"Is this your little boyfriend?" the irritating teenager jeered. Bastian was turning red, but this time it wasn't embarrassment.
"I was never looking at anyone, I swear," he snapped back at the new boy. "I just happened to get an erection in the shower. So what! That doesn't make me gay. If you know I had an erection, you must have been the one looking. That makes me think that you are the one that's gay, not me."
"You take that back, homo!" the boy snarled. "I wasn't looking at nobody."
"Bastian here has a point, you queer," Atreyu said as he stepped forward. "If you weren't looking at him, how would you know whether he had a hard on or not?"
"Well, I...." the boy stammered."I date girls. I have fucked half the cheerleaders at school."
"That tells me that you can't find a girl that can satisfy you," Atreyu countered. "If girls don't do it for you, then you must be gay."
"My dad is a preacher," the boy said defensively.
"What's that got to do with the cost of tea in China?" Atreyu responded. "Religion doesn't eliminate homosexuality, no matter how hard it tries. If you were born gay, you're gay, whether you're father is a preacher or a pimp."
"I'm not gay!" the boy screamed. Everyone near him turned around to look at him.
"If you're not gay, then stop looking at the boys in the shower room!" Atreyu bellowed back just as loudly.
Another guy who looked to be in his twenties came up then and asked, "What's going on here?" He looked at the two boys behind the counter and then at the boy he stood beside. "What are they talking about? When did you start looking at boys in the shower?"
"Bro, they're lying," the teenager defended. "I wasn't looking at nobody."
"I got a boner in the shower, and Mike started rumors all over school that I'm a fag," Bastian finally admitted. He hadn't wanted to say that in front of Atreyu, but there was a chance that Mike's older brother could get some of this mess cleared up.
"Is that true, Mike?" the older guy asked. Mike didn't respond at first. When his brother slapped him on the side of the head, he changed his mind on being silent.
"I just told some of the guys on the team what I had seen," Mike reported sullenly. "He got wood in the shower, he must be gay."
"You got a boner the other night in the hot tub with me," his brother pointed out. "Does that mean that you are gay?"
"You promised you wouldn't tell anybody about that," the teenage boy whined. "I was sitting in front of one of the jets. It was just the water. It wasn't me."
"Like hell it wasn't you," the brother replied. "It was all you, all four and a half inches of you." Mike was turning redder by the second. People around him started laughing at him. He started to run, but his big brother caught him. "You owe these guys an apology, Mike. After that, I think you, me, Mom and Dad all need to sit down and have a long talk."
"You're going to tell Mom and Dad about this?" Mike gasped.
"No, little brother, you are." He held Mike's arm tightly and stared straight into his eyes. "Now apologize to these guys," he ordered.
"But, Jake...."
"Don't but me, you little butthole," Jake warned. "Do it now."
"Sorry," Mike mumbled.
"You can do better than that," Jake growled.
"I'm sorry I called you a fag," Mike said quietly. "I didn't realize that throwing a boner in a room full of naked guys when you've never been on a single date with any girl didn't mean that you were queer."
Jake slapped his brother on the head again. "Go to the car, you little shit." He turned to Bastian and Atreyu. "Sorry about the trouble he's caused. He tends to get spoiled by the old folks, you know?"
"That's no excuse for what he did," Bastian told the young man. "I've been beaten up, had my locker spray painted, and I had to start showering in the girls locker room because none of the other guys wanted to change in the same room with me. He totally screwed up my life."
"Well, I'm about to go mess up his life," Jake announced. "I think it's time he found out that our Uncle Bill is gay, and so am I."
"You're gay?" both Bastian and Atreyu gasped.
"Sorry guys, but even if you weren't jailbait, I'm already taken," Jake told them. "It was kind of flattering to have two cute little studs like you checking me out while I've been standing here, though," he grinned as he walked away.
"You were checking him out?" Bastian and Atreyu asked each other. They each blushed and looked away, not wanting to confirm anything, but unable to deny it at this point either.
"Are you gay?" Atreyu asked softly.
"Are you?" Bastian returned. Both boys nodded and slowly started grinning. "I think I made up my mind about the summer job," Bastian announced with a wink.