The Families in Rossford

[ChrisGibson]

ACT
ONE

CHRISTMASTIME





I NEVER CARED ABOUT numbers on jerseys.
Now that I think of it, that’s not completely true. When he became important on our football team back in high school, a year after we had ended things so badly, I knew he was Number Seven. I would drag Laurel with me to games to watch him. I think she knew I was watching him, but she didn’t say anything, cause she’s good like that.
So, three years after ending things with him, and almost a year after ending it with Ruthven, I watch Lance Bishop in his shining moment, carry the ball across the field. It isn’t likely his college will ever be on TV again. He looks like such a man! I can’t help looking at all of him as he makes that touchdown. His thighs, his… you know, all look so strong. He takes his helmet off and his face is red, his eyes are so blue and his almost black hair is sticking up. He used to love me. He does love me. I know he still loves me. I know he’ll be home for Christmas—he isn’t on the sort of team that’s going to end up at a bowl—and I won’t just be looking at him on the TV.
Today Dad says: “Dylan, what time are you going to the train station?” And I answer.
But I am still remembering Lance is walking across the field and putting that helmet back on his head now.
Along with Ruthven and one of my really close friends, Lance is almost always on my mind. I can’t believe I ever thought he was dull or that he wasn’t enough or that someone was better.
Letting go of Lance Bishop was one of the worst mistakes of my life.



ONE



COMING HOME


“IT IS SELFISH, but I still wish you lived in the basement,” Fenn Houghton said.
“Fenn, I haven’t lived in your basement in years.”
“I want to turn back the clock, Brendan,” Fenn said as he lifted a finger to indicate that Brendan could stop pouring coffee.
“Well, at least for some things,” Fenn modified. “Or maybe it’s just because it would be easier to visit if you just still lived downstairs.”
Fenn poured cream into the coffee, and then stirred while he added sugar. Brendan took a cigarette from him and Fenn said, “Does Kenny know?”
Brendan lit the cigarette, and for a moment the light shone off of his brass rimmed spectacles.
“No one knows,” he said, his lips tight on it as he put the light down. Then he exhaled.
“Except you. Maybe Layla.”
“I hope we didn’t teach this to you,” Fenn lit own cigarette. “You know this will kill you.”
“Aren’t you fifty?” Brendan said with a grin.
“Oh, Bren, I’m on the wrong side of fifty.”
“My mom always said any side where you’re alive is the right side of fifty,” Brendan told Fenn, sitting down across from him. He was in light pants and his shirt was rolled up to his elbows. He had a light blue tie on which meant that he must be working today. But since he was in this kitchen drinking coffee, work must be late.
“Its just a consultation,” Brendan said. “There was this hit and run. The woman lost her partner. There’s a huge insurance settlement, but they don’t want to give it to her because their marriage isn’t recognized and, shit, I’m going to get it recognized.”
“What about you and Kenny?”
“That was random.”
“You’ve done five gay marriage cases this year,” Fenn said, “and you and Kenny… Not married.”
“Well, neither are you and Todd.”
“Or Layla and Will,” Fenn supplemented. “But none of us work on marriages. I’d just wondered if you were thinking about it.”
“Thought about, thought around it, thought through it,” Brendan told him. “Neither one of us wants it.”
Fenn nodded, and reached for the biscotti.
“Now I feel like I have to tell you why.”
“You know that’s not true,” Fenn said.
“Do you want to know why?”
Fenn considered this and said, “Well, yes. Actually.”
“I don’t know if what we have is strong enough for marriage,” Brendan admitted. “I haven’t known for some time.”
“Well, you all do break up every three or four years,” Fenn said, reluctantly.
“And then there was that whole business three years back when you all were in Chicago, and he came back here. And then you came back.”
“And it was never what it had been,” Bren said. “It was nice. Sometimes, with me living back here, us together a lot, it was flat out hot. But it was never what it was.”
“Is that why you called me?”
“I called you,” Brendan told Fenn, “because we’re friends and you haven’t been over in weeks. At least that was one reason. But this was definitely another. I wanted to get your opinion.”
“About you and Kenny?”
“About love and romance and what we have.”
“Well,” Fenn sipped from his coffee. “I don’t mean to be flippant and unhelpful. But… what do you have? When was the last time things were hot between you?”
“Like hot all the time?”
“Yes.”
Brendan sat back, blew out his cheeks and took off the glasses he’d been publicly wearing for about three years now.
“I’m embarrassed to say it.”
“Things with me and Tom were hot for years and then the last three got pretty dull before we split.”
“I always think of you with Todd. And… you guys seem to always have it.”
“Well, we do. But that was work.”
“Three bad years?” Brendan said. “You and Tom?”
Fenn nodded.
“Me and Kenny have been together… ”
“Hasn’t it been about eighteen years?”
“Oh, my God!” Brendan said. “Are you serious?”
“You were seventeen.”
“Crap!
“Well,” Brendan said after awhile. “We were hot for the first ten.”
He shook his head.
“I just don’t know. I love him. I love him so much. And the sex is good. I mean it really is. Sometimes it’s phenomenal. And… did you ever read Wuthering Heights?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s the part where Cathy says, ‘I am Heathcliff!’ Where she discovers that she and Heathcliff are the same person, are tied to each other. But… she marries Linton anyway.”
Fenn nodded.
“Well, that’s how I feel about Kenny. I always have. I feel like I know him so well, like calling him my best friend isn’t enough…”
Brendan sighed. There was a frown on his face.
“I mean… What do you call someone you’ve been making love to for almost twenty years. Whose body you know better than your own?”
“Usually your boyfriend.”
Then Fenn added. “Or partner… significant other.”
“The last two work,” Brendan said. “But not the first.
“I don’t want to be one of those couples that tries to get the spice back by doing crazy shit all the time, stepping out on each other, having three ways turning into just two really good friends who are dependent on each other. I’ve seen that, calling someone my boyfriend because he won’t leave and I won’t leave and sooner or later someone gets syphilis or AIDs or… tired. I want it to be good and call it quits when it isn’t. Know when it’s time to go. I want it hot… like Layla and Will. Or Dena and Milo. You and Todd or, hell, Bryant and Chad.”
This whole time Fenn had said nothing. Now Brendan said, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Fenn smiled, sadly. “You did ask for my advice, didn’t you?”
Brendan nodded.
“The way you talk about Kenny is the way I feel about Tom.”
Brendan blinked at him.
“We had an affair. Once. After we had split up.”
“Yes.”
“It was so hot and I’ve often thought that if Lee and he split up, and if Todd was gone, I would go right back to him.”
“And you all would be a couple again?”
“Oh no,” Fenn waved that off. “God no.
“See, I am drawn to him. We are the same soul. I would have sex with Tom. I’m still deeply attracted to him. But even when we were back together I knew that as strong as those feelings were, I needed more to make… a marriage. A true love. That more is hard to describe, but it came with Todd. And… that’s the same way I felt… feel about Dan Malloy.”
“Oh,” Brendan nodded. “But I don’t know what that more is.”
“I’m not sure either,” Fenn said. “But you know when it’s there. I suppose you know when it isn’t too.”
“I know,” Brendan agreed, slowly reaching for the biscotti and dipping it into his coffee.
“And with me and Kenny, it isn’t there.”



“Where are you going?” Dena Affren demanded as her son, bundled up in a black, puffy winter coat headed for the back door.
“I’m going out to make snow women with Brad.”
“Snow women?” Milo looked up from his plate at the breakfast table.
“They’re like snowmen except you need two more lumps,” Rob reported. “That’s why we like making them.”
“Your son has discovered breasts,” Dena said, dumping the coffee filter.
“Oh, Mom, I discovered them a long time ago. It’s just now I’m making them.”
Dena opened her mouth, closed it, and then, shaking her head said, “Well just make sure to take your sister with you.”
“She cramps my style.”
“Bud, you’re eight,” Milo told him, pushing a hand through his own dark hair. “You don’t get to have a style.”
“Besides,” Dena said, “you’ve been cramping my style for years. Cara!” Dena suddenly turned and yelled up the stairs.
“Here she comes,” Kenneth McGrath announced, looking down the hallway.
He put down his hand, and the little girl high fived him.
“As soon as your brother gets you bundled up,” Dena said, “you’re going out to make snow… people.”
“The ones with the titties?” the little girl said.
Dena’s eyes flew open and Milo said, “Rob, what have you been saying around her?”
“Nothing!” Rob protested loudly.
“Cara girl,” Milo lifted her up, “where did you get that word from?”
“From you when you touch Mommy’s.”
While Dena spritzered the last of her coffee and then swore, Kenny burst out laughing.
He stood up, holding his arms out for the girl.
“I tell you what?” he told them, “I’ll get Cara dressed for outside.”
When Cara was dressed and Milo and Dena were still looking at each other like they wanted to laugh, Rob held his hand out for his little sister and she caught it.
“If you are good, I will let you roll the snow tits.”
“Wow,” Kenny shook his head as Dena closed the door on her children.
“That’s priceless.”
“Maybe one day you and Bren?.”
“Maybe one day me. Maybe one day Bren,” Kenny said. “I don’t think me and Bren.”
Dena and Milo looked at him.
“Do the two of you ever… Do things ever get boring?”
“They never really got that interesting,” Dena folded her towel and sat down beside her husband who said, “You’re a bitch for that.”
“I know,” Dena told him, and smiled.
Then she said to Kenny, “Are you and Bren getting bored?’
“We’ve been bored.”
“Have you talked about it?” Milo said.
“Not with each other.”
Milo shrugged.
“Sometimes,” Dena said, “your partner is the last person you want to talk to.”
“What about spicing it up?” Milo suggested.
Dena looked at Kenny very carefully.
“Or is it beyond spice?” she said at last.
“When we were teenagers it was great. And even in the twenties. But as a grown up couple… we aren’t a couple.’
“You’ve grown apart.”



In Milo’s car, on their way to Layla’s, he said, “You’re my best friend.”
“I know,” Kenny said.
“And as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been with Bren.”
Kenny nodded.
“Now…. It used to be so hot. You guys were so… like the same thing. Like brothers… who fucked.”
Kenny raised and eyebrow and stared at his friend.
“And you know what? You’re still like brothers who fuck. But… That passion… I just thought you all kept it to yourselves or something. But you’re right. It’s gone.”
Kenny only nodded.
“So, what is it that you want?” Milo asked him.
“To fall in love. To be in love again. A grown up love. I don’t know what that is. Like you and Deen. Only gay.”
Now Milo snorted.
They were silent at the red light, and then the drive down Dorr Road.
“Last thing.”
“Yeah, Miles?”
“Well, what you got with Bren is nice. I mean, when it’s nice it usually takes seeing something better to know you want out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean have you met somebody?” Milo said, baldly.
Kenny turned away to look out the window as the shops on Dorr Road passed by.
“That’s what I thought,” Milo told him. “You need to talk to Bren.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I didn't expect this new story so quickly! A great surprise! Sounds like Kenny and Brendan are headed for a split. Whatever happens I hope it makes them happier. Excellent writing! I really enjoyed the start of this new Rossford story and I look forward to more soon. I hope you are having a good week.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I hadn't expected it so soon either, but I couldn't think of what else to put up and it didn't seem like I really needed to wait that long. The only thing is three years have passed, and I'm sot sure if it feels like, but... there it is. And there Brendan and Kenny are. Thanks for reading. There are plenty of surprises up ahead.

 

[ChrisGibson]

FIRST WEEKEND PORTION


“Well, the two of you look weird as hell,” Layla said when she opened the door for them.
“Come on in. I just need to get my coat.”
As they stepped in, Layla Lawden amended, “It’s not that you look weird as hell. You look like the cats who ate the canary. But…” she looked from Milo to Kenny, “like you don’t like the fact that you ate the canary. Did the canary taste bad?”
“I can’t make sense of her when she’s like this,” Milo said to Kenny, and shrugging, Layla said, “Well, let’s go.”

Halfway down Ferren Street she said, “You’re not going to tell me, then?”
“There is really nothing to tell,” Kenny said.
“Is it about Dena?” Layla said.
“Layla!” Milo could not spare her a glance because he was driving.
“Then it must be about Bren. Is it about about Bren?”
When neither one of them said anything, Layla said, “It’s alright. I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” Kenny insisted.
Layla Lawden shook her head.
“Um um,” she disagreed. “I think that’s some bullshit.”

When they arrived at the airport, they headed for Terminal Nine. Walking between Milo and Kenny, Layla reflected that Rossford Airport was the most barren thing she’d ever seen, and if not for the fact that Will had a plane coming in today, she wouldn’t have believed planes actually came here. She’d had a toy airport, a Play Skool one with little people whose round bodies fit into the seats and a fat little plane she could whiz through the living room. Well, that was damn near thirty years in the past, but that little toy is what she thought of when she thought about Rossford Airport.
“Sheridan!” she said, suddenly.
Waiting for them beside Logan Banford, in Terminal Nine, was Sheridan Klasko. He and Logan were wearing Buddy Holly spectacles because, firstly, their sight wasn’t getting any better, but secondly, someone had died and made the spectacles sexy. Layla supposed the Someone was Buddy Holly.
“Lay!” Sheridan came forward to hug her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I guess the same thing you are. Waiting for Will.”
“Hey, Logan,” Layla greeted the model.
“Layla, how goes it?”
She shrugged.
“I can’t complain.”
“You’re a poet. If you did, you would do it poetically.”
“How is the modeling life?”
Logan stuck out his tongue and made a noise.
“Its better than it was. I actually think I’m doomed to be a fitness instructor.”
“There are worse things,” Kenny threw in. And then he said, “Aren’t there?”
“Yes,” Logan told him. “And I’ve done them.”
“Shush, guys, what is that?”
Layla put a hand to her ear and the announcer said, “Flight 515 arriving at Gate Nine from Atlanta, at Gate Nine from Atlanta.”
“Well, here he comes then,” Sheridan said.
“Not that I mind,” Layla began, “but if you were coming to get him, Sher, why am I here?”
“I just talked to him last night,” Sheridan said, “and told him I would be here.”
“Do you think it’s possible Will forgot that he asked us to come get him?” Milo turned to Kenny.
“It’s not just possible, it’s probable, and it seems to be exactly what happened.”
“I was going to give Dylan a ride here too,” Sheridan expanded.
“What, Dylan was coming to pick up Will?”
“No,” Logan told Layla. “He was coming to pick up his friend Lance from the bus station.”
“We offered to give them a ride back into town.”
“Well,” Layla said, smiling to herself. “I can’t imagine they’d want anyone else there for the stuff they’ll probably get up to on their reunion.”
“Wow, Lay,” Kenny said. “And aren’t they supposed to be just friends?”
“I don’t involve myself in the lives of the under twenty,” Layla told him. “I just don’t think Dylan and Lance were ever really platonic—”
But she screeched now, because in the small pool of people coming toward them was Will.
She went past them all and took his travel bag before flinging herself on him.
“Not-wife! It’s good to see you,” he flung an arm around her. “How’s my girl?”
She kissed and said, “I didn’t think I could miss you so much.”
The shaggy haired scientist beamed down at Layla, and then she said, “And look who else is here?”
“Oh, my God!” Will lamented. “I forgot.”
“You really are becoming an absent minded professor, Brother,” Sheridan swatted Will on the back of the head.
Rubbing his head and making a face, Will said, “And you’re becoming Buddy Holly.”
“Is it a good look?”
Considering, Will said, at last, “No.” And then looking at Logan he added, “Not for either of you.”
Everyone burst out laughing as Will shrugged and Layla, hooking her arm in his, walked down the concourse.
“Everyone home,” she said. “In time for Christmas.”

As the bus lurched up Meridian, Laurel Houghton wondered, “Am I wrong for not applying to Loretto?”
Laurel was small and caramel brown, very pretty, and beside her was a lighter, slightly taller girl with equally black hair who ticked off her fingers a response.
“Firstly, you are wrong for even asking that question in the middle of December when you know Loretto takes applications damn near to the day of enrollment and secondly, there is nothing wrong with wanting to leave home especially if—and this is the most important part—it involves taking your cousin Maia with you the day after Christmas to tour universities.”
Laurel made a noise.
“I guess you’re right, Maia.”
“Guess, I’m right? Damn, you know I’m right. I just wish we could tour in the middle of the year. Think of all the parties we could get up too.”
“I wish Dylan was coming,” Laurel said.
“I don’t,” Maia said bluntly. “He’d probably fuck everybody.”
“Mai!”
“There wouldn’t be any men left for us. He’d turn ‘em all out.”
“There would be straight men left for us—”
“With him it really doesn’t seem to matter.”
Laurel shook her head disapprovingly at her cousin. “That’s unkind.”
“I’m not big on kindness,” Maia admitted. “I’m more into truth.”
“Can we get off the subject of Dylan and how you think—”
“That he’s a ho,” Maia said flatly.
“I mean, I love him. I really do. I thought I was going to marry him. But girl, he let the cat out the bag—or the dick out his pants, whatever—and he just went wild.”
“I can’t believe we’re discussing this,” Laurel murmured as other people on the bus, who could hear Maia’s diatribe began laughing.
“Good, cause we’re at the mall now. End of the line. And what we need to discuss now, is what you’re gon buy me!”

Negotiating the ice bumps and the lumps of snow, Elias and Bennett Anderson wheeled their bikes off of Deering Street and onto the sidewalk.
“Ey! Rob!” Bennett shouted. “What the hell is that?”
Rob Affren, and two other boys along with Cara, who was rolling something in the snow, all turned to the boys.
“They’re snow women!” Rob’s friend announced.
Elias, who was dark haired and blue eyed turned to his red headed twin and whispered, “Holy shit, Ben. They’re making snow tits.”
“That,” Bennett decided, “is awesome.”
Cara came walking toward them, and Elias got off his bike and said, “Stay in the yard,” but Dena was already on it, and opening the door she called, “Caramae, get back in the yard.”
“I was just showing him my boob!” Cara said, emphasizing the word boob as she held forth a round ball of snow.
While Elias chuckled to himself, the green eyed Bennett Anderson said, “What are you and Milo teaching these children?”
“Are you going to sit out their being sarcastic or come in for cocoa?”
“Well, it’s really no contest, is it Twin?” Ben said to Elias. “Let’s roll our bikes on in and get cocoa.”

“Yeah, we got Birth Mom some nice earrings,” Bennett was saying.
“Do you always call her that?” Dena said. Her brow furrowed as she poured the hot milk over the cocoa powder.
“Well, that is what she is.”
“I guess, but isn’t she like your real mother too?”
“No. Just the carrier,” Elias informed her in a business like way.
“All mom’s aren’t like you, Dena,” Bennett said merrily while he rubbed his hands together.
“You have babies and raise them and make sure they don’t play in traffic and all of that stuff.”
“That’s more like Kirk,” Elias said, and it was the first time he had spoken. “He’s more like a mom. But so is Paul. I mean, they’re both like Mom.”
“And Birth Mom is Birth Mom,” Bennett elaborated. “She comes around now and again and she gave us life so we give her earrings.”
As Bennett took the cocoa from Dena and handed it to his brother he said, “Look, Eli, Dena’s sad.”
“I’m not sad,” Dena said. “And I’m not judging.”
She sat down across from the twins. “It’s just now that I have kids, I can’t imagine giving them up.”
“Dylan’s mom gave him up,” Elias said.
Dena shrugged. But then so did Bennett.
Nearly sixteen years ago, a helpful young college student—who was paid a lot of money—said that she would be glad to carry two eggs from one unknown woman—a woman who did not wish to be known. One egg was fertilized by Paul and the other by Kirk. The plan was that Paul would have a son and so would Kirk, and these two boys would be linked to each other not only as brothers, but twins. Fifteen years later the result was the quiet dark haired and blue eyed Elias Hanley-Anderson, who looked like his biological father Kirk, and the red haired Bennett Hanley-Anderson who looked like every other red headed Anderson, and talked so much it gave his Aunt Claire a run for her money. Shortly after them, with much less biological complications, had come Matthew, who was at home reading a book.
“Besides,” Bennett continued, “between you and Aunt Claire we’ve got more than enough mothers.”
“And Aunt Shelley,” Elias added.
Bennett seemed to be thinking this over. “I guess. She’s hot—”
“Ben!” Dena said, one eye still on the children outside.
“She is,” Bennett insisted.
“I mean, she’s not biologically related to me. Not like Aunt Claire. Anyway, I was going to say Shelley’s hot, but shes not that maternal.”
“She’s got kids,” Elias said.
“Our moms have children,” Bennett said. “Well, there you go. And then Laurel’s grandma. The one who is Claire’s mother-in-law…. Well, what about her? So you see, all mom’s aren’t momlike. And Shelley. Well…”
Dena decided it was time to bring the children in, or at least Cara. She went to the door and clapped for her attention and then, turning back to the boys said, “Well, Shelley Anderson’s a Babcock.”


“I am just not a very good cook,” Shelley decided.
Merilee Anderson eyed the outcome of the cake her daughter-in-law had made and settled on, “It needs work.”
“It needs,” Claire decided, looking it over and then going toward her foyer, “for me to go down to the bakery and pick up a new one.”
“Oh, Claire, how can you say that?”
‘It’s honesty, Mama. That’s all I got. Come on ladies, let’s shake a leg and get down there.”
Shelley gave her cake one last regretful look, and Claire called up the steps.
Matthew the Second, which distinquished him from Matty even if it made his name too long, came down the steps bookmarking his copy of Treasure Island with one finger.
“Can you be a wonderful nephew and watch the kids while we go and pick up a new cake for tonight?”
“Sure. But what’s so big about tonight? Christmas is a few days off.”
“What is so big about tonight?” Merilee wondered, turning to Shelley.
“I can’t tell you yet,” the dark haired woman said. “It’s a surprise really.”
“Is it a good one or a bad one?” Matthew began.
“It’s a good one, of course.”
“Cause you’ve had some not so good ones in the past, Aunt Shell.”
“Matthew Two!” Claire said, and then, while he went back up the stairs, Claire led them out, whispering to her mother, “Actually, he’s sort of right,” while Shelley went to start the car.
“I love a white Christmas,” Claire was saying. “But I gotta tell you, this isn’t bad either. A little bit of residual snow. Some chill in the air. I could get use to this.”
“Shelley,” Merilee began, “This surprise of yours?”
“Yes,” Shelley said with a nervous smile.
“It’s just that sometimes your surprises… They’re not always the greatest.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, there was the one time you surprised Elias and Bennett with their biological mother.”
“And the time when you dug up Laurel Houghton’s father,” Merilee chimed in.
“Not to mention when you walked into Bennett’s room with a birthday cake and he was in the middle of—”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“He’s a boy,” Claire offered.
“He’s fifteen,” Merilee added.
“He uses up a lot Kleenex.”
“Well, I told him it was perfectly natural,” Shelley said as they stopped at a red light. “I even told him that it was better than sleeping around and that everyone should learn how to pleasure themselves. He was a step ahead of the game.”
While Merilee put a hand over her face to stifle the laughter, Claire said, “I bet he loved that talk.”
“Not so much.”
Shelley cleared her throat.
“But that’s not the thing that matters. The new surprise is definitely going to rock everyone’s socks.”
“See,” said Claire, as they pulled into the parking spaces before the bakery, “that is just what I am afraid of.”
“You know that my Uncle Sean has been like… gone from the face of the earth for years?”
“I knew something like that,” Merilee said.
“Well, tonight, when your family and my family come together, Uncle Sean’s going to be there! I’ve brought him. Uncle Bryant’s going to be so surprised!”
Shelley hopped out of the car wide eyed and delighted, but Claire looked horrified.
“Claire,” her mother said. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Yes,” Claire Lawden said, flatly.
“So… is her Uncle Bryant going to be surprised?”
Claire remembered that Merilee had never really known Bryant. A very long time ago, Bryant had made a DVD and sent it to Claire and Merilee and the contents of that video would have surprised the hell out of Merilee then. Ironic. If you lived long enough, life was ironic.
“Yes, Mother,” Claire said, remembering what Chad had told her about his affair with Sean, “I think Bryant will be very surprised.”


THE SECOND WEEKEND PORTION WILL BE THE BLOOD

 

[CharmedFan28]

Its nice to see how more of the characters are doing 3 years on. Lots going on and I am enjoying this new Rossford story! Great writing and I look forward to The Blood later and more of this story in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

So far, so good, and no misery or trouble yet. Everyone is returning!

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD


When Will entered his house, Fenn was there.
“Well, wow, he’s back,” Fenn said standing up as Will came toward him. “But shouldn’t you all have brought him to his parents, first?”
“Well, we knew you’d be here,” Will hugged him quickly. “And Kenny had to get back home.
“Bren!” Will went to hug his old friend.
“How was Austria?”
“It was alright,” Will said, clapping Brendan on the back, then separating from him.
“But Europe makes it easier to appreciate showers everyday.”
“So it’s true?” Layla said.
“It is.”
“White folks are so nasty,” Fenn commented, but they had all learned to ignore him by now, except for Milo who said, “There’s some truth in that.”
“Well, in the ancestral home of White Folks, there’s animal shit and piss on the street and uber bad fashion,” Will reported. “It was interesting, but I’m glad to be home.”
“I’m glad to have you,” Layla said, catching his hand. “The older I get the less I like us being apart.”
“Speaking of being apart,” Fenn said, “I have a Todd to get to.”
“He’s at home?”
“No,” Fenn said to Sheridan, “he’s at the theatre.”
“We’ll run you there,” Sheridan volunteered.
“I got it,” Brendan said. “Besides, I’m leaving in a bit.”
“Well, as long as somebody takes me,” Fenn said. He turned to his neice. “It’s nice to be fought over. It makes you feel wanted.”
He coughed and rubbed his shoulder.
“And that makes me feel old.”
“They say fifty’s the new forty,” Kenny noted.
“Forty must have been a motherfucker then,” observed Fenn.
But it was Sheridan and Logan who took Fenn back even though he had walked here from Versailles Street, and when Will went upstairs to the rest room, Layla and Milo sat looking at Brendan and Kenneth.
“So, what’s going on?” Layla demanded.
“Whaddo you mean?” Brendan looked at her.
“She’s been doing this all morning,” Kenny told him.
“Layla said we were the cat who ate the canary only the canary tasted bad.”
“That’s funny,” Brendan thought about it. “I’m not exactly sure what it means, but it is funny.”
Layla opened her mouth to say something, but then thought it would achieve nothing, so decided on, “I’m going to the kitchen to get something to drink.”
Brendan followed her into the kitchen and he said, “Hey, Lay, what’s up?”
“I don’t know,” Layla said.
She went to the cupboard and pulled down a glass.
“It’s just Kenny and Milo looked like they had been having some bizarre discussion when they came for me, and I want to know what it is.”
Before Brendan could say something, Layla waved it off.
“Don’t mind me. I know myself pretty well by now. I’m sure it’s none of my damn business, and I’m just putting my nose where it damn doesn’t belong.”
She poured the juice while Brendan nodded and when she had finished, she said, fluidly:
“Is Kenny having an affair?”
“No! And if he was, I mean, he’d be bad at it for me not to know.”
“I think you would know. Part of you.”
While Brendan thought this over, Layla said, “Well, are you having an affair?”
“What? No! You know better than that!”
“Have you found somebody else?”
“No.”
“Do you want to find somebody else?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Kenny!” Layla shouted.
A moment later, Kenny entered the kitchen with Milo and Will. Kenny and Brendan looked at each other as if they were terrified at the prospect of what Layla might do.
She looked at Kenny, and then at Brendan. She sighed.
“Will, Milo, get out,” she said.
The shaggy haired man and the long haired man looked at each other and then, without asking why, left.
“So, it finally happened,” Layla said.
“What final—” Kenny began.
“You all are finally breaking up.”

“We are NOT breaking up!” Brendan said.
“No,” Kenny murmured. “We’re already broken up.”
Brendan looked at him, and Kenny continued, “We’ve been broken up. It wasn’t even a bad break up or anything. We’ve just become…”
“Friends,” Brendan supplied.
“Yeah,” Kenny went on. Then in a lighter voice he said, “But you’re my best friend. What’s wrong with friends?”
Brendan looked at Layla and said, “That’s the talk I was having with your uncle this morning.”
“You told Fenn that?” Kenny said.
“Why not?” Layla said, her voice as subdued as Brendan’s. “Did you tell the same thing to Milo.”
“It’s just,” Kenny said, “what we have isn’t bad. It really isn’t. It’s better than most marriages, but…”
“Ey, Layla?” Brendan said. “I think me and Kenny are working well as a couple, even if we’re not working well as a couple of lovers. I would appreciate if you—”
“I’m not a blabbermouth,” she said. “Have I ever been a blabbermouth?”
“Thanks,” Brendan said, sighing.
“Milo! Will!” Layla called. “You can come back in.”

The first time he’d gone off to Chicago by himself, he planned to leave for only a few hours and he’d lingered in Millenium Station and arrived at the platform as the train was heading out of the station. He’d run after it to no avail, and pounded on the side. The ticket collector woman, whatever the hell she was, saw him and just shook her head as the train disappeared on its way back to Miller. He’d had no phone to call his father, and, breathless and sweaty. Dylan had sat down on the bench in the darkness of the platforms, and then decided that the only thing to do was turn around, catch an El and travel around the city until the next train.
Fenn had never believed in cell phones or technology, and so there had been no calling him until Dylan had bummed a phone from someone riding the return train home that evening.
“I won’t be in until seven o’clock. I missed the first train,” he said. “I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t until now.”
When Dylan arrived at the platform in Miller, Tom and Fenn were there and Fenn had quietly handed Dylan a new cell phone while Tom smirked, triumphantly.
“Told you so,” Tom said, and Fenn had turned around, ignoring him, and headed for the car.
On their way back Fenn said, “So it turns out it is true.”
“What’s true?” Dylan said from the backseat.
“Umm Kulthum used to say you must wait for that which will not wait for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well,” Fenn explained as the evening drew on, “she learned it because her mother used to bring her to the train station hours early and her whole life she showed up early for the train. I didn’t understand until I missed a train myself. Then I understood.”

Dylan thought of that because he was driving to reach a plane, and while it was true that he wasn’t going to catch the plane, only waiting for it to land, he still thought of the concept of not being late. True, Lance would wait for him, but Lance should not have to.
Now, as he drove south on Dorr, he thought how Lance had spent years waiting for him and being second fiddle to others, and he thought of their talks on the phone now that Lance was off at college. Things had gone so cosmically bad between the two of them, and if Dylan hadn’t called an end to it, the badness would still be going on. He’d had to let Lance go. They could move in the same sick circles over and over again.
The letting go had proven fortuitous. Dylan was in love with Ruthven and Ruthven had come back to Rossford for him. At the time Dylan was fifteen and Ruthven eighteen. The relationship was full of sex and passion. Sex and passion, removed from his relationship with Lance, they moved like two friendly planets, in similar orbit but not touching, often very much apart. They had been friends since childhood, and more than it since early adolescence. Dylan felt so old, and he had made himself older than he should have been. He knew that if either one of them was to have anything like a happy teenage life they needed to split up. The claustrophobic friendship where best friends became brothers became abusive lovers was too much. In the end Lance, crazy with love, had commited the main abuse, but that killed him more than it did Dylan. Lance was sixteen when he and Dylan split up, and when he it was over, Lance had put himself into sports the way Dylan did into school. By senior year Lance led Saint Barbara’s to the championship against Saint Mary’s in Michigan City, and now Dylan was arriving at the airport to pick his best friend up from college.

“Am I late?” Dylan shouted as he squealed into the pick-up-and-drop-off before the bus shelter and in front of the line of taxi cabs.
“Am I sitting here on the curb?” Lance said, rising up.
Dylan stoped the car and rounded it to take a bag from Lance before stopping to look at him.
“What?” Lance Bishop grinned at him.
“You’re just so damn tall.”
“And you’re so ripped.”
“I am not,” Dylan said. He blushed, and Lance bent down and hugged him. They held on to each other a long time and then Dylan separated from him and said, “Com’on, let’s get back into town.”

“My flight came early,” Lance said. “So you weren’t really late at all.”
“Well, I had to make all these stops this morning, and then Dad had the car,”
“Tom or Fenn?”
Dylan frowned at Lance.
“Since when does Fenn drive?”
Lance shrugged and looked around the inside of the sports car before saying, “Or drive something like this.”
“Right,” Dylan said, nodding.
“How is Fenn?”
Dylan shook his head, “He’s the same.”
Lance chuckled over this. “And he’s cool with me staying tonight?”
“I guess. I mean, yeah. I mean….” Dylan looked at Lance. “Dad says yes and no and sometimes when he says it, you have no idea what’s going on in his head. So…” Dylan shrugged.
“But no one’s home right now, anyway, so,” Dylan shrugged. One hand was on the wheel and the other one was open, palm up, fingers fidgeting.
Looking out of the window at the motels, the occasional liquor store and the snowblown grown grass of Airport Road, Lance put his hand in Dylan’s.
Dylan looked to Lance a moment. He had always been not only taller than Dylan, but tall. It was hard to remember just how tall. He was slender now and his chest was broader. He had a serious face, square and handsome with a high forehead, and when he wore a tight tee shirt, he really wore it. Only a few years ago he’d just been a weedy boy with big hands and feet and now there was mass to him. Dylan knew that. Dylan wondered, if Lance had been what he was now, would they have broken up?
Lance was doing that scowl thing at him.
“What?”
“I was just thinking,” Dylan said.
“You were checking me out.”
“You are a deeply conceited man.”
Lance chuckled, but his fingers tickled the inside of Dylan’s hand.
“You look good too,” Lance told him.
“Well…” Dylan said. “Thanks.”
“Oh, come off it,” Lance said. “It’s not an accident.”
“My Dad is into exercising and all of that stuff, and so it kind of rubs off.”
“Now I know you’re talking about Tom.”
“Yes, I am. Fenn is into eating donuts and chain smoking.”
“I bet you’re nailing half of Rossford.”
“Are you asking cause you’re jealous?” Dylan said as they turned up the northern reach of Dorr Road coming closer to Versailles.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me, playing football with a scholarship?” Lance said. “What about me with tons of girls who want to crawl into bed with me and I’m checking out their brothers?”
Dylan chuckled.
“Yeah,” Lance said. “That’s what about me.”
They were quiet then and Dylan turned into Versailles, and then they were at the house and Lance said, “I miss this place.”
“Do you remember,” Dylan began rolling into the driveway and turning off the car, “when Dad caught us and you tripped down the stairs?”
“Dylan, that wasn’t funny.”
“Not then, but it’s funny now.”
“Um,” Lance opened the car door and rounding the trunk, pulled out a bag, “I still haven’t gotten to that place, yet.”
Dylan took out the last bag and went ahead of Lance, opening the door to the kitchen.
“Yeah,” Dylan began, “I kind of get what you mean.”
They caught hands for a moment, and then while Dylan ran his hands over Lance’s stomach, they went up the stairs, catching hands now and again.
They went through the dark hallway to the front bedroom, Dylan’s room and dropped their bags.
“I haven’t seen you since—”
“Thanksgiving three weeks ago,” Dylan said turning around to him.
Lance caught his hands.
“Yeah, but that’s three weeks plus finals.”
“And now…?” Dylan murmured.
“Now we can really reacquaint properly.”
“Like best friends,” Dylan said, while Lance shrugged off his coat and pulled Dylan into his arms. “Like brothers.”
Dylan chuckled while Lance kissed him.
He held onto Lance’s face while Lance kissed him, and he pulled Lance to the bed.
“Yeah,” Lance whispered, running his hands under Dylan’s shirt, “Just like that.”

His jeans hanging at midthigh, his shirt on the bed, Lance gripped Dylan’s hips and pulled him closer as he fucked him. They both shouted, jarred and surprised by the intensity of their sex. Mouth open, eyes closed, Dylan held onto the backboard and now and again, called out of the deep place, he opened his eyes to see if anyone was coming back to the house. The bed groaned under them as Lance, face approaching his throat, cheek touching his, pushed into him harder and then, with a surprised groan his body jerking violently, he moved away, holding Dylan’s hips, almost unable to keep his balance as, still in Dylan, still fucking him, he came.

 

[CharmedFan28]

So Brendan and Kenny finally ended it? That was expected. I may have had my issues with Lance in the past but him and Dylan are cute now when they are around each other. I am liking this new Rossford story so far! I don't know where things are going but I am interested to find out. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a good weekend.

 

[ChrisGibson]

In the same way that the last was about losing things and coming halfway to certain things, this one is about completion. The last three books have been about loss and completion, and in the last one a lot of people who didn't understand the love they had and lost it got it back, but this time around a lot of what was damaged or incomplete is going to be completed and a lot of prayers are going to be answered in strange ways. In the last two books happiness was withheld and joy forestalled. Kenny and Brendan limped along in a relationship that should have died. Dylan was not grown up enough to love Lance properly and vice versa.. This time happiness will come.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER ONE CONTINUED



“THAT IS UGLY, and that is ugly and that is completely ugly. It makes me wanna say, ‘Bitch, what were you thinking?’”
“Maia, you can’t just stand out in the food court and talk out loud about people.”
“Laurel, we are not in front of the food court, the food court is down that way. We are at the head of the intersection that leads to the food court and, secondly, none of these people can hear a thing I’m saying.
“Oh, my God, did you see that grown ass man with some butter yellow hair—dye job—and a fur coat?”
“More like a fur jacket.”
“Which makes it worse! And ooh, he’s got a wife or a girlfriend. Why can’t she tell he’s gay?”
“My mother says it’s because most women are desperate and will take anything they can get.”
“You think that’s true?” Maia said. Then, “Ooh, lets go to the novelty shop.”
“Given the evidence,” Laurel said, “I think it’s true most of the time.”
“Ooooh! Who do you think would like a sword for Christmas?”
“Nobody, and don’t wave it around or else we’ll have to pay for it, and I can’t afford… Let me see that.”
Maia handed her cousin the sword and Laurel said, “Oh, my God! It’s three hundred dollars.”
Maia looked dubiously at the sword, held her hands out and said, “Let’s put this shit away.”
“I think Dylan would look good in that hat,” Laurel said.
“I agree. He’s stylish like that.” She went to the hat pile and pulled up a brown fadora with white pinstripes.
“And only ten bucks,” she said.
Laurel nodded and said, “I’m getting it.”
“Oh, and I would look cute in that necklace for when we go to Chicago.”
As Maia reached out for it, Laurel said, “I thought we were shopping for other people.”
“I am,” Maia said. “You know how it goes. Something for you, a little something for me.”
“But you haven’t gotten anything for anybody.”
“Damn, bitch,” Maia murmured, taking the necklace with the blue stone hanging from it, “you sure are the moral police today.
“Besides, I want to have something cute so that I can catch a man when we go on our college tour.”
“Catch a man? You’re sixteen.”
“And sixteen years too old to keep all this goodness to myself.”
“Um,” Laurel said, a cunning look on her face.
“What?” Maia turned to her cousin, holding out the necklace. “What smart ass remark were you about to make?”
“Nothing,” Laurel Houghton said. “Nothing at all.
“Only, I thought you had a man.”
“Don’t start that again.”
“I thought Bennett Anderson tongued you under the mistletoe last Christmas.”
Grabbing a bag of cone incense from the rack beside her, Maia said, “Bitch, I hate you.”


“This was the only thing I thought about all the way back on the plane,” Lance said, wrapping an arm around Dylan.
“Fucking me or us being in bed together?”
“I meant us together,” Lance said, his nose touching Dylan’s spine. “The specifics I hadn’t worked out. I mean, I assumed we’d have sex sooner or later or whatever. But I just kept on thinking about when we could be back here in your room.”
Dylan turned around and he said, “I don’t know why, but whenever I know I’m coming to get you, I always try to put sex out of my head.”
Lance laughed a little, looking surprised, and propped himself up on one elbow.
“Really?”
Dylan shrugged. “Maybe because it sounds like I’m just trying to hook up with you or something. Like, would I be as glad to see you if I knew we weren’t going to go to bed?”
“Well, it’s more like if you weren’t happy to see me, then would we go to bed?” Lance differed.
“What?”
Lance opened his mouth to explain and then said, “You know what? I’m not even going to try to explain that. It’s just…. It’s who we are. It’s like… us not making love is like… other friends never hugging or anything. It would be wrong if we didn’t.”
Dylan barked out a laugh at this and sat up, pulling his knees to his chest.
“What?” Lance said, lying on his back with his hands behind his head.
“It’s funny the way you put it is all.”
“Not that it isn’t true. No….” Dylan’s voice was reflexive as his hand went up and down Lance’s chest, to his stomach, touched the brown hairs that grew in a path there.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
Lance’s eyes changed. They softened somehow.
Dylan looked down at him, waiting for an answer.
“No one ever made me believe that except for you,” Lance told him. “The way you look at me.”
“I bet everyone looks at you.”
“Now they do,” Lance told him. “They look at my arms, my abs, my shoulders, my legs. But that was even in high school.”
Lance sat up, so that he and Dylan were on a level, he began to play with a toe on one of his very long feet.
“But even when we were kids, when I was just a weedy kid with a big forehead and floppy feet-”
Dylan snorted.
“No, listen,” Lance told him. “Even then when my hands were just as big as they are now, you would look at me like I was perfect. I remember that. I think that’s why what happened with us happened all those years ago.”
“You mean the first time we had sex?”
“If you must absolutely take all of the poetry out of it,” Lance said.
“We were so young,” Dylan remembered.
“I was so happy,” Lance said. “You stayed over and we were together and we had both showered and everything, and I remember what your shampoo smelled like and I just wanted to hold you and then you were holding me and I just wanted to be as close as I could, and there wasn’t any limit. You know how there are always lines you don’t cross? We didn’t have them. And after it was over we were just holding each other.”
“I was terrified.”
Lance looked down at him.
“Seriously? Of me? I mean, I was bigger. I was older—”
“No one had loved me so much before,” Dylan said. ‘I mean, my parents. And Laurel. But that’s not the same. You looked at me with so much love and I was so afraid that… that I would hurt you. That I would… be unworthy of that love.”
They were quiet for a long time and then Lance said.
“In a way we couldn’t have helped hurting each other. There wasn’t any air between us.”
Dylan had thought the same thing today and was amazed that Lance said it
“When we were boyfriends you were my brother and my father and best friend and my son and everything all together,” Lance remembered.
“That’s the way I felt.”
“I mean, that’s still the way I feel,” Lance told him.
He put in a laugh and touched his unshaven jaw, breaking the moment.
“That’s why we need to keep it light.”
“That’s why you need to live two states apart,” Dylan laughed, getting up, but Lance pulled him slowly back to bed.
“We got some time for a little more, don’t we?” he said
Dylan looked at the clock and said, “Time enough for something quick and a shower before folks come home.”
“Alright, then,” Lance said, pulling Dylan tightly to him and kissing him deeply.
“We’ll see where this goes.”
Dylan lay down and pulled Lance on top of him, stretching his legs to hold Lance in firmly while he ran his hands up and down Lance Bishop’s back.
“How the fuck are we going to keep this light?” Dylan murmured.

In the quiet semi darkness of love, in the bed that hardly moved because of the depth of the fucking, where Dylan’s hand reached around to hold Lance’s neck and his fingers curled in the small curls of Lance’s hair while they came together, their bodies pressed and sweating, Dylan, almost breathless, let out the same phrase Lance had been mumbling into his shoulder while he fucked him.
“I love you.”

LATER TONIGHT: THE BEASTS

 

[CharmedFan28]

Maia seems like she is going to be interesting to read about to say the least. Dylan and Lance seem to be working things out with each other which I think is a good thing. Great writing and I look forward to The Beasts later!

 

[ChrisGibson]

The Blood if finally posted. I took an unexpected but very much needed nap, hence the reason I called the Blood the Beasts, but you got it. Poor Maia was too young to be in the last story much, and there was so much going on she was really off at her mom's the whole time, but now a whole lot the younger generation who we only heard about are going to take center stage, and that's going to be very interesting. Lance and Dylan are great. They may have not figured things out yet, but they aren't psychotic or unaware of their mutual love, so.... a step up.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER ONE

“They looked healthy from the outside,” Todd said.
“They are healthy from the outside,” said Fenn. “And on the inside. They just want more.”
Layla asked her uncle, “Are we even supposed to be talking about this?”
“Probably not,’ Fenn conceded.
“What do you think is the most important thing in a significant other?” Will asked Fenn.
“The same thing Brendan and Kenny did,” Fenn said. “Which is why they’ve been together so long.
“You have to be reliable.”
“That’s it.”
“That’s a lot,” Todd said.
Will looked at him.
“Now look,” Todd said, peeling the orange as he leaned against the sink. “You can find a guy who is reliable to… say, come over and fuck you in an hour. Or two. Or be with you once a week a few times a week. You can find someone who is reliable for a month, two months, maybe a year.”
“Or a man who is reliable all the time,” Fenn chimed in, “as long as you don’t expect too much.”
Todd nodded, “Or reliable as long as it’s okay for him to sleep with other people and you always have to use condoms.”
“It’s a lot of strings,” Fenn said.
“Well, I think women are unreliable too,” Layla said. “I mean, I feel what you’re saying, but Claire, Radha and Dena are my oldest girlfriends. However that’s three women out of all the women I’ve known, and two of us are related. So, what’s that say?”
“And then,” Fenn thought on this, “after the reliable part, after you’ve found the one you can call at two in the morning—or for that matter ten in the morning—and you know he’ll be there, you have to also like him.”
“Because sometimes there is someone who really, really wants to be in a relationship and they’ll always be there even if you don’t want them.”
“We call that being needy,” Fenn said. “So you’ve got to have someone who is reliable, and who is your friend. But for a romance…”
“You need the romance,” Will said.
“Exactly.”
“And that’s the part where Brendan and Kenny are stuck.”
“Their broken relationship is better than most together relationships I’ve seen,” Will said after Layla has spoken.
“They just want to be in love again,” Todd said, sitting his lanky body down beside Fenn. He straddled his chair like a grasshopper.
“How long was it before you felt that way about me?” Will looked at Layla.
She turned to him and tilted her head.
“We were lucky. Our feelings grew with us. I think in a way I always loved you. Even after we split. I always measured others—”
“Against me?”
“No,” Layla said. “I mean, let’s face it, Aidan and Kevin had it going on. But I measured the us I was with them against…. The us I am part of with you.”
Will smiled and said, “I was waiting to hear how much hotter I am than them, but you just won’t lie to me.”
He pounded his fist in his hand and Layla, ruffling Will’s hair, said, “William, you are always hot to me.”
After basking in this, Will looked at Todd and asked, “What about you all?”
“Well, for starters I was much younger than I am now. I had my good looks when we got together.”
“Shut up,” Fenn told him. “You’re just fishing for compliments.”
“I never get them,” Todd said sadly, touching his graying temple. He had always had short hair and long sideburns, but now the occasional streak of grey showed up.
“However, you do get blowjobs,” Fenn said soberly, “and I think you prefer those to compliments.”
“I think,” Layla said, “I will never get used to you, Uncle.”
“I think,” Will said, leering at Layla, “your uncle has a good idea.”
“I think,” Layla said, “I’m going to ignore this whole segue until we get home.”
Fenn beat the table softly, as if to call everyone back to order.
“Todd was utterly and completely reliable and always has been, and he was deeply in love with me. And he was tall and handsome. And then I finally realized I was in love with him as well. It was as simple as that.’
Todd gave him a pretend scowl and said, “I just don’t know why it took you so long to realize you were in love with me.”
“Because I had been in love with someone who left me for the priesthood and in love with someone who had simply left,” Fenn said. “And looking back on both of them I was pretty much out of love. So I didn’t trust myself or other men enough to fall in love and I thought, well what is the point in falling for another fool?”
Fenn looked at Layla and Will before saying:
“And then one day I realized that it didn’t matter if I wanted to fall in love or not, or even if he was a fool or not. It had already happened. There was nothing I could do.”

It started to rain on the way home, half icy drops hitting the windows, swished away by windshield wipers. Layla stopped herself from saying, “Baby be careful. It gets slippery on the snow.”
“Honey,” Will said, as they drove on in the dark.
“Um hum?”
“I didn’t bring it up earlier because so much has happened today—”
“But?”
“I have another conference. Right after the new year.”
“Seriously?”
She tried not to whine. After all, the new job came with new money, and it meant Will was rising in the world, the chemistry world that she did not understand.
“Yes, seriously.”
“But you just got home,” she said. “And you know how much I hate it when you’re gone. Not that I’m complaining though, damn, I just did.”
Will chuckled and said, “Well, you did. A little.”
“Well, where is this conference?”
“In London.”
“Damn.”
“But see, that’s where my new idea comes in.”
“Which is Skype? Cause I’m tired of that shit. I need my husband here.”
“That’s the second time you’ve called me your husband today.”
“You’re too old to be my boyfriend and I’m too old to have a boyfriend.”
“Well, what I have in mind is better than Skype.”
“Better than Skype?” Layla murmured sarcastically. “What could be better than Skype?”
“You coming with me?”
She shrieked so that Will nearly lost control of the car, and then she threw her arms around him.
“If we get killed on our way home, it really makes this whole conversation a little ironic. I love you, Layla, but you gotta… move over a little.”
“Oh, my gosh! London. And us together in London. Can you imagine?”
“Yes, I can,” Will said. “And here’s another thing: From now on I don’t ever want us separated. I don’t want to take any trips without my wife.”
They drove on quietly for a while, and then Layla said, “William?”
“Yes?”
“I know I said it wasn’t my style, and it wasn’t. And before how we lived wasn’t my style either.”
“What are you talking about?” Will spared just enough time from the road to give Layla a raised eyebrow.
“Do you think it’s time we got married?” Layla said. “Officially? Do you think it’s time I was Mrs. Klasko?”
He smiled, but he didn’t look at her.
“I would like it. I like to hear you say that.”
“Are you in a hurry?” Layla asked him, looking out of the window at the rain slanting into the passing night.
“No,” Will said after a time, such a long time it was almost as if he were proving he was in no hurry. “Only… it’s nice to hear you say that you would like to be my wife.”
“I just wanted to give it time and see what the probability of us lasting was.”
“And after eight years?”
“I decided our chances are pretty good.”


MORE WEDNESDAY NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great conclusion to chapter one! I am glad Will is taking Layla to London and that they decided they wanted to get married. I did like Brendan and Kenny as a couple but I think they deserve happiness and love and they clearly are not getting it from each other. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Since the original stories, I had always thought about the likelihood--or health--of two people who had only really dated each other since high school staying together. I always knew I wanted Will and Layla together, which was the principal reason for their breaking up in book three, so they could have ten years apart and meet as grown ups. Claire and Julian were college students and Milo and Dena were a little more experienced. Plus,sometimes kids from high school do stay together. So they got the luck of the draw. And kids. As much asI love Will and Layla, it is definitely time for their life to take a new step,and it's about to.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TWO



THE CHRISTMAS PARTY


“My God, you’re enormous!” Fenn exclaimed at the kitchen table as Lance entered after Dylan through the side door.
“Uh… Thank you, Mr. Houghton.”
“Thanks for letting Lance stay,” Dylan said.
“Don’t forget to share him with his parents,” Todd told him, while Fenn only yawned and looked at Lance.
“He was always tall,” he noted. “But when did you get, so tall!”
“He was always knees and feet falling over each other,” Todd said.
“You were like that,” Fenn reminded Todd. “When you were a boy. And then one day you came back from college all grown up. And now Lance is too.”
“I’m not quite all grown up,” Lance chuckled and Dylan said, “You’re making him nervous.”
“No, he’s not,” Lance said, turning red, but Fenn said, “Don’t worry, we’re done.”
“Good night, Dad,” Dylan kissed Fenn’s cheek, and then he kissed Todd.
“Goodnight Mr. Houghton. Mr. Meradan,” Lance said. “It’s been—,” but Dylan was dragging the tall young man up the stairs.
“Wow,” Todd said, “Now that Lance actually looks like a man, is it possible to think of them as anything but—”
Fenn held up a hand.
“No, no, no,” he said. “I made the resolution that as long as the door was closed and I couldn’t hear anything, it’s just a slumber party.”
“That is enlightened. If it was Maia and some boy—”
“But it’s the boy that’s been with Dylan since they were children, and whatever they do they’ve been doing since they were children,” Fenn said. “My mother had to wrap her head around me not liking girls, and Dylan has given me plenty to wrap my own head around. But Lance is a good boy—”
“Are they friends? Are they friends with benefits? Are they halfway incestuous? Don’t you seriously wonder what—?”
“Todd,” Fenn said wearily, “whatever happens up there would happen somewhere else a lot less safe if Lance didn’t stay with me. And it’s something I can deal with. Mr. Bishop couldn’t, and I know that. And besides, whatever other things Lance is, one thing I do believe: Lance is the only boy who really ever loved Dylan. He’s really the only boy I ever trusted to take care of my son. So… I’m sort of soft for him.”
“You think… they’re like us?”
“No, cause I’m ten years older than you and remember changing your diapers.”
Todd frowned and said, “I mean… do you think one day they’ll be together. For real?”
“I think they are together for real,” Fenn said, looking up the stairs. “Only they don’t know it.”


When Fenn woke up the next morning it was to the sound of shovels scraping on the sidewalk. Todd was already up in the living room looking out of the window, and when Fenn joined him he said, “Look at your son.”
In their winter coats, hoods pulled up, Lance and Dylan were shoveling the walk, and Fenn said, “I hope they have the sense to use the snowblower for the drive.”
“They’re good boys,” Todd said, approvingly.
“Who’s good boys?”
Maia came bouncing down the stairs in men’s pajamas her long braid tied back.
“Your brother and Lance,” Todd told her. “How come you never shovel the sidewalk for me?”
“Because I’m usually busy doing it for Mom and Natalie,” Maia said. “And if you and Fenn let me sleep with my friends, I’d shovel the driveway too.”
Todd rolled his eyes and Maia went into the kitchen saying, “As it is, I don’t currently have anyone to sleep with.”
Fenn turned away from the boys in the driveway.
“When are you and Laurel going to Chicago?”
“Day after Christmas,” Maia said from the kitchen. “Which means the day after tomorrow.”
“Do you want us to take you guys to the train station?” Todd asked following them in.
“That,” Maia said, pouring juice into her glass, “would be lovely. Mom was gon do it, but Natalie’s folks are headed back the day after too, and we’d all be crowded in the car together.”
“Natalie’s folks are Jewish,” Fenn said, going to the refrigerator and pulling out eggs.
“Everything is everything,” Maia said. “You know that.”
“And the first day of Chanukah is Christmas this year,” Todd reminded Fenn.
“Speaking of: when are we getting the tree?”
“I was thinking this afternoon, unless you want to do it earlier? Todd said to Fenn.
“I was going to spend the morning at the playhouse anyway,” Fenn said. “We can get the tree this afternoon, and set everything up before we leave tonight?”
“How does tonight go, anyway?” Maia had the glass half raised to her lips.
“Claire’s family is having a Christmas Eve dinner and then they’re all coming here for the before Midnight Mass Christmas party—”
“Chanakuh dinner at Or Chadash is at six,” Todd reminded him.
“And we’ll be back by eight, a half hour before the party,” Fenn said. “Everything is a smooth running, well greased holiday machine.”
The back door opened and Dylan and Lance entered, red cheeked, stomping snow off their boots.
“My good boys,” Todd announced. “They need cocoa.”
“Good God,” Maia muttered while Dylan stuck his tongue out at her, “they scrape up some snow and you act like they just found the cure for cancer.”
But she still turned around and got out the cocoa.

Bryant Babcock did not mind singing if he was accompanying an organ. He did not have a particularly good voice. It was a decent one for cantoring. He liked to sing even better when it was with Chad North, and when it was in an empty, or virtually empty church, like it was right now.

Lift your soul! Be renewed by the Spirit!
Lift your hearts to the Holy One!

Father, God, you are almighty!
Father, God,
Giver of Life! Hear us now as we
call your name!
Hear us now as we praise
your name!

They sang again:

Lift your hearts to the Father Almighty!
Lift your voice in praise of the Son!…

“I love John Rutter,” Chad said, after his fingers came to rest on the keys.
“I love churches,” Bryant discovered. He sat down on the bench beside Chad, looking around.
“It’s not Saint Agatha’s, but this is nice.”
“Well, it’s the Catholic in you,” Chad said,
“I haven’t had a Catholic in me for years. It’s been you in me, Protestant.”
“You’re dirty,” Chad said, unnecessarily.
“I think,” Bryant continued, “in another life I would be an Episcopalian. A nice Anglican.”
Chad shrugged.
“It’s pretty much the same thing to me.”
“That’s cause you don’t really have a religion.”
“This,” Chad said, touching the key, and forcing a blast of music out of the organ, “is my religion.
“I feel religious on Sunday. I feel religious here. I feel religious on Christmas. If I never ever set foot in a church again, I would feel like I was missing something.”
Bryant frowned and jutted out his lip.
“What?”
“I just realized I’m fifty years old, and I’ve been a church organist for almost thirty years, and I never talk about religion.”
“Well, maybe that’s because living it is more important than talking about it,” Chad suggested.
Bryant looked at him, “I think that’s bull, but thanks for saying it.”
Chad shrugged and said, “Move over, will ya?”
He began to play the Wexford Carol while Bryant sat watching him. In the middle of it, Chad stopped.
“Yes?”
“Am I an old man?”
“Yes,” Chad said, truthfully. “We’ve been together—sort of—for fifteen years, and when we met you were the same age I am now.”
Bryant thought of this. “Really?”
“You have,” Chad said, touching them, “A line right here, and right here, and these lines on both sides of your mouth.
“And,” he went on, touching the corners of Bryant’s eyes, “these little lines right here. And here, right here and here, these grey temples. That silver in your hair. You are…” Chad said, kissing him, “so terribly old.” He kissed him again, “very old. And more beautiful every year.”
He kissed Chad for a long time, fiercely, and then Chad said, “If you’re like this now, I won’t be able to control myself when you’re totally grey.”

“I haven’t seen my son in two days!” Tom announced, jogging into Fenn’s office.
“Well, don’t look at me.”
At Tom’s look he said, “Well, look at me, then. But I don’t know where he is. I sent him home to you after breakfast.”
Tom Mesda stopped to think, putting a finger to his curly hair.
“I wasn’t there,” he admitted.
“Oh?”
“I left to go jogging and then went on a few errands and came here. I haven’t been back.”
“You’re running a lot these days,” Fenn noted, passing a finger through something on his desk.
“I always run a lot. You know that.”
“I never understood how that could be fun.”
“Health is its own reward, Fennbot.”
“Yes,” Fenn noted, ignoring the nickname. “Yes, it is.”
“And it gives Lee something nice to come home to.”
“Um, Dylan must be with Lee then,” Fenn said, again, ignoring the cheesy smile Tom gave him. “We have to meet with the Northern Indiana Arts Council at noon, so if you go home and put some decent clothes on, I’m sure you’ll see him.”
While Tom ran a hand over his mop of hair, Fenn marveled, “You’re so nice looking when you clean up. But when you stop cleaning up it’s just jeans with holes, hair and unshavenness.”
“And you would like me to attend to all of this before twelve o’clock.”
“I would appreciate it.”
“What if I end up looking too hot for you to handle?”
“Actually Tom, it’s when I regret ending things with you that I know you’ve cleaned up.”
“I’ll make sure to relay that to Lee.”
“Please do.”
But now Fenn wondered where Dylan had gone. As long as Lance was in town, he was safe, and as long as Lance was only in town for a few weeks, they were safe from each other. Still he picked up the phone and called Tom’s house.
“Hello?”
“Danny, is Dylan there?”
“Hey, Fenn. No, Dylan just left with that Lance. You know he looks just like a man, now?”
“Yes, Danasia,” Fenn said, sounding much put upon, “I had noticed that.
“So where did they go?”
“I think they went to Lance’s parent’s house. Dylan said Lance was staying with you all?”
“Yes. Well, last night he did.”
“You’re a good one, Fenn.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Larry! Larry! Put that pan down!” Danasia shouted off the phone. “I said put it down.”
Then she said, “I mean, when they were children it was one thing, but Lance is a grown ass man laying up with your son and—”
Fenn clicked off the phone and asked himself, “Why do I call?”


As the day darkened into evening, Fenn Houghton looked over the living room. In its traditional place of honor, by the front corner window, stood the menorah with its first candle awaiting the sundown lighting, and in an older place of honor, before the picture window that looked over the driveway, Maia, Lance and Dylan helped Todd dress the Christmas tree. Fenn and Laurel went back to putting out the last of the knickknacks, the reindeer, the little Santas, the garish ethnic angels, the stockings over the chimney, around the living and dining room areas. He would lay out the table. Christmas tree decorating had never been his thing. Until the year Todd had moved into the house—irony—there had been no tree.
Everyone stopped a moment, Lance elbowing Dylan in the shoulder as the English singers on the stereo caroled:

Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem!"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

As the next verse began Fenn rose up, feeling an ache in his back, and went to the kitchen for coffee, cocoa and cookies.
“You need help?” he heard Laurel say.
“Yes. You can get cups and creamer. Thank you, Niece.”
They came out with them, and Fenn and Laurel lay everything on the little table before the fireplace.
“Do you think the tree is too close to the fire?” Todd asked.
“No closer than usual,” Fenn said.
“I think,” Lance, who suddenly looked like the birdheaded boy of his childhood, said, “that this is the most perfect Christmas tree I’ve ever seen.”
“I think,” Fenn said, lighting the window, “that in about fifteen minutes it will be time to light the first candle for Chanakuh.”
“That’s right,” Todd said sitting down on the settee beside him. He reached around Fenn to pour cocoa and said, “What would you like, my dear?”
“Coffee. It’s going to be a very long night.”

Of the Father's love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see
Evermore and evermore.

“Bum bum bum,” Lance was singing to himself, tapping a rhythm out on his knees.
“What?” Dylan said to him, “are you doing?”
Lance looked semi-embarrassed and Fenn said, “Leave him alone. He’s hearing the music… In his own Lance Bishop way.”
Lance suddenly smiled and said, “That’s right, Dyl. So there.”
Oh, that birth forever blessed
When the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Savior of our race,
And the Babe, the world's Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face
Evermore and evermore.
“I think Maia is right,” Todd said, slipping an arm around Fenn while the ancient carol continued.
“I think I am too,” Maia told her father. “Only I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Everything… being everything.
“When I was younger, when I knew I didn’t belong to the Church, I was very hard and fast about what I believed in and what I didn’t,” Todd explained. “Nowadays, when I only come into church on Christmas with you guys, when I can have my own Christmas in my house, I look at the tree, and the angels, the crèche and I hear the old carols, the songs that sound even older than the ones we hear at temple.”
Fenn listened to Todd who was looking contemplative. He was used to Todd’s revelations by now, but he still loved him for them.
“I understand what belief it. Belief doesn’t belong to one place or one system. Neither does God. In some way I feel Christmas far more powerfully now than when I was a Christian.
“What do you think?” Todd asked him, suddenly.
“Me?” Fenn sat up.
He blinked.
“I think… that wherever there is wonder, there is God, and wherever we are struck by him…. Well, there is truth.”
And then to knock of the effects of such profundity, Fenn said, “And I think you should get up and light the first candle.”


EARLY TOMORROW EVENING: THE EASTERTIME PORTIONS OF THE BLOOD AND THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Its nice to see all the characters preparing for Christmas. I think Dylan and Lance are in a relationship and don't know it yet. If tomorrow are the last portions for a few days that is fine, enjoy your easter! Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, of course that's the way things often are, and I think I specialize in people not knowing they're in relationships until they've been in them for a long time. Fenn definitely knows how he feels about it. He's already decided even if they haven't.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WHILE YOU'RE CONTEMPLATING THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD, HERE'S A THIGH LICKING, SCROTUM TIGHTENING, BONER RACING THRILL FILLED EASTER PORTION OF ROSSFORD!

“Are you sure the camera’s ready?”
“Yes,” Sheridan said. “And I’m sure you’re taking a long ass time.”
“I want this to be right.”
“It’s just going up on the net.”
“Sheridan,” Logan said, “the Net is everything.”
“I’m taping already, I hope you know that.”
“Good. I want you to. I want you to catch everything. So the people can see everything.
“Alright… What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m three-sixty degree surrounding you.”
Logan shrugged.
“Whatever, but I feel like I might get sick if you keep this shit up.
“Alright, okay, everybody,” Logan coughed into the back of his hand. “This is Logan Banford and I’m here wishing all my friends and fans a Merry Christmas. This is my first webisode. Webbysode. I like that pronounciation, it’s cute isn’t it, Sheridan?”
“Uh, sure.”
Logan took the camera and pointed at Sheridan who looked at the camera like a rain soaked cat.
“This right here is my wingman, best friend, and best lover ever, Sheridan Klasko. If you know me you know him. You’ve seen him. Talk about him all the time. Don’t know what I’d do without him. As you know—”
Sheridan wrested the camera from Logan and Logan continued talking,
“As you know, we’ve downgraded to friend status. But, I actually think it’s an upgrade. This guy gets me better than anyone else, and I hope I get him. I think I do. Say, Sher, how do you feel about our relationship?”
Off camera, Sheridan said, “I find it mutually beneficial.”
“That’s right, folks. And he doesn’t mean just because were friends with benefits, cause everytime we try that, he ends up being my boyfriend again.”
“You are telling entirely too much.”
“So, anyway, as you can tell, I’m back at Sheridan’s place in Rossford. I’ll be back in Chicago in a few days. I like to come back here. It keeps me grounded. Keeps me rested and all that.”
The doorbell rang.
“I have to get that,” Sheridan said.
Logan took the camera and filmed his own face.
“Yeah, so I hope you enjoyed my first Vlog or webbysode or… whatever we’re calling it, and I hope to hear from you guys soon cause, here’s the plan. I want to be part of your lives. I want to share my real life with you, you know, off screen. And maybe you can share with me and… I’ve gotta go right now, cause Sheridan’s talking to someone in the kitchen. Peace!”
Sheridan was in the kitchen talking to Brendan, who looked more casual than usual in jeans—admittedly well fitting—and a tee shirt, with a day’s growth of facial hair.
“What happened to you?” Logan demanded, rudely. “We’ve got a Christmas party to go to tonight and everything, and are we still supposed to pick up Chay?”
“We were never supposed to pick up Chay,” Sheridan said, “And Brendan’s distraught because of the whole him and Kenny thing.”
“I’m distraught because Kenny’s distraught and that guy is the love of my life,” Brendan said. “When I woke up he was crying this morning. Crying! And you know that doesn’t happen.”
“What’s going on?” Sheridan said as, nodding, Logan went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of water to pour a glass for Brendan.
“We’re breaking up,” Brendan told them.
“Oh, hell,” Logan said.
“Neither one of us did anything. It’s just… we’re only friends, and that’s the way it’s been for some time. So we’re learning to deal with that.”
“Shit, I think my mom and dad have been only friend for years,” Sheridan said.
“It’s different for straight people,” Brendan said, almost fiercely.
“Hey man, you’re preaching to the choir,” Sheridan said. “We want… we want romance.”
“Is that stupid?” Brendan said, his hands over his face. “Is it the dumbest thing to throw away eighteen years just so I can…” Brendan made quote marks with his fingers, “feel in love?”
“Look, it’s more than that,” Logan said, knowledgably. “Sheridan is the best thing that ever happened to me—”
“Thanks, Loge.”
“Shush, Sher. Anyway, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And when we were boyfriends it was great. But when it was time to end it, it was time to end it. And now we’re still great.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I know,” Logan admitted. “And it’s not like it was easy. But, the other option is to lose your very best friend.”
“I don’t want to do that. I don’t ever not want to be with Kenny, and I don’t want us to end up in some third rate relationship.”
Brendan, unshaved, ill dressed and in his glasses looked nothing like his usually together self. He wrang his hands, unconsciously, and then said, “Guys, do you promise it gets better?”
Sheridan cleared his throat and then said, “Only if you start bathing again.”

When they entered the large kitchen on Wilbraham Street, they all stopped.
“Well, don’t everyone get up and hug me at once,” Chay said.
“This is ridiculous,” Paul said, looking at Noah and then at James.
“Well, it damn sure is,” Danasia came and embraced Chay and Casey.
“We just got off the Amtrak,” Casey said, “and wait till you see what we brought! Where’s the tree?”
Noah said nothing, but pointed past the kitchen to the living room.
“I’ll help you bring everything in,” Chay said.
“No,” Casey kissed him on the cheek. “You stay right here.”
“I,” Ron said, standing up, “will help.”
“You can go with your father,” Danasia told the tallest of her children, and they filed out behind Casey.
“Hey, Dad,” Chay rounded the table and embraced Noah first, and then came and hugged James.
“Your boyfriend looks ancient,” Noah said while Chay was in James’ embrace.
“My boyfriend is younger than you, Dad,” Chay reminded him.
“He doesn’t look it.”
“Oh, God!” Paul said.
“You and Casey will have to learn to speak to one another again one of these days,” Danasia told him.
“Especially since things turned out alright,” Chay told him.
“Alright?”
“More than alright, Dad,” Chay affirmed. “Things turned out great.”
They heard the door open, and then Casey and Ron came in through the foyer. heading into the living room, and came back around through the end of the kitchen.
“Danny, your kids are going to love what Chay picked up in Cabo.”
“Ca—” Noah started to mimic, but James put a hand on his knee.
“Jamie, you look great,” Casey said. “You haven’t changed a bit. Noah, you’re looking the same.”
Chay’s hair was short now, and now he was given to wearing sports jackets. He was as small as ever, but with a bit of beard, and this had the odd effect of making him look a little older than his father. Noah had cut his hair off once and discovered that, like Tom Mesda, a mop curly hair was something that enhanced him. He, in fact, had not changed, Danasia realized, in the fifteen years she’d known him except for trousers and dress shirts had replaced cargo shorts, tee shirts and ball caps.
Casey had changed. No, Danasia thought, Casey Williams simply looked more and more like the slim, slightly worried businessman in glasses that he always had been, and he always wore those glasses now. He was dressed much like Noah.
“Are we still going to Todd and Fenn’s party, and midnight Mass?” Chay said. “I made Casey hotfoot it over from the train station. I was afraid we’d miss everything.”
“You’ve missed nothing,” James said. “The party isn’t until eight-thirty.”
“Shelley’s having some dinner party, though,” Paul said, standing up.
“Shelley, Bryant Babcock’s niece?” Casey said.
“Shelley, my sister-in-law.”
“Everything’s so damn incestuous around here.”
Before Noah could retort, Chay spoke. “Bennett was bigger than me last time I saw him.”
“Bennett’s been bigger than you since he was eight,” Danasia noted.
“You are a harsh Aunt,” Chay said.
“And an Aunt who has to get home,” Danasia said. She turned to Noah and James. “Are you all done with me?”
“We’ll never be done with you,” Noah said. “But it might be time for you to go home.”
As everyone filed out, hugging and kissing, reminding each other that they’d be back together in only a few hours, Chay lugged his bags upstairs, followed by Casey. When the house was emptied, Casey came downstairs while Chay was still unpacking.
Noah came out of the kitchen into the foyer and stood at the base of the stairs, his arms folded over his chest.
“We’re going to have to learn to get along, aren’t we?” Noah said.
“Me and Chay have been gone for almost three years,” Casey said. “But we’re thinking about coming back. And… yeah, Noah. It would be really nice.”
In the living room, James had put on a Chrismas album, and as a carol began, Noah said, “Alright, Casey. I’ll see what I can do.”
Casey nodded, taking off his glasses and polishing them with the edge of his shirt.
“That’s all I’m asking.”

“Should we all sing a Christmas carol or something?” Kirk wondered.
Leaning over her dining room table, Shelley said, “Don’t you all have a Christmas party somewhere else to get to?”
“It’s just at Fenn and Todd’s” he explained. “The house’ll be crowded and they’ll be there till midnight.”
“I have to hand it to you, Sis,” Shelley’s brother, Bertram said, “You put down a good table.”
“Is my wife the best or what?” Matty leaned over and kissed her.
Claire and Paul looked at each other across the table, and Julian flicked her on the thigh.
“Hey!”
“Hey, yourself, Miss,” Julian said to her.
“I’m being nice.”
“Yeah, you just stay that way.”
Aside from Claire and Julian, Kirk and Paul and Shelley and Matt, there were their children, which made nine young somethings walking around the country house where Matt and Shelley lived. Merilee was in the kitchen with Shelley’s mother, and Bryant Babcock had just slipped out with a cup of coffee, followed by Chad.
“Not too much or you won’t have any room for the next party,” Chad was telling him.
“Dads,” Bennett stood up, after he and Elias had their heads pressed together, conspiring as usual. Paul and Kirk waited for them to speak.
“I gotta go. Is that alright?”
“Where are you going?” Kirk said. “I mean, where are you walking from here at this time of night.”
“Ralph is outside with his car. We’re going to a Christmas party.”
“What kind of a party?” Kirk said.
“God!” Bennett exhaled. “A fun one. For folks my age.”
“And then are you coming by Fenn’s—?”
Paul put a hand over Kirk’s.
“He’s right,” Paul said. “He should go to a party for kids his age. Kids should be kids, right?”
Kirk surrendered by way of a shrug.
“And do I have to go to Mass?” Bennett pressed.
“Yes!” Kirk began.
“Oh, com’on, it’s not like we’re really Catholic anyway!” Bennett protested.
“Of course we are!”
“Bennett, Kirk,” Paul began. “Can I speak to the both of you?” With his long nose he gestured to the foyer of the old house.
The foyer was dark and drafty away from the light and heat of the family get together, and there Paul said, “Bennett’s almost sixteen. We can’t make him go to church. I mean we shouldn’t. That’s just how I feel.”
Kirk looked like he was going to say something, and then he looked like he was going to say something else. He put a hand to his mouth and finally he said, “Alright. Fine. But here it is: when we get back from Mass you better be in the house and in your PJs. I’m serious.”
Bennett nodded his head.
“Relax, Dad. I got you.”
There was a knock at the door and Bennett frowned. It was more like Ralph to honk, than knock. But just then Shelley came running down the hall to answer the door, and Bryant and Chad followed, Chad flipping on a light.
“You’ll trip,” Bryant began, but was silent when the door opened.
“That’s not Ralph,” Bennett said, slipping his hands in his pocket.
“No,” Chad North said. “It isn’t.”
“Get in the house,” Shelley said, pulling him in, and now it was her mother who came out, clapping her hands and exclaiming, as she caught Bryant’s hand: “Sean!”
She held Sean Babcock on one side and Bryant on the other and said, “Finally, my brothers, together again!”

“Oh, my God! So England!” Dena exclaimed over the music, as she took Layla’s hand.
“Exactly. The furthest I’ve ever been out of the country was Canada,” Layla said, “And that was just when we crossed the border for a few minutes.”
“Layla?”
“Yes, Paul?”
“Okay, I’ve got a question for you? How much do you know about Sean Babcock?”
“Well, he’s Babcock business,” Layla sat down beside Paul with a drink in her hand. She took a sip. “I don’t wrap myself up too much in them.”
“Well, Shelley brought him back for Christmas.”
“Really?” Layla said, a curious look on her face.
“Yes? And… I don’t think Bryant was very happy about it.”
“Or, Chad, I’ll bet.”
“That’s right!” Paul said. “Say, you do know something!”
“Of course I know something,” Layla told him. “I always know something. What I said was that I didn’t care.
“Alright,” Layla put a hand on Paul’s knee. “This is what happened. Do you remember when Chad and Bryant split up, and they were split up for years?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s because Chad and Sean were having an affair.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Yes. And then it broke off. But they started it up again, only Chad was sleeping with both of them at the same time.”
“The brother and the brother?”
“Exactly,” Layla raised her glass. “And so first Bryant learned that Chad was cheating on him, and then he learned who it was with. Well, that shit ended everything. It was years before they—they being Bryant and Chad—could get back together.”
“Wow,” Paul said. “What’s wrong with us that this is making us kind of laugh?”
As Layla covered her mouth she said, “My suggestion? A lot. But—oooooh,” she squeezed Paul’s hand.
“What? What?” he said, excitedly.
“I just saw Nell and Meredith Affren walk in here with someone they damn well should have known better than to bring! This is going to be a very special night!”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow lots going on in this portion! I am glad Sheridan and Logan are still very friendly with each other. I think Sean showing up is going to be bad news all round. That was some great writing and I look forward to more in a few days! As I said in the other story I hope you have a wonderful Easter!