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by E. J. Russell

  “What about the other tenants? Soak them for it.”

  Alex gave Landon his get real dude look. “There aren’t any other tenants. That’s part of the problem. The first floor used to be a travel agency, but they went out of business and I haven’t had a chance to renovate it for a new tenant, so it’s not bringing in any money. I want to redo the attic too. Dad started the work before he got sick. If he’d been able to finish—”

  “So finish it now.”

  “Right. In my fuck-load of free time.”

  “Is the first floor livable?”

  “Yeah, if you’re a travel agency.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. I mean does it have a kitchen? A bathroom? Something that could pass for a bedroom?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember my apartment? Cinderblock walls, dude. It has no soul. An ex-travel agency will be an improvement. Although I’d live in a broom closet if it had a decent stove and room for my knife block.” Landon opened a drawer and pulled out a checkbook. “First and last months’ rent and a deposit. That’s standard, right? What’ll it set me back?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Pathetic, Henning. What kind of slumlord are you?” Landon filled out the check with his block printing and scrawled his signature across the bottom. He ripped it out of the book and slid it across the desk to Alex. “Here.”

  Alex glanced at it and pushed it away.

  “Too much.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve priced apartments in Northwest before. This is a lowball offer.”

  “Landon—”

  “You think I’ll be an easy tenant?” He leaned back with a creak of unoiled gimbals. “Wait until you see the renovations I’ll demand on the kitchen.”

  “How am I going to renovate it with you squatting there?”

  “I’m not fussy. Start with the attic. Then I’ll live there while you redo my place. In fact, I can help with both.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling in a way that reminded Alex they weren’t kids anymore. “I can wield a mean power drill.”

  “Not touching that one.”

  “Good move.” He pointed to the check in Alex’s hand. “That’ll help on the tax front, right?”

  “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” Landon squeezed Alex’s knee. “It’s not for you, man, or even for me. This is for your folks.”

  Alex ran one hand across his head, stomach snarled like badly laid wiring. He wanted to refuse, but couldn’t. “Yeah. Sure. Thanks, man.”

  Landon pushed himself out of his chair. “Ah, come here, you big lug.” He pulled Alex into a bro hug, slapping his back. Alex wasn’t short, but at six five, Landon made him feel like a pygmy.

  “I gotta get home. I shouldn’t have left Mom on her own this long anyway. Thanks for the shot and the shot in the arm.”

  “You got it. But I haven’t forgotten about your secret crush. Next time, you’re not getting away until I get the whole sordid story.”

  “Dream on, pal.”

  The next day, Gideon made good on his invitation to take his darling girls out—although given his stupid schedule, they had to do a very late lunch instead of dinner. When he arrived at Hana K’s Bar and Bistro, their usual comfort-meal spot, only Charlie and Toshiko were sitting in the booth.

  He dropped onto the bench next to Charlie and kissed her cheek. Toshiko—Portland’s pocket-sized answer to Seven of Nine—nodded to him. Maybe he should have sat next to her instead. As much as he loved to cuddle with his roomie, having Toshiko’s laser-beam gaze focused on him from across the table secretly terrified him—it was as if she could slice right through his fabulously shiny presentation layer and detect that his soul held no content whatsoever.

  “Where’s Lin? Couldn’t she get away from work?”

  Toshiko tilted her head a fraction of an inch. “She could, but she chose to visit her family instead.”

  Gideon knew the world didn’t revolve around him—really he did—but he couldn’t help feeling a little hurt. It was bad enough that he hardly ever saw Charlie—when he’d helped her land her man, he’d forgotten a cogent point: with someone else consuming her time and emotional CPU cycles, she wouldn’t have time for Gideon anymore. And now Lin was virtually MIA—always at work or at her parents’ house, never home except to sleep.

  “Why hasn’t Lin ever introduced us to her family? We would have met them at the wedding if douche bag Will hadn’t run out on her. Do you suppose it’s because her father is our landlord? Would socializing with your tenants be too awkward?”

  “Perhaps because of you, Gideon.” Toshiko’s matter-of-fact tone betrayed nothing of her actual feelings, but the suggestion lodged in his chest like a mini-javelin.

  “Moi? Nonsense. Everyone loves me. It’s a curse.”

  Toshiko simply observed him without blinking. Too bad she didn’t gamble—she had the best poker face in the known universe.

  He shook his bangs out of his eyes and lifted his chin. “I refuse to believe that our darling girl could have been produced by a homophobic family, if that’s what you’re implying. But if that’s the case, we should double our efforts to keep her in our little circle instead.”

  “As always, you are too quick to judge. I’m not referring to your sexual orientation. But you are not a restful person. One must be of the correct temperament and in the proper mood to withstand the experience.”

  Gideon stared at her. “I’m someone that has to be withstood? God, how mortifying.”

  “Never mind that.” Charlie jiggled his elbow. “Why in the world did HouseMatters cancel your project? Did they go with another designer?”

  “No. They decided to postpone. In fact, all of my potential clients have decided to postpone. It’s like an anti-upgrade epidemic.”

  “But that’s good, right? At least you know that if they weren’t doing nothing, they’d go with you.”

  He slumped in his seat. “Somehow, ‘Wallace Web Design: Better Than Nothing’ isn’t exactly the branding huzzah I’m going for.”

  Charlie tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Seriously, G. What’s the matter? It’s not only a cancelled project or two. There’s something else.”

  Nothing less than the threat of a three-dollar haircut could force him to confess the depth of his financial worries, especially in front of Toshiko. But if he knew Charlie, she’d keep digging until her data-diva soul was satisfied. Redirect. “Well, there’s this guy . . .”

  Charlie sat up straight, the gleam of an inveterate matchmaker lighting her sherry-colored eyes. “You’ve never moped about a guy before, G. This is a positive step. Tell us all about him.”

  “I met him at the jobsite. He thinks I’m nothing but a menial, which is understandable, since the only time I saw him, I was wearing those vile paisley jeans, thank you very much.” He gathered his tattered attention and focused on Charlie. “You know how devastating a bad first impression can be.” And he’d made more than his share of those in the last thirty-six hours.

  “Don’t get obsessed with the visuals, G. What is it you always tell me? Without content, presentation is nothing but an optical illusion—ones and zeroes conspiring to trick the eye.”

  “Don’t throw my own words back at me, Charles. It’s highly irritating.” He turned in his chair to locate a server and caught sight of a familiar profile near the host’s stand.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god. There he is.” Gideon flounced around to face Charlie, his back toward Jared. “How do I look? How’s my hair? God, I hate this sweater. Why did you let me leave the apartment wearing this sweater?”

  “Calm down. You’re adorable—as usual.”

  Gideon snorted. “Not lately.”

  “Well, trust me, he’s toast, because you’ve got it going on today. Point him out. We have to see the guy that’s got you this flustered.”

  “By the door. The gorgeous, mou
thwatering man next to the vase with the thyroid condition.”

  “There are a number of men in that vicinity.” Toshiko calmly sipped her mineral water. “You should learn to be more precise.”

  Gideon risked a glance over his shoulder. Jared was chatting with the hostess, a slight frown on his face, one elbow propped on her podium, his body one long, elegant curve. Tosh was right—a half-dozen guys were standing in the same general area, including that electrician. Again. Good lord, he really was everywhere. No elegant curves on that guy; he was all planes and angles, from the broad cheekbones and square jaw of his face, to the inverted pyramid of his torso. Never mind him, no matter how hard he is to miss.

  “Hugo Boss jacket. Houndstooth scarf.”

  Charlie peered through the mood lighting and scrunched up her nose. “Ewww. You’re kidding? The guy with the chin toupee?”

  “Shut up. It’s totally hip.”

  “It may be totally hip, but it looks totally stupid.”

  “You’re biased because Daniel’s clean-shaven and has a chin cleft the size of the Columbia Gorge.”

  “Think of it this way, G. What do you suppose he’s trying to hide? Too much chin? Or too little?”

  “Who cares? It’s not as if I can bear his children, so any unfortunate recessive genes can be ignored. Okay, you’re on point. Tell me if he notices.”

  Gideon stood up and tugged the hem of his sweater, wishing the #3399FF turquoise weren’t quite so garish. Hmmm. Jared was standing in a highly inconvenient spot: hemmed in by a pair of ficus trees in a backwater eddy of miscellaneous twentysomethings. Managing a nonchalant flyby would be tricky, but Gideon was the master of casual eye contact.

  He laid out his flight plan. The more floor he covered, the more opportunity for Jared to see that they were in the same league, plus it would allow the guy to scope out his ass, which looked awesome in these jeans. Thank God he hadn’t changed into his work clothes yet, which unfortunately still consisted of those paisley frights.

  First stop—the bar. Not that he intended to drink anything, with his nightly stint in purgatory only a couple of hours away, but wandering the room without a drink in his hand practically screamed desperation.

  “Ryan, my pet. One of your finest martinis. Extra dirty, with two of your roundest, plumpest olives.” Might as well set the mood. Sophisticated with overtones of raunch.

  Now, how to keep Jared in sight without being überobvious? Panning the room oh-so-casually, he flipped his bangs so he could watch from under the fringe. Ah yes—subtlety, thy name is Wallace. He pretended to study the rows of top-shelf liquor while he tracked Jared in the mirror, although the gaze he kept snagging was the electrician’s. Just my luck.

  Ryan returned. “Here you go, G. So dirty it should be banned in several states.”

  “You’re an angel. Keep the change.”

  Gideon held his glass at the ideal angle to show off both his pecs and biceps in his form-fitting sweater. Not that he was especially built, not like Enormo the Electrician, but he was perfectly in proportion, which was just as important. He sauntered toward the ficus lagoon.

  Someone grabbed his elbow. “G. There you are.” Travis. OMG, seriously? Travis jerked his arm again, and Gideon lost his balance and his grip on the drink. He fumbled, and the glass cartwheeled down his body to shatter at his feet.

  Gideon stared at the wet patches spreading over his chest and crotch, a double whammy of discomfort and embarrassment. When he glanced at the spot where Jared had been holding court, it was vacant, but the electrician smirked at him before he turned and left with a take-out bag clutched in one fist.

  God. October-the-sequel just got better every day.

  Geekspeak: Landing Page

  Definition: A web page intended to provoke a specific user interaction, loaded in response to clicking on an ad or search result.

  For the first half of his drive home, Alex replayed the scene in the restaurant in his mind, chuckling every time he got to the expression on Gideon’s face as he’d stared at the giant wet spot on his pants. But once Alex crossed the Sellwood Bridge, his mood took a sudden dive. He’d seen the way Gideon had preened for that asshole Haynes, his gaze skittering away from Alex as if Alex were on par with the potted plants. It was stupid to imagine he’d ever be enough for the guy. Blue-collar ghetto, remember?

  Fuck it. He had more important stuff to deal with: his family.

  He pulled the Charger into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and grabbed the take-out bag. When he walked into the house, he found his mom and sister in the kitchen. His dad wasn’t there, of course. He’d always hated having meals with strangers, and since they were all strangers now, he’d only eat in the den or his room.

  Alex plopped the food on the table. “Here you go. Hana K’s finest salmon spring rolls.”

  His mom smiled at him. “Thank you, honey. That’s very sweet.”

  Lindsay, however, frowned and tugged on a lock of her hair, a nervous twitch she’d picked up in the last year. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Hey. I know how much you like that restaurant, Lin. You bailed on your friends today to hang with Mom and Dad. I appreciate it.”

  “I mean it. You shouldn’t spend money on me. Save it for Daddy. To help him get better.”

  Not gonna happen, baby girl. “It’s a done deal, so you might as well eat ’em as let ’em spoil. You dish out the eats, and I’ll go get Dad settled.”

  Ned sat in his La-Z-Boy in the den, poking at the remote in his hand. “When is Bonanza on? I don’t want to miss this week.”

  Alex ran a hand across his head. Shit. Where the hell was he going to get Bonanza tapes? Ned’s aging library of VCR recordings didn’t include any and, with their latest belt-tightening measures, springing for Netflix or a DVD player was not in the cards. “Sorry, buddy. Pretty sure they pre-empted the show this week. This close to Thanksgiving, they’re playing a lot of holiday specials instead.”

  Ned harrumphed. “Foolishness. Shouldn’t start that nonsense until December, I always say.”

  Alex smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”

  Ned peered up at him. “Did George call?”

  “George. Who’s that?”

  “My supervisor. I should have been on-site by seven thirty.” Ned sat up, his salt-and-pepper hair tufting out on either side of his head. Dad really needs a haircut.

  A pang shot through Alex’s belly. His dad had always been meticulous about his grooming. When Alex was a kid, their biweekly trips to Joe’s Barber Shop had been a treasured ritual. What I wouldn’t give for one more afternoon sitting in the chair under the window, reading Superman comics while Dad trades jokes with Joe. But when he’d hit puberty, he’d turned into an asshole, refusing to go anymore. Joe’s had closed soon afterward, and his mom had taken over hair-trimming duty. Nowadays, they were afraid to use scissors—or any sharp implements—around Ned.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine. You’re never late.”

  “That’s what I mean. If he thinks I’m unreliable, I won’t get those extra shifts.” He pushed himself up and motioned Alex closer. “We’re saving for a down payment on a house, you know.”

  “That right?”

  “My wife and I, we’re ready to start a family. But we need someplace to put the little beggars when we pop them out.” Ned chuckled. “We want six kids.”

  “Six?”

  “Yep. I was an only child, and my wife has just the one sister. We both want a big family.” He scanned the room. “Where’s that phone?”

  “Don’t sweat it. I already called him for you.”

  “Really? Are you on the crew?”

  “Matter of fact, I’m an electrician too. Learned almost everything I know from my dad.”

  “You seem like a good boy.” Ned patted his arm. “I’m sure your father is proud of you.”

  Alex’s chest felt as if it were stuffed with gravel. “I like to think so.”

  He left his father in t
he recliner, chuckling over an I Love Lucy tape, and joined his mother and sister in the kitchen.

  The takeout was still in the bag, damn it. His mom was cradling a cup of coffee and Lindsay was drooped over an open photo album, her blue eyes red-rimmed and her nose tipped with pink. No actual tears were in evidence, thank God. He was useless when his sister cried.

  She looked up at him. “Did you ever give Daddy that tea I brought last time?”

  “I tried. He said it tasted like ditchwater.”

  “But the naturopath down the block swears it improves mental acuity. You should make him drink it. Disguise it. Put it in a beer or something.”

  Ruth patted Lindsay’s hand. “He hasn’t been able to drink beer in months, honey. Not on his meds.”

  “Well, you can’t just do nothing.” Lindsay’s normally soothing voice had developed a harsh edge.

  “Lin,” Alex warned, his attention on his mother’s tightening lips. “Out of line.”

  She gulped. “Fine. We should do something.”

  “We’re doing all we can. You know that.”

  Lindsay’s mouth primmed and her nostrils flared, her classic tell that she was about to dig in her heels and give mules a run for the stubborn crown. But at another muffled chuckle from Ned, she glanced toward the den, stubborn fading into sad, and nodded.

  “Hey, guys. We need to talk.” He grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “You know how the tax bill for the Pettygrove house was kinda big?”

  Lindsay’s blue eyes grew round. “But it’s okay, right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Alex took a sip of the too-hot coffee. “I got someone to rent the first-floor apartment, even though it’s not renovated yet, so we can squeak by a little longer.”

  “The old travel agency?” His mother pushed the creamer across the table to him. “Who would agree to live there?”

  “Landon.”

  “Really?” Lindsay perked up. “He’ll be a much cooler neighbor than the travel agency.”

  Hmmm. Interesting. Alex exchanged a glance with his mother and doctored his coffee with a dollop of milk. “Yeah. You should definitely stop by when he moves in. Invite him up to meet your roommates. Maybe ask him to dinner.”