Emma crawled into her own window around six in the morning. She wasn’t quite sure why she felt it was necessary to pretend she’d been home all night even though she’d only crashed with Tracy and Lisa because the gig at the bar went until closing, and she didn’t feel like trying to explain things to her father because she was so tired.
Sophie had floated her way into the ER today. To think that when she’d used her nurse training before, she’d only ever taken care of old folks in their own homes, and now she could handle the ER. Maybe nobody else noticed, but she was proud of herself. Still, even if she hadn’t made any mistakes, the tension was very high. There had been three code blues on her shift alone. Everyone kept joking about full moons and bad luck […]
Ethan stood on the stoop of his own house and looked at the key on his chain, glanced at Gabriel, and offered up a sick laugh. “I’m not quite sure what the protocol is here. Should I knock?” “It’s your family. I haven’t been closer than a hundred miles to my family since I left home.”
Nathan told himself yet again that he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. There’s no way he could have hitched home any faster than Gabriel was willing to drive, but did they have to stop at every friend’s house along the way? At least he was clean, well fed, and warm. He had shelter for the night. It just wasn’t the shelter of his own home.
When Emma walked into the living room, she almost tripped over a pair of white orthopedic shoes – the kind her mother wore to work. A pair of hospital uniform pants lay over the back of the couch. The matching top lay on the floor by the hallway leading to the bedrooms. As Emma closed the front door, her nearly nude mother walked by with a shirt half way up her arms. “Mother!” Emma couldn’t help being shocked. Her mother […]
Gene itched to get practice over with. In a way, it kind of felt like a total waste. He should have said something before they started instead of wanting to do it afterward. As soon as the band started putting their instruments away, he went over to Tracy. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
If she groveled a little, that might be fun. Bruce had never seen Tracy grovel before. Of course he’d be disappointed now, too, so it was just as well he didn’t really care. “Why?! We should just go anyway.” Tracy threw her hands up in disgust.
“This.. this is nice.” Emma glanced at Kate as the two of them walked down State Street together. She couldn’t remember the last time just the two of them hung out together. “Yeah. We should do this more often.”
Sophie took a ragged breath. She didn’t want Emma to think she had turned into a complete shrew, but she had to put her foot down. “Over night? In Chicago? No. I don’t think so. You’re too young.” She set her purse down on the side table next to the couch, but didn’t sit, though this conversation threatened to take a while.
The guest room struck Ethan as so placid it bordered on nondescript. None of the quirky paintings from the rest of the house had made it into this space. No high-end furniture or retro styling here. Just a regular bed, normal dresser, empty closet, inconsequential side table, and a nice window looking over the dark glinting of a lake. He liked it. Ethan felt right at home here.
If there was one thing Ethan wanted to prove to the world, it was that he had the exact right amount of tolerance. Certainly a great deal more than his co-workers at American Family Insurance Group. But not so much tolerance that he would allow bad things to happen. To quote some editor or another, “I like to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.”
Pete placed three cups of tea on the coffee table. The first he put in front of Ethan, the latest lost puppy to be brought home by Gabriel. The second he gave to Gabriel. The last he kept for himself. He wasn’t a bit surprised when Gabriel clasped his hands together, leaved forward with one of his rare smiles, and said, “I’ll go first.”
Ethan fell back a step. Two men were kissing right in front of him, one of whom had invited him to spend the night. “Um…” He couldn’t quite keep the worry out of his voice. He glanced at the trees surrounding the fancy, cubist-style condo on whose front step these two men were absorbed in such a public display of affection. One of them made a little moaning sound, and the hair on the back of Ethan’s neck stood on […]
Ethan changed his mind about imposing on the nice young man who had given him a pizza. He didn’t feel right about taking so much. He had just stepped off the concrete square at the foot of the pizzeria’s back door when the young man came into the alley driving a Lamborghini.
Once Ethan had gobbled down a couple of slices of pizza, his stomach protested. He lingered over the open box, loath to part with it even though eating anything more would probably push him from queasy mortifying. It was too rich to eat in one sitting after so long without food.