Chapter 6-Getting it Together
“Rob,” Patrick said, making his brother-in-law look up.
“Yeah?” the rocker replied, wondering at the rather odd expression on Patrick’s face.
“I just wanted you to know – your neighbor is definitely gay.”
Rob’s jaw dropped a bit as he stared at Patrick. “How the hell do you know that?!” he demanded incredulously.
His brother-in-law merely lifted a single brow rather superciliously. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” he pointed out.
The rocker slowly closed his mouth. Patrick was a successful private investigator, so successful, in fact, that he tended to only work for those who could afford his steep fees. If he wanted to know something, he found it out. “Well,” he said slowly. “That’s interesting to know. But it doesn’t really change the fact that he dislikes me,” he pointed out.
Patrick snorted. “You could charm the birds from the trees when you set your mind to it, Rob,” he noted dryly. “And now that you have a truce with him, you have a good excuse to become his ‘friend’. I’d suggest something that would help him relax – either around you, or just in general. He’s so tight that it’s a wonder his head doesn’t explode. He could use some fun,” Patrick said shrewdly.
Rob wanted to laugh. Patrick was a cunning creature. It was a good thing that Anne was also as sharp as a straight razor, or the poor woman would have lived a life in which she’d have been led around by the nose. “Sounds good,” he remarked. “I can think of a few things I can do with him to make him relax.”
His eyes took on a gleam that made Patrick hold up a warning hand. “Don’t move too fast, Rob,” he counseled his brother-in-law. “You’ll scare the shit out of him. He’s such a closet case that I doubt that he’s ever had a sexual encounter with anyone, either male or female.”
Stunned silence as Rob gaped at him. “You’re saying…that he’s a…virgin?” he hissed in total disbelief.
Patrick smiled wryly. “They do still exist nowadays, you know,” he pointed out. “Just because they’re a rare beast doesn’t mean that they’ve died out altogether. Someone like Mr. Merriweather, with his type of personality, would not be into casual sex. At all. So be careful, Rob. Treat him like he’s made of spun glass if you don’t want to frighten him off completely.”
The rocker took a deep breath. “Okay. Kinda weird, but okay. So a ‘hands off’ policy, then. Thanks, Patrick,” he added.
“You’re welcome. But remember that I’m not just doing this for you, Rob. He seems like a nice person. So if you hurt him, I’m afraid that we will have to have words,” he said warningly.
The musician’s eyebrows shot up. Patrick didn’t make idle threats. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, meaning it.
Patrick nodded. “Very well. Let’s get back to work, then,” he said.
The two of them bent back over the pile, only stopping when Jeff remerged from the house with bottles of water for everyone. He carried one over to Thomas first, making the accountant thank him politely. It was hot outside today; they all gulped the water down gratefully. It took Rob, Patrick and Jeff about two hours to finish cleaning up the heap. Thomas cut all of the bushes and hedges in the backyard, then began to pull weeds. Patrick glanced over at him occasionally, noting that he seemed pale and tired. Finally he nudged Rob with his elbow. “Take him inside,” he said very softly to his brother-in-law. “Make him sit down.”
Rob nodded, moving swiftly toward his neighbor. “Hey, Thomas? Why don’t you come inside? Get a drink of water and sit down.” He urged the other man.
Thomas blinked up at him from under that ridiculous hat. “That’s all right, I can keep working,” he said quietly.
“No you can’t, not on my watch,” Rob said firmly. “You’re getting pale. I don’t want to be responsible for hauling you off to the hospital. Come on, let’s go,” he coaxed Thomas to his feet with a hand on his elbow.
The accountant felt his mouth go dry at the firm, warm grip on the bare flesh of his elbow. He shivered a bit, hoping that Rob couldn’t feel the movement under his hand. The rocker began to guide him inside, and he went without protest. He couldn’t have at the moment even if he’d wanted to. His brain felt addled. Rob steered him into the house, taking him into the living room down a narrow hallway. “Wow, this place looks great,” he heard Rob breathe next to him. The living room was spotless, the furniture gleaming with polish. “My sister scares me,” he added ruefully.
Thomas looked at him sideways. “Why?” he asked softly.
Rob laughed, a breath of sound. “Laurie is like Martha Stewart on steroids. She’s a neat freak to the max.”
“Oh,” Thomas replied. “You don’t like neat people?” he asked, thinking of his own spotlessly clean house.
“No, it’s not that,” Rob said as he guided Thomas to the couch and urged him to sit down on it. “It’s not that she’s so clean - although I’m such a slob myself that it’s not funny – it’s the way she goes about it. She turns into Hitler with a scrub brush when she’s on a roll. Poor Jeff. Although something tells me that he kinda likes the way she is, which is ever scarier.”
Before Thomas could respond to this, a pretty woman came to the archway that led into the kitchen. “Hey, Rob. Who’s this?” she asked curiously, looking at the accountant.
“Hey, sis, this is Thomas Merriweather. He’s the guy who lives next door to me in the cream house with the green trim. He offered to come over and help us out, but I made him come in and sit down because he had a bump on his head from a fall. I don’t want to overwork him.”
“Oh, I see.” She replied with a smile for Thomas. “Hello, Mr. Merriweather. I’m Anne Carleton-Voorhees, Rob’s sister. I know that’s a mouthful,” she continued ruefully with a shrug. “But my husband Patrick insisted. Said I shouldn’t subsume my life into his completely. As if I would,” she said with genial scorn. “Name or no name. Anyway, does your head hurt? Would you like some ibuprofen or something? I’ll get it for you while you sit there and rest.”
Thomas felt a bit bewildered by her swift, lively way of speaking. Rob laughed at her. “Give him time to answer, sis. Thomas, does your head hurt?” he asked the accountant again, but this time more slowly.
“Yes, a bit,” the accountant admitted, feeling the throb at the back of his skull.
“Ibuprofen it is, then,” Anne remarked, departing back into the kitchen. “Fortunately I have some in my purse, since who knows if Rob has any in this sty anywhere. Oh, by the way, brother dear – did you know there was an irate cat in your basement? Laurie screamed like a fire alarm when she opened the door, and the cat threw itself on her with all claws bared.”
“Oops,” Rob muttered. “I was hoping that nobody would try to go into the basement.”
“Why did you have a cat in your basement?” Thomas asked in bewilderment.
Rob chuckled. “Oh, that’s your fault. Remember the mice you let loose in here?” he was rather amused(and also somewhat turned on) to see a blush stain the other man’s cheeks at this mention of one of his pranks. “I got a cat from the animal shelter to combat the invasion. Her name is Aretha – and I hope she didn’t run away when Laurie screamed at her, since I was just getting to like her.”
“Ah,” Thomas didn’t know what else to say, since he was feeling rather embarrassed. But just then, Anne came back into the room with a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen in her hands.
“Here we are,” she said cheerfully. She carried them over to the couch and handed both to Thomas.
“Where’s Laurie, anyway?” Rob asked, looking around ostentatiously. It was rare for his oldest sibling not to be in the thick of things.
Anne grimaced. “She’s tackling your bedroom. Geez, I actually almost feel sorry for her this time. I wouldn’t even go in there. Not without a haz-mat suit, anyway. How can you sleep in there, Rob?”
“I just don’t look,” he replied promptly, making her sigh.
“Well, you’d better start looking, pal, because after we worked our asses off getting this place in shape, if you let it go to hell again I will kick your butt. You got that?” she said threateningly.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, sure, I hear you. And I will do better, sis, I promise,” he said, making an x over his heart.
“Good. We’re going to be eating here in a bit. Laurie packed a hamper, big shocker. You will stay and eat with us, won’t you, Mr. Merriweather?” she asked Thomas.
He looked startled for a moment, since they hadn’t been paying any attention to him for the last few minutes. “Err…” he began uncertainly.
Rob gently slugged him on the arm, startling him further. “Come on, stay,” he urged the accountant. “You did the work, reap the rewards. Whatever else you can say about her, Laurie is a great cook. You look like you could use a few good meals,” he added, eyeing Thomas’s slim frame thoughtfully.
Thomas felt himself turning rather red again, but he said aloud: “I will stay. Thank you for having me.”
Rob didn’t respond, since anything he would have said would have been profane. He was thinking bad, bad thoughts about ‘having’ Thomas. But Anne saved his bacon by saying: “That’s great. The more, the merrier. I’ll just go and tell the boys to come in. They must be starving by now, especially Patrick. I swear, that man eats enough in one meal to feed an entire starving African village for a day.”
She departed, leaving the two men alone in the living room. Thomas was gripping the now half-empty glass of water tightly, staring down into it as though all the secrets of the universe existed in the liquid. Rob glanced at his bent head, wondering what the accountant was thinking. The solemn face under the hat fascinated him. What deep thoughts were running through the man’s head? He wanted to open Thomas’s skull and poke around in there. He was sure that there were all kinds of interesting and curious things inside.
Out in the backyard Anne approached the still toiling men, who were now running weed-whackers over the jungle of overgrown grass with enthusiasm. She lifted a hand to Patrick, who saw her and killed his machine. “Hey, Anne, what is it?” he asked her.
“Lunch time if you guys are hungry,” she said to them. “If you come in and get washed up, that is. You’re both grubby,” she said, looking the men over.
Jeff nodded. “I’ll go inside and wash up,” he said obediently, which made her lips twitch a bit as he walked past her.
Patrick’s eyes were gleaming as he held in his own laughter. “Laurie has him well trained,” he commented softly, as the door closed behind Jeff.
Anne folded her arms over her breasts and gave him a gimlet stare. “That’s terrible thing to say about your sister-in-law,” she noted.
He snorted. “As if you don’t think the same way,” he responded dryly.
Anne contrived to look virtuous. “Of course I don’t,” she said.
He roared with laughter. “Sure, sure,” he said when he could speak again.
She eyed him a bit, but then asked: “What’s the deal with that neighbor guy, Patrick? Rob was acting like he was a woman in need of succor. Did something happen?”
He grinned at her perceptiveness. It was one of the reasons that he loved her so much. “Well,” he replied as he strolled toward her. “It’s a long story – which I will tell you for a price.”
“What price?” she demanded suspiciously.
He reached out and grabbed her, making her squeal a bit as his dirty hands came in contact with her shirt. “A kiss from the fair maiden,” he murmured, which caused her to chuckle just before his mouth covered hers.
Long minutes passed in near silence, then she finally pulled away and stood there breathing heavily for a moment. “Now spill it,” she husked. “Tell me all.”
“I can’t quite tell you all,” he replied promptly. “There’s something I promised not to tell you. But I know you can figure it out on your own,” he added. “So, here goes.”
He gave her a quick but thorough run-down of the series of events leading up to today. She listened with interest, exclaiming in all of the right places, and laughing outright at the clever pranks that Thomas had pulled on Rob. He even admitted that her brother was more than a bit attracted to his neighbor. When he was done, she grinned at him. “This is great news! He sounds like just the right person to keep Rob in line. Thank God my brother has always been bisexual. And he’s obviously gay,” she said in satisfaction.
He smirked at her. “What?” she asked.
“That was what I promised not to tell you. I’m SO shocked that you knew that on sight about him.”
She shrugged. “It’s really obvious,” she noted.
“Well, please don’t say anything about it to him, or he’ll think that I lied and told you. If we’re going to get the two of them together, we need to be careful.”
Anne eyed him. “And what makes you think that I want to help them get together?”
“I can’t imagine what gave me that idea,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.
She snorted. “Awful man. Why did I marry you again?”
“Charm? Looks? Personality? Wit? A combination of all of those and more?” he said to the air.
She tapped her lip with one finger. “No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t any of those things,” she replied drolly.
Patrick mock-frowned at her. “Woman, you are hard on a man’s self-esteem,” he growled.
“Your self-esteem can take it,” she said teasingly. “Since I’ve never met a man with a bigger one…
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“Rob,” Patrick said, making his brother-in-law look up.
“Yeah?” the rocker replied, wondering at the rather odd expression on Patrick’s face.
“I just wanted you to know – your neighbor is definitely gay.”
Rob’s jaw dropped a bit as he stared at Patrick. “How the hell do you know that?!” he demanded incredulously.
His brother-in-law merely lifted a single brow rather superciliously. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” he pointed out.
The rocker slowly closed his mouth. Patrick was a successful private investigator, so successful, in fact, that he tended to only work for those who could afford his steep fees. If he wanted to know something, he found it out. “Well,” he said slowly. “That’s interesting to know. But it doesn’t really change the fact that he dislikes me,” he pointed out.
Patrick snorted. “You could charm the birds from the trees when you set your mind to it, Rob,” he noted dryly. “And now that you have a truce with him, you have a good excuse to become his ‘friend’. I’d suggest something that would help him relax – either around you, or just in general. He’s so tight that it’s a wonder his head doesn’t explode. He could use some fun,” Patrick said shrewdly.
Rob wanted to laugh. Patrick was a cunning creature. It was a good thing that Anne was also as sharp as a straight razor, or the poor woman would have lived a life in which she’d have been led around by the nose. “Sounds good,” he remarked. “I can think of a few things I can do with him to make him relax.”
His eyes took on a gleam that made Patrick hold up a warning hand. “Don’t move too fast, Rob,” he counseled his brother-in-law. “You’ll scare the shit out of him. He’s such a closet case that I doubt that he’s ever had a sexual encounter with anyone, either male or female.”
Stunned silence as Rob gaped at him. “You’re saying…that he’s a…virgin?” he hissed in total disbelief.
Patrick smiled wryly. “They do still exist nowadays, you know,” he pointed out. “Just because they’re a rare beast doesn’t mean that they’ve died out altogether. Someone like Mr. Merriweather, with his type of personality, would not be into casual sex. At all. So be careful, Rob. Treat him like he’s made of spun glass if you don’t want to frighten him off completely.”
The rocker took a deep breath. “Okay. Kinda weird, but okay. So a ‘hands off’ policy, then. Thanks, Patrick,” he added.
“You’re welcome. But remember that I’m not just doing this for you, Rob. He seems like a nice person. So if you hurt him, I’m afraid that we will have to have words,” he said warningly.
The musician’s eyebrows shot up. Patrick didn’t make idle threats. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, meaning it.
Patrick nodded. “Very well. Let’s get back to work, then,” he said.
The two of them bent back over the pile, only stopping when Jeff remerged from the house with bottles of water for everyone. He carried one over to Thomas first, making the accountant thank him politely. It was hot outside today; they all gulped the water down gratefully. It took Rob, Patrick and Jeff about two hours to finish cleaning up the heap. Thomas cut all of the bushes and hedges in the backyard, then began to pull weeds. Patrick glanced over at him occasionally, noting that he seemed pale and tired. Finally he nudged Rob with his elbow. “Take him inside,” he said very softly to his brother-in-law. “Make him sit down.”
Rob nodded, moving swiftly toward his neighbor. “Hey, Thomas? Why don’t you come inside? Get a drink of water and sit down.” He urged the other man.
Thomas blinked up at him from under that ridiculous hat. “That’s all right, I can keep working,” he said quietly.
“No you can’t, not on my watch,” Rob said firmly. “You’re getting pale. I don’t want to be responsible for hauling you off to the hospital. Come on, let’s go,” he coaxed Thomas to his feet with a hand on his elbow.
The accountant felt his mouth go dry at the firm, warm grip on the bare flesh of his elbow. He shivered a bit, hoping that Rob couldn’t feel the movement under his hand. The rocker began to guide him inside, and he went without protest. He couldn’t have at the moment even if he’d wanted to. His brain felt addled. Rob steered him into the house, taking him into the living room down a narrow hallway. “Wow, this place looks great,” he heard Rob breathe next to him. The living room was spotless, the furniture gleaming with polish. “My sister scares me,” he added ruefully.
Thomas looked at him sideways. “Why?” he asked softly.
Rob laughed, a breath of sound. “Laurie is like Martha Stewart on steroids. She’s a neat freak to the max.”
“Oh,” Thomas replied. “You don’t like neat people?” he asked, thinking of his own spotlessly clean house.
“No, it’s not that,” Rob said as he guided Thomas to the couch and urged him to sit down on it. “It’s not that she’s so clean - although I’m such a slob myself that it’s not funny – it’s the way she goes about it. She turns into Hitler with a scrub brush when she’s on a roll. Poor Jeff. Although something tells me that he kinda likes the way she is, which is ever scarier.”
Before Thomas could respond to this, a pretty woman came to the archway that led into the kitchen. “Hey, Rob. Who’s this?” she asked curiously, looking at the accountant.
“Hey, sis, this is Thomas Merriweather. He’s the guy who lives next door to me in the cream house with the green trim. He offered to come over and help us out, but I made him come in and sit down because he had a bump on his head from a fall. I don’t want to overwork him.”
“Oh, I see.” She replied with a smile for Thomas. “Hello, Mr. Merriweather. I’m Anne Carleton-Voorhees, Rob’s sister. I know that’s a mouthful,” she continued ruefully with a shrug. “But my husband Patrick insisted. Said I shouldn’t subsume my life into his completely. As if I would,” she said with genial scorn. “Name or no name. Anyway, does your head hurt? Would you like some ibuprofen or something? I’ll get it for you while you sit there and rest.”
Thomas felt a bit bewildered by her swift, lively way of speaking. Rob laughed at her. “Give him time to answer, sis. Thomas, does your head hurt?” he asked the accountant again, but this time more slowly.
“Yes, a bit,” the accountant admitted, feeling the throb at the back of his skull.
“Ibuprofen it is, then,” Anne remarked, departing back into the kitchen. “Fortunately I have some in my purse, since who knows if Rob has any in this sty anywhere. Oh, by the way, brother dear – did you know there was an irate cat in your basement? Laurie screamed like a fire alarm when she opened the door, and the cat threw itself on her with all claws bared.”
“Oops,” Rob muttered. “I was hoping that nobody would try to go into the basement.”
“Why did you have a cat in your basement?” Thomas asked in bewilderment.
Rob chuckled. “Oh, that’s your fault. Remember the mice you let loose in here?” he was rather amused(and also somewhat turned on) to see a blush stain the other man’s cheeks at this mention of one of his pranks. “I got a cat from the animal shelter to combat the invasion. Her name is Aretha – and I hope she didn’t run away when Laurie screamed at her, since I was just getting to like her.”
“Ah,” Thomas didn’t know what else to say, since he was feeling rather embarrassed. But just then, Anne came back into the room with a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen in her hands.
“Here we are,” she said cheerfully. She carried them over to the couch and handed both to Thomas.
“Where’s Laurie, anyway?” Rob asked, looking around ostentatiously. It was rare for his oldest sibling not to be in the thick of things.
Anne grimaced. “She’s tackling your bedroom. Geez, I actually almost feel sorry for her this time. I wouldn’t even go in there. Not without a haz-mat suit, anyway. How can you sleep in there, Rob?”
“I just don’t look,” he replied promptly, making her sigh.
“Well, you’d better start looking, pal, because after we worked our asses off getting this place in shape, if you let it go to hell again I will kick your butt. You got that?” she said threateningly.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, sure, I hear you. And I will do better, sis, I promise,” he said, making an x over his heart.
“Good. We’re going to be eating here in a bit. Laurie packed a hamper, big shocker. You will stay and eat with us, won’t you, Mr. Merriweather?” she asked Thomas.
He looked startled for a moment, since they hadn’t been paying any attention to him for the last few minutes. “Err…” he began uncertainly.
Rob gently slugged him on the arm, startling him further. “Come on, stay,” he urged the accountant. “You did the work, reap the rewards. Whatever else you can say about her, Laurie is a great cook. You look like you could use a few good meals,” he added, eyeing Thomas’s slim frame thoughtfully.
Thomas felt himself turning rather red again, but he said aloud: “I will stay. Thank you for having me.”
Rob didn’t respond, since anything he would have said would have been profane. He was thinking bad, bad thoughts about ‘having’ Thomas. But Anne saved his bacon by saying: “That’s great. The more, the merrier. I’ll just go and tell the boys to come in. They must be starving by now, especially Patrick. I swear, that man eats enough in one meal to feed an entire starving African village for a day.”
She departed, leaving the two men alone in the living room. Thomas was gripping the now half-empty glass of water tightly, staring down into it as though all the secrets of the universe existed in the liquid. Rob glanced at his bent head, wondering what the accountant was thinking. The solemn face under the hat fascinated him. What deep thoughts were running through the man’s head? He wanted to open Thomas’s skull and poke around in there. He was sure that there were all kinds of interesting and curious things inside.
Out in the backyard Anne approached the still toiling men, who were now running weed-whackers over the jungle of overgrown grass with enthusiasm. She lifted a hand to Patrick, who saw her and killed his machine. “Hey, Anne, what is it?” he asked her.
“Lunch time if you guys are hungry,” she said to them. “If you come in and get washed up, that is. You’re both grubby,” she said, looking the men over.
Jeff nodded. “I’ll go inside and wash up,” he said obediently, which made her lips twitch a bit as he walked past her.
Patrick’s eyes were gleaming as he held in his own laughter. “Laurie has him well trained,” he commented softly, as the door closed behind Jeff.
Anne folded her arms over her breasts and gave him a gimlet stare. “That’s terrible thing to say about your sister-in-law,” she noted.
He snorted. “As if you don’t think the same way,” he responded dryly.
Anne contrived to look virtuous. “Of course I don’t,” she said.
He roared with laughter. “Sure, sure,” he said when he could speak again.
She eyed him a bit, but then asked: “What’s the deal with that neighbor guy, Patrick? Rob was acting like he was a woman in need of succor. Did something happen?”
He grinned at her perceptiveness. It was one of the reasons that he loved her so much. “Well,” he replied as he strolled toward her. “It’s a long story – which I will tell you for a price.”
“What price?” she demanded suspiciously.
He reached out and grabbed her, making her squeal a bit as his dirty hands came in contact with her shirt. “A kiss from the fair maiden,” he murmured, which caused her to chuckle just before his mouth covered hers.
Long minutes passed in near silence, then she finally pulled away and stood there breathing heavily for a moment. “Now spill it,” she husked. “Tell me all.”
“I can’t quite tell you all,” he replied promptly. “There’s something I promised not to tell you. But I know you can figure it out on your own,” he added. “So, here goes.”
He gave her a quick but thorough run-down of the series of events leading up to today. She listened with interest, exclaiming in all of the right places, and laughing outright at the clever pranks that Thomas had pulled on Rob. He even admitted that her brother was more than a bit attracted to his neighbor. When he was done, she grinned at him. “This is great news! He sounds like just the right person to keep Rob in line. Thank God my brother has always been bisexual. And he’s obviously gay,” she said in satisfaction.
He smirked at her. “What?” she asked.
“That was what I promised not to tell you. I’m SO shocked that you knew that on sight about him.”
She shrugged. “It’s really obvious,” she noted.
“Well, please don’t say anything about it to him, or he’ll think that I lied and told you. If we’re going to get the two of them together, we need to be careful.”
Anne eyed him. “And what makes you think that I want to help them get together?”
“I can’t imagine what gave me that idea,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.
She snorted. “Awful man. Why did I marry you again?”
“Charm? Looks? Personality? Wit? A combination of all of those and more?” he said to the air.
She tapped her lip with one finger. “No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t any of those things,” she replied drolly.
Patrick mock-frowned at her. “Woman, you are hard on a man’s self-esteem,” he growled.
“Your self-esteem can take it,” she said teasingly. “Since I’ve never met a man with a bigger one…
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