A Balance of Harmonies: Fires
May. 29th, 2012 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frogs_of_warThere have been a couple articles in the news about the drop in grade level of the speeches in the Senate and House from eleventh grade all the way down to tenth. I don’t know what they used to decide the grade levels, but the one Word has uses sentences per paragraph, works per sentence and characters per word. Because my stories are mostly dialogue, my sentences and paragraphs are short. In my random sampling of my stories, I got between a 2.3 and 4.2. The higher grade level the longer the exposition or summary. So I think I’m happy with my “low” score. Stories where nothing happens probably get high ones.
Title: Fires
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter seventy-two of
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: thanks, plans, an invitation, torture, recloseting, bluntness, stubbornness,
Length: about 2,500 words
Summary: Peregrine talks to his dad. Emil watches the magic. And Kurt feels the confines of the closet.
Master list
Emil grinned at Kit. “I might have been here if not for Dad.”
“That’s nice to hear, son.”
Emil turned. Dad stood in the classroom doorway with Olivia. She twirled in place and her skirts rustled around her. “Peregrine’s not home yet.”
Emil sighed. “No he isn’t, sweetie. I’m flying back down to see him tomorrow night. But his dad is getting better, so it might not be long.”
Olivia pouted. “I want him back.”
Emil nodded. “I understand. But imagine what his mother and sisters think. They haven’t seen him in years.”
Olivia sucked in a breath. “I’d never want to let him go. When he gets home do you suppose he could spend a day with me? We could have a tea party in the park.”
Dad grinned. “That sounds like a great idea.”
“Hunter can come too.”
“Boys don’t have tea parties.” JJ sneered.
“Boys, and girls and everyone else, can do anything they like,” Kit said. “I used to have tea parties all the time.”
Olivia’s eyes grew wide. “With your dolls and stuffed animals?”
“My parents wouldn’t let me have dolls, so I had tea parties with my teddy bear, GI Joe, He Man, and Wolverine.”
Zan laughed. “I used to pretend to have tea parties. I’d set up my toys around the table my grandfather made me, so they’d look like they were taking tea because I thought all girls liked to play tea party and I was just weird and I didn’t want anyone to know that. I left them that way, changing toys as I got new ones until I was much too big to sit at the little table. I tried to be the perfect girl, but that’s impossible. Only you get to chose what makes you the best you.”
Kit nodded.
“Are we early?” asked Dad. “We didn’t mean to interrupt the class.”
“I’m done.” Zan looked at Kit. “Are we in your way?”
Kit shook his head. “Art is the last class of the day. Kids, you are dismissed, but if you want to ask more questions…”
Zan grinned. “Sure, I’ll stay for a while. Kurt, Emil, come by about six.”
Emil nodded and stepped out into the courtyard. He couldn’t wait to be alone with Kurt for a while. Not touching him or being touched by him was torture.
Dad, Olivia and Hunter followed him out.
“Daddy, can I go? Please can I?”
“Zan’s stealing my kids again?”
“Daddy!”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” said Emil. “But you should probably ask her.”
“Ask who what?” Autumn popped up behind them.
“My little girl here wants to invite herself to your house for dinner.”
Autumn touched Olivia’s shoulder. “I was just going to ask you to join us.”
“Yippee!”
“But.”
“But?”
“Fire is a dangerous thing. Do you have any pants?”
Olivia’s face fell. “No.”
Autumn got down on her knees. “I didn’t think so. I made you some culottes for when you came to play with Zan’s fire, but they will need a final fitting.”
“What are culottes?”
“A skirt with two legs instead of one. Some are so full that you can’t tell they aren’t skirts, but these will only look like a skirt when your legs are together. They are perfect for days when you want to cartwheel and summersault.”
“I want to cartwheel and summersault?”
“Well I do sometimes.”
“You do?”
Autumn nodded she turned to Dad. “And when you take her home to find something as close to a short sleeved t-shirt as she owns, take Hunter with you. Emil and Kurt have spent the last hour pretending they aren’t totally in love with each other. I think they deserve a little make out time.”
Hunter frowned. “Is that why Kurt didn’t stand by you? I kept expecting him to put his hand on your shoulder while you talked to our teacher.”
Emil sighed. “We didn’t want the other boys to think I was cheating on Peregrine until they can see that Peregrine doesn’t mind that Kurt touches me.”
“Like I did before I knew you.”
“Oh.” Emil petted Hunter’s hair. “I’m sorry.”
Hunter put his hand to his chest. “It hurt right here, so I cut myself so I wouldn’t feel it as bad.”
Emil felt the prickling in his eyes. “I’m really very sorry.”
“You didn’t know. I’ll be back.” Hunter ran back into the classroom.
Dad patted Emil’s back. “We will save him.”
“Soon, Dad, soon.”
But soon couldn’t be soon enough.
--
Kurt looked around. “Where’s Hunter?”
“Dad took him. They’ll meet us at Zan’s.”
Kurt nodded and unlocked the car and walked around to the passenger side to open Emil’s door. Then he stopped. “This is killing me, you know. I lived in the closet for so long now I feel like I’m shoving myself back.”
Emil smiled. “Then open my door.”
Kurt did. He loved this man. He got in his side. “And now what should we do until six?”
“I was thinking,” Emil put his hand on Kurt’s thigh, “you could take me home and we could get naked on our bed for a while.”
Now that was a great idea. What was the quickest way home?
--
Peregrine looked up from his sketch book. Tinúviel had gotten down from the edge of Dad’s bed, maybe because Dad had turned to sports from cartoons. She’d left her doll. That made a pretty picture on the rumpled sheets. Peregrine turned to a clean page. He could finish the other sketch later.
Dad sighed and muted the TV. “Am I the reason you didn’t come home?”
Peregrine shaded in the doll’s skirt. “No.”
“No?”
“No, Dad. You didn’t even enter the equation. Mom didn’t love the person I was like I always thought she had. I knew you didn’t. You can’t be disappointed if you expect failure.”
“Ouch.”
Peregrine glanced up. “Did you want me to lie?”
Dad took a deep breath. His meds must be working. He couldn’t do that in the hospital. “No. But couldn’t you have softened the blow.”
“I’m not soft. I’m hard and rough and arrogant and mulish. I thought you were so far beyond hope that redeeming you was impossible. But I’ve changed my mind, so here I am.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you thought I was irredeemable?”
“Correct.” Peregrine smudged the edge of the shadow. Now that looked better.
“You wouldn’t stay here with your mother and Éowen and the others if I was irredeemable?”
“I would have stayed to see you survive or be buried, but I’m not going to listen to you bash who I am and say nothing.”
“You never said nothing.”
“And look how much good that did. Meri is never coming home. She might invite Mom back to see her, but she would rather pretend you didn’t exist.” And that wasn’t even mentioning poor Sam who hated who he was. “You could very well have gay grandchild, do you want them to hate you too?”
Or worse themselves.
“Do you hate me?”
Peregrine studied the doll. While looking at it, he could see Dad out of the corner of his eye. The poor man looked about to cry. Peregrine added a shadow to the sketch. “No, but I have a hard time loving someone that seems to hate who I am, so the question is: Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Dad, think about it for a minute before you answer.”
“Peregrine.” Mom stepped out of the kitchen. “You’re going to visit the Matheson’s?”
“After dinner.”
“Can you take Patty back the tablecloth I borrowed from her? I should have given it to Ed or even Markus, but it keeps slipping my mind.”
“Give it to me and I’ll put in the car, that way we won’t forget it.”
Mom brought him the long cranberry table cloth. He stowed it in the car. When he got back, Tinúviel had taken over the remote control. Ponies danced across the screen. Dad looked at Peregrine, Tinúviel, towards Mom in the kitchen then back at Peregrine. Peregrine patted his hand. “Just give it some thought.”
Dad put his hand over Peregrine’s. “I am, son, I am.”
Peregrine grinned and picked up his sketch book. Tinúviel looked about as stubborn as Peregrine was. Dad wouldn’t get the remote back for hours.
--
Emil asked for the full tour. Zan had showed him her studio before, but only when the fires were cold. That was like visiting the zoo when the animals weren’t at home. This time he met Surtr, Pele, Svarog, Ju-Jak, and Agni. The first two were even more impressive than he expected. Svarog’s and Ju-Jak’s fires couldn’t be seen, but their heat could be felt. And Agni was just a blowtorch, but the art he helped create was impressive.
Agni’s table was against the wall on one short side, so Emil, Olivia, and Hunter could watch while wearing glasses to protect their eyes from the intense light. Emil watched every step Zan did from the glass sticks to the two inch marble she rolled into Ju-Jak’s belly, but Hunter was right. It looked like magic.
Zan stepped back. “Who is first?”
Hunter jumped then froze. Olivia stepped back. “I want to watch another.”
Emil put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Hunter, I think it’s your turn first.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Zan guided him over to her side of the table and adjusted the stood until he was comfortable. Then she kitted him up with heat resistant sleeves and a handkerchief to cover his hair. She stood behind him and went over the rules before they started, like reach under the fire not over it.
Emil turned to the table Kurt was working at. The glass was so hot it glowed. Kurt worked with it until it cooled to a green. Then he shaped it with tools.
“Don’t those get hot?”
Kurt glanced up then back at his hands. “The handles and my gloves protect my hands.”
“What is that going to be? The dragon?”
“This is practice. I’m trying to get the scales right.”
Autumn laughed. “He’s a perfectionist.”
She was sewing buttons on a little dress. Another that looked just like it except bigger lay across a chair along with her pen cushion and spool of thread.
“But unlike you,” Kurt frowned down at his work, “I can’t just fix a mistake later.”
“True. But will you notice it.”
“I don’t know, but I plan on seeing this every day. Zan, what if I made a graphite mold for the scales?”
Zan pointed to a shelf covered wall without looking away from Hunter’s hands. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” He scooped up the glass and set it inside Surnr, the biggest furnace. He brought Emil a roll of paper. “See. The dragon is green with two hearts. You and Peregrine.” He pointed to the blue and then the red heart. “I’m working on color saturations. I don’t want them to look brown.”
The dragon wound up a pole, its tail longer than its body.
“Aren’t those wings a little small?”
“Are they? I don’t want them to get in the way or break when someone knocks into one.”
“Oh. But the wings need to be big enough to carry a little blue money on your back. I don’t know I have wings at the beginning of the book.”
Kurt grinned and kissed Emil’s cheek. “How big is my dragon compared to your monkey?”
Emil drew an oval with his finger on top of the dragon. “Half as big is good, right? Big enough to be treated as an equal, but small enough to be carried and cosseted.”
Kurt wrapped his arms around Emil. “Is that what you want?”
“That is what you do.”
“One marble down.” Zan rolled it into Ju-Jak’s belly. “Hunter, do you want another go?”
Hunter shook his head. He pointed at Emil. “That’s what I need.”
“What is?” asked Autumn.
“I need Dad, Emil’s Dad to make love to Casey with his works like Emil and Kurt do or with their eyes. You and Zan did that a lot while we eat. Your hands and mouths are full, but… you know.”
Zan hugged Hunter. “That’s a beautiful compliment. I love Autumn with my eyes. I like that.”
Hunter blushed.
“And you need that?” Kurt asked.
Hunter nodded. “Can I spend tomorrow night here?”
Zan nodded. “You can stay here whenever you want.”
Hunter took in a deep breath. “Wednesdays are Emil and Kurt’s night out and then Emil is going back to Peregrine. I don’t want them to feel like they have to stay home with me.”
“Oh you sweet little thing.” Zan hugged him again. “Do you want to stay here the rest of the week?”
Hunter nodded. “Starting tomorrow.”
Olivia pouted. “I want to spend the night.”
“Not on a week night.” Emil shot her a smile.
“Why him and not me?”
“Because his school doesn’t start until nine and yours starts at seven thirty.”
“Still…”
“Olivia.” Zan clapped her hands together. “We met a girl just like you except she’s in kindergarten. Would you like to meet her on Saturday?”
Olivia bounced. “Just like me?”
“She’s blonde and about so high.” Autumn held up a hand about even with her chair back. “And she says her name is Goldie.”
“Lily-Rose Marigold Petal Johnson.” Zan grinned.
“That’s quite a name.” Kurt said.
“And she’s quite a girl. Do you remember the two people at Autumn’s party making love across the other table who we didn’t go to school with? Diemen and Pavel?”
Emil remembered Pavel best for his obnoxious ex, who only got worse when drunk. And Diemen only had eyes for Pavel and would sometime break off midsentence to watch him. They were both on Emil’s list of friends of Zan, Autumn, or Peregrine that weren’t friends of his.
Kurt nodded. “The little guy and the Russian.”
“Exactly. Diemen came into possession of a genderqueer toddler and a trans kindergartener the same week he started dating Pavel. Autumn’s been making the kids matching clothes.”
Olivia put her hands on her heart. “Can I have something that matches when I meet them?”
“Of course, dear,” Autumn got up and hugged Olivia. “Do you want to decide which one?”
“Yes! Yes! I love you!” Olivia followed Autumn from the room.
Zan laughed. “We know how to make her happy. Now, boy,” she caressed Hunter’s head, “do you want to try another one? What colors this time?”
Hunter picked blue and green.
Emil wouldn’t have to feel bad stealing Kurt from Hunter over the weekend. Hunter would be in good hands.
Title: Fires
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter seventy-two of
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: thanks, plans, an invitation, torture, recloseting, bluntness, stubbornness,
Length: about 2,500 words
Summary: Peregrine talks to his dad. Emil watches the magic. And Kurt feels the confines of the closet.
Master list
Emil grinned at Kit. “I might have been here if not for Dad.”
“That’s nice to hear, son.”
Emil turned. Dad stood in the classroom doorway with Olivia. She twirled in place and her skirts rustled around her. “Peregrine’s not home yet.”
Emil sighed. “No he isn’t, sweetie. I’m flying back down to see him tomorrow night. But his dad is getting better, so it might not be long.”
Olivia pouted. “I want him back.”
Emil nodded. “I understand. But imagine what his mother and sisters think. They haven’t seen him in years.”
Olivia sucked in a breath. “I’d never want to let him go. When he gets home do you suppose he could spend a day with me? We could have a tea party in the park.”
Dad grinned. “That sounds like a great idea.”
“Hunter can come too.”
“Boys don’t have tea parties.” JJ sneered.
“Boys, and girls and everyone else, can do anything they like,” Kit said. “I used to have tea parties all the time.”
Olivia’s eyes grew wide. “With your dolls and stuffed animals?”
“My parents wouldn’t let me have dolls, so I had tea parties with my teddy bear, GI Joe, He Man, and Wolverine.”
Zan laughed. “I used to pretend to have tea parties. I’d set up my toys around the table my grandfather made me, so they’d look like they were taking tea because I thought all girls liked to play tea party and I was just weird and I didn’t want anyone to know that. I left them that way, changing toys as I got new ones until I was much too big to sit at the little table. I tried to be the perfect girl, but that’s impossible. Only you get to chose what makes you the best you.”
Kit nodded.
“Are we early?” asked Dad. “We didn’t mean to interrupt the class.”
“I’m done.” Zan looked at Kit. “Are we in your way?”
Kit shook his head. “Art is the last class of the day. Kids, you are dismissed, but if you want to ask more questions…”
Zan grinned. “Sure, I’ll stay for a while. Kurt, Emil, come by about six.”
Emil nodded and stepped out into the courtyard. He couldn’t wait to be alone with Kurt for a while. Not touching him or being touched by him was torture.
Dad, Olivia and Hunter followed him out.
“Daddy, can I go? Please can I?”
“Zan’s stealing my kids again?”
“Daddy!”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” said Emil. “But you should probably ask her.”
“Ask who what?” Autumn popped up behind them.
“My little girl here wants to invite herself to your house for dinner.”
Autumn touched Olivia’s shoulder. “I was just going to ask you to join us.”
“Yippee!”
“But.”
“But?”
“Fire is a dangerous thing. Do you have any pants?”
Olivia’s face fell. “No.”
Autumn got down on her knees. “I didn’t think so. I made you some culottes for when you came to play with Zan’s fire, but they will need a final fitting.”
“What are culottes?”
“A skirt with two legs instead of one. Some are so full that you can’t tell they aren’t skirts, but these will only look like a skirt when your legs are together. They are perfect for days when you want to cartwheel and summersault.”
“I want to cartwheel and summersault?”
“Well I do sometimes.”
“You do?”
Autumn nodded she turned to Dad. “And when you take her home to find something as close to a short sleeved t-shirt as she owns, take Hunter with you. Emil and Kurt have spent the last hour pretending they aren’t totally in love with each other. I think they deserve a little make out time.”
Hunter frowned. “Is that why Kurt didn’t stand by you? I kept expecting him to put his hand on your shoulder while you talked to our teacher.”
Emil sighed. “We didn’t want the other boys to think I was cheating on Peregrine until they can see that Peregrine doesn’t mind that Kurt touches me.”
“Like I did before I knew you.”
“Oh.” Emil petted Hunter’s hair. “I’m sorry.”
Hunter put his hand to his chest. “It hurt right here, so I cut myself so I wouldn’t feel it as bad.”
Emil felt the prickling in his eyes. “I’m really very sorry.”
“You didn’t know. I’ll be back.” Hunter ran back into the classroom.
Dad patted Emil’s back. “We will save him.”
“Soon, Dad, soon.”
But soon couldn’t be soon enough.
--
Kurt looked around. “Where’s Hunter?”
“Dad took him. They’ll meet us at Zan’s.”
Kurt nodded and unlocked the car and walked around to the passenger side to open Emil’s door. Then he stopped. “This is killing me, you know. I lived in the closet for so long now I feel like I’m shoving myself back.”
Emil smiled. “Then open my door.”
Kurt did. He loved this man. He got in his side. “And now what should we do until six?”
“I was thinking,” Emil put his hand on Kurt’s thigh, “you could take me home and we could get naked on our bed for a while.”
Now that was a great idea. What was the quickest way home?
--
Peregrine looked up from his sketch book. Tinúviel had gotten down from the edge of Dad’s bed, maybe because Dad had turned to sports from cartoons. She’d left her doll. That made a pretty picture on the rumpled sheets. Peregrine turned to a clean page. He could finish the other sketch later.
Dad sighed and muted the TV. “Am I the reason you didn’t come home?”
Peregrine shaded in the doll’s skirt. “No.”
“No?”
“No, Dad. You didn’t even enter the equation. Mom didn’t love the person I was like I always thought she had. I knew you didn’t. You can’t be disappointed if you expect failure.”
“Ouch.”
Peregrine glanced up. “Did you want me to lie?”
Dad took a deep breath. His meds must be working. He couldn’t do that in the hospital. “No. But couldn’t you have softened the blow.”
“I’m not soft. I’m hard and rough and arrogant and mulish. I thought you were so far beyond hope that redeeming you was impossible. But I’ve changed my mind, so here I am.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you thought I was irredeemable?”
“Correct.” Peregrine smudged the edge of the shadow. Now that looked better.
“You wouldn’t stay here with your mother and Éowen and the others if I was irredeemable?”
“I would have stayed to see you survive or be buried, but I’m not going to listen to you bash who I am and say nothing.”
“You never said nothing.”
“And look how much good that did. Meri is never coming home. She might invite Mom back to see her, but she would rather pretend you didn’t exist.” And that wasn’t even mentioning poor Sam who hated who he was. “You could very well have gay grandchild, do you want them to hate you too?”
Or worse themselves.
“Do you hate me?”
Peregrine studied the doll. While looking at it, he could see Dad out of the corner of his eye. The poor man looked about to cry. Peregrine added a shadow to the sketch. “No, but I have a hard time loving someone that seems to hate who I am, so the question is: Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Dad, think about it for a minute before you answer.”
“Peregrine.” Mom stepped out of the kitchen. “You’re going to visit the Matheson’s?”
“After dinner.”
“Can you take Patty back the tablecloth I borrowed from her? I should have given it to Ed or even Markus, but it keeps slipping my mind.”
“Give it to me and I’ll put in the car, that way we won’t forget it.”
Mom brought him the long cranberry table cloth. He stowed it in the car. When he got back, Tinúviel had taken over the remote control. Ponies danced across the screen. Dad looked at Peregrine, Tinúviel, towards Mom in the kitchen then back at Peregrine. Peregrine patted his hand. “Just give it some thought.”
Dad put his hand over Peregrine’s. “I am, son, I am.”
Peregrine grinned and picked up his sketch book. Tinúviel looked about as stubborn as Peregrine was. Dad wouldn’t get the remote back for hours.
--
Emil asked for the full tour. Zan had showed him her studio before, but only when the fires were cold. That was like visiting the zoo when the animals weren’t at home. This time he met Surtr, Pele, Svarog, Ju-Jak, and Agni. The first two were even more impressive than he expected. Svarog’s and Ju-Jak’s fires couldn’t be seen, but their heat could be felt. And Agni was just a blowtorch, but the art he helped create was impressive.
Agni’s table was against the wall on one short side, so Emil, Olivia, and Hunter could watch while wearing glasses to protect their eyes from the intense light. Emil watched every step Zan did from the glass sticks to the two inch marble she rolled into Ju-Jak’s belly, but Hunter was right. It looked like magic.
Zan stepped back. “Who is first?”
Hunter jumped then froze. Olivia stepped back. “I want to watch another.”
Emil put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Hunter, I think it’s your turn first.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Zan guided him over to her side of the table and adjusted the stood until he was comfortable. Then she kitted him up with heat resistant sleeves and a handkerchief to cover his hair. She stood behind him and went over the rules before they started, like reach under the fire not over it.
Emil turned to the table Kurt was working at. The glass was so hot it glowed. Kurt worked with it until it cooled to a green. Then he shaped it with tools.
“Don’t those get hot?”
Kurt glanced up then back at his hands. “The handles and my gloves protect my hands.”
“What is that going to be? The dragon?”
“This is practice. I’m trying to get the scales right.”
Autumn laughed. “He’s a perfectionist.”
She was sewing buttons on a little dress. Another that looked just like it except bigger lay across a chair along with her pen cushion and spool of thread.
“But unlike you,” Kurt frowned down at his work, “I can’t just fix a mistake later.”
“True. But will you notice it.”
“I don’t know, but I plan on seeing this every day. Zan, what if I made a graphite mold for the scales?”
Zan pointed to a shelf covered wall without looking away from Hunter’s hands. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” He scooped up the glass and set it inside Surnr, the biggest furnace. He brought Emil a roll of paper. “See. The dragon is green with two hearts. You and Peregrine.” He pointed to the blue and then the red heart. “I’m working on color saturations. I don’t want them to look brown.”
The dragon wound up a pole, its tail longer than its body.
“Aren’t those wings a little small?”
“Are they? I don’t want them to get in the way or break when someone knocks into one.”
“Oh. But the wings need to be big enough to carry a little blue money on your back. I don’t know I have wings at the beginning of the book.”
Kurt grinned and kissed Emil’s cheek. “How big is my dragon compared to your monkey?”
Emil drew an oval with his finger on top of the dragon. “Half as big is good, right? Big enough to be treated as an equal, but small enough to be carried and cosseted.”
Kurt wrapped his arms around Emil. “Is that what you want?”
“That is what you do.”
“One marble down.” Zan rolled it into Ju-Jak’s belly. “Hunter, do you want another go?”
Hunter shook his head. He pointed at Emil. “That’s what I need.”
“What is?” asked Autumn.
“I need Dad, Emil’s Dad to make love to Casey with his works like Emil and Kurt do or with their eyes. You and Zan did that a lot while we eat. Your hands and mouths are full, but… you know.”
Zan hugged Hunter. “That’s a beautiful compliment. I love Autumn with my eyes. I like that.”
Hunter blushed.
“And you need that?” Kurt asked.
Hunter nodded. “Can I spend tomorrow night here?”
Zan nodded. “You can stay here whenever you want.”
Hunter took in a deep breath. “Wednesdays are Emil and Kurt’s night out and then Emil is going back to Peregrine. I don’t want them to feel like they have to stay home with me.”
“Oh you sweet little thing.” Zan hugged him again. “Do you want to stay here the rest of the week?”
Hunter nodded. “Starting tomorrow.”
Olivia pouted. “I want to spend the night.”
“Not on a week night.” Emil shot her a smile.
“Why him and not me?”
“Because his school doesn’t start until nine and yours starts at seven thirty.”
“Still…”
“Olivia.” Zan clapped her hands together. “We met a girl just like you except she’s in kindergarten. Would you like to meet her on Saturday?”
Olivia bounced. “Just like me?”
“She’s blonde and about so high.” Autumn held up a hand about even with her chair back. “And she says her name is Goldie.”
“Lily-Rose Marigold Petal Johnson.” Zan grinned.
“That’s quite a name.” Kurt said.
“And she’s quite a girl. Do you remember the two people at Autumn’s party making love across the other table who we didn’t go to school with? Diemen and Pavel?”
Emil remembered Pavel best for his obnoxious ex, who only got worse when drunk. And Diemen only had eyes for Pavel and would sometime break off midsentence to watch him. They were both on Emil’s list of friends of Zan, Autumn, or Peregrine that weren’t friends of his.
Kurt nodded. “The little guy and the Russian.”
“Exactly. Diemen came into possession of a genderqueer toddler and a trans kindergartener the same week he started dating Pavel. Autumn’s been making the kids matching clothes.”
Olivia put her hands on her heart. “Can I have something that matches when I meet them?”
“Of course, dear,” Autumn got up and hugged Olivia. “Do you want to decide which one?”
“Yes! Yes! I love you!” Olivia followed Autumn from the room.
Zan laughed. “We know how to make her happy. Now, boy,” she caressed Hunter’s head, “do you want to try another one? What colors this time?”
Hunter picked blue and green.
Emil wouldn’t have to feel bad stealing Kurt from Hunter over the weekend. Hunter would be in good hands.
