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frogs_of_warI am listing to a book and I’m not sure I want to commit to the last few hours. It’s a day (week) in the life (or something similar) where we follow a group of people who all live or associate with people who live (or are related to someone who associates with someone who live) in a building in London. But they have this gay character who thinks that he might really be straight (he’s never had a boyfriend) because girls are nicer now that when they were in school.
I’m uncomfortable with how the author is handing him. The characters never say gay or homosexual or attracted to men. They pause or say ‘that way’ or some other euphemism. No wonder he wants to be straight (although he shows no sign of actually being attracted to girls) if he can’t even say the words with his best female friend.
He has to figure out if he’s straight soon, so he’ll know if he needs to change majors. (Straight guys don’t major in Fine Arts?) And although it occurs to his friend he might be bi, she never brings it up (as if someone pointed this out during editing and he shoehorned that paragraph in without changing a single other word.) This friend is trying to decide whether to be his experimental girlfriend. She finds him fun and witty and good looking and he’s someone she could talk to and make cookies with for the rest of her life, but she fails to consider the sexual part of the relationship. But then she’s a girl who shudders when she has to face that her parents must have shared a bed for her to have been born.
She’s twenty-three. Anyone her age should be beyond that. Come on, Girl. Your parents are having sex. Get over it.
Title: Mr. Matheson gets his way
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter seventy-nine of
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: offers of help, laundry, luck, concern, Mom, an apology, blushes, sketching, an uncomfortable question, a candid chat, Mr. Matheson, wide eyes, pleas, contentment, admiration
Length: about 2,600 words
Summary: Emil helps out, Kurt feels guilty, and Peregrine is proud of his men.
Master list
Emil smiled at Lisa. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No. Go be with your men.”
Emil lifted a towel and folded it. “We don’t need to spend all our time together.”
“But…”
“You and John need time apart, don’t you?”
She mated a pair of socks. “I wouldn’t have thought so before the accident, but since then… this is the way that I feel about my children during the summer. For close to thirty years I had kids at home all day everyday, but by Christmas of the year Tinúviel started kindergarten I couldn’t wait for school to start back up.”
Emil folded another towel. “I lost my mom at eight. I would love for her to be around to complain about school vacation.”
Lisa put her hand on Emil’s. “She died?”
Emil shook his head. “I think she was arrested. I was put in foster care. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. But I have Dad, who adopted me, and Peregrine. And now Kurt.”
Lisa rolled up a mated pair of socks. “He takes good of you?”
Emil grinned. “He takes great care of me. You should have seen the flowers he bought me when I came home. And he made the vase they went in. I’m a very lucky man.”
Lisa set the stack of towels in the laundry basket. “Does Peregrine make you feel lucky?”
“I am beyond lucky to be loved by him.”
She shook her head and stood up. “I don’t see how you can say that. I feel as his mother I should take his side, and I see that he needs you, or at least someone, to keep him sane, but I really like you. You are like a son not born to me, so I’m going to ask: Do you ever feel used? He needs you, sure, but does he love you like he should? And then he brought in his old boyfriend, who I’ve always liked, but I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Thanks, but all is well between us.”
Lisa picked up the basket and put in the last of the bathroom things inside. “That’s not how it looks to me.”
Emil sat back in the chair. “How does it look?”
“Do you feel that you can’t object to his ideas? A relationship is give and take. All my son does is take.”
Emil watched her walk down the hall. He didn’t feel like he was doing all the giving. He liked giving. Peregrine allowed Emil to feel important. Everyone said how crazy Peregrine acted when Emil wasn’t around.
“Do you ever get lonely?”
Emil looked up. Lisa was looking out the window to where Kurt and Peregrine sat under a tree. Emil patted her arm. “Honestly, I used to, before Kurt. Peregrine was hurt for a long time. I never knew him when he wasn’t, but he’s gotten better. Most days now he’s like he was in college, I guess, like someone I’d never met, but I’m getting to know that man and he’s worth loving. But Kurt is the one who takes care of me. This might not be conventional, but it works for us.”
Lisa bit her lip. “I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”
Emil smiled. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Lisa grinned back. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Emil leaned his head against hers. “Thanks, Mom, for caring about me.”
She laid her head on his shoulder and then stood up straight. “Well, you give me all the joys of motherhood without labor. What’s not to love?”
As they finished the laundry she told him stories from Peregrine’s childhood and soon they were laughing. She really was like the mom he never had.
--
Kurt watched the clouds drift by. Peregrine was deep in his sketches. Peregrine’s father called out sometimes to the kids at play. Kurt didn’t know whose kids they were. One boy somersaulted into a picnic and Sam scooped up the girl the boy had landed on. Sam brought the girl over to Peregrine’s father. The older man held out his hands. “Tell grandpa all about it.”
She did. Sam sat on the edge of the blanket farthest from Kurt and almost looked his way several times. Kurt cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
Sam met his gaze. “What?”
“I’m sorry for reaching out to you like that. It must have been a little creepy, me being a stranger and all. My only excuse is that no one warned me that anyone looked just like Peregrine had when I met him. I’ve seen pictures of Faramir and he doesn’t look anything like you two.”
Sam smiled. “Neither goes Gimli. No, I didn’t think you were creepy. I wasn’t… I just didn’t expect…”
“Kurt to be so pretty.” Peregrine turned his sketch and shaded a child’s skirt.
Sam blushed. “No, him to be so big. Arwen said he looked like Jad without the tan, but really you are quite a bit bigger.”
“All over.” Peregrine grinned.
Sam blushed redder.
The little girl got off Peregrine’s dad’s lap and looked down at Peregrine’s drawing. “Is that me?”
“Do you want it to be you?”
“Yes.” She sat beside him and they discussed how to make the girl look like her.
“Sam,” Peregrine’s dad frowned. “You didn’t deny Kurt was good looking. Does that mean you’re gay too?”
Sam stood up. “I promised Hailey I’d play tea party with her.”
He hurried across the grass.
“Mr. Jones, just because he doesn’t disagree with me being pretty does not make him gay. I know when a woman is beautiful and I’m not attracted in the least.”
Peregrine’s dad turned to Kurt. “I’m not Mr. Jones to family, and you’re family. All my children’s boyfriends and girlfriends are. Dad works, as does John, which might be the most boring name in existence, but it’s mine so I’ll use it. Ever wonder why my kids all have unusual names: John and Lisa that’s why. Peregrine never had a class with anyone with his name. I have five other Johns in a class of eighty-eight students. Lisa had four other Lisas. We weren’t doing that to our kids.”
Kurt nodded. “John.”
“Thanks. And Peregrine here tells me I have to learn new tricks, that I’m hurting my own kids and grandkids when I talk like I always have. Sticks and stones couldn’t break Peregrine’s hard shell, and Meri’s not here to hear me, so he’s got to be talking about Sam, Arwen, Théoden or Tinúviel, and I’ve seen the boys Arwen drools over and the other two aren’t old enough to know.”
Kurt pressed his lips together. At least two boys in the yard acted how Kurt had gotten in trouble for acting. But he wasn’t going to point them out for ridicule.
“You disagree?”
Kurt shrugged. “My parents tried to stop me from acting gay long before I knew I liked guys. Someone spotted the signs in Emil when he was twelve or so.”
“And despite you parents efforts, you’re still gay.”
“You can cover the signs, but whether I talk with my hands or not has nothing to do with who I’m attracted to.”
Peregrine turned the page in his book. “Cold medicine masks the symptoms, but it doesn’t cure the cold. Not that I think being gay is any kind of disease. If I could change myself today, I wouldn’t do it. I like the me I am. I like being in love with Emil and Kurt. I like my life. Coming down here has proven to me just how much.”
“Has it?” John patted the arm of his wheelchair. “At least my accident was useful to someone.”
“I’m getting a great deal of fodder from you pain.”
“Good,” said John.
Kurt frowned. “Are you two always this way? Cutting each other with your words?”
Peregrine shrugged. “We are normally a great deal worse.”
Kurt felt like an enemy spy around his father, like he was behind enemy lines in deep cover. Peregrine was a combatant too, but more like in a tennis match where they lopped words at each other. Kurt preferred Emil’s relationship with Keith. Keith’s love came with no pain. Kurt was glad Keith was the one who lived closest.
--
Peregrine followed Sam around to the front of the house. Sam stopped by his car and looked at his feet. Peregrine leaned on the garage door. “I’m fine with you lusting after my man. I know he’s got enough going in his bed that he’s not looking for anything else.”
Sam blushed and shook his head. “Do you really… share him with Emil?”
Peregrine grinned. “You could call it that. It’s kind of a mutual thing. Sometimes all three of us together, sometimes just two.”
“But he’s so huge.” Sam’s eyes were wide and innocent.
“All over like I said.” Peregrine felt overwhelming pride in both his men.
“And… it doesn’t hurt.”
“Kurt is big, but he’s gentle. And you’re very unlikely to have a chance with a man as big as he is.”
Sam shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to.”
Peregrine patted his shoulder. “With every pain there is pleasure and with every pleasure pain. And then sometimes I top.”
Sam frowned.
“Well I can’t hog all the good stuff all the time. But luckily with two I’m twice as likely to get exactly what I want.”
Sam blush again. The light reflecting off the car’s windshield canceled out the shade from the garage and framed Sam perfectly. Sam sighed. “Do you think Dad knows?”
“Knows what?”
“That I…”
“That you like men or that you are currently being perused by two looking for a third?”
Peregrine hadn’t been aware that Sam could blush so deeply. Did his own skin ever look like that? Did he blush at all?
Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. “They don’t.”
“Want you? They do. Jad and Markus told me they did, if we are thinking about the same couple.”
Sam nodded. “They talked to you?”
“They talked to me and said they were serious, as in not just for one night, but maybe you should talk to them about it.”
“I couldn’t…”
Mr. Matheson’s truck pulled up and he and Markus got out. Peregrine clapped Sam on the back. “It will be easier than you think. Trust me.”
He walked over to the truck. “Are you coming to inspect Markus’s work?”
“I trust his hands. I want to see your painting. But mostly I’m here about Sam.”
Sam stepped closer. Mr. Matheson met him halfway. “Son, I heard your little girl isn’t in school.”
Sam looked at the cement by his feet.
“And I heard that’s because you don’t really have a place to live and that you and your girls are sleeping in your parents’ living room.”
“I’ve got an apartment…”
“But not here. I’ve got two empty rooms in my house. You and your girls are moving in. You are going to enroll little Hailey in school on Monday and start working for me. You can leave Isabelle with Patty. One more four-year-old isn’t going to make that much difference. And she’ll be glad to have girls around the house. You and Markus can decide what to do about your apartment once you settle in.”
He walked towards the back of the house. He was as much of a tyrant as Peregrine even if he used it to help others instead of himself.
Markus put his hand on the back of Sam’s neck. “We don’t want to rush you, but Dad’s thinking about the girls.”
Sam looked up for the briefest of seconds. “Does he know?”
“We told him and he’s ok with whatever I want as long as you benefit as well. He said if I push you into anything or make you think that the rooms and job are contingent on you sharing my and Jad’s bed, that he will personally skin me alive with a screwdriver.”
“Ok.” Sam let Markus steer him to the back yard. Markus’s hand didn’t leave Sam’s back, but it did travel lower.
Hailey’s eyes were wide and her grin was huge. “And I can go to school just like he said?”
Mr. Matheson nodded. “Just like Markus said.”
“And will Justin and Jordon and Jayden be our brothers so we can live with you forever and ever? Justin says you have a playplace in your yard and it has a tree inside. I want to play there ever so much. He said he’s take care of Daddy and Daddy needs someone to take care of him. I try so hard, but I’m still so small.”
“I’m sure we will do our best.”
Hailey threw her arms around him. “Daddy didn’t want Grandma and Grandpa to know that he had to quit his job to come here and that we all lived in one little room and Daddy sleep on the floor so we could have his little bed, but that doesn’t matter now because we have a new home and Jayden’s Papa and Baba will take care of all of us and you will too won’t you, Grandpapa?”
Mr. Matheson patted her hair and he blinked away tears. “Why don’t you pack your things?”
Hailey sucked in a deep breath and her eyes opened very wide. “Do I get a closet to hang my dresses in?”
Mr. Matheson nodded. Hailey danced into the house. “Grandma, we are going to stay with Jayden and Jordon and Justin!”
Mr. Matheson wiped his eyes. “Kids get excited by the smallest things.”
Isabella stepped in front of Mr. Matheson and lifted her arms. He picked her up. She kissed his cheek. “I love you just as much as Hailey does.”
Then she put her arms out to Markus, who had to remove his hand from Sam to take her. Hailey laid her head on his shoulder. “Can I have my own bed? Hailey kicks.”
Mr. Matheson cleared his throat. “You can have wherever you want.”
Isabella kissed Markus cheek and leaned toward Sam. He took her. She put her hands on his cheeks. “Daddy, we can go, right? We can live there with their Baba and Papa, right? Please say yes.”
Sam nodded. Isabella closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Sam’s. “I love you, Daddy.”
Then she slumped onto his shoulder and he smiled one of his rare true ones. “She fell asleep.”
Markus held out his arms. “I’ll take her then, while you get packed.”
Sam looked up at him then passed his daughter over. Hailey raced out the door caring two backpacks. Mom followed close behind. “What is going on?”
Peregrine stepped in front of Sam. “Mr. Matheson has two spare rooms and a job for Sam.”
Mom pressed her lips together as Sam passed her on his way into the house. She squared her shoulders. “This means he isn’t leaving.”
“Not anytime soon. But you might not be seeing as much of them.”
She nodded. “I can handle that.”
And maybe have two sons-in-law by Peregrine would help her adjust to Sam’s two would-be-lovers. Maybe lover-to-be. Markus and Jad had lined their pieces up carefully before they made their move. If Sam wasn’t in their bed by early next week, Peregrine would be surprised. He had to admire their tactics.
I’m uncomfortable with how the author is handing him. The characters never say gay or homosexual or attracted to men. They pause or say ‘that way’ or some other euphemism. No wonder he wants to be straight (although he shows no sign of actually being attracted to girls) if he can’t even say the words with his best female friend.
He has to figure out if he’s straight soon, so he’ll know if he needs to change majors. (Straight guys don’t major in Fine Arts?) And although it occurs to his friend he might be bi, she never brings it up (as if someone pointed this out during editing and he shoehorned that paragraph in without changing a single other word.) This friend is trying to decide whether to be his experimental girlfriend. She finds him fun and witty and good looking and he’s someone she could talk to and make cookies with for the rest of her life, but she fails to consider the sexual part of the relationship. But then she’s a girl who shudders when she has to face that her parents must have shared a bed for her to have been born.
She’s twenty-three. Anyone her age should be beyond that. Come on, Girl. Your parents are having sex. Get over it.
Title: Mr. Matheson gets his way
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter seventy-nine of
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: offers of help, laundry, luck, concern, Mom, an apology, blushes, sketching, an uncomfortable question, a candid chat, Mr. Matheson, wide eyes, pleas, contentment, admiration
Length: about 2,600 words
Summary: Emil helps out, Kurt feels guilty, and Peregrine is proud of his men.
Master list
Emil smiled at Lisa. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No. Go be with your men.”
Emil lifted a towel and folded it. “We don’t need to spend all our time together.”
“But…”
“You and John need time apart, don’t you?”
She mated a pair of socks. “I wouldn’t have thought so before the accident, but since then… this is the way that I feel about my children during the summer. For close to thirty years I had kids at home all day everyday, but by Christmas of the year Tinúviel started kindergarten I couldn’t wait for school to start back up.”
Emil folded another towel. “I lost my mom at eight. I would love for her to be around to complain about school vacation.”
Lisa put her hand on Emil’s. “She died?”
Emil shook his head. “I think she was arrested. I was put in foster care. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. But I have Dad, who adopted me, and Peregrine. And now Kurt.”
Lisa rolled up a mated pair of socks. “He takes good of you?”
Emil grinned. “He takes great care of me. You should have seen the flowers he bought me when I came home. And he made the vase they went in. I’m a very lucky man.”
Lisa set the stack of towels in the laundry basket. “Does Peregrine make you feel lucky?”
“I am beyond lucky to be loved by him.”
She shook her head and stood up. “I don’t see how you can say that. I feel as his mother I should take his side, and I see that he needs you, or at least someone, to keep him sane, but I really like you. You are like a son not born to me, so I’m going to ask: Do you ever feel used? He needs you, sure, but does he love you like he should? And then he brought in his old boyfriend, who I’ve always liked, but I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Thanks, but all is well between us.”
Lisa picked up the basket and put in the last of the bathroom things inside. “That’s not how it looks to me.”
Emil sat back in the chair. “How does it look?”
“Do you feel that you can’t object to his ideas? A relationship is give and take. All my son does is take.”
Emil watched her walk down the hall. He didn’t feel like he was doing all the giving. He liked giving. Peregrine allowed Emil to feel important. Everyone said how crazy Peregrine acted when Emil wasn’t around.
“Do you ever get lonely?”
Emil looked up. Lisa was looking out the window to where Kurt and Peregrine sat under a tree. Emil patted her arm. “Honestly, I used to, before Kurt. Peregrine was hurt for a long time. I never knew him when he wasn’t, but he’s gotten better. Most days now he’s like he was in college, I guess, like someone I’d never met, but I’m getting to know that man and he’s worth loving. But Kurt is the one who takes care of me. This might not be conventional, but it works for us.”
Lisa bit her lip. “I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”
Emil smiled. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Lisa grinned back. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Emil leaned his head against hers. “Thanks, Mom, for caring about me.”
She laid her head on his shoulder and then stood up straight. “Well, you give me all the joys of motherhood without labor. What’s not to love?”
As they finished the laundry she told him stories from Peregrine’s childhood and soon they were laughing. She really was like the mom he never had.
--
Kurt watched the clouds drift by. Peregrine was deep in his sketches. Peregrine’s father called out sometimes to the kids at play. Kurt didn’t know whose kids they were. One boy somersaulted into a picnic and Sam scooped up the girl the boy had landed on. Sam brought the girl over to Peregrine’s father. The older man held out his hands. “Tell grandpa all about it.”
She did. Sam sat on the edge of the blanket farthest from Kurt and almost looked his way several times. Kurt cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
Sam met his gaze. “What?”
“I’m sorry for reaching out to you like that. It must have been a little creepy, me being a stranger and all. My only excuse is that no one warned me that anyone looked just like Peregrine had when I met him. I’ve seen pictures of Faramir and he doesn’t look anything like you two.”
Sam smiled. “Neither goes Gimli. No, I didn’t think you were creepy. I wasn’t… I just didn’t expect…”
“Kurt to be so pretty.” Peregrine turned his sketch and shaded a child’s skirt.
Sam blushed. “No, him to be so big. Arwen said he looked like Jad without the tan, but really you are quite a bit bigger.”
“All over.” Peregrine grinned.
Sam blushed redder.
The little girl got off Peregrine’s dad’s lap and looked down at Peregrine’s drawing. “Is that me?”
“Do you want it to be you?”
“Yes.” She sat beside him and they discussed how to make the girl look like her.
“Sam,” Peregrine’s dad frowned. “You didn’t deny Kurt was good looking. Does that mean you’re gay too?”
Sam stood up. “I promised Hailey I’d play tea party with her.”
He hurried across the grass.
“Mr. Jones, just because he doesn’t disagree with me being pretty does not make him gay. I know when a woman is beautiful and I’m not attracted in the least.”
Peregrine’s dad turned to Kurt. “I’m not Mr. Jones to family, and you’re family. All my children’s boyfriends and girlfriends are. Dad works, as does John, which might be the most boring name in existence, but it’s mine so I’ll use it. Ever wonder why my kids all have unusual names: John and Lisa that’s why. Peregrine never had a class with anyone with his name. I have five other Johns in a class of eighty-eight students. Lisa had four other Lisas. We weren’t doing that to our kids.”
Kurt nodded. “John.”
“Thanks. And Peregrine here tells me I have to learn new tricks, that I’m hurting my own kids and grandkids when I talk like I always have. Sticks and stones couldn’t break Peregrine’s hard shell, and Meri’s not here to hear me, so he’s got to be talking about Sam, Arwen, Théoden or Tinúviel, and I’ve seen the boys Arwen drools over and the other two aren’t old enough to know.”
Kurt pressed his lips together. At least two boys in the yard acted how Kurt had gotten in trouble for acting. But he wasn’t going to point them out for ridicule.
“You disagree?”
Kurt shrugged. “My parents tried to stop me from acting gay long before I knew I liked guys. Someone spotted the signs in Emil when he was twelve or so.”
“And despite you parents efforts, you’re still gay.”
“You can cover the signs, but whether I talk with my hands or not has nothing to do with who I’m attracted to.”
Peregrine turned the page in his book. “Cold medicine masks the symptoms, but it doesn’t cure the cold. Not that I think being gay is any kind of disease. If I could change myself today, I wouldn’t do it. I like the me I am. I like being in love with Emil and Kurt. I like my life. Coming down here has proven to me just how much.”
“Has it?” John patted the arm of his wheelchair. “At least my accident was useful to someone.”
“I’m getting a great deal of fodder from you pain.”
“Good,” said John.
Kurt frowned. “Are you two always this way? Cutting each other with your words?”
Peregrine shrugged. “We are normally a great deal worse.”
Kurt felt like an enemy spy around his father, like he was behind enemy lines in deep cover. Peregrine was a combatant too, but more like in a tennis match where they lopped words at each other. Kurt preferred Emil’s relationship with Keith. Keith’s love came with no pain. Kurt was glad Keith was the one who lived closest.
--
Peregrine followed Sam around to the front of the house. Sam stopped by his car and looked at his feet. Peregrine leaned on the garage door. “I’m fine with you lusting after my man. I know he’s got enough going in his bed that he’s not looking for anything else.”
Sam blushed and shook his head. “Do you really… share him with Emil?”
Peregrine grinned. “You could call it that. It’s kind of a mutual thing. Sometimes all three of us together, sometimes just two.”
“But he’s so huge.” Sam’s eyes were wide and innocent.
“All over like I said.” Peregrine felt overwhelming pride in both his men.
“And… it doesn’t hurt.”
“Kurt is big, but he’s gentle. And you’re very unlikely to have a chance with a man as big as he is.”
Sam shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to.”
Peregrine patted his shoulder. “With every pain there is pleasure and with every pleasure pain. And then sometimes I top.”
Sam frowned.
“Well I can’t hog all the good stuff all the time. But luckily with two I’m twice as likely to get exactly what I want.”
Sam blush again. The light reflecting off the car’s windshield canceled out the shade from the garage and framed Sam perfectly. Sam sighed. “Do you think Dad knows?”
“Knows what?”
“That I…”
“That you like men or that you are currently being perused by two looking for a third?”
Peregrine hadn’t been aware that Sam could blush so deeply. Did his own skin ever look like that? Did he blush at all?
Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. “They don’t.”
“Want you? They do. Jad and Markus told me they did, if we are thinking about the same couple.”
Sam nodded. “They talked to you?”
“They talked to me and said they were serious, as in not just for one night, but maybe you should talk to them about it.”
“I couldn’t…”
Mr. Matheson’s truck pulled up and he and Markus got out. Peregrine clapped Sam on the back. “It will be easier than you think. Trust me.”
He walked over to the truck. “Are you coming to inspect Markus’s work?”
“I trust his hands. I want to see your painting. But mostly I’m here about Sam.”
Sam stepped closer. Mr. Matheson met him halfway. “Son, I heard your little girl isn’t in school.”
Sam looked at the cement by his feet.
“And I heard that’s because you don’t really have a place to live and that you and your girls are sleeping in your parents’ living room.”
“I’ve got an apartment…”
“But not here. I’ve got two empty rooms in my house. You and your girls are moving in. You are going to enroll little Hailey in school on Monday and start working for me. You can leave Isabelle with Patty. One more four-year-old isn’t going to make that much difference. And she’ll be glad to have girls around the house. You and Markus can decide what to do about your apartment once you settle in.”
He walked towards the back of the house. He was as much of a tyrant as Peregrine even if he used it to help others instead of himself.
Markus put his hand on the back of Sam’s neck. “We don’t want to rush you, but Dad’s thinking about the girls.”
Sam looked up for the briefest of seconds. “Does he know?”
“We told him and he’s ok with whatever I want as long as you benefit as well. He said if I push you into anything or make you think that the rooms and job are contingent on you sharing my and Jad’s bed, that he will personally skin me alive with a screwdriver.”
“Ok.” Sam let Markus steer him to the back yard. Markus’s hand didn’t leave Sam’s back, but it did travel lower.
Hailey’s eyes were wide and her grin was huge. “And I can go to school just like he said?”
Mr. Matheson nodded. “Just like Markus said.”
“And will Justin and Jordon and Jayden be our brothers so we can live with you forever and ever? Justin says you have a playplace in your yard and it has a tree inside. I want to play there ever so much. He said he’s take care of Daddy and Daddy needs someone to take care of him. I try so hard, but I’m still so small.”
“I’m sure we will do our best.”
Hailey threw her arms around him. “Daddy didn’t want Grandma and Grandpa to know that he had to quit his job to come here and that we all lived in one little room and Daddy sleep on the floor so we could have his little bed, but that doesn’t matter now because we have a new home and Jayden’s Papa and Baba will take care of all of us and you will too won’t you, Grandpapa?”
Mr. Matheson patted her hair and he blinked away tears. “Why don’t you pack your things?”
Hailey sucked in a deep breath and her eyes opened very wide. “Do I get a closet to hang my dresses in?”
Mr. Matheson nodded. Hailey danced into the house. “Grandma, we are going to stay with Jayden and Jordon and Justin!”
Mr. Matheson wiped his eyes. “Kids get excited by the smallest things.”
Isabella stepped in front of Mr. Matheson and lifted her arms. He picked her up. She kissed his cheek. “I love you just as much as Hailey does.”
Then she put her arms out to Markus, who had to remove his hand from Sam to take her. Hailey laid her head on his shoulder. “Can I have my own bed? Hailey kicks.”
Mr. Matheson cleared his throat. “You can have wherever you want.”
Isabella kissed Markus cheek and leaned toward Sam. He took her. She put her hands on his cheeks. “Daddy, we can go, right? We can live there with their Baba and Papa, right? Please say yes.”
Sam nodded. Isabella closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Sam’s. “I love you, Daddy.”
Then she slumped onto his shoulder and he smiled one of his rare true ones. “She fell asleep.”
Markus held out his arms. “I’ll take her then, while you get packed.”
Sam looked up at him then passed his daughter over. Hailey raced out the door caring two backpacks. Mom followed close behind. “What is going on?”
Peregrine stepped in front of Sam. “Mr. Matheson has two spare rooms and a job for Sam.”
Mom pressed her lips together as Sam passed her on his way into the house. She squared her shoulders. “This means he isn’t leaving.”
“Not anytime soon. But you might not be seeing as much of them.”
She nodded. “I can handle that.”
And maybe have two sons-in-law by Peregrine would help her adjust to Sam’s two would-be-lovers. Maybe lover-to-be. Markus and Jad had lined their pieces up carefully before they made their move. If Sam wasn’t in their bed by early next week, Peregrine would be surprised. He had to admire their tactics.
