are pretty clear as they are," said Logan.

Dr. Riley tried his best not to look at Logan with too much pity, but sometimes he couldn't help it. These kids were always setting themselves up for drama. "Well...just pay attention. Pay attention to everything."

"I will," Logan promised. He knew that Dr. Riley would soon understand that things just were the way they were. No amount of attention or clarification would change it. He loved Kendall. Kendall would never love him. So he had to stop loving Kendall. The only question was "How?" and after a few sessions, it would be answered. Again, he mentally pat himself on the back for making the smart decision to come here.

"Take it easy," the doctor called out after him as he went for the door.

"Yes, sir," said Logan. "I will."

And just like that, the session was over. Dr. Vernon Riley sat at his desk just a little while longer. Yeah, he'd known within the first few minutes of their first session why Logan was there. In all his years in this business, he'd learned how to spot a young man in love with another young man. Knowing how to recognize it never made it any easier to deal with, though, because they were always so different and unique.

In 1965, it had been Billy, a surfer dude who wanted to "ride waves" with his biggest rival. In 1979, it had been Robert, a snobbish prepster set to inherit his father's law firm. He'd been in love with the Mexican gardener. In 1992, it had been Joshua, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks who'd wanted his girlfriend's brother. In 2005, it had been Kyle, the hulking wrestler who'd had an adorable crush on the scrawny chess club president.

There had been about a hundred others over the years, and now, in 2011, it was Logan Mitchell, the very smart, but very shy, singer/dancer who was in love with his band mate and best friend. Dr. Riley knew what he would have done in that situation - just plain tell the guy. Hell, for all Logan knew, Kendall could be gay. From what he'd learned about their friendship, it wouldn't have surprised Dr. Riley one bit. And even if Kendall wasn't gay, after all the years of friendship they'd shared, would he really have a negative reaction? The only way to know anything for sure would have been to just tell him, and Dr. Riley would have advised that, but the patient always had to be in control, no matter what. Pushing them, forcing the issue...it could very easily lead to disaster.

So Logan wanted to get over his feelings for this other boy. Fine enough. It was never going to happen, and the doctor knew this, but he knew that Logan would find out the hard way.


NOTE: Chapter 3 will involve a dream sequence, but I'd like to know what you guys want to see. The original version is VERY heavy on smut. Like...cold-shower smut. I read some other fics to get some motivation for it, and I got very carried away to the point where I thought maybe it'd be too much smut. But then I was like...is there such a thing? For some people, there is, so I wrote a cleaner version. The outcome/purpose of the two versions are completely identical, so the story isn't affected by which one yall pick.

So, basically, your choices are:

Version 1 (Smut-Lovers' Smut...with Extra Smut!) - A long, sometimes rambling, gratuitous description of how two young men who really, really like each other would "get'er done."

Version 2 (Diet Smut Light...with 75% Less Smut!) - A shorter, more to the point, somewhat bland account of how two young men who really, really like each other would "have relations."

Whichever one gets the highest number of votes will be posted as Chapter 3, but I'm thinking the losing version will most likely get tacked on as a bonus after the story is complete.

Thanks for reading! :)