A Balance of Harmonies: Pressing Concerns
Nov. 16th, 2013 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frogs_of_warI've attempted to listen to two books on CD this week that I just didn't like well enough for disc 2. Both had too many "What is he doing, she wondered" instead of just "What was he doing?" the extra words distance the reader and I felt like I was being constantly clobber by one of those squeaker hammer every time I got interested. Plus some facts were being deliberately hidden. Rather than something getting in the way (a change of subject, loud noise, or other interruption) so thing weren't said or thought, the author pretty much stated that she wasn't going to tell. But theses are things I can overcome if the characters are interesting enough.
But in the first book the lady reading it gave the female lead an annoying whiny voice and then it turned out to be about horse racing. I am no fan of horses (which is funny as I spent my life trying to be as feminine as I could and girls are supposed to like horses) and I'm even less a fan of the race track. So that one got deleted from my phone. In the second book the male lead pretty much explains how he wants to rape the female lead, but as he's supposed to be broken and he doesn't actually do anything, I could almost forgive him/the story, but then the couple have sex and when he wakes up she lies to him about it (he had a fever at the time), which made me lose what little sympathy I had for her. I deleted that too.
Title: Pressing Concerns
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter one hundred forty of maybe 145
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: a call, information, mail, an offer, beautifying, kisses, saying hello, making dinner, facts, home, dessert, plans, truth, dinner, the past, invitations, love
Length: about 3,400 words
Summary: Emil is polite, mostly. Peregrine is confident. And Kurt states the facts.
Master list
Kurt looked at his phone. Peregrine. He waved bye to Zawadzki as he opened the phone.
“My big lug of a man, Emil is making dinner right now. Pad Thai.”
“Sounds good.” Kurt was starving and everything Emil made was delicious.
“Are you ready to leave?”
“I’m walking out the door.” Rain was falling, but if he took the slightly longer route home, he’d be under eaves almost the entire way. Or maybe he should hurry home. Emil could warm him up and then Kurt could cut vegetables for dinner. He liked to contribute.
“We have company.”
So much for Emil warming him up. Kurt turned towards the longer route. “Who?”
“Emil is boiling water and rinsing vegetables and thawing meat while he chats with your mother. She’s downed at least ten cups of coffee in the last two hours. I’m surprised she can sit still.”
Kurt processed that paragraph a second time and extracted the pertinent information. It still didn’t make sense. “My mother?”
“Emil has the patience of a saint, but he’s nearing his end. I think it’s her fake tears that are doing it.”
Kurt sighed. He should have gone the other way. Four way stops made crossing much easier. “I’m on my way.”
“No hurry. You should probably look your best if you can.”
That didn’t bode well. “Is she in one of her moods?”
“If her moods are ‘feel sorry for me’, ‘nothing is my fault’, and ‘everything is about me’, I’d say several of her moods.”
Kurt closed his eyes and snapped them right back open. He needed to get home in one piece. “Sorry.”
“I’m not. She was bound to visit sooner or later. We should offer to let her use the guest room and leave a door open a crack. She seems to have a hard time believing we do more than sleep in the bed.”
Kurt crossed the last street and hurried up the block. “She believes we share it?”
“That is the only bed big enough for either you or Emil and the guest room has no clothes in the drawers.”
Well, there was that. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Stop in the hall outside the elevator and make sure you’re pretty.”
Did Kurt have time to check the mail? If he brought mail in, he’d look more like any other day. He risked it. The box contained four cards addressed to all of them, two ads, and one bill that belonged to a guy on the fifth floor. He should have waited to get the mail. Now he’d have to take the time to deliver it himself.
The guy’s roommate struggled with a giant umbrella. That was why one closed umbrellas before attempting to come inside. Kurt gave him a hand and then passed off the mail. The roommate thanked him with a brilliant smile. Peregrine might want to paint a face like that.
The roommate hit the elevator button. “Going up?”
Kurt pointed to the stairwell. “Thanks though.”
Why did he frown? Whatever? Kurt had more pressing concerns. At the fourth floor, he jogged down the hall to the giant mirror across from the elevator. He didn’t look too bad. He combed his hair, flatted his lapel, and straightens his tie. Behind him the light above the elevator blinked as it passed the floor. Stairs took a lot less time.
He forced his strides to be even as he walked to his door. It was unlocked, maybe because his mother was here. Peregrine bounced into the entry way. “Welcome home, darling.”
He threw his arms around Kurt and kissed him. This was for Kurt’s mom’s benefit, probably, but that didn’t stop Kurt enjoying every second. He set his briefcase and the mail down so he could concentrate on the man in his arms.
“Kurt!”
Kurt reluctantly pulled away. He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulder, and looked up. “Hi, Mom.”
“Don’t you ‘hi mom’ me! I saw what you were doing.”
Kurt picked up the mail and his briefcase. “I was kissing my boyfriend. It’s not a crime.”
He walked passed her into the house. He set his briefcase on a chair and put the mail on the table. “I think we got thank you notes for the Christmas presents. Hello, Beautiful, how was your day?”
Emil slipped into his arms. He tasted of sugar peas. Kurt lifted him and pressed him against the counter, grinding their bodies together. Very soon Emil was making those little gasped he did when he was trying not to scream or come. Kurt was well pleased. “Thinking about me?”
“All day.” Emil gasped.
“Good.” Kurt tipped Emil over the edge and he came hard clinging to Kurt’s jacket. Beautiful.
He sagged against Kurt. Kurt stroked Emil's hair. Kurt's mom came out of the hallway followed by Peregrine. Kurt ignored her. He wasn't some teenager, easily cowed by an exacting parent. He was his own man. He's spent far too long under his mother's thumb already.
Emil lifted his head for a deep kiss. "Thank you. I needed that."
He walked around Mom without looking at her on his way to the bedroom. "Excuse me."
Kurt washed his hands at the sink. Today was going well.
“What,” his mother uncrossed one arm and pointed to the bedroom, “was that?”
Peregrine laughed. “They were saying hello.”
“That wasn’t just a hello. What is the world coming to?”
“I think it’s spinning just fine.” Kurt dried his hands. The carrots still needed sliced. “What I do with my boyfriend and my fiancé is really none of your business.”
“It was in front of me. What fiancé?”
Peregrine grinned. “Kurt and Emil are getting married. My idea.”
“Because of you.” Maybe everything was about her.
“Me?” She spread a hand across her neckline. “What does your getting engaged to a man have to do with me?”
“You the one who wants me married.”
“To a woman!”
“Just any woman or someone I’m in love with?”
“You can be in love with her. I don’t want you miserable.”
Kurt wasn’t sure about that. “I’m in love with Emil. I’d be miserable without him.”
“But what about Peregrine?”
“It was my idea.” Peregrine’s eyes were too bright. He was having a ball.
Mom ignored him. “You can’t marry both.”
“I don’t want to get married.” Peregrine frowned. “Tell her I don’t want to get married. She’s not listening to me.”
Emil breezed in and picked up their biggest knife. “Anyone not cooking, get out of the kitchen.”
Peregrine grinned and stepped up to the sink. “That would mean you, Ms. Knowles.”
Kurt glanced at his mother. “You took back your maiden name?”
“So what if I did.”
Kurt picked up the next carrot and sliced it lengthwise. “I’m glad you’re moving on.”
“I am not moving on. Your father will come back to me!”
Not likely. “Dad’s happy where he is. Are you fighting the divorce?”
“He is my husband. He’ll come back.” She sat down at the table and sipped her coffee. “But if he’s going to act like a child, I’m going to treat him like one.”
“And that’s supposed to make him want to return?” Peregrine chopped the peanuts.
“He’ll return whether he wants to or not.” Mom poured the last of the coffee into her cup. Peregrine emptied the French press and refilled it. The press made the best coffee, but the batches were so small Kurt normally didn’t bother. Tonight he would.
Mom mixed in cream and sugar. She normally used the low-cal stuff. She had to be more upset than she looked if she wasn’t worried about her figure.
Kurt finished the last carrot. He didn’t want to give away Dad’s plans, but maybe Mom would give up faster if she was convinced she couldn’t win. “Dad isn’t coming back.”
“He is. He will.”
She was delusional. That shouldn’t be a surprise by now.
“Do you want an invitation to our commitment ceremony?”
“Where, no doubt, you’ll tell the world you’re playing house with two men. I won’t be coming.”
“I didn’t think you would. But would you like an invitation?”
“When will it be?”
“This summer.” August would be their first anniversary as a triple.
“I don’t think this West Coast experiment will last that long. You’ll be back home my August.”
She was crazy.
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I have friends here, real friends who really care about me.”
“Besides,” Emil lifted that monster knife again. “Peregrine and I don’t want to live anywhere else.”
“And we’re not living anywhere without him.” Peregrine scrapped more chopped nuts into the small bowl.
“You wouldn’t fit in back home.” Mom stirred her coffee.
“No loss from the sound of it.” Peregrine filled Mom’s cup and then set the French Press on the table. “But I fit in anywhere. Art is really about customers. I would sell more in a bigger city. But not all my customers are local. The internet is a businessman’s friend. And Emil can write anywhere. Kurt is the only one with a job that can’t move.”
“I could.” Kurt cut the end off a sugar snap pea. “We have offices in London, Shanghai, New York, Amsterdam…”
“No.” Mom crossed her arms. “You will come home.”
“I am home.” The condo was in his name. “You’re keeping the house then?”
“Of course I’m keeping the house. It’s where I raised you and Clara.”
“Dad hates the house.”
“He does not.”
“Is it paid off? Dad’s getting close to retirement.”
“And half of his retirement is mine.”
Of course it was. “But won’t it be hard to keep up your lifestyle on only half of Dad’s retirement.”
“That’s why he needs to come home.”
Peregrine rolled his eyes.
Kurt put the peas in a bowl and got down a mug before Mom drank all the coffee. He made his cup sweet and creamy. He was having his dessert first. Delicious. “Mom, Dad isn’t coming back. Any money you spend comes out of the half of Dad’s income you’re entitled to. Any shopping sprees or plane trips and all those parking tickets. Dad’s lawyer is going to make sure they come out of your half of the settlement. Any lawyer would.”
“I know. But I can’t help myself. You have to come back home and take care of me.”
“You are a grown woman and do not need his help.” Emil punctuated that sentence by dumping meat into the wok. It sizzled and popped.
Peregrine shrugged. “If she’s in dire need of help, how about an assisted living facility?”
“I am not old and infirmed.”
Kurt sighed. “No one said you were.”
She crossed her arms and nodded toward Peregrine. “He implied it.”
“Now who’s being childish?” Emil stepped out of the kitchen. “Treat others how you would like to be treated, the Golden Rule and all that. Try treating Kurt and Dan and even Clara like adults who know their own minds.”
He stalked back to the stove. “Pick you veggies or I’ll pick them for you.”
“What?” Mom turned to the kitchen. Peregrine refilled her cup, but didn’t leave enough space for cream and sugar. Mom took a sip and grimaced.
Kurt filled a plate with veggies. He kissed Emil’s cheek. “Lots of noodles too please.”
Emil smiled. “I know how you like it.”
Kurt growled. “I know you do.”
His mom couldn’t leave soon enough.
“What’s going on?” Mom sprinkled sugar over her full cup and stirred it slowly.
Kurt sighed. “Do you really think I’ll just leave the life I’ve made for myself on your whim?”
“It isn’t a whim!” Mom frowned. “Besides, your father just up and left. Why wouldn’t you?”
“But that wasn’t the life he wanted. This is the life I want. I am perfectly content living here forever. More than content. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else.”
“You were happy at home!”
“I was biding my time to make my escape. Life with you was a prison.” He hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud, but now that he’d said it, he felt freer.
Mom shook her head. “You liked it at home. If you didn’t, you would have moved out for college.”
“I did move out for college, but you dragged me back.” He had dreams about that day, nightmares, but he wasn’t going to let her win twice.
“You stayed with us through law school. And even after you got a job. You could have moved out at any time.”
“I was saving up money. I am financially independent. I’ve even made arrangements in case the worse happens. Those I love will be taken care of.”
Mom wrinkled her nose. “These two live off you. I knew it.”
Kurt sighed. “They both have jobs, good jobs. Emil supports himself.”
“Peregrine?”
Peregrine laughed and set a heaping plate in front of Kurt. “My income may not be regular, but give me one more week and I’ll have made more this year than Kurt will for months.”
The food was as good as it smelled. Delicious.
Mom raised her eyebrows. “You’re sure of yourself.”
Peregrine sat a plate in front of Mom. “I’m always sure of myself.”
Mom lifted her hands off the table. “What’s this?”
Kurt pointed his chopsticks at her plate. “Dinner.”
“I’m not eating here.”
Peregrine passed her a set of chopsticks. “You will if you don’t want to offend the cook.” He glanced into the kitchen and lowered his voice. “And I wouldn’t offend him if I were you. When he’s angry, I’m the nice one.”
Mom rolled her eyes and took the chopsticks. Emil stepped out of the kitchen and handed Peregrine a plate. “If you aren’t comfortable with chopsticks, Ms. Knowles, I can bring you a fork.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Emil brought her a fork and went back into the kitchen. Mom put her napkin in her lap. “He,” she looked pointedly into the kitchen and then turned to Peregrine, “is the nice one.”
“Don’t I know it.” Peregrine sat down and picked up his chopsticks.
Mom sighed. “Kurt, what do you see in him?”
Peregrine raised and lowered his eyebrows several times without losing his grin. He knew Kurt would only say good things, but Kurt didn’t want his mother to think he was ignoring the bad stuff. “In college he was everything I wanted to be: cool and confident and talented. And he was interested in me, which I found incredible.”
Mom patted Kurt’s arm. “Everybody was interested in you. You’ve been a people magnet since you were a baby. Girls used to call the house several times a week and hang up when I answered or give me really horrible excuses for needed to talk to you. I always took the messages, but you never called them back.”
“They were girls.” Food didn’t taste as good with uncomfortable conversation.
Emil sat his plate down beside Kurt and rested and hand on his shoulder. Kurt patted Emil’s hand.
“But that was in college.” Mom maneuvered a pea to the edge of her plate and the scooped up some noodles. “What about now?”
Emil’s hand pressed against Kurt’s thigh. “You should know that Peregrine thrives on these sorts of conversations.”
“What sorts of conversations?”
“Ones where he knows he’ll come out on top.” Emil picked up his chopsticks and arranged them in his hand. “He knows we love him, despite all his faults, despite the way he treats kin, despite his annoying quirks. Peregrine is important to us, like air is.”
Emil said all that without looking up from his plate. Kurt set his hand over Emil’s on his thigh. “Peregrine has his faults, but I can’t be happy without him. I was unhappy for years. I thought if I could do it all over, I’d rebel and not let you take me home from college, but I don’t think so any more.”
Mom smiled. “You were too young to know your mind. I know I did the right thing.”
“No. Breaking Peregrine’s heart, breaking my heart was the only way that Emil could be with us.” Emil would never have gotten with either of them had they been together and they might not have lasted long enough to meet him without Emil as the buffer between their personalities. “And I can’t imagine my life without either one of them.”
Mom frowned. “So you’re going through with this wedding thing?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted legal binds to only one of his men. “When it’s legal here.” Which might never happen. “But this summer we will have a ceremony to show just how committed we are. I am not ashamed of either of them or of loving both.”
“But living like this…”
“I’m out at work and at church. All my friends know too. I am happy. I wish you could be happy for me.”
Mom chewed her noodles slowly.
“Please, Mom. I love you. Can you do the same for me?”
Mom sighed. “I’m trying to imagine this and I can’t.”
She couldn’t believe he could be happy? “Come to church with us. Then you’ll see.”
“Which church do you attend? Do you all go?” Mom eyed Peregrine.
“I do.” Peregrine flourished his napkin. “I hate to miss a Sunday.”
Mom turned to Emil. He stiffened against Kurt. Please, some short of subject change here. If he talked about how the church used to meet in a park or that Peregrine picked it, she might dismiss it, but he couldn’t leave Emil at his mother’s mercy. “Did you bring something to wear on Sunday?”
She set down her fork and patted her lips. She’d left half her vegetables on her plate. “Is this a regular church?”
“In a building older than any of the congregation? No. But the people are nice and the pastor is great. We had him over the other week.”
“Kurt,” Peregrine stood up. “You might be wrong. I think the building we are in now was built in the thirties.”
Mom waved her hand. “I’m not sure where this is going. Did you just invite me to church?”
“And to my opening.” He set an invitation beside her plate. “But you’ll need something to wear at that that looks good while you’re holding a glass of local wine. Most church dresses don’t, in my opinion.”
“What?”
Kurt agreed. Why was Peregrine inviting her to the opening? Kurt did not want her making a scene at Peregrine’s show. “Dress up, but don’t be surprised if the woman next to you is in a sundress and sandals. That’s dressing up for her.”
“And jeans are acceptable everywhere. Even in the governor’s office.” Peregrine look entirely too pleased with himself.
“I’ll think about it.” Mom stood up and slid the invitation into her purse. “Thank you for dinner.”
Peregrine popped back to his feet. “Let me walk you out.”
The shouji door slid open and then closed. Kurt sighed. “That wasn’t how I wanted to spend the evening.”
Emil slipped onto his lap. “How did you want to spend the evening?”
Kurt gave him a brief view.
Peregrine clapped his hands. “That was perfect. And so are you two. Eat up. I have a great idea and you’ll both need the energy for later.”
Peregrine gather up the empty dishes. Did he want help in the kitchen? Peregrine turned back at the counter. “Keep Emil company. We want him warm and willing when the time comes.”
Emil laughed. “I’m always warm and willing for you.”
Peregrine came back to claim a kiss and then gave one to Kurt. “Keep the princess entertained. We don’t want him noticing better men while we are busy elsewhere.”
He was right, how had they found such a wonder man.
“Better men? There is no such thing.” And Emil really believed that. Kurt took a few minutes to show him just how happy they were that he did.
But in the first book the lady reading it gave the female lead an annoying whiny voice and then it turned out to be about horse racing. I am no fan of horses (which is funny as I spent my life trying to be as feminine as I could and girls are supposed to like horses) and I'm even less a fan of the race track. So that one got deleted from my phone. In the second book the male lead pretty much explains how he wants to rape the female lead, but as he's supposed to be broken and he doesn't actually do anything, I could almost forgive him/the story, but then the couple have sex and when he wakes up she lies to him about it (he had a fever at the time), which made me lose what little sympathy I had for her. I deleted that too.
Title: Pressing Concerns
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter one hundred forty of maybe 145
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: a call, information, mail, an offer, beautifying, kisses, saying hello, making dinner, facts, home, dessert, plans, truth, dinner, the past, invitations, love
Length: about 3,400 words
Summary: Emil is polite, mostly. Peregrine is confident. And Kurt states the facts.
Master list
Kurt looked at his phone. Peregrine. He waved bye to Zawadzki as he opened the phone.
“My big lug of a man, Emil is making dinner right now. Pad Thai.”
“Sounds good.” Kurt was starving and everything Emil made was delicious.
“Are you ready to leave?”
“I’m walking out the door.” Rain was falling, but if he took the slightly longer route home, he’d be under eaves almost the entire way. Or maybe he should hurry home. Emil could warm him up and then Kurt could cut vegetables for dinner. He liked to contribute.
“We have company.”
So much for Emil warming him up. Kurt turned towards the longer route. “Who?”
“Emil is boiling water and rinsing vegetables and thawing meat while he chats with your mother. She’s downed at least ten cups of coffee in the last two hours. I’m surprised she can sit still.”
Kurt processed that paragraph a second time and extracted the pertinent information. It still didn’t make sense. “My mother?”
“Emil has the patience of a saint, but he’s nearing his end. I think it’s her fake tears that are doing it.”
Kurt sighed. He should have gone the other way. Four way stops made crossing much easier. “I’m on my way.”
“No hurry. You should probably look your best if you can.”
That didn’t bode well. “Is she in one of her moods?”
“If her moods are ‘feel sorry for me’, ‘nothing is my fault’, and ‘everything is about me’, I’d say several of her moods.”
Kurt closed his eyes and snapped them right back open. He needed to get home in one piece. “Sorry.”
“I’m not. She was bound to visit sooner or later. We should offer to let her use the guest room and leave a door open a crack. She seems to have a hard time believing we do more than sleep in the bed.”
Kurt crossed the last street and hurried up the block. “She believes we share it?”
“That is the only bed big enough for either you or Emil and the guest room has no clothes in the drawers.”
Well, there was that. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Stop in the hall outside the elevator and make sure you’re pretty.”
Did Kurt have time to check the mail? If he brought mail in, he’d look more like any other day. He risked it. The box contained four cards addressed to all of them, two ads, and one bill that belonged to a guy on the fifth floor. He should have waited to get the mail. Now he’d have to take the time to deliver it himself.
The guy’s roommate struggled with a giant umbrella. That was why one closed umbrellas before attempting to come inside. Kurt gave him a hand and then passed off the mail. The roommate thanked him with a brilliant smile. Peregrine might want to paint a face like that.
The roommate hit the elevator button. “Going up?”
Kurt pointed to the stairwell. “Thanks though.”
Why did he frown? Whatever? Kurt had more pressing concerns. At the fourth floor, he jogged down the hall to the giant mirror across from the elevator. He didn’t look too bad. He combed his hair, flatted his lapel, and straightens his tie. Behind him the light above the elevator blinked as it passed the floor. Stairs took a lot less time.
He forced his strides to be even as he walked to his door. It was unlocked, maybe because his mother was here. Peregrine bounced into the entry way. “Welcome home, darling.”
He threw his arms around Kurt and kissed him. This was for Kurt’s mom’s benefit, probably, but that didn’t stop Kurt enjoying every second. He set his briefcase and the mail down so he could concentrate on the man in his arms.
“Kurt!”
Kurt reluctantly pulled away. He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulder, and looked up. “Hi, Mom.”
“Don’t you ‘hi mom’ me! I saw what you were doing.”
Kurt picked up the mail and his briefcase. “I was kissing my boyfriend. It’s not a crime.”
He walked passed her into the house. He set his briefcase on a chair and put the mail on the table. “I think we got thank you notes for the Christmas presents. Hello, Beautiful, how was your day?”
Emil slipped into his arms. He tasted of sugar peas. Kurt lifted him and pressed him against the counter, grinding their bodies together. Very soon Emil was making those little gasped he did when he was trying not to scream or come. Kurt was well pleased. “Thinking about me?”
“All day.” Emil gasped.
“Good.” Kurt tipped Emil over the edge and he came hard clinging to Kurt’s jacket. Beautiful.
He sagged against Kurt. Kurt stroked Emil's hair. Kurt's mom came out of the hallway followed by Peregrine. Kurt ignored her. He wasn't some teenager, easily cowed by an exacting parent. He was his own man. He's spent far too long under his mother's thumb already.
Emil lifted his head for a deep kiss. "Thank you. I needed that."
He walked around Mom without looking at her on his way to the bedroom. "Excuse me."
Kurt washed his hands at the sink. Today was going well.
“What,” his mother uncrossed one arm and pointed to the bedroom, “was that?”
Peregrine laughed. “They were saying hello.”
“That wasn’t just a hello. What is the world coming to?”
“I think it’s spinning just fine.” Kurt dried his hands. The carrots still needed sliced. “What I do with my boyfriend and my fiancé is really none of your business.”
“It was in front of me. What fiancé?”
Peregrine grinned. “Kurt and Emil are getting married. My idea.”
“Because of you.” Maybe everything was about her.
“Me?” She spread a hand across her neckline. “What does your getting engaged to a man have to do with me?”
“You the one who wants me married.”
“To a woman!”
“Just any woman or someone I’m in love with?”
“You can be in love with her. I don’t want you miserable.”
Kurt wasn’t sure about that. “I’m in love with Emil. I’d be miserable without him.”
“But what about Peregrine?”
“It was my idea.” Peregrine’s eyes were too bright. He was having a ball.
Mom ignored him. “You can’t marry both.”
“I don’t want to get married.” Peregrine frowned. “Tell her I don’t want to get married. She’s not listening to me.”
Emil breezed in and picked up their biggest knife. “Anyone not cooking, get out of the kitchen.”
Peregrine grinned and stepped up to the sink. “That would mean you, Ms. Knowles.”
Kurt glanced at his mother. “You took back your maiden name?”
“So what if I did.”
Kurt picked up the next carrot and sliced it lengthwise. “I’m glad you’re moving on.”
“I am not moving on. Your father will come back to me!”
Not likely. “Dad’s happy where he is. Are you fighting the divorce?”
“He is my husband. He’ll come back.” She sat down at the table and sipped her coffee. “But if he’s going to act like a child, I’m going to treat him like one.”
“And that’s supposed to make him want to return?” Peregrine chopped the peanuts.
“He’ll return whether he wants to or not.” Mom poured the last of the coffee into her cup. Peregrine emptied the French press and refilled it. The press made the best coffee, but the batches were so small Kurt normally didn’t bother. Tonight he would.
Mom mixed in cream and sugar. She normally used the low-cal stuff. She had to be more upset than she looked if she wasn’t worried about her figure.
Kurt finished the last carrot. He didn’t want to give away Dad’s plans, but maybe Mom would give up faster if she was convinced she couldn’t win. “Dad isn’t coming back.”
“He is. He will.”
She was delusional. That shouldn’t be a surprise by now.
“Do you want an invitation to our commitment ceremony?”
“Where, no doubt, you’ll tell the world you’re playing house with two men. I won’t be coming.”
“I didn’t think you would. But would you like an invitation?”
“When will it be?”
“This summer.” August would be their first anniversary as a triple.
“I don’t think this West Coast experiment will last that long. You’ll be back home my August.”
She was crazy.
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I have friends here, real friends who really care about me.”
“Besides,” Emil lifted that monster knife again. “Peregrine and I don’t want to live anywhere else.”
“And we’re not living anywhere without him.” Peregrine scrapped more chopped nuts into the small bowl.
“You wouldn’t fit in back home.” Mom stirred her coffee.
“No loss from the sound of it.” Peregrine filled Mom’s cup and then set the French Press on the table. “But I fit in anywhere. Art is really about customers. I would sell more in a bigger city. But not all my customers are local. The internet is a businessman’s friend. And Emil can write anywhere. Kurt is the only one with a job that can’t move.”
“I could.” Kurt cut the end off a sugar snap pea. “We have offices in London, Shanghai, New York, Amsterdam…”
“No.” Mom crossed her arms. “You will come home.”
“I am home.” The condo was in his name. “You’re keeping the house then?”
“Of course I’m keeping the house. It’s where I raised you and Clara.”
“Dad hates the house.”
“He does not.”
“Is it paid off? Dad’s getting close to retirement.”
“And half of his retirement is mine.”
Of course it was. “But won’t it be hard to keep up your lifestyle on only half of Dad’s retirement.”
“That’s why he needs to come home.”
Peregrine rolled his eyes.
Kurt put the peas in a bowl and got down a mug before Mom drank all the coffee. He made his cup sweet and creamy. He was having his dessert first. Delicious. “Mom, Dad isn’t coming back. Any money you spend comes out of the half of Dad’s income you’re entitled to. Any shopping sprees or plane trips and all those parking tickets. Dad’s lawyer is going to make sure they come out of your half of the settlement. Any lawyer would.”
“I know. But I can’t help myself. You have to come back home and take care of me.”
“You are a grown woman and do not need his help.” Emil punctuated that sentence by dumping meat into the wok. It sizzled and popped.
Peregrine shrugged. “If she’s in dire need of help, how about an assisted living facility?”
“I am not old and infirmed.”
Kurt sighed. “No one said you were.”
She crossed her arms and nodded toward Peregrine. “He implied it.”
“Now who’s being childish?” Emil stepped out of the kitchen. “Treat others how you would like to be treated, the Golden Rule and all that. Try treating Kurt and Dan and even Clara like adults who know their own minds.”
He stalked back to the stove. “Pick you veggies or I’ll pick them for you.”
“What?” Mom turned to the kitchen. Peregrine refilled her cup, but didn’t leave enough space for cream and sugar. Mom took a sip and grimaced.
Kurt filled a plate with veggies. He kissed Emil’s cheek. “Lots of noodles too please.”
Emil smiled. “I know how you like it.”
Kurt growled. “I know you do.”
His mom couldn’t leave soon enough.
“What’s going on?” Mom sprinkled sugar over her full cup and stirred it slowly.
Kurt sighed. “Do you really think I’ll just leave the life I’ve made for myself on your whim?”
“It isn’t a whim!” Mom frowned. “Besides, your father just up and left. Why wouldn’t you?”
“But that wasn’t the life he wanted. This is the life I want. I am perfectly content living here forever. More than content. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else.”
“You were happy at home!”
“I was biding my time to make my escape. Life with you was a prison.” He hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud, but now that he’d said it, he felt freer.
Mom shook her head. “You liked it at home. If you didn’t, you would have moved out for college.”
“I did move out for college, but you dragged me back.” He had dreams about that day, nightmares, but he wasn’t going to let her win twice.
“You stayed with us through law school. And even after you got a job. You could have moved out at any time.”
“I was saving up money. I am financially independent. I’ve even made arrangements in case the worse happens. Those I love will be taken care of.”
Mom wrinkled her nose. “These two live off you. I knew it.”
Kurt sighed. “They both have jobs, good jobs. Emil supports himself.”
“Peregrine?”
Peregrine laughed and set a heaping plate in front of Kurt. “My income may not be regular, but give me one more week and I’ll have made more this year than Kurt will for months.”
The food was as good as it smelled. Delicious.
Mom raised her eyebrows. “You’re sure of yourself.”
Peregrine sat a plate in front of Mom. “I’m always sure of myself.”
Mom lifted her hands off the table. “What’s this?”
Kurt pointed his chopsticks at her plate. “Dinner.”
“I’m not eating here.”
Peregrine passed her a set of chopsticks. “You will if you don’t want to offend the cook.” He glanced into the kitchen and lowered his voice. “And I wouldn’t offend him if I were you. When he’s angry, I’m the nice one.”
Mom rolled her eyes and took the chopsticks. Emil stepped out of the kitchen and handed Peregrine a plate. “If you aren’t comfortable with chopsticks, Ms. Knowles, I can bring you a fork.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Emil brought her a fork and went back into the kitchen. Mom put her napkin in her lap. “He,” she looked pointedly into the kitchen and then turned to Peregrine, “is the nice one.”
“Don’t I know it.” Peregrine sat down and picked up his chopsticks.
Mom sighed. “Kurt, what do you see in him?”
Peregrine raised and lowered his eyebrows several times without losing his grin. He knew Kurt would only say good things, but Kurt didn’t want his mother to think he was ignoring the bad stuff. “In college he was everything I wanted to be: cool and confident and talented. And he was interested in me, which I found incredible.”
Mom patted Kurt’s arm. “Everybody was interested in you. You’ve been a people magnet since you were a baby. Girls used to call the house several times a week and hang up when I answered or give me really horrible excuses for needed to talk to you. I always took the messages, but you never called them back.”
“They were girls.” Food didn’t taste as good with uncomfortable conversation.
Emil sat his plate down beside Kurt and rested and hand on his shoulder. Kurt patted Emil’s hand.
“But that was in college.” Mom maneuvered a pea to the edge of her plate and the scooped up some noodles. “What about now?”
Emil’s hand pressed against Kurt’s thigh. “You should know that Peregrine thrives on these sorts of conversations.”
“What sorts of conversations?”
“Ones where he knows he’ll come out on top.” Emil picked up his chopsticks and arranged them in his hand. “He knows we love him, despite all his faults, despite the way he treats kin, despite his annoying quirks. Peregrine is important to us, like air is.”
Emil said all that without looking up from his plate. Kurt set his hand over Emil’s on his thigh. “Peregrine has his faults, but I can’t be happy without him. I was unhappy for years. I thought if I could do it all over, I’d rebel and not let you take me home from college, but I don’t think so any more.”
Mom smiled. “You were too young to know your mind. I know I did the right thing.”
“No. Breaking Peregrine’s heart, breaking my heart was the only way that Emil could be with us.” Emil would never have gotten with either of them had they been together and they might not have lasted long enough to meet him without Emil as the buffer between their personalities. “And I can’t imagine my life without either one of them.”
Mom frowned. “So you’re going through with this wedding thing?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted legal binds to only one of his men. “When it’s legal here.” Which might never happen. “But this summer we will have a ceremony to show just how committed we are. I am not ashamed of either of them or of loving both.”
“But living like this…”
“I’m out at work and at church. All my friends know too. I am happy. I wish you could be happy for me.”
Mom chewed her noodles slowly.
“Please, Mom. I love you. Can you do the same for me?”
Mom sighed. “I’m trying to imagine this and I can’t.”
She couldn’t believe he could be happy? “Come to church with us. Then you’ll see.”
“Which church do you attend? Do you all go?” Mom eyed Peregrine.
“I do.” Peregrine flourished his napkin. “I hate to miss a Sunday.”
Mom turned to Emil. He stiffened against Kurt. Please, some short of subject change here. If he talked about how the church used to meet in a park or that Peregrine picked it, she might dismiss it, but he couldn’t leave Emil at his mother’s mercy. “Did you bring something to wear on Sunday?”
She set down her fork and patted her lips. She’d left half her vegetables on her plate. “Is this a regular church?”
“In a building older than any of the congregation? No. But the people are nice and the pastor is great. We had him over the other week.”
“Kurt,” Peregrine stood up. “You might be wrong. I think the building we are in now was built in the thirties.”
Mom waved her hand. “I’m not sure where this is going. Did you just invite me to church?”
“And to my opening.” He set an invitation beside her plate. “But you’ll need something to wear at that that looks good while you’re holding a glass of local wine. Most church dresses don’t, in my opinion.”
“What?”
Kurt agreed. Why was Peregrine inviting her to the opening? Kurt did not want her making a scene at Peregrine’s show. “Dress up, but don’t be surprised if the woman next to you is in a sundress and sandals. That’s dressing up for her.”
“And jeans are acceptable everywhere. Even in the governor’s office.” Peregrine look entirely too pleased with himself.
“I’ll think about it.” Mom stood up and slid the invitation into her purse. “Thank you for dinner.”
Peregrine popped back to his feet. “Let me walk you out.”
The shouji door slid open and then closed. Kurt sighed. “That wasn’t how I wanted to spend the evening.”
Emil slipped onto his lap. “How did you want to spend the evening?”
Kurt gave him a brief view.
Peregrine clapped his hands. “That was perfect. And so are you two. Eat up. I have a great idea and you’ll both need the energy for later.”
Peregrine gather up the empty dishes. Did he want help in the kitchen? Peregrine turned back at the counter. “Keep Emil company. We want him warm and willing when the time comes.”
Emil laughed. “I’m always warm and willing for you.”
Peregrine came back to claim a kiss and then gave one to Kurt. “Keep the princess entertained. We don’t want him noticing better men while we are busy elsewhere.”
He was right, how had they found such a wonder man.
“Better men? There is no such thing.” And Emil really believed that. Kurt took a few minutes to show him just how happy they were that he did.
