Logan was still awake when Noah's parents returned home. Exhausted, Noah had fallen asleep during their first makeout session. With his right arm and leg draped over Logan, Noah slept peacefully with his forehead pressed into Logan's hair. Hearing Noah's parent's turn in for the night, Logan gave Noah a squeeze.

It was nights like this night that proved Logan was too smart for his own good. It wasn't enough for his dream to come true (well, not all of them, but this was a huge step in the right direction), but his brain needed to over analyze everything. Only then, once his brain had deconstructed everything and then put his world back in order, would it allow him sweet slumber. Tonight, there was a lot on his mind.

In his brain, and in his heart, what he had with Noah was something very special -- something precious, something invaluable. He didn't know if Noah would call it love, but he'd known he loved Noah since fifth grade. But what did that really mean.

Being raised in the conservative, rural Midwest, Logan had a very binary view of the world. Right and wrong. Good and bad. Love and hate. But he and Noah didn't fit into this understanding of the world.

For boys, there are only two options, being straight, or being a gay. He decided he was straight because he didn't feel like he could be gay -- or at least his understanding of what it meant to be a gay/sissy/faggot or whatever term you used for those horrible people.

It wasn't that Logan hated girls. He actually really liked them, and they liked Logan. Even though he didn't wear stylish clothing or couldn't afford to go hang out at the skating rink or go out to eat, he was really easy to talk to. Logan became the boy girls would confide in and include in their gossip sessions. Logan, in turn, provided the girls with insights into boys, at least the best he could. But Logan only liked having girls as friends. He wasn't interested in dating a girl. He wanted to date, fall in love with, and marry a boy. He never imagined anything other than a traditional household, just like the husbands and wives on TV like the Cunninghams or the Waltons, just with another boy.

This wasn't new to the boy's brain. That switch had been thrown long ago.

The summer between Kindergarten and First Grade had been an eye opener. At the week-long family get together at the farm, a younger cousin talked him into sucking his little dick. The boys exchanged blow jobs, as best as little boys can do, until his cousin fell asleep. He wondered how a four-year-old would know about anything like that. Little did he know that a blow job was his aunt's go-to method for getting her boys to settle down and go to sleep. But the act was now etched into Logan's mind. He loved the taste, the feeling of the rock-hard cock in his mouth, and the euphoria he derived from giving pleasure. He had even offered to take two turns in a row to keep the game going, but his little cousin was too sleepy to continue the game. The game may have ended too soon for Logan, but it lasted long enough to get Logan hooked on sucking dick.

This all happened when he and his family still lived in town. Back then, the high school girl next door would babysit Logan and his little brother. One night, when she wasn't available, a boy from down the street filled in. At the time, Stevie, his little brother, was only three and went to bed early, giving Logan and the babysitter time to watch TV. Conversation turned to Logan's adventures with his cousin and ended with his first facial and taste of cum. Though he never had a male babysitter again, the teen's warning about the dire consequences he could face from telling people what happened, or that he liked sucking cock, was filed away in the boy's brain for future reference.

Over the years, Logan had other adventures during sleep overs and began to have boy crushes. A cute little blonde named Ricky in third grade ended when the boy moved away. In fourth grade, it was Duane. They were the two best athletes in their classroom. They played sports together, held hands on the playground, and beat up anyone who made fun of them. But in April, Duane moved away. Before heading out to the buses, in front of the entire class, Duane kissed Logan goodbye. It was just a peck on the lips, but it sent Logan's heart a flutter before breaking his heart that he'd never see Duane again.

In fifth grade, Noah was allowed to start riding his bike to Logan's and even venture into town. That is when the boys started to spend a lot of time together. Logan's attention, and affection, began to turn to the brown-eyed boy. But as Logan's deep attraction and love grew for Noah, he couldn't reconcile it with his understanding of gay.

Gay was what the men were that he met while his family was homeless. He'd willingly suck them for some change or let them touch him. But no matter how nice he was to them, many of would call him names, make him feel bad about himself, and even hit him. He would never do that to anyone so he couldn't be gay.

Gay was his seventh-grade football coach. Coach Roberts took his star players under his wing -- especially those from a single-parent family. The coach was a scout for the high school football team and he would take Kevin, the team's quarterback, and Logan with him to scout teams for the high school. Because they got back so late, the boys would spend the night with the coach. The first night, the house was freezing and Kevin and Logan were to sleep on the floor in the living room and share a blanket. Even with all his clothes on he was cold and Kevin, a much larger boy, kept stealing the blankets. Logan eventually gave in and took up the coach's offer to sleep with the man in his bed.

"You're going to be dehydrated. Drink this glass of water." Logan did as his coach instructed. He slept soundly but woke up alone in bed with is pants around his knees and a sore butt.

At practice, that week, Kevin wouldn't throw a pass near him, even during drills. Kevin wouldn't speak to Logan and at one point, simply pushed the Logan to the ground. When it came time to go scout the following Friday, Kevin wasn't with them. Eventually, the coach stopped drugging Logan and without saying a word, he would maneuvered the boy into whatever position he desired, got off and went to sleep. They never talked while they were in bed together and nothing was ever said about what they did. Logan found it confusing. He didn't like it, but his mom was happy her oldest son had a male role model and she began to plan overnights with the coach, no matter how much Logan protested. His protests always fell short because of the things his babysitter warned him against telling. Besides, his mom had already told him he was the smart one and that she wouldn't be there if he ever got himself in trouble. Logan blamed himself for getting into this predicament and from his mother's final piece of parenting, he felt he would have to face this alone. He applied all he had learned to this situation and decided to keep his mouth shut no matter how much it hurt, or how sad it made him.

Then, just a few weeks ago, he told his mom that he didn't plan on trying out for football this year. She didn't buy his lame excuse and he wasn't about to tell her why he was trying to avoid Coach Roberts. She told him to go talk to the coach. He grabbed his bike and rode to the coach's house up at the lake. When he arrived, he found the home empty. The coach had moved away and was never heard from again.

Logan's brain ran circles around itself, trying to understand where he fit in all of this. He knew he wasn't straight, but he also knew he was a loving person that would never hurt anyone the way gay people did. He could never be like that. It was all starting to give him a headache by the time he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, the Logan woke and gazed at Noah while he slept. He pushed the questions and doubts from his mind and lingered on his memories of how it felt to hold Noah in his arms and the taste of Noah's lips and tongue.

Noah woke. Yawning and stretching, he tried to shake off the sleep and rub it from his eyes. "Aaarrrrrhhhhh..." he moaned. Apparently, making noise while you stretch always makes the stretching more effective. But Noah and Logan would attest to that. "So what do you want to do today?" he asked Logan.

Logan smiled. "I don't care. Whatever you want to do." Things seemed to be right back to normal between the two boys. While Logan basked in the glow from the night before, and the fact that Noah didn't seem to be upset about making out with a boy, Logan's mind kept working.

They rode their bikes around to pass the time and stopped by John's house to go swimming in the afternoon. During the entire day, what transpired the night before didn't come up once and Logan didn't notice Noah acting any differently.

By the time Logan went to bed that night, the wheels in his brain had been working overtime analyzing absolutely everything. Instead of simply enjoying what he'd experienced, Logan began worrying about how Noah felt. He concluded that there were only two possibilities. One, Noah was acting completely normal around him because they were in love and that was just a normal, next step in their friendship. Or two, the night before was just one of those things that happen between boys late at night when social norms are disposed with until the sun comes back up and everything returns to normal. Just like other things in his life, Logan fell to sleep after deciding that it just might be better to not know the answer to that question.