Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online Page A

thought that Deacon's ex-girlfriend (and best friend's wife) was a very, very wise woman.
“Hello, Precious,” Jeff muttered. God, he missed Benny. Parry Angel's equally tiny mother would have done this for him too—and probably sooner, because she had no sense of propriety either.
“Hello, Jeffy. You gonna live?”
Jeff whimpered. He wasn't proud. “Reluctantly.”
Amy didn't laugh. Instead, she went straight to the heart of the matter, her voice coming from between the hollow of Jeff's arms and chest. “You change that to „with enthusiasm' immediately, you understand?” She pulled back and glared at him and met eyes with Crick. Jeff's own expression was amused, but to his surprise, Crick's was not.
Crick's brown eyes, his best feature in what was really an angular, barely pretty face, were intent on Jeff, and Jeff shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, sugar—I do everything enthusiastically, right? Even fall apart like a big gay baby!”
He tried a giggle on the two of them, and they didn't seem to be buying it.
“This is gonna suck worse than a vacuum cleaner to the balls,” Crick said, his customary tact, diplomacy, and word-smithing fully apparent. “Amy's right—it shouldn't be here. If this kid's family is as freaked out about the gay thing as you say they are, this will be like, enemy camp to him or something. Meet him somewhere close, because the family is going to want to be close by, but make it public. Make him feel safe, okay?”
At that moment Andrew came in, looking at the couch with longsuffering eyes. Andrew was Deacon's hired man and another member of the family. Crick had saved his life, if not his leg, when they'd been overseas, and Andrew had found himself on Deacon's door after his discharge. At this point, the family wouldn't let him go if he tried to leave.
“I'm sleeping on the Barcalounger again tonight, aren't I?” he asked, trying to seem put-upon, and Jeff grinned at him tiredly.
“Well, since I can't convert you, big guy, and you're not big on the group snuggle, I'm thinking you should at least settle there for the short term.”
Andrew's big, dark hand came out and ruffled Jeff's hair, in spite of the careful layering of hair-care products that Jeff used to keep it from cowlicking like a herd of heifers with dry-mouth. “Okay, but since the girls are in bed, can we watch something grown-up?”
Jeff perked up. “How about Sense and Sensibility ?”
“Yes!” Amy crowed, practically bouncing in his lap with excitement. She picked up the remote on the coffee table and started scrolling through the Netflix queue on the television screen. “Jon hates it, I could never convert Benny to Jane Austen, and I'm dying to see it again.”
Crick stood up so fast the couch almost tilted. “I'm going to go listen to Deacon sing,” he muttered.
“For two hours?” Jeff managed to twinkle at him, and Crick rolled his eyes.
“At least until the hot guy courting Kate Winslet shows up,” Crick replied dryly, and Amy tittered.
“I take it you've tried to convert Crick,” Jeff said dryly, and Amy snuggled back in his arms. Her husband, Jon, was planning to pick her and the baby up in about an hour, but Jeff supposed that one of the plusses of having a gay ex-boyfriend—and a whole lot of gay friends period—was that a girl was never short a snuggle buddy. Jeff could live with that tonight, even if it meant no knitting was going to get done, period, the end.
    F IFTEEN minutes later, Deacon and Crick came out of the girls' bedroom. Deacon heaved a mighty sigh and then settled down on one of the stuffed chairs to watch. Crick huffed, Deacon rolled his eyes and came to the couch to sit with him, and Jeff had to smile. Deacon would re-set the stars in their course for Crick. Changing his seat was not such a big deal. They all continued to watch, Jeff and Amy in complete absorption, until Deacon sighed again, made Crick give him the remote, and then paused the movie.
    “The diner,” Deacon said into