A Balance of Harmonies: A Beer Guy
Jan. 23rd, 2012 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frogs_of_warI was managing my bookmarks yesterday, moving them around and deleting old ones and, following a link, I found a site that is giving out five free short stories each day this week. They say one at a time, but I had no problem downloading any of the ones that came out today (how can I pass up free?). Het and slash, maybe femme too. The stories, I believe are erotica (I haven't read any yet) and I'm guessing that because several times a day the site puts up pictures, some of which are marked NSFW and the link has to be clicked on.
But let me tell you, not one of the pictures, even the non-NSFW ones that just sit on the page would I feel comfortable looking at with my kids in the room. Porn ever one. One Neon porn, but still porn. So if you go there, make sure no one is looking over your shoulder.
*laughs at self* As I inserted the link, I realized that the URL and the title of the page both have the word porn in it. No wonder the site is full of it.
Title: A Beer Guy
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter fifty-four of maybe a hundred
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: air conditioning, hunger, mail, Rowe, plans, laughter, introductions, beer, movies, snacks for dinner, a story, a call, good news, hugs
Length: about 2,300 words
Summary: Kurt stays busy. Emil meets more family. Peregrine gets some news.
Master list
Kurt sighed as the air conditioning from the building blew over him when he opened the front door. He wasn’t ready to face his empty house. But as he really hadn’t had a chance to look around the building, he stopped by the weight room. When his club membership expired, maybe he’d work out here. It was closer to both home and work than the health club he was at now. But maybe he should work out in it a few times before he decided. And it would use up a few of these lonely hours.
His stomach grumbled. After dinner.
Kurt stopped by the mailboxes. Peregrine got a few ads and Emil received something that might be an ad, but could easy be important too. Kurt got nothing, not even one of those To Occupant mailings.
He trudged over to the elevator. Tonight would last forever.
Rowe was in the elevator when the door opened. He nodded as Kurt entered. He glanced at the mail in Kurt’s hand. “Have you heard anything?”
“About the short sale?” Kurt shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Rowe stared at the floor. “Nothing.”
The elevator doors opened and Kurt saw his chance to have something besides a long melancholy evening. “Are you a beer guy?”
Rowe stopped halfway out of the elevator. “Huh?”
Kurt gestured for him to step into the hall. “It’s just you look like a beer guy and as both my men have a family obligation, I’m free for the evening.”
“And you want to hang out and drink?”
Kurt shrugged. “Have you anything better to do?”
Rowe sighed. “No.”
But Kurt didn’t want Rowe to feel like Kurt was laying claim to his house. “I have a fifty-two inch screen.”
Rowe smiled. “Then we’ll go to your place.”
“But I don’t have any beer.” Emil hated the smell of it. Kurt would have to make sure he cleaned everything well. But that would just help him fill up the hours. “I can get some and meet you…”
“Have you eaten? If you get the beer, I’ll get dinner.”
Kurt nodded. He would have been willing to pay for the food too, but this would leave Rowe his dignity. Kurt could always eat leftovers if he was still hungry. “Any favorite brand?”
Rowe looked up at the ceiling. “I haven’t been able to afford microbrews since I lost my job.”
Kurt made a note of the names Rowe mentioned then unlocked his condo door. The evening was looking brighter.
--
Emil woke to sounds of laughter. Joy rippled and was stifled and burst out again. Maybe they were trying to, unsuccessfully, be quiet. Emil stretched and he remembered he was on the top bunk before his fingers touched the ceiling. He was ready to get up and move around. Daylight from outside glowed enough for him to find his clothes. He needed a shower. But many after he let Peregrine know he was awake.
He stepped into the hall and the voices became clearer. Peregrine, of course, and a young person and a voice that sounded like Peregrine’s except higher.
Emil ran his fingers through his hair to tame the tangles and stepped into kitchen. A young woman stopped mid-word and let her mouth fall open. The other two turned around. Peregrine grinned. “Pretty, isn’t he?”
“Yes!”
Emil blushed. The girl hanging on Peregrine’s arm wasn’t impressed. Emil nodded at her and the young woman. The young woman put out her hand. “Arwen Jones.”
Emil shook it.
“My baby sister.” Peregrine flashed her a grin.
Arwen took back her hand and swatted Peregrine. “I am not a baby.”
“But you will always be,” Peregrine put his hand on his heart, “my baby sister to me.”
The smaller girl huffed. “At least he remembers you.”
Arwen ruffled the girl’s short hair. “But, Lúth, I don’t remember him.”
Lúth looked a lot like Peregrine, down to the same color of blue eyes. When Emil mentioned this, she grinned.
Peregrine stepped away from the girls and wrapped his arms around Emil. “He is my Emil.”
Lúth frowned. Arwen grinned. “Don’t you ever get jealous? Dating a guy so good looking?”
Emil put his hands on Peregrine’s arms. “Sometimes. Peregrine is gorgeous.”
Arwen laughed. “Emil, you are so precious. Peregrine, you are so lucky. I want a guy like him.”
A pot behind them bubbled over. Emil turned to stir the noodles. When he turned back, Lúth had possession of her uncle again.
“Arwen, clear the table. Lúth, help me set it.” Peregrine smiled at Emil over the top of his niece’s head. She needed his attention right now, but his heart belonged to Emil.
--
Kurt handed Rowe a cold beer and sat on the other end of the couch. Rowe pressed play on the remote control and then offered it to Kurt. Kurt shook his head. They were watching one of Rowe’s movies. Rowe had brought over a dozen and this one won by process of elimination. Kurt had never invited anyone over to watch anything. His parents had, but only the most correct people and they watched it in the home theater with stadium seating and curtains beside the screen.
Kurt and Rowe ate chips and homemade dips and little sausages rolled in dough and some sort of crispy sweet thing. The glazed ham cubes were still cooking in the oven. They’d be done when the first movie was.
During the slow parts of the movie, Rowe told about the actors and how the movie was made and interesting tidbits from the filming. He was a movie encyclopedia. Kurt quite enjoyed it. He could just sit there and be entertained. While the first movies credits rolled, Rowe went to check on his cooking and Kurt picked out the second one to watch.
Rowe grinned at his choice. But then he liked all these movies enough to own them.
The ham was delicious, satisfying Kurt love of meat and sweets at the same time.
Rowe put the disc in and sat back down with a fresh beer. “Have you met the Homeowner’s Association?”
Trailers blasted through the speakers. Kurt turned the sound down with the remote. “Not yet.”
But now that he thought about it, there was no reason he building wouldn’t have one.
“Well they’ve met you.”
Kurt raised his eyebrows. “Have they?”
Rowe grinned. “Not as such. The board of the association consists of a president, who is on a cruise with her husband somewhere in the Mediterranean, the vice president, who is on a business trip to Thailand, I think, the secretary — you might have seen her walking her little grey shagball of a dog. She keeps to herself for the most part. Very nice, very polite, but kind of on the shy side. Easily pushed around by the treasurer, Tettle, who declared himself the welcoming committee when the real welcoming committee were both at work and knocked on your door a few days back. No one answered although he knew at least one of you was home. So he knocked some more. And rang the doorbell, which he hates to do so if someone rings you can be almost sure it’s not him.”
Rowe took another drink. “Well instead of walking away like a normal person, Tettle was the persistent bug that never knows when to quit we all know him to be. Finally, your door opens and Peregrine? The pierced one? opens the door. He squints at Tettle like he’s trying to place him and then dismisses him and starts to close the door. Tettle finally says he’s the welcoming committee and he cranes his neck to look around the door. Peregrine raises his eyebrows and steps into the hall, closing the door behind him. He says that thanks, he feels welcome, now he’s going back to work. Tettle asks what he does. Peregrine says he paints. Tettle says that only approved room colors are allowed, which isn’t true. Someone on the eleventh floor has dark green walls. Peregrine says that only matters if he was painting the walls, which he wasn’t. Then he slips back into the condo and locks the door. Nothing Tettle can do makes him open it again.”
Kurt smiled. “Peregrine hates to be disturbed when he’s painting.”
Rowe grinned. “I could see that. Now Tettle all dejected, slumps over to my door. He’s seen me in the hall and I can’t pretend to be gone. The only good thing about the foreclosure is that he cut me off of his social list. But I had to sit there and listen while he was all indignant. I finally had to tell him I had a job interview to get him to leave.”
Kurt blew out a long breath. “So we have one of those.”
Rowe shrugged. “Everybody has one of those. Ours is easy enough to avoid if you stay off his radar.”
Kurt took a drink. “But Peregrine didn’t.”
Rowe shook his head. “Tettle ‘visited’ a lot of residents that day and from the sound of it, the lies are getting bigger and bigger. He has decided to call a motion at the next association meeting. He wants to put a limit on how many clients each owner can have in a month. He started out with five, but several residents have business in their homes. Now he says five a week, but he still has dissenters. Only some people get annoyed with the amount of people in the elevator and halls, so they are on his side.”
Kurt leaned back. Had Peregrine had any clients over since Kurt had moved in? He certainly hadn’t any here.
Kurt got to his feet and gestured for Rowe to follow him. “Emil writes books. He goes on business trips, but most of it’s done by email. Peregrine paints, but not normally people.”
The half-done painting facing the doorway was many shades of green with grass and bushes and flowers and a meandering stream. “And the people he paints aren’t always all by commission.”
Rowe walked around the room looking at the paintings. He stopped at one. “You?”
Kurt nodded.
Rowe grinned. “That guy must really like you.”
Kurt tried to look modest. “I think he does.”
Rowe stopped again in front of Ivory’s mostly done portrait. “Is that a man or a woman?”
“Ivory is Ivory. Being ambiguous is how Ivory likes it.”
Rowe raised his eyebrows and moved on to of a picture of Emil wearing nothing but a red silk robe. Or the bit of the robe that the wind let him keep. Emil watched the horizon as an army march past far below. The painting wasn’t anything near done. Peregrine hadn’t yet added the spark that made anything and everything he painted and drew more beautiful that God had made it originally.
“Now, he’s pretty.” Rowe pointed at Emil. “I’m not gay, but if I was, he’d be my type. Does he have a sister?”
Kurt grinned. “We know a woman that looks more like him that a sister ever could, just as beautiful. But she’s happily married and just became a new mother.”
“That’s just as well.” Rowe sighed and walked into the living room. “My ex father-in-law asked me to move to Washington and work for him. I don’t really want to. I like the guy and all, but… But I’m really not in a position to say no.”
“And the ex?”
“The ex isn’t talking to her father. She thinks he took my side when we divorced. And she’s punishing him. Not that he’s noticed.”
“Sound like a real charmer.”
“You’ve got that right.” Rowe picked up the remote control, started the movie, and turned the sound way up. He didn’t talk through this one, but the movie was good enough on its own.
--
Peregrine answered the phone when it rang. “Jones.”
He felt like a detective from one of those foreign movies he and Emil hadn’t watched in too long.
“Peregrine, my dear darling brother, Dad’s awake.”
He looked down at the bright eyes of his sister and niece. “Dad’s awake.”
Lúth jumped around him. “Grandpa’s awake. We can go and see him?”
Peregrine paused. “Probably not tonight. Éowen, plans?”
“They are going to do tests and then move Dad to his own room. Mom wants you there. Dad opened his eyes and saw your drawing and said, ‘Our son’s come home I see.’ Mom cried when she told me about it.”
Peregrine sat down on the arm of the couch and took short shallow breaths. Wasn’t Emil done with that shower? Peregrine needed him.
But he had to think. “What about the girls?”
“Take them with you. I’ll meet you there.”
Peregrine nodded, remembered she couldn’t see that, and heard the hall door open. He passed the phone to Arwen and ran down the hall. “He’s awake.”
Emil wrapped his arms around Peregrine and held him tight. “I’m here. I love you.”
Peregrine squeezed him back. “I love you too.” He leaned against Emil’s shoulder. “We’re taking the girls up to see Dad.”
Emil kissed Peregrine’s forehead. “Let me check on lead and notebooks. What else will we need?”
“You. The only other thing I’ll need is you.” Peregrine squeezed Emil tight. He was never letting him go.
But let me tell you, not one of the pictures, even the non-NSFW ones that just sit on the page would I feel comfortable looking at with my kids in the room. Porn ever one. One Neon porn, but still porn. So if you go there, make sure no one is looking over your shoulder.
*laughs at self* As I inserted the link, I realized that the URL and the title of the page both have the word porn in it. No wonder the site is full of it.
Title: A Beer Guy
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter fifty-four of maybe a hundred
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: air conditioning, hunger, mail, Rowe, plans, laughter, introductions, beer, movies, snacks for dinner, a story, a call, good news, hugs
Length: about 2,300 words
Summary: Kurt stays busy. Emil meets more family. Peregrine gets some news.
Master list
Kurt sighed as the air conditioning from the building blew over him when he opened the front door. He wasn’t ready to face his empty house. But as he really hadn’t had a chance to look around the building, he stopped by the weight room. When his club membership expired, maybe he’d work out here. It was closer to both home and work than the health club he was at now. But maybe he should work out in it a few times before he decided. And it would use up a few of these lonely hours.
His stomach grumbled. After dinner.
Kurt stopped by the mailboxes. Peregrine got a few ads and Emil received something that might be an ad, but could easy be important too. Kurt got nothing, not even one of those To Occupant mailings.
He trudged over to the elevator. Tonight would last forever.
Rowe was in the elevator when the door opened. He nodded as Kurt entered. He glanced at the mail in Kurt’s hand. “Have you heard anything?”
“About the short sale?” Kurt shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Rowe stared at the floor. “Nothing.”
The elevator doors opened and Kurt saw his chance to have something besides a long melancholy evening. “Are you a beer guy?”
Rowe stopped halfway out of the elevator. “Huh?”
Kurt gestured for him to step into the hall. “It’s just you look like a beer guy and as both my men have a family obligation, I’m free for the evening.”
“And you want to hang out and drink?”
Kurt shrugged. “Have you anything better to do?”
Rowe sighed. “No.”
But Kurt didn’t want Rowe to feel like Kurt was laying claim to his house. “I have a fifty-two inch screen.”
Rowe smiled. “Then we’ll go to your place.”
“But I don’t have any beer.” Emil hated the smell of it. Kurt would have to make sure he cleaned everything well. But that would just help him fill up the hours. “I can get some and meet you…”
“Have you eaten? If you get the beer, I’ll get dinner.”
Kurt nodded. He would have been willing to pay for the food too, but this would leave Rowe his dignity. Kurt could always eat leftovers if he was still hungry. “Any favorite brand?”
Rowe looked up at the ceiling. “I haven’t been able to afford microbrews since I lost my job.”
Kurt made a note of the names Rowe mentioned then unlocked his condo door. The evening was looking brighter.
--
Emil woke to sounds of laughter. Joy rippled and was stifled and burst out again. Maybe they were trying to, unsuccessfully, be quiet. Emil stretched and he remembered he was on the top bunk before his fingers touched the ceiling. He was ready to get up and move around. Daylight from outside glowed enough for him to find his clothes. He needed a shower. But many after he let Peregrine know he was awake.
He stepped into the hall and the voices became clearer. Peregrine, of course, and a young person and a voice that sounded like Peregrine’s except higher.
Emil ran his fingers through his hair to tame the tangles and stepped into kitchen. A young woman stopped mid-word and let her mouth fall open. The other two turned around. Peregrine grinned. “Pretty, isn’t he?”
“Yes!”
Emil blushed. The girl hanging on Peregrine’s arm wasn’t impressed. Emil nodded at her and the young woman. The young woman put out her hand. “Arwen Jones.”
Emil shook it.
“My baby sister.” Peregrine flashed her a grin.
Arwen took back her hand and swatted Peregrine. “I am not a baby.”
“But you will always be,” Peregrine put his hand on his heart, “my baby sister to me.”
The smaller girl huffed. “At least he remembers you.”
Arwen ruffled the girl’s short hair. “But, Lúth, I don’t remember him.”
Lúth looked a lot like Peregrine, down to the same color of blue eyes. When Emil mentioned this, she grinned.
Peregrine stepped away from the girls and wrapped his arms around Emil. “He is my Emil.”
Lúth frowned. Arwen grinned. “Don’t you ever get jealous? Dating a guy so good looking?”
Emil put his hands on Peregrine’s arms. “Sometimes. Peregrine is gorgeous.”
Arwen laughed. “Emil, you are so precious. Peregrine, you are so lucky. I want a guy like him.”
A pot behind them bubbled over. Emil turned to stir the noodles. When he turned back, Lúth had possession of her uncle again.
“Arwen, clear the table. Lúth, help me set it.” Peregrine smiled at Emil over the top of his niece’s head. She needed his attention right now, but his heart belonged to Emil.
--
Kurt handed Rowe a cold beer and sat on the other end of the couch. Rowe pressed play on the remote control and then offered it to Kurt. Kurt shook his head. They were watching one of Rowe’s movies. Rowe had brought over a dozen and this one won by process of elimination. Kurt had never invited anyone over to watch anything. His parents had, but only the most correct people and they watched it in the home theater with stadium seating and curtains beside the screen.
Kurt and Rowe ate chips and homemade dips and little sausages rolled in dough and some sort of crispy sweet thing. The glazed ham cubes were still cooking in the oven. They’d be done when the first movie was.
During the slow parts of the movie, Rowe told about the actors and how the movie was made and interesting tidbits from the filming. He was a movie encyclopedia. Kurt quite enjoyed it. He could just sit there and be entertained. While the first movies credits rolled, Rowe went to check on his cooking and Kurt picked out the second one to watch.
Rowe grinned at his choice. But then he liked all these movies enough to own them.
The ham was delicious, satisfying Kurt love of meat and sweets at the same time.
Rowe put the disc in and sat back down with a fresh beer. “Have you met the Homeowner’s Association?”
Trailers blasted through the speakers. Kurt turned the sound down with the remote. “Not yet.”
But now that he thought about it, there was no reason he building wouldn’t have one.
“Well they’ve met you.”
Kurt raised his eyebrows. “Have they?”
Rowe grinned. “Not as such. The board of the association consists of a president, who is on a cruise with her husband somewhere in the Mediterranean, the vice president, who is on a business trip to Thailand, I think, the secretary — you might have seen her walking her little grey shagball of a dog. She keeps to herself for the most part. Very nice, very polite, but kind of on the shy side. Easily pushed around by the treasurer, Tettle, who declared himself the welcoming committee when the real welcoming committee were both at work and knocked on your door a few days back. No one answered although he knew at least one of you was home. So he knocked some more. And rang the doorbell, which he hates to do so if someone rings you can be almost sure it’s not him.”
Rowe took another drink. “Well instead of walking away like a normal person, Tettle was the persistent bug that never knows when to quit we all know him to be. Finally, your door opens and Peregrine? The pierced one? opens the door. He squints at Tettle like he’s trying to place him and then dismisses him and starts to close the door. Tettle finally says he’s the welcoming committee and he cranes his neck to look around the door. Peregrine raises his eyebrows and steps into the hall, closing the door behind him. He says that thanks, he feels welcome, now he’s going back to work. Tettle asks what he does. Peregrine says he paints. Tettle says that only approved room colors are allowed, which isn’t true. Someone on the eleventh floor has dark green walls. Peregrine says that only matters if he was painting the walls, which he wasn’t. Then he slips back into the condo and locks the door. Nothing Tettle can do makes him open it again.”
Kurt smiled. “Peregrine hates to be disturbed when he’s painting.”
Rowe grinned. “I could see that. Now Tettle all dejected, slumps over to my door. He’s seen me in the hall and I can’t pretend to be gone. The only good thing about the foreclosure is that he cut me off of his social list. But I had to sit there and listen while he was all indignant. I finally had to tell him I had a job interview to get him to leave.”
Kurt blew out a long breath. “So we have one of those.”
Rowe shrugged. “Everybody has one of those. Ours is easy enough to avoid if you stay off his radar.”
Kurt took a drink. “But Peregrine didn’t.”
Rowe shook his head. “Tettle ‘visited’ a lot of residents that day and from the sound of it, the lies are getting bigger and bigger. He has decided to call a motion at the next association meeting. He wants to put a limit on how many clients each owner can have in a month. He started out with five, but several residents have business in their homes. Now he says five a week, but he still has dissenters. Only some people get annoyed with the amount of people in the elevator and halls, so they are on his side.”
Kurt leaned back. Had Peregrine had any clients over since Kurt had moved in? He certainly hadn’t any here.
Kurt got to his feet and gestured for Rowe to follow him. “Emil writes books. He goes on business trips, but most of it’s done by email. Peregrine paints, but not normally people.”
The half-done painting facing the doorway was many shades of green with grass and bushes and flowers and a meandering stream. “And the people he paints aren’t always all by commission.”
Rowe walked around the room looking at the paintings. He stopped at one. “You?”
Kurt nodded.
Rowe grinned. “That guy must really like you.”
Kurt tried to look modest. “I think he does.”
Rowe stopped again in front of Ivory’s mostly done portrait. “Is that a man or a woman?”
“Ivory is Ivory. Being ambiguous is how Ivory likes it.”
Rowe raised his eyebrows and moved on to of a picture of Emil wearing nothing but a red silk robe. Or the bit of the robe that the wind let him keep. Emil watched the horizon as an army march past far below. The painting wasn’t anything near done. Peregrine hadn’t yet added the spark that made anything and everything he painted and drew more beautiful that God had made it originally.
“Now, he’s pretty.” Rowe pointed at Emil. “I’m not gay, but if I was, he’d be my type. Does he have a sister?”
Kurt grinned. “We know a woman that looks more like him that a sister ever could, just as beautiful. But she’s happily married and just became a new mother.”
“That’s just as well.” Rowe sighed and walked into the living room. “My ex father-in-law asked me to move to Washington and work for him. I don’t really want to. I like the guy and all, but… But I’m really not in a position to say no.”
“And the ex?”
“The ex isn’t talking to her father. She thinks he took my side when we divorced. And she’s punishing him. Not that he’s noticed.”
“Sound like a real charmer.”
“You’ve got that right.” Rowe picked up the remote control, started the movie, and turned the sound way up. He didn’t talk through this one, but the movie was good enough on its own.
--
Peregrine answered the phone when it rang. “Jones.”
He felt like a detective from one of those foreign movies he and Emil hadn’t watched in too long.
“Peregrine, my dear darling brother, Dad’s awake.”
He looked down at the bright eyes of his sister and niece. “Dad’s awake.”
Lúth jumped around him. “Grandpa’s awake. We can go and see him?”
Peregrine paused. “Probably not tonight. Éowen, plans?”
“They are going to do tests and then move Dad to his own room. Mom wants you there. Dad opened his eyes and saw your drawing and said, ‘Our son’s come home I see.’ Mom cried when she told me about it.”
Peregrine sat down on the arm of the couch and took short shallow breaths. Wasn’t Emil done with that shower? Peregrine needed him.
But he had to think. “What about the girls?”
“Take them with you. I’ll meet you there.”
Peregrine nodded, remembered she couldn’t see that, and heard the hall door open. He passed the phone to Arwen and ran down the hall. “He’s awake.”
Emil wrapped his arms around Peregrine and held him tight. “I’m here. I love you.”
Peregrine squeezed him back. “I love you too.” He leaned against Emil’s shoulder. “We’re taking the girls up to see Dad.”
Emil kissed Peregrine’s forehead. “Let me check on lead and notebooks. What else will we need?”
“You. The only other thing I’ll need is you.” Peregrine squeezed Emil tight. He was never letting him go.
