So, um, Love Letters? Hello?

It's not written yet.  I'm sorry, I knew this week would be hellishly busy, but I only needed a few hours.  I haven't had a few hours, not unless you count the time when I'm sleeping.

I got my mother from the airport Saturday, and she promptly decided to throw not one, but two parties, complete with ludicrous amounts of alcohol, so things have been hectic at home.  I took tomorrow off, in order to go and get my dad from the airport at  seven am (why? my god, why these awful early flights?) and then they have Plans, capital P, that involve me being available.  I see my folks once a year, they're visiting from Germany, I need to be available.  

I'm going to try to find the time to write a shorter update tomorrow, or will give you a long and incredibly fulsome one later in the week, I promise.  I would try to stay up late and finish it tonight, but I'm feeling at the end of my rope.  I feel frayed, my man is on edge, there's brittle merriment and lots of wine and genuine love and affection, but it's all tangled in with a morass of duty and expectation that makes me step very lightly.

So, there it is.  I'm sorry for the delay, I truly am, I'll try to get something done Tuesday afternoon and posted, and if I can't I'll write through my lunches at work, because apart from that I have no time.  No.  Time.


PS-Aw, thanks for the comments so far, you make me feel better:)  As does my mom's amazing cooking, so.  Guess I just needed some lovin', as she'd say. 

The Last Episode of Cambion Is Out!!! and other updates.

It's here!

*shrieks with satisfaction*

My first serial novel is finally finished, and the sixth and final episode, Find Me, is being released today.  You can find it here:  http://www.stormmoonpress.com/books/Cambion-Season-1-Dark-Around-the-Edges.aspx.

This is the one that season pass holders will be really happy about, because it includes an extra short story featuring Devon's dads and an extra drawing courtesy of Nathie, my cover artist.  And the drawing is absolute x-rated sexiness, so lots to enjoy there.

The entire season turned out to be a novel of 90k words, two additional stories and the extra artwork.  The fully compiled novel (no clicking from episode to episode) is also available for season pass holders.  It'll be released in December for everyone else.

Hopefully the sales on this will pick up now that the season is complete, because I've got a sequel in the planning stages for next year.  That being said, I'd probably write the sequel even if I didn't make any money, because I hate leaving a story unfinished.  Not that this one isn't finished, exactly, but...well, just read it.  You'll get it.  :)


Now, onto Real Life Stuff!  My folks are arriving tomorrow and will be staying for a week. I will do my absolute best to make sure Love Letters is out on time, but my mother is like a tornado: powerful and impressive, but occasionally highly destructive.  I love her to tears but it's very possible I will be brought to tears by her visit, or at least made to run around frantically for a while, so I can't guarantee anything.

So, happy weekend, darlins, and if all goes well I'll be with you again on Tuesday.

Love Letters Post #27

Notes:  Wow, so, it’s going to take me a few long posts to get through Maydays, I had to stop this one at 2500 words in order to get to work on time.  There’s just a lot of ground to cover.  I hope you guys enjoy the journey.  A lot of this stuff is based on interactions with my very own family (and I’m not dissing southerners, I love the south, I just happen to have some disturbed relatives down there—I can’t even go into it, you’ll think I’m exaggerating when I’m not), so.  Anyway!  The start of Maydays.

Title: Love Letters

 

Part Twenty-Seven: An Auspicious Beginning

 

***

 

 

 

By the time Ben got to Concord on Friday night, it was already too late for him to go anywhere but his hotel.  Because Maydays corresponded with the long Memorial Day weekend, most of the guests would be randomly arriving on Saturday.  The giant birthday party was set for Sunday, and then a lot of people planned to stick around for a Memorial Day barbeque on Monday.  It would be, in a word, hectic, and Ben wasn’t sad that he got an evening to himself before the plunge.  He didn’t have a long commute this time, his hotel room was fifteen minutes away from the Kuzniar’s enormous house, and he’d already promised Ryan he’d get there relatively early in the morning to help distract Brody’s kids.

Which, ha.  Ben had no idea what that was going to amount to, but he was determined not to be as insular around Ryan’s family as he’d been around his friends.  He could do this, he could be supportive and friendly and present, and surely he could do it without losing his mind.

Oh really, said mind taunted Ben as he lay on top of the hotel’s slick comforter, absently flicking through the TV channels.  Because you’ve got so much experience hanging out with kids, right?  Sure, this’ll be a frickin’ breeze.  Keep thinking that.

“Shut up,” Ben muttered, staring blankly at a baseball game for a few moments before he turned the TV off.  He’d be okay.  Kids had to be easier than adults in a lot of regards.  Heather’s advice on the subject had been short and to the point: “Do what they want to as long as it doesn’t involve bodily harm or getting away with murder and you’re good to go.  You’re just there for the weekend, you don’t have to worry about discipline.  You get to be one of the fun adults.”

Ben wasn’t sure he’d ever been a fun adult before, but he’d get the hang of it.  Right.  Of course you will.

Ben grabbed the book he’d brought with him, for once not one he needed for research but pure pleasure instead, a huge volume of Sherlock Holmes tales.  He turned on the bedside lamp and tried to focus on A Study in Scarlet, but his eyes kept jumping to the clock.  Ten-fifteen.  Ten-twenty.  Ten-twenty one.  Shit.

R u sleeping yet?

Oh, thank god his phone went off.  Ben grabbed it up and texted back quickly.  Not even close.

Good. I dont feel guilty thenJ Be glad you have your own room, Im sharing with Joey and I love him but something so small shouldnt snore so loud. Physical impossibility, and yet.

You don’t have your own room?  That was news to Ben.

Mom made mine into a guest room. The house has six bedrooms and well use all of them before weekend is over.

So Ryan was sharing space with his nephew.  No wonder the kid had assumed it was okay to do whatever he wanted to Ryan’s paintings, those were probably crammed in there too.  Speaking of that…

Make any progress on the new paintings?

Not much.  Joey says my colors are wrong.  He gets antsy when I paint in front of him and someone has to watch him.

Why not his mother? Ben wanted to ask, but he didn’t.  It wasn’t his business, or at least only insofar as it made Ben happy or sad it was, and even then…whatever, it was just for a weekend.  He and Ryan signed off a few minutes later, and Ben pressed his face against the pillowcase and hoped sleep would come fast.

                It did.  In retrospect, Ben should have asked for more of a delay.

                He showed up at the Kuzniar house at ten the next morning, parking his rental further down the gravel drive where hopefully it would be out of the way.  The two-story Victorian looked enormous in the bright morning light, glowing white against a backdrop of blue sky and green grass.  It looked like the kind of house that got featured on the cover of magazines, and probably had been.  Stately houses Ben could handle, he lived in one, but this thing could have just time-travelled straight from the late 1800s, it was so well preserved. 

 

 

                There was no one outside.  Ben walked up the steps and used the lionshead brass knocker to rap on the door.  He heard a sudden rush of feet, and the door opened abruptly.  Ben found himself looking down at Joey, whom he’d barely seen during Brody’s funeral but had heard so much about.  The kid looked a lot like his father, except for the solemn expression on his face.  “One,” he said, more to himself than Ben, before letting go of the door and turning away.  Ben stood on the stoop and wondered what the hell had just happened.

                “Joey, you have to invite him in,” a familiar voice said gently before appearing in the door.  Ryan immediately pulled Ben into a hug, much more demure than his last greeting, but his arms were just as tight around Ben’s shoulders.  “It’s so good to see you,” he breathed.

                “You too,” Ben replied, kissing the side of Ryan’s head, which was all his mouth could reach.

                “No, really…it’s…”  Ryan pulled back and shrugged his shoulders.  “Don’t mind me, I’m just kind of tired.”  He finally caught sight of the yellow roses in Ben’s hand.  “Those are nice.”

                “They’re for your mom.”

                “Nice call,” Ryan said appreciatively.  “She loves roses.  Come inside.”  He led Ben into an entryway with a parquet floor and a vaulted ceiling, complete with a crystal chandelier that cast rainbows around the room as it caught the morning light streaming in through the large front windows.  Wow.  Fancy.

                “Should I take my shoes off?”

                “Nah, it’ll be okay,” Ryan assured him.  “Come on, mom’s in the kitchen.  She’s been baking since Wednesday.”  They walked down the hall, took a few turns and ended up in a room that was overwhelmed with the smells of fresh bread, yeast and something roasting in the oven.  DeeDee Kuzniar bustled around the kitchen, far less put together than the last time Ben had seen her but still neat and tidy in a yellow and blue sundress protected by an apron.  (The only cook in the house is my mom.  You can’t try to do something yourself, can’t even try to help.  She knows how she wants things done and that’s that.  This is why I’m shit at cooking anything not out of a box: I never got the chance to learn, not at home, not at college, definitely not in the army.  I think my mom always liked the fact that being a good cook gave her the authority to kick my dad out of the kitchen if she wanted to.  It’s the only place she had that kind of power.)

                She turned to smile at them as they came in, and Ben tried to focus on her instead of on the most telling thing Brody had ever written about her.  “Benjamin!  You’re here!”  She walked over and made “come hither” motions with her hands, and as soon as Ben was within reach she grabbed him and pulled him down so she could kiss his cheek.  “Welcome, honey!  I’m so glad you could make it for Maydays.”

                “Thank you, Mrs. Kuzniar.”

                “Oh honey, call me DeeDee,” she told him.  He thrust the bouquet at her like a shield. 

“What beautiful flowers!  Let’s just put them next to the cakes.”  She filled a vase with water and put the roses in it, then set them down on a table with…one, two, three…six cakes on it?  Each one was a little different, some of them on elevated glass cake plates, others covered with saran wrap. 

                “How many birthdays are you guys celebrating?” Ben asked.  He was sure Ryan had mentioned it, but holy shit.

                “Seven, honey!” DeeDee beamed.  “Well, only six are actually in May, but Grace was born on June second and it would be strange not to include her too.  Me, Ryan, Joey, Uncle William, Sissy, Melinda and Grace.  Sissy is my cousin, Melinda is Pam’s oldest and Grace is Bill’s new grandbaby, she’s just turning two!”  DeeDee gently patted one of the smaller cakes.  “This one will be hers, just vanilla with some buttercream frosting I’ll whip up tomorrow morning.  Mine’s the cherry cheesecake in the fridge, Joey’s is chocolate and Ryan’s is pineapple upside down cake!”  DeeDee patted her son on the cheek.  “He always has to be different.”

                “Mom…”

                “I’m just teasing, honey, calm down,” she chided him.  “Shouldn’t you be looking after Joey?  You don’t want him to get into your things again.”  She turned to Ben with a smile.  “He was so upset when his paintings got a little messy, but he didn’t even yell at Joey!  Ryan is so good with kids.  You should have been a teacher, honey,” she added pointedly.  “You could even have been an art teacher, if you had to have that, and you’d be working toward a good pension right now.”

                “Let’s go and see about Joey,” Ryan said before his mother could continue, and turned and walked out of the kitchen.  Ben gave Ryan’s mother a weak smile and followed his lover out.

                “Now there’s no need to be rude about it!” DeeDee called after them.

                Ryan stopped in the foyer and just breathed for a moment before turning to Ben, a fake smile plastered to his face.  “So, that’s probably the best things are going to be this weekend.  My family is kind of opinionated, and they all have to say their piece about everything you’re doing, and it’s going to be especially weird this year because Brody isn’t here.  He was the only one everyone listened to, and the kids are still having a hard time, so…please, just do your best to ignore it.  They’ll probably be all right with you, you’re a guest, but try not to let it upset you, okay?  I really don’t want to rock the boat, not while things are so mixed up with Cheryl and the kids are so fragile.”

                “I’ll do my best,” Ben said, and he meant it.  He wasn’t here to make things harder on Ryan, although he was beginning to wonder how exactly he could do that, if that interaction with his mother could be considered the least offensive one of the entire weekend.

                “Great.”  Ryan leaned in and kissed Ben, a gentle press as tender as it was cautionary, a kiss that said: Don’t let go here, don’t get too excited.  They separated after a moment and Ryan took another deep breath.  “Okay.  Let’s go find Joey.”

                Joey was in the living room—one of them, Ryan informed Ben, the one intended for the kids because the furnishings were second-hand.  He was lying on the floor with a pile of colored pencils spread out before him, meticulously shading a giant color wheel.  He was doing all the intermediate grades of color, too; he colored in a thin line of green, then a line of blue on top of it, followed by grey.  “Hey, Joey.”

                The kid didn’t look up.  “Hi.”  Ryan knelt down next to him.

                “Can you look at me for a moment?”  Joey looked up.  Ryan pointed at Ben.  “That’s Ben DeWitt, he’s a friend of mine.  He’ll be visiting us for Maydays.”

                Joey looked at Ben.  “Are you an artist too?”

                “No, I’m a writer,” Ben told him.  Joey immediately went back to work on his color wheel.

                “That means he’s really good with words,” Ryan said.  “I bet he could help you find the names of a lot of these colors.”

                Now Joey looked interested.  “Really?”

                Ben knew a cue when he was fed one.  He sat down on the couch near where Joey was lying.  “I can try.”

                “Okay.  What’s it called when you mix these three colors?”  Joey held up the light green, dark blue and grey.

                “I don’t know for sure.  It looks like a lichen or moss to me.”

                Joey scowled, a strangely adult expression on such a young face.  “No, there has to be a specific name for it.  The right name.” 

                Ryan looked ready to intervene, but Ben could handle this.  He remembered reading dictionaries as a kid, and marveling at the idea of synonyms.  Multiple words that meant the same thing?  Crazy. 

Ben pulled out his smart phone.  “Here, we can look it up.”  He put in color wheel with names and came up with— “Whoa.”

                “It gives you too many options,” Joey groused, looking down at his own color wheel with dissatisfaction.  “There should only be one name for every color.”

                “Some sources agree, though,” Ben pointed out.  “These two both call that color,” he checked the screen, “Cambridge blue.  Huh.  It’s one of the oldest names for that particular shade, so it’s probably fairly authoritative.”

                Joey looked at the screen, then back at his color.  “It’s not quite right.”

                “We can keep looking.”  Eventually they decided on cadet blue for the color, and by then Joey had abandoned his own color wheel in favor of pulling out his own computer and starting a spreadsheet to categorize the various names they found for each different color.

                It was a slightly strange but not unpleasant way to spend the morning.  It was really just research, and Ben was good with detailed, exhaustive research.  Ryan sat next to him on the couch and worked feverishly in a sketchbook, and the only interruptions came when on the couple of occasions the doorbell rang.  Joey dropped everything he was doing and ran for the door, and the second time he did Ben asked Ryan about it.

                “He has to be the one to get the door.  Joey likes to count the number of people in the house.”  That explained the “one” when Ben had arrived.  “It’s one of the things his therapist is working on with him.  He used to do it at school, too; he’d shout at kids who came into the classroom without giving him a chance to count them.  He’s gotten a lot better about it.”

                “He seems pretty good to me,” Ben offered.

                “He’s having a good day.  There haven’t been a lot of disruptions yet; Joey likes to have a routine.  It’ll get a little harder this afternoon when the rest of the family starts to arrive.”

                “We could take him out,” Ben said.  “Maybe go to a hardware store and get color swatches that he can use for comparisons.”

                Ryan looked a little taken aback.  “You don’t mind?”

                “This is the sort of thing I like,” Ben said, completely truthful.  He could think of far worse ways to spend his time than with a generally quiet, orderly kid and Ryan.

                “Sure, that would be great.  We can get Molly too while we’re out, she’s got swim lessons after ballet so she won’t be ready until around three.”

                “Sounds like a plan.”

               

 

***I know, this is a terrible place to stop writing, we're not even through Saturday, I'm sorry!  I had to go to work.  I'll try to post again later this week, especially since next week will be hellacious.***

A Post Entirely Made of Recs

This is my happy Sunday karma post, darlins, my pay-it-forward post.  This is a post of recs for LHNB free stories I've been reading, and I think it pretty much covers the ones I've loved the most.  Why am I reccing just LHNB stories?  Because they're free, basically, and the links I'm providing here lead to their Goodreads pages which have downloads for most of them.  If you're interested, you can get them.

If you're reading as well and agree with some of my choices, or disagree, feel free to let me know.  I haven't read every single story posted for this event (including Kaje Harper's enormous novel Nor Iron Bars A Cage, which is very highly reviewed and I've been meaning to get to) but I have read a lot of them, and here's what's stuck so far.

A.S.H.E.R. by Kallysten, which is a lovely sci fi story involving a realistic robot.  It's fun, fairly light, pretty quick and definitely enjoyable.

Winter Winds by Missouri Dalton, which features a deaf vampire.  I'm not generally a fan of vampires, but she makes this story different enough to be really interesting.

Prisoner 374215 by Angel Martinez, a darker sci fi story that has non-graphic torture, a great but subtle back story and is just generally awesome.  I loved this one.

An Adventure In Beginnings by Alex Whitehall, a slice of life kind of fic with older men as the main characters.  I loved the picture and I really enjoyed the sweet, easy story that came from it.

The Five Times Raptor Messed With The Bull by Xara X. Xanakas, which I rated highly in essence for the intense chemistry between the men and the hot sex scenes.  Highly plotty?  No.  Witty and fun?  Yes.

As He Watches by Finn Marlowe, which is the story done from my own picture and prompt!  And I didn't make it easy, asking for an offbeat power dynamic without specifying BDSM, and Finn totally delivered.

Red by Belinda McBride, which is an amazing, interesting and complicated new take on Little Red Riding Hood that I absolutely have to read more of.  I do love me a twisted fairytale...

When You Were Pixels by Julio-Alexi Genao, which is just UNF!  Tightly plotted, intricate, intimate sci fi with assassins, corporate dystopias and a promise for more.  Holy shit, it's good.  It's that good.


Those are the ones that really jump at me when I look at my "stuff I've read" list.  I hope you've picked some of these stories up, it's a great way to get some excellent free fiction.  Not all of it's excellent, obviously, but enough is that it's completely worth it.

My own story You Get Full Credit For Being Alive was really well received, and I'm now planning a sequel to it.  Hey, enough people asked.  I'm easy that way.

Anyhow, happy Sunday to you all.  More Love Letters on Tuesday if all goes well!

Love Letters Post #26

 

Notes:  The last part before Ben heads to Concord.  Setting the stage for all sorts of things, including Histrionic Family Time!  I’ll be modeling all interactions after my mother’s side of the family, whom I’ve not seen in a decade and still have nightmares about.  Yes, they’re that potent.

Title: Love Letters

 

Part Twenty-Six: If I Wanted To Know, I’d Ask.

 

***

 

There had been a time in college, when Ben had been confident and self-assured and, frankly, arrogant, when he had wondered why so many of his peers were so interested in what everyone else was doing.  Who cared if Karly’s boyfriend’s mom had gotten through surgery okay, what did it matter if Peyton’s dog had arthritis?  It seemed like people who barely knew each other, barely even spent any time together had a check list of minutiae pop up in their brains the moment they got together, so they’d have something ready-made to chat about when they had to speak.  How are you?  How’s your family?  How’s your dog?  How’s your car?  It seemed ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that usually, neither person knew the other one well enough to care.  Ridiculous.

Ben had asked his one and only girlfriend, Ignacia, what the point of it was.  Ignacia was from Portugal, studying English and Engineering and similarly awkward to Ben in some ways, although she had a much larger social circle.

“There doesn’t need to be a point to it, it’s just polite,” Ignacia had replied.  “Those sorts of questions make up the art of conversation.”

“Those sorts of questions barely even constitute conversation, much less have anything to do with art.”

Ignacia rolled her eyes, magnified even larger than they already were thanks to her glasses.  “Fine, then call it the art of small talk.  It’s what breaks barriers down between people, it is a way of showing someone that you care about them, that you’re interested in learning more.  Even if you really aren’t, it’s still polite to participate.”

“So what you’re saying is that small talk gives everyone a socially-sanctioned opportunity for voyeurism?”

“Curiosity is not voyeurism!”

“Yes it is,” Ben argued.  “I guess for some people those questions are reflexive politeness, even though I don’t think it’s very polite, but then for everyone else it’s an opportunity to pry into someone’s personal life and hope something salacious falls out.”

Her brow wrinkled.  “Salacious?”

“Gossipy.”

“Oh.  You really think this?”  Ignacia had asked, looking at Ben askance.

“Yes.”

She sighed.  “I will never be able to introduce you to my avó.”

They broke up a month later.

It took Ben a while to get over his personal hang-ups and learn to handle small talk, and he still wasn’t very good at it.  He wasn’t interesting enough for most people to really want to know about He could talk at great length about his family history though, and most of the time people found that interesting enough that he could get them off the subject of himself and onto the subject of Benjamin Franklin pretty easily.

Ben remembered his mother had been the same way.  Deborah Franklin Bache had been a physically unremarkable woman, small and serious, who had inherited her father’s square jaw and long nose.  On him they looked masculine and professorial; on her they formed a blend that seemed off somehow, her eyes too small and her forehead too low to compensate for her loss in outward femininity.  Coupled with the fact that Deborah was a scholar who didn’t really care about how she looked or what she wore, she was far from an easy person to talk to.  Ben remembered his classmates teasing him the few times his mother came to pick him up—“Is that your mom or your dad?” they’d asked, laughing a little.  It had hurt but Ben hadn’t said anything, and if his mother had ever noticed that something was wrong with her son, she never asked.  They had shared a house, she had kept him clothed and fed and checked his homework, and that was the vast majority of their relationship.  It had been the same with his grandfather, which was where Ben figured Deborah had learned it.

Family interactions weren’t comfortable for Ben.  Friends, well, Ben actually had those so he felt somewhat qualified to deal with Ryan’s friends, even though the only one he could honestly tolerate was Jasmine.  The family stuff, though…that was shaping up to be downright intimidating.

Ryan got down to Concord okay and moved back into his old bedroom.  Thus began an all-consuming stint of helping his mother, his sister-in-law and his niece and nephew, who became Ryan’s whole world.  Ben would get texts throughout the day that he had no idea how to respond to.

Joey put glue on his hands then rubbed them in his hair. Elmers not super thank god.

Molly and I ditched ballet for ice cream. Promised not to tell her mom.

Cheryl is dating someone now. Another cop. He comes to get her and she doesn’t get back until just before the kids wake up.

What was the appropriate response to that?  To any of those?  Ben usually settled on fairly nondescript emoticon responses when he had no clue what to say, and Ryan hadn’t seemed to mind yet, so…maybe he could fake it long enough to figure it out.

Ben kept sending letters, and Ryan kept sending pictures.  Most of them were funny, but a few weren’t.  Like the sketch of he’d done of Joey at Brody’s grave.

 

 

The grave stone was large and kind of ostentatious, and Ryan wrote that Joey was fascinated with it.  He’d run his hands over the carved letters and the cool stone, then touch the grass beneath it, then the stone again.  Ryan said that Joey was going through a phase where textures intrigued him.  It wasn’t necessarily a good phase, either.

Three days before Ben was due to fly out, Ryan called him up in a panic.  “My paintings are ruined,” he said without preamble.

“Ruined how?” Ben asked.

“Joey, he…I was teaching him a little bit about how to paint, I gave him some acrylics and a canvas to work with because acrylics are pretty easy to use and he seemed to like it, and he…when I wasn’t around, I was off getting Molly from her violin lesson, Joey covered his hands with paint and rubbed them all over my canvases.  I got most of the paint off some of them before it could dry and a few just had a spot here and there, but five of them are just worthless now.”  He sighed, and Ben could practically hear Ryan pulling his own hair.  “And I have to get them to Jasmine in two weeks if this volume is going to go to print on time, and I just don’t know how that’s going to happen.  Fuck.  Fuck.”

“You didn’t lock your door?” was the first thing Ben thought to say, and he immediately wanted to smack himself for it when the line stayed silent for a while.

“No,” Ryan said at last.  “My mom was supposed to be supervising Joey, I thought it would be okay, but she got tired and took a nap.  And Cheryl was out.”

“I didn’t mean to…I know it’s not your fault.  I just…”

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Ryan said tiredly.  “It’s just that I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Ask for an extension,” Ben replied.  This much, at least, he understood.  “Tell Jasmine you need more time, get her to bargain with the publishers.”

“Yeah, that’s the sort of thing New York Times bestsellers can get away with.  Small-time comic book artists, not so much.”

“You won’t know unless you try,” Ben said.  “Really, call her.  She’ll help straighten it out.  It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, maybe.”  Ryan sounded exhausted.  “I had all these plans to show you around town and go to the speedway and the parks.  Now I’m going to be stuck at home redoing these paintings instead.  I hope that won’t bother you too much.”

Stuck at Ryan’s home, surrounded by his family, all of them coming together for a huge, frenetic birthday celebration?  Ben had booked a hotel room—his last experience had taught him the wisdom of that—but for every hour that wasn’t spent sleeping, he knew he’d be off-kilter.  He couldn’t just say that, though.  It was too late to cancel the trip, even though the thought of going out there was beginning to fill Ben with dread instead of anticipation.  “I’ll be fine,” he lied.

They hung up a little while later, and Ben immediately called Michael.

“What’s up, luv?”

“I’m going to fuck everything up.”

Michael snorted.  “Feet feeling a bit cold at the thought of meeting the family, then?”

“I’m terrible with families.”

“Oh I know,” Michael said, surprising Ben a little with how readily he’d agreed.  “I was planning to prime you for bloody weeks before introducing you to my mum, but fortunately we didn’t get that far.”

“Thanks,” Ben said dryly, feeling a little offended.

“Don’t be stroppy, Ben, it’s just the truth.  You’re a wonderful friend and an excellent lover, but you’re not exactly the type to take home to the family.  You couldn’t even pretend to be interested in my nieces.”

“It’s none of my business!” Ben exclaimed.

“It’s your business if it’s your boyfriend’s business.  You’ve got to take these people seriously; you can’t dismiss them like you did the artsy people at his flat.”  Ben had told Michael about his trip to Boston, and where it could have gone better as far as he was concerned.

Ben rubbed his eyes.  “I just want to see Ryan.  That was why I was going in the first place, not to get to know his entire extended family.”

“Life has a way of springing things on us, luv.  Think of it this way: if you’re serious about Ryan, then you’ll have to take the plunge with his family at some point, it might as well be now.”  Michael paused.  “Are you serious about him?”

“More serious than I’ve ever been about anyone else,” Ben admitted.  “I love him, I’m just…nervous, I guess.”

“Just be polite and take his side in any family arguments and you’ll likely be fine,” Michael said.

“Family arguments?  Are those likely?”

“An extended southern family who’ve recently suffered a terrible loss coming together for the ostensibly-happy occasional of celebrating multiple birthdays?”  Michael snorted.  “What do you think?”

Ben thought he might not survive, honestly.  But it was too late to back out now.

Two Lovely Things:)

First thing: I saw The Wolverine last night.  And it didn't suck.  It was actually pretty good, which is more than I've been expecting lately from the mutant half of the Marvel movie franchises (sorry, but the last Wolverine movie was just. Not. Good.  But this one?

This one has Wolverine, who is as ripped and snarly as ever, as well as sword fighting, ninjas, samurai, gigantic Japanese mechs and a female sidekick who is quite possibly the most interesting person in the entire movie, with a power that makes me wish I had thought of it first.

Yes, I have a total girl crush on this character, and no shame about admitting it.  She's badass.  See the movie for her if not for Hugh Jackman, folks.


The other lovely thing is...I finished Cambion today!  The final episode of the serial story is finally in the hands of my editor and will be released next month, along with another bonus story and a speedpaint drawing done by the ever-lovely Nathie, who did the art for the cover.  You can read more here: Cambion Season One.

I have to admit, I will be glad to have this one behind me.  It's been a great story to write and I have plans for a second season, but I've also got Love Letters, a collaborative novella and a m/f sci fi romance novel to finish by October.  Yeah.  So.  Anyway, good times!

Happy Sunday, darlins:)

Love Letters Post #25

 

Notes:  Longer, R-rated section for you guys today.  Ooh, enjoy it and watch the storm clouds start to brew overhead!  We’re in the last, oh, third to quarter of this story now, and I’m looking forward to beginning another serial in August, because I am a freak who likes to have too much to do.  That means I’ll have two running concurrently for a bit.  Never fear, I’ll post them on separate days so you won’t get overwhelmed.  And so I won’t get overwhelmed.  Ha-ha.

Title: Love Letters

 

Part Twenty-Five: Bad News and Bedroom Activities

 

***

 

Life settled down into a predictable pattern of work and play, more work by far but enough playing to keep Ben from dropping into a funk.  He organized, categorized, outlined and wrote and spent far too much time on the phone with Linda, but it finally felt like the book was coming together.  He might actually get ahead of schedule before he went out to join Ryan in Concord the last weekend of May, which would be perfect.  He didn’t want to be distracted when they saw each other again.

It turned out that distraction happened anyway, but not to Ben.  Ryan called him late on the evening of the 8^th, and Ben didn’t even get a chance to say hello before Ryan blurted out, “Cheryl’s been in an accident.”

Later on, Ben would be embarrassed by the fact that it wasn’t concerned shock that made him pause before replying, it was the effort of trying to remember who Cheryl was.  It came to him in a rush: Brody’s wife, Ryan’s sister-in-law, the woman who didn’t want me at her husband’s funeral.  Right, Cheryl.  “What kind of accident?”

“A fucking—” Ryan’s breath fluttered and caught his in throat and Ben realized then that it was bad.  “A fucking car accident.  Can you believe it?  After everything that happened, after Brody, she…she was heading home from a restaurant and drove her car into a tree.”

“Were the kids with her?”

Ryan exhaled gustily.  “No, thank god, she was alone.  But she’d been drinking.  Her blood alcohol level was way over the limit.  My mom knew Cheryl had been having problems, the kids are hard to manage by herself, especially Joey, but she didn’t think it was this bad.  I just got off the phone with her and she couldn’t stop crying, she thinks it’s her fault for not checking in with Cheryl more often—”

“How is Cheryl?” Ben asked, breaking in before Ryan talked himself in a circle.

“She’s going to be okay.  Got a concussion, and she broke her collarbone and has a lot of bruising.  The cops aren’t even going to charge her with reckless driving, they’re all taking it easy on her because she was Brody’s wife and no one else was hurt.”

“That’s pretty lucky.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”  Ryan didn’t sound convinced, but he let it go.  “She and the kids are going to go stay with my mom once she’s discharged, probably tomorrow.  I’m…I’m going to go help.”

Oh, wow.  “You’re moving back to Concord?”

“Since Cheryl’s out of commission, yeah, I am.  Mom can’t take care of Molly and Joey by herself, especially since their schools are across town in two different places.”

Ben kind of didn’t want to bring it up, but he had to ask.  “Doesn’t your sister live close by?”

Another sigh.  “Pamela can’t even remember to pick up her own kids from school, there’s no way she could handle any more than she’s already got.”  Ryan paused, then said, “Plus, Mom asked me for help.  It’s the first time she’s asked me for anything since I moved away, I couldn’t say no.”

                Brody had always described his sister Pam’s cluelessness as legendary, but Ben was still a little surprised by the reality of it.  And Ryan wasn’t the type to even think of saying no when someone he cared about asked him to do something.  Ben’s trip to Boston had showcased that side of Ryan pretty well, the part of him that wanted to make everyone happy, or as close to it as he could get.  Regardless, it wasn’t Ben’s place to judge.  “I guess you’re moving back to North Carolina, then.”

                “For a while,” Ryan agreed.  He sounded kind of frayed.  Ben wished he could jump through the phone; his fingers actually twitched with the impulse to stroke Ryan’s hair.

                “You’re bringing your artwork, right?”  That might give Ryan an outlet for the mixed emotions that were sure to come up while he was living in the home he’d been kicked out of over a decade ago.

“Yeah, I’ve got to.  Volume Five is supposed to be published at the end of June and I’ve still got a dozen panels to finish.  Jasmine’s caught somewhere between mothering me and murdering me.”

“She’ll default to mothering,” Ben assured Ryan with a smile. 

“Probably.  I wish I didn’t have to risk it either way.”

“I know the feeling.” 

They let the moment of perfect understanding linger for a while before Ryan finally broke it with, “If I didn’t have to pack, I would so get off with you right now.”

Ben laughed into the phone.  “It’s—” he checked the time, “almost midnight, you should be sleeping, not packing.  Are you going to drive down?”

“Yeah, I rented a car, and no, I shouldn’t be sleeping, I should be getting off with you,” Ryan groused.  “I miss you being here.  I know I’ve said it a million times, but it’s true.  If you were here I could roll over on top of you and kiss that spot just below your belly button that makes you giggle, and then I could take off your boxers—no, I would outlaw boxers in bed, why do you even wear those things—and I would blow you until you were seeing stars.”

Ben shifted in his computer chair, getting a little extra space between his thighs to accommodate his growing erection.  “I don’t giggle.  And I wore boxers in bed because at any moment someone might have busted into your room to make helpful comments about our sex life.”

“You do giggle, and they weren’t that bad.”

The hell they weren’t, Ben thought, but he didn’t say it.  Instead he said, “Maybe I wouldn’t let you just have your way with me.  Maybe I’d like to have my way with you instead.  I could pin you to the bed and suck you into my mouth and work my fingers inside of you…I know you like it when we’re really close, so tight that there’s nothing between us, not even a millimeter of space.  Would you like me to be even closer?  Want me inside of you?”  They’d done this once while Ben was in Boston, him giving Ryan a blow job while he fingered him.  It had been a long time since Ben had touched another man that way, since college, actually; he hadn’t been comfortable enough or uninhibited enough with anyone since then to get so intimate, not even with Michael.  Gratifyingly, Ryan had loved it, he had come so hard he had to muffle his face with a pillow to keep from alarming all his roommates, but they hadn’t had the time or really the opportunity to take it further.

“Omigod, I do want you inside of me,” Ryan moaned, and Ben smiled.  “It’s not the same when I touch myself, and this time I want all of you.  I want you to fuck me.”

Ben wanted that too, so much that he had to take his hand off of himself to keep himself under control.  “If I were there right now, I would.  I’d roll you onto your stomach and make you keep your hands by your head so you couldn’t touch yourself.  I wouldn’t touch your cock either, all of my focus would be on your tight little ass.”  It had definitely been tight, Ben remembered that much.  Ryan swore he’d had penetrative sex with men before, but he’d definitely been out of practice.  “Remember how long it took me to get the first finger in last time?”

“Too long,” Ryan said, but he sounded appreciative.  “You could do it faster, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I could, but I don’t want to.  I want you to focus too, I want the only thing you think about to be how good you feel and how much more you want.  You could even tell me, but I wouldn’t let you distract me too much.  I want to taste you.”

“Taste me?”  Ben heard the creak of Ryan’s mattress as his boyfriend moved around, then settled down again.  “Taste me how?”

“I’d start with my tongue at the nape of your neck,” Ben said, closing his eyes.  He could see it, the slender curve of Ryan’s spine, the graceful line of his neck.  All flushed and glowing with sweat, muscles shifting with impatient need.  “I love that spot on you, it’s so soft there.  I’d trace over every single vertebra, and I wouldn’t stop until I got to your ass.”

“Why…why stop there?” Ryan asked. 

“Because you have an amazing ass and I barely know where to start with it,” Ben told him.  “I’d press my lips to the dimples just above your cheeks and suck until they were bright red.  God, it would be hard to stop, I’d want to put my mouth on every square inch of you.  And once I finally had and you were red everywhere, then I would go back to the middle and spread you apart with my hands, and I’d press my weight against your legs so you couldn’t shift and then I’d touch the tip of my tongue to your hole.”  Ryan whimpered and Ben grinned.  “Just the tip to start, because I know you’d flinch and I’d have to go slow to get you used to it.  I’d trace your edges and folds and get you so wet before I even thought about pressing inside of you.”

“More,” Ryan said huskily.  “Give me more.”

“I would, I’d press against you with my tongue until you opened up, until you relaxed and let me inside.  I’d fuck you with my tongue and I wouldn’t stop until you were begging me for more, and even then I might not listen at first, just keep going until I was satisfied you could take me.”

“Then you’d fuck me?”

“Then I’d use my fingers.”  Ryan groaned with genuine frustration and Ben grinned.  “Can you feel them now?  Are they in you?”

“Yesss…” Ryan hissed, and the thought that he was slipping his own long fingers inside of himself right now made Ben bite the inside of his cheek hard to distract himself.

“I’d start slow, just holding them inside, twisting them a little before I pulled them back and started to thrust.  I’d take them almost all the way out before I pushed in again, so slowly.  I’d have to go slow now while I could because there’s no way I could be that slow once I got my dick inside of you.”  Dirty talk was hardly Ben’s forte, but from the noises Ryan was making Ben figured he was doing all right.  “Your body is fascinating, I could just watch my hand move in and out of you for hours.  I love the feeling of you, slick and soft and hot.  You’re going to feel so amazing when I fuck you.”

“Do it now,” Ryan begged, and that was just about Ben’s limit for self-control.  “Now, fuck me now, please, mmnh…”  He sounded strained at the end, and whatever he was doing to himself Ben wanted to be in on it.

“I can do that, I want it, you don’t even know…just pull my hand out and lift your hips and drive right into you.”  Ben pulled his cock out of his boxers and wrapped his hand around it.  The grip was too dry for a lot of movement, but he was so close it wasn’t going to matter.  He just squeezed himself tight and swept his thumb over the head, where his precome was starting to drip.  “Christ, you’re so hot, baby, you feel so good.  I just have to move, I have to go fast and hard, I can’t stop.  I want to fuck you until you can’t even breathe, until you come all over the bed and you don’t even have to touch your cock, just the pressure of the sheets and my dick in your ass and it’s more than you can take, you just have to come…”

“Ben, Ben, yes, ah—”  Ben heard the catch of Ryan’s breath in his throat and knew he really was coming now, probably full of his own fingers, gorgeous and naked and hard…and that vision was enough to send Ben over the edge as well.  He fisted himself, just short bursts of movement against hot, hard skin as he came over his hand.  He shut his eyes and almost dropped the phone as his brain shut down for a moment, no room for anything in his head except the pleasure of coming and the thought of Ryan.

Ryan was the one to eventually break the comfortable silence.  “How am I supposed to pack now?”

“Don’t pack, get some sleep,” Ben told him, reaching awkwardly for a tissue to take care of some of the mess.

“I can’t, I have to pick the rental car up first thing in the morning and I have to have everything ready to go.”

“Just a nap, a little one.  You can’t drive to Concord on no sleep.”

“S’just twelve hours or so…”

“Sleep, please.  Just a little.  And let me know when you get there, okay?”

Ryan laughed.  “You sound like Jasmine.  Or Brody, he never believed I was a good driver.”

Ben didn’t know quite what to do with that statement.  He settled on avoidance.  “I talk to you tomorrow.”

“Mmkay, I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Ben put the phone down and tucked his softened cock back inside his underwear.  He glanced at the calendar on his wall and grimaced.  Maydays was suddenly looking a lot more complicated.  The last thing he wanted was to be in Cheryl’s line of fire, given how poorly that had gone last time.  With everything that was going on, it might be better if he cancelled the trip.

No, it was too soon to be making a decision about that.  Ben knew that Ryan wanted him to be there, and it was just going to be for a weekend.  He could handle a weekend with Ryan’s family.  Right?

Sure.