Race With a Heart
Chapter 203: Sid’s Dream Birthday Present

Chapter 203: Sid’s Dream Birthday Present

Dave was in a great mood that evening. His idol, Jack Lambert won another race proving that despite his age he really has the ability and class and this could be his season, and that Dave’s colleague Martin, in his rookie race, took an excellent, seventh place. Could you wish for more?

Sid was happy too, although his happiness came from being happy with Dave. Sid also enjoyed the good performance of both drivers of Fergus, more important to him being Dave’s well-being.

The boys were sitting in a small kebab bar where they came to have dinner. From the outside, the place didn’t look that good, but in this neighborhood everything looked terrible. The food, however, was delicious and the eatery did not even receive a single warning that it was breaking sanitary regulations. Someone too picky would not even enter this place, but in the neighborhood this place was very popular and no one yet complained about either the food or the service, let alone the prices. The interior was clean and tidy, although you ate on cheap, plain plates, not expensive, exquisite porcelain, and sat at tables that clearly showed traces of years gone by.

"Look, see" Dave leaned towards Sid, showing him a short video that appeared on the internet. Jack Lambert was picking up a cup on it and winking at the camera. "Jack is just cool!"

Sid couldn’t disagree, but his attention was not at that moment on Jack, or even on Martin, whom he admired, respected and loved as an older brother.

Dave was smart. He noticed that something was wrong with his friend’s mood.

"Sid, is something wrong?" he asked with concern, paying full attention to his friend, not to the video on the internet. "Is that your father ..."

"No," Sid replied quickly, blushing up to the tips of his ears.

The last time he went home to clean, do the laundry and cook something, he found out that his father was at home and he was drunk at the time. As usual in such situations, he began to be aggressive towards his son, but now it was different than used to, now Sid had some place to run, so as soon as he saw that things were getting worse, that a blow might come at any moment, Sid just ran out of the apartment and he ran straight to the car repair shop. It was Teddy, Dave, and Martin who were his real family, not the man who treated him like a punching bag.

"My father hasn’t changed," continued Sid, "and he’ll probably never change, but I have changed. I’m almost an adult... "

"That’s right, it’s your birthday in a few days!" Dave remembered. "You will be officially of age and your father will have no power over you! But you haven’t told me what you want for your birthday present yet. I’ll give you whatever you want, as long as my wallet allows it."

"I don’t want you to buy me anything. I don’t need anything and recently I bought an album that I really wanted to have, so there’s nothing I want right now. You’d better buy something for your siblings."

"But I have to give you something for your birthday. You are finally entering adulthood! It happens once in a lifetime! "

"All right," Sid agreed, blushing to his ears. "My first beer. I want to drink it in your company."

"No kidding!" Dave laughed. "This is definitely not enough! There must be something you want. Think!"

Sid didn’t have to think. He knew perfectly well what the perfect birthday present would be for him, but never in his life would he dare to tell Dave, who was harassed by a gay in his childhood, which left a very deep scar on his heart. Sid only blushed even more.

"Are ..." the boy decided to change the subject "are you used to the thought that Martin is dating Steve?"

Dave gritted his teeth. He was clearly nervous or even a little angry.

"I think so," he admitted. "Martin seems to love him genuinely, and Paxton himself is probably not that bad since he’s Jack Lambert’s buddy. I know the media is lying, so I don’t care what’s being said on TV or on the internet, but thanks to Martin, we have a little more information on the Fergus Stables coverage, so I think if Paxton were really doing Martin something wrong, he would have been stopped. I think so. But why are you so red? Are you feeling bad? You have a fever?"

"No no!" Sid assured him eagerly. "But it got a little too warm in here. I think they have already turned on the heating."

"Hmm, maybe," admitted Dave. "I feel a breath of warmer air."

Sid breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want Dave to notice that Sid was blushing when a friend asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and then he turned completely red as they talked about the relationship between Martin and Steve.

The truth was that the only thing he wanted in the world was completely out of reach for him. Although the person who could give it to him was at hand, he would never ask for such a gift. Because that person couldn’t really give it to him. All Sid wanted in life was to have Dave’s love, to be loved by him, not as a brother, not as a friend, but as a lover with whom he shares his bed and body. But Dave couldn’t give it to him. Never.

When Dave was twelve or thirteen, he was harassed by his neighbor. Admittedly, the old fag didn’t touch Dave in an intimate place, Dave, although he was only a child, managed to defend himself, but the mere fact that someone wanted to use him in this way was a cruel experience for a little boy. Little Dave’s body was kept pure, but his mind was tainted with the knowledge that he would almost be a victim of sexual abuse. This experience made Dave homophobic because, in the eyes of a wounded child, all gays were pederasts. There were many indications that Dave had contracted sex in general then, even with women, as he had never shown any interest in dating.

The wounded boy grew into a wounded young man for whom the thought of sex was nothing attractive, nothing exciting, but something that threatened him.

Sid had no idea if if Dave had talked to an adult about it then he would have found the appropriate help and let go of his fears. The boy, however, was afraid to worry his parents, especially his sick mother, and for years he was silent with this terrible, painful secret. Only recently, quite by accident, had he confessed it to Sid, not knowing that his younger friend had a romantic and erotic feeling for him.

Sid thought he could handle his feelings. He believed he would be able to love Dave platonically like a friend, but his body told him otherwise. The boy, who was only a few days away from his eighteenth birthday, had more and more dreams filled with Dave, dreams in which he could touch his body, felt the flame of his kiss and heard a tender ’I love you’.

Erotic dreams were new to Sid, and the boy had to spend more time in the bathroom than he should almost every morning. He was ashamed of himself with that from Teddy, with whom he was now living, when he left the house where his father had beaten him on a regular basis. Teddy was a good man and to Sid he was like a real grandfather, and which teen would be willing to admit to his grandfather that he had to masturbate in his toilet seat? Teddy, of course, wouldn’t say anything nasty to him. Even if he knew Sid was relieving himself of the man, Teddy wouldn’t mind. The old man accepted without a single negative word that Martin was gay, so he would have accepted that with Sid too. It was just that the love and lust that Sid had in him was his private affair, very... intimate.

Sid knew he would never have Dave’s love, and he really tried to accept it. After all, he had no other choice. If he had told Dave that he loved him, he would have hurt him because Dave really hated gays and had good reason to do so. Of course, he wasn’t hurt by all the gays in the world, just one, but this one was enough to destroy something in Dave’s mind and heart. Dave did not show outright hatred, did not organized protests against homosexuals, did not participate in them, he just avoided gays like poisonous snakes. He would probably start avoiding Sid if he found out about his affection. Sid couldn’t even blame him. Some wounds healed too hard.

Recently, though, one little craving for a little thing had appeared more and more in Sid’s mind. But this thing, while completely natural to others, sometimes downright innocent, was completely out of reach for Sid as well. The boy dreamed that his first kiss ever belonged to Dave.