Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” Brad said from where he rested his head on Drew’s shoulder.

  “You never have to wait for an invitation,” Drew whispered.

  Later, after they’d cleaned up, they cuddled up together, Brad the big spoon and Drew the small one. Drew felt safe and protected and very well fucked.

  But one thing tickled at the back of his mind. His boyfriend could barely say the word “gay,” and then there were those weird notions of who was the “man” and who was the “woman.” Yeah, he’d been pretty damned hot for Brad’s cock, but that was some messed up thinking, and it’d have to be addressed one of these days.

  Chapter Twenty

  Brad walked through the house, just enjoying the quiet and order. His crew had finished the last of the mopping up the day before, and now it was his turn. With a clipboard, a cleaning cloth, and blue painter’s tape to mark any problems, Brad examined first the updated rooms and then the rooms they hadn’t touched. Drew prided himself on delivering a quality product, and Brad subscribed to that wholeheartedly. Any problems he identified and fixed before the homeowners found them made Renochuck look better.

  No curtains blew in the gentle breeze wafting in the opened windows. Emily would only start her installation once Drew and Brad made sure the house was good to go, and in any event, curtains would only have trapped the dust kicked up by construction, and Brad preferred his crews use industrial vacuums to filter the dust instead of curtains. Too bad they couldn’t have waited until the summer heat broke before starting, Brad thought. It was a gorgeous day, not at all like the sweltering oven that had baked the water right out of him when he’d started.

  He didn’t even mind working on a stepladder up near the ceiling as he checked the crown molding for scratches and visible nail heads. He looked down around the room and out into the hallway beyond. Such a change from just a few months ago. Everywhere he looked, he felt pride in the work he’d helped complete. He’d found it difficult to appreciate the changes on a day-to-day basis. Each day he worked and worked, and while he or the crew completed each individual project, the job as a complete whole had eluded him until now. It satisfied him in a way that rotting in the sales office never would. Philip might be happy driving a desk for Sundstrom Homes, but this just confirmed to Brad that he needed to work with his hands. He needed to create if not beauty, then at least solid workmanship.

  He finished checking the crown molding in one room and moved onto the next “room” on his checklist, the hallway, one that connected the public areas with the bedrooms. He glanced into the room on his left. It was one of the rooms untouched by the renovation. That was where he and Drew had made out on his first day on the job. The room in which Brad had confronted seriously for the first time both that he was physically attracted to Drew and that he had feelings for the other man, despite the fact that he was… a man.

  Then, Drew’s five o’clock shadow had skeeved him out. Now, Brad enjoyed an emotional and sexual relationship with Drew. That first time had sent him into a bit of a tailspin—he’d had cum on him. Another man’s cum on him. It should’ve sent him screaming for the hills.

  But that was the weirdest thing. Usually he was all about dropping his load and leaving. He’d never been much of a cuddler and rarely felt the need to hang around after the deed was done. But that night? There was nowhere else he wanted to be more that evening than with Drew, and even putting up with Randall’s shit the next day hadn’t taken the shine off it. All it did was make him more determined than ever to get the hell out of his dad’s house.

  Brad smiled, thinking about that first amazing night as he continued to check the molding for problems. The first night hasn’t been an issue, really. By the time they’d made it back to Drew’s bedroom, Brad had been so horned up nothing could’ve derailed him. The beers hadn’t hurt, either.

  But the second time… that had been the weird one, but in for a penny, in for a dollar. Brad let his body take the lead, and that made both of them very happy indeed. After that? Well, it hadn’t taken Brad very long to get used to a regular outlet other than his hand.

  Besides, he was with Drew. However improbably that had come about, Brad had fallen for another man, one who had showed him a world full of masculine beauty. That made working out at the gym a whole lot more interesting, even if all he did was look. One guy was all he could wrap his mind around at a time, and he didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of Drew.

  It showed him just how full of possibility the universe was, if he just opened his eyes. Speaking of, Drew was incredibly understanding. This was Brad’s first serious relationship, but he had enough experience to appreciate Drew’s patience and the fact that he didn’t roll his eyes at Brad’s struggles to come to terms with things. He still struggled when he thought of himself as gay or even bi. That was just going to take time.

  Brad repositioned the ladder, but halfway back up, his cell phone rang. “Brad Sundstrom.”

  “It’s Emily.”

  “Hey, Emily! How’s it going?”

  “Have you heard from Drew lately? As in the last ten minutes or so?”

  Brad laughed at her direct manner. Usually Emily observed the social niceties, but when she was in a hurry, they flew right out the window. “No, why?”

  “Because I just got the weirdest call from the city preservation office.”

  Brad shook his head. Those words made no sense. “The what?”

  Emily made an exasperated noise. “You heard me. I… I think we got the bid, Brad.”

  “No way!”

  “Way!” Emily said, her voice exaggerated.

  “All right, I get it. Not in college anymore.”

  “Thank you. Where’s Drew?”

  “No idea, but he should be here any moment to do the walkthrough. One of the two of us will call you back ASAP,” Brad said.

  “So you admit it?” she said archly.

  Two could play at that game, and he had the rep for being as dumb as a block of wood. “Admit what?”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she growled and hung up.

  Brad tried to resume the quality-control check, but his mind kept jumping around. The bid. He pulled his phone back out and hit Drew’s number on autodial. “Come on, answer, you’ve got that stupid douchetooth—Drew!”

  “Hey,” Drew said tersely.

  “Listen, I just got a call from Emily—”

  “I don’t have time to talk,” Drew interrupted. “I’m on the way to the preservation office. If I hurry, I can make it before they close. Can you call Emily and then get to my house and do something about dinner? Something tells me this is going to be a long night.”

  “What about the walkthrough?” Brad objected.

  “Are we on schedule?”

  “Slightly ahead of,” Brad said. “I think someone pads his schedule slightly when he draws up a bid.”

  “Possibly,” Drew said, the sounds of traffic coming through the wireless headset he wore. “We can afford to shove the house off a day. Call Emily—”

  “Got it. See you when you get there,” Brad said, ending the call.

  He scurried through the house, closing windows and doors. Suddenly he was very busy.

  Four days later, on a rare Sunday morning at home, Brad wandered out to the kitchen early. He usually spent weekend nights with Drew, but most of his dirty laundry was at home, and he needed to make it clean laundry. He planned to get it all done and then spend the afternoon with his boyfriend. Keeping rowers’ hours as he did, it would be easy to run a few loads through the washer and dryer and then get out of there.

  Despite the fact that little had changed physically about the Sundstrom house since his mother’s death years before—Randall allowed nothing to change—Brad no longer thought of the house as his home. He had almost enough saved for his own apartment, but even if he were willing to put up with dorm-like accommodations, he didn’t see himself affording the kind of place Drew would set foot in, let alone spend the
night. That mattered to him.

  To his surprise, Randall and Philip were already awake. Randall sipped at a mug of coffee while Philip stared morosely at a bowl of soggy cereal—Lucky Charms, Brad noted as he glanced over Philip’s shoulder.

  Noting his presence in the house that morning, Randall said, “Well, to what do we owe this honor? Did whatever tramp you spent the night with get sick of your snoring?”

  Brad inhaled to retort, but Philip caught his eye, shaking his head fractionally.

  Knocked off balance by that, all Brad said was, “Gosh, Randall, I missed the warm and nurturing environment of home.”

  Randall nodded. “Just so. We’ll have brunch. See to it, Philip.”

  Randall strolled out of the kitchen, leaving the brothers to stare at each other.

  “I’ll start calling around,” Philip sighed.

  “Don’t bother,” Brad said. “I’ll see what I can scare up at the store. Just be prepared to help me when I get back.”

  “What’s it going to take to get out of here?” Philip muttered, and he headed into the kitchen.

  “I’m working on it,” Brad said on his way to his bedroom for shoes, keys, and his wallet, “believe me.”

  Philip grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  “Yeah?” Brad said with annoyance.

  Philip looked like he wanted to say something, but they weren’t the kind of brothers who talked. Closeness and sharing didn’t come easily. “Good,” he said at last. “I’m glad one of us can.”

  Brad looked at Philip for a moment, unsure what to say. “I better get to the store. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  An hour and a half later, the Sundstrom boys had a complete morning meal ready. It wasn’t fancy, but they weren’t chefs. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, and fruit salad assembled from pre-sliced fruit from the deli, plus juice and coffee. If that wasn’t good enough for Randall, he could go find someplace else to eat, Brad thought.

  There was a knock at the back door, and Alex Beltran walked in. “Hey, Boss,” Beltran said. He was Randall’s oldest employee, the first person he’d ever hired. Brad wasn’t sure what to make of him. He’d always been unfailingly polite, but no one who’d worked for Randall Sundstrom that closely for that long had clean hands, and Brad had always thought of Beltran as his dad’s sinister henchman. “The city finally assigned the contract for renovation of the Bayard House.”

  Brad sat still, waiting to see his dad’s response. He remembered well Randall’s dismissive comments earlier in the summer and so had made little mention of his own work on it.

  Randall made a rude noise. “Such a waste of time. Why they don’t just light a match to it and start over with something built totally to the city’s needs I’ll never know.” He grabbed the paper from Beltran and read. Then he looked up at Brad, totally expressionless. “St. Charles Renovations,” Randall said at last. “Isn’t St. Charles the name of that fag you work for, Bradley?”

  Brad felt all eyes on him, Philip’s and Randall’s and Beltran’s. His hands clenched. He stood up, overturning his chair. “Drew’s not—!”

  “Don’t raise your voice at me,” Randall boomed.

  “Drew is not a fag,” Brad said, righting his chair. He threw his napkin down and stalked off. He knew Drew was showing homes, but he also knew that with his key, he could hide out there any time.

  “They should light a match to that wreck,” Randall said, folding the paper and handing it back to Beltran, “and to the fag they gave the contract to.”

  Early October in the Sacramento Valley. It didn’t get any better than that, Drew thought with satisfaction as he ambled along the sidewalk toward to the CalPac field, home of the Titans, the losingest team in the division. But that was okay. That wasn’t why anyone went to the games. They went for the same reason Drew and Brad went. To see and be seen. To enjoy the cool—but not cold—fall air now that the leaves had finally started to turn. To root for the home team, even if they didn’t stand a chance in hell of winning. You didn’t cheer for them because they’d win. You cheered for them because they were yours. Or Brad’s. Drew, along with Nick, had graduated from UC San Diego. Tritons, Titans, they sounded the same, or would after a few beers.

  Drew trailed along in Brad’s wake. That was one advantage to dating a big guy. Crowds were a lot easier to manage with a big moose to clear the way. A mutinous part of his mind whispered that was just about the only benefit, but he squashed the thought as quickly as it had surfaced. Brad had a lot to deal with. Too bad personal growth meant more than a hard-on….

  Still not much progress on that front, Drew thought. He tried to be patient, but when it came down to it, he failed to understand Brad’s hang-ups. All he could do was accept them as long as Brad worked to change them. Drew told himself that a lot these days.

  “It’s a beautiful night to get out, isn’t it?” Drew said once they’d found their seats.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Brad said. He scanned the crowd, eyes darting here and there. “I just can’t shake the feeling it’s our last bit of free time for a long time to come.”

  They’d completed the last of the pre-construction that afternoon. Brad had spent the first week after they received word of their successful bid helping Emily with the detailed plans for the design and build, from the obvious things like furniture and flooring and wall coverings all the way down to the little things like the molds for the glue-and-sawdust egg-and-dart detail for the ceiling moldings in the ballroom, the things that people would only notice if they were wrong.

  It was the first time Drew had really seen Emily in action, and it gave him a whole new appreciation for the designer’s art. But there’d been little time for him to appreciate her work, since he’d been swamped with his own. He had crawled over just about every square inch of the mansion while he addressed the requested changes.

  Despite those requested changes, not that much was being destroyed wholesale, but plenty was being changed. With the list of approved changes in hand, Drew’s subs had been called in for a final walkthrough. Plumbing, gas, and sewer upgrades were all fairly straightforward, improvements in what had been installed originally, really, new pipes for old and bringing the various plumbing systems up to code, things of that nature.

  He’d spent the bulk of his time with the structural engineers. Drew had expected to have to dig into the walls to bring the mansion into compliance with seismic codes, which hadn’t existed back in the day, and the engineers marked out just what needed to be done to keep the mansion from collapsing like the proverbial house of cards during a temblor.

  But Drew’s electric subcontractor had been over the wiring plans, and she’d sprung some nasty surprises for him. None of the wiring could be salvaged, not even the circuits added later in the mansion’s history. Since she couldn’t guarantee it would carry the loads demanded by modern technology, she recommended yanking it all out and putting new copper wiring in. Drew had agreed. He didn’t have much choice, after all, since he knew nothing about electricity except that it could kill him. That was why he hired subs.

  Between the seismic upgrades and the electrical work, the original horsehair plaster and lath didn’t stand a chance. Just how much would need to be replaced was one of the big unknowns in the project. The masons had some idea how much could be saved, but the final tally depended on the damage from, among other things, the structural engineers and electricians.

  If these turned out to be the only cost overruns, then this renovation would go down in the annals of construction. It was par for the course, which struck Drew as a bizarre figure of speech. He’d always hated golf.

  “You’ve got a point, but we can’t let the Bayard House swallow all our time. Professionally, sure. We’ve all got a lot riding on it, but personally?” Drew said. “Definitely not. It’ll make us crazy.”

  “It’s already doing that,” Brad muttered.

  Drew looked at him. “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine,” Brad snapped. At t
he look of hurt on Drew’s face, he softened. “Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “No, it’s not.”

  Drew waited while Brad gathered his thoughts. Around them in the half-filled stands, the crowd erupted with distracted cheers as the teams took the field. They weren’t the only ones using the game as a backdrop for their evening rather than the main event.

  “All your friends keep threatening me,” Brad said at last.

  “They what?” Drew laughed. Then he saw how defeated Brad looked. “What do you mean, threatening you?”

  Brad looked around like he wanted to be anywhere but there and talking about anything else. “They keep telling me they’ll maim or hunt me down if I hurt you.”