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  Turning The Page

  A Gay Contemporary

  Romance

  Sam Elswit

  © 2017 Sam Elswit - All rights reserved

  Disclaimer

  Information in this book shall not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. However, reviewers may quote brief passage in reviews. This book is copyright protected. This is for your personal use only and shall not be amend, distribute, sold on your behalf without the consent of author. Legal actions will be pursued if this is breached.

  This work is a fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader's pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Bonus Chapters

  CHAPTER ONE

  As a much younger man, Alan Linton had once had to move back into his parents' house. He remembered how embarrassed he felt, carting his belongings back into his childhood home, bitterly cursing the piano bar that had laid him off from his first ever job out of music college. It was only a couple months in his parents' basement before Alan got a new job and was able to get out on his own again, and he vowed to himself that he would never do that again.

  He was right, he never did move back into his parents' house, but now he found himself facing an equally (if not more) humiliating situation.

  Alan Linton was moving in with his daughter.

  It was only temporary, they had both agreed vehemently upon that, but Wendy, his daughter, knew as well as Alan did that it could be a while before Alan was ready to move out on his own. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as he approached her grungy apartment building, Alan had a sinking feeling that this wasn't going to be the father-daughter camp experience they had both envisioned. He was in a college neighborhood and he was the oldest person by about thirty years in a five-mile radius. Kids his daughter's age milled to and fro, looking so young and clueless, and Alan couldn't help but be a little bit envious of their lack of troubles. The worst any of them had to worry about was a term paper or a final exam. None of them, he was sure, had recently been thrown out of their own home and sent away with nowhere to go. None of them knew what it felt like to pursue your dreams and have them all come crashing down upon your head and realize that it was a fool's errand to even try. They had no idea how many of them and their peers would wind up back in college or at some vocational technical school trying to learn a marketable skill after their philosophy degree got them-- that's right-- back in their parents' house.

  Nobody likes a bitter old man, a voice inside Alan's head reminded him.

  I'm not that old, he countered. It was true, Alan was only forty-nine years old, and had been told by his daughter that he was what the kids called a "silver fox." He was handsome and had steely, salt-and-pepper gray hair, he was slim and trim, always conscientious about taking care of himself, and although he had no material wealth to speak of, he did have an education, and a job as a paralegal, and good references mostly, and really, well, things weren't that bad, right?

  The stairwell in Wendy's building smelled like stale cigarettes. There was no elevator and she lived on the fourth floor, and despite being in good shape, Alan was huffing and puffing a little when he got to the top, and the stale air made him cough a little. He recovered himself for a moment before knocking on Wendy's door, reminding himself that it was now time to be a good father, and leave the broken and dejected man he really felt like, outside on the mat.

  "Daddy!" cried Wendy. She threw her arms around his neck, and he hugged her, kissing her half a dozen times in her hair and on her cheek. Yes, he thought, now I know everything's going to be fine.

  "Hiya, sweet pea," Alan said softly, following Wendy inside and shutting the door behind himself. "Thanks again for letting me crash here for a while. It shouldn't take long for me to find an apartment."

  "You can stay here as long as you like, Daddy." Wendy gestured grandly at her tiny living room. Despite the building being old and poorly maintained, his beloved only daughter had made her little place as cozy and comfortable as could be. She had plants everywhere, healthy and thriving and bursting out of their pots, and clean-looking beige throw rugs all over the battered hardwood floors. The sun streamed in through the ancient, yellowing venetian blinds, giving everything a kind of cozy, warm glow. Wendy had set up a little makeshift bed on the couch, a couple of pillows and blankets arranged just so. Alan smiled to himself.

  "Thanks, hun. You want to go out to dinner tonight? My treat."

  "Yes!"

  "Are you hungry now?"

  "Yeah, let's go to the Chinese place up the street. I don't know what they do to their food, but it's incredible. I have dreams about that shit-- er, stuff." Wendy smiled sheepishly, and Alan tousled her hair.

  "Hey, you're twenty-three now, I guess you're old enough to cuss in front of your old man." Jesus, where did that time go?

  "It still feels weird," she said with a shrug. "Anyway, let me get my jacket."

  Alan watched her bounce off back to her bedroom. Wendy was a beautiful girl with bright red hair just like her mother, a full figure, and an innocent, freckled face. She was studying social work, to put her boundless compassion and huge, loving heart to good use in the world, and Alan was so proud of her sometimes that he couldn't breathe. He reflected how it felt when she was born, it felt like just yesterday that he had held her in his hands, so small and strange, like a squirming and screaming little red bean, and here she was all of a sudden a very grown-up young lady who no longer really needed her Daddy like she used to. It felt good to do things for her, when he could, like take her out to dinner, as he put his arm around her shoulders and they went into the hallway, Alan thought he would suffocate with his love for her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Lintons did not Talk About Things.

  Whenever anything was wrong, it was dealt with swiftly, quietly, and efficiently, and promptly swept under the rug. Between Alan and his soon-to-be-ex wife, Kitty, there had never been room for feelings or opinions, just matters of fact. They had married because Kitty thought Alan was handsome, and Alan knew that getting married was what he was supposed to do. It never occurred to him that he could just not get married, but in later years, he realized that part of him had withered and slowly died over the years upon getting married to Kitty. She had ruled the Linton household with an iron fist and strict censorship of anything even remotely unpleasant or overly emotional. Secretly, Alan had tried to foster a healthier attitude towards feelings in his daughter. He reckoned he had been partially successful, but Wendy didn't like to talk about things, either. Which was why it was such a shock when she started asking questions about the divorce over dinner.

  "Why'd Mom throw you out so suddenly?" Wendy asked, poking at her cashew chicken. After all the raving she did about how good the food was, she wasn't eating much.

  "Eh, well, it's complicated," Alan said evasively.

  "I don't even know why you guys are separating," Wendy complained, fixing her father with wide, sad brown eyes. "Why won't you tell me?"

  Alan pressed his lips together tight. Kitty was divorcing him for a myriad reasons. Their marriage had never been happy, but now that Wendy was out of the house, there was no reason to stay together. They had tried half-heartedly to attend couple's counseling, but neither of them were invested in the marriage. Kitty had been seeing other men on
the side for years, and Alan had known all about it, and he had never cared about it. Not even a tiny bit. He knew he was supposed to care, but Kitty felt more like a business partner than an intimate, loving partner. Kitty wanted to be free to marry someone she actually loved. And then there was the gay porn she'd found on Alan's computer, and, well... he wasn't about to admit all that to his sweet little girl, was he? But he couldn't very well lie to her, either. He sighed.

  "We just... have... issues, babe. Personal issues. I just don't feel comfortable airing our dirty laundry with you." Alan pushed his fried rice around on the plate. He hadn't much of an appetite either. "You know it's not your fault, right?"

  "Of course not," Wendy scoffed. "I haven't been home in almost two years. I didn't think it had anything to do with me. I just wish I knew what was going on. I love you guys, you're my parents."

  "We love you too, baby. When it's not so fresh and raw, you know... I might be able to tell you more. Sometime in the future. But not now. It still... hurts." It felt dishonest to say "it still hurts" because... well, it didn't. It was embarrassing to be thrown out of his own home, and it hurt that Kitty would reject him so vehemently over something so trivial as porn. But, Alan had never been very emotionally invested in the marriage. In a way, he was actually relieved. Everything felt uncertain, but after just a few hours outside of Kitty's house, it felt like a tremendous weight was being slowly lifted from his shoulders.

  "Hi, can I get you guys anything else? Some more tea? Dessert menus?" The waiter was a beautiful young man with flyaway, bleach-blond hair and a smile that would make anyone weak in the knees. He was also very slim and graceful-looking, he probably looked terrific naked--

  Alan scolded himself for having such thoughts about someone his own daughter's age. Am I becoming a dirty old man? he wondered.

  "Hey, Thomas, how's your shift going?" Wendy beamed at the boy in a way that had to mean she had a crush on him.

  "It's going good, I'm off in an hour," he said scratching his head with the pen. "You coming to film club tonight?"

  "No, I think I'm gonna hang with my dad." Wendy gestured to Alan. "Dad, this is Thomas, he's one of my friends from undergrad."

  Alan met Thomas's eyes and felt the heat rise to his face. For a second, he forgot how to behave when being introduced to someone, captivated by Thomas's twinkling green eyes and impish smile, Alan fumbled with his napkin and had to look away before he could properly speak. "H-hi... hi, nice to meet you."

  "And you, Mr. Linton, I've heard so much about you."

  "Call me Alan, please." Alan smiled at Thomas. Thomas smiled back, making eye contact again, and Alan felt something huge and ticklish tug in his gut. Is it hot in here or is it just me...?

  "Er, okay. Alan. Anyway. Here's the check, if you two don't want anything else. See you in class tomorrow, Wendy."

  "Bye, Tom." Wendy rested her chin in her hand and sighed as she watched Thomas walk away. "He's dreamy, isn't he?"

  "He sure is," Alan agreed with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm, but Wendy was too distracted to notice. "So has he asked you out yet?"

  "Dad!"

  "Well it's obvious to me that you like him. He has eyes. I'm sure he knows you like him, and he knows you're beautiful and smart and everything so I can't imagine why he hasn't." Alan shrugged and took a long, long, long, long, long sip of ice water. Drained the glass. Let the ice hit his upper lip while Wendy contemplated the Thomas situation.

  "I dunno, it does seem pretty obvious, doesn't it?" Wendy mumbled. "I think he's just shy."

  Alan privately thought that Thomas was too charismatic to be shy, but kept it to himself. "He's kinda skinny, isn't he?"

  "Yes," Wendy said dreamily.

  "I thought you like bigger guys. You know, like that wrestling kid you dated in high school."

  "I normally do," Wendy admitted, "but there's just something so... I don't know, so vulnerable about him. I just want to cuddle him and make him dinner and stuff, take care of him, like, because he's so skinny and helpless-looking."

  Alan chuckled to himself and shook his head, thinking how strange it was to be attracted to the same boy as his daughter, and how drastically different their thought patterns were. Alan's visions of Thomas involved plenty of cuddling and a certain kind of eating that had nothing to do with actual food. He cleared his throat and tried to take another drink of water, but the water was all gone. The ice hit his lip again.

  "Am I making you uncomfortable, Daddy?" Wendy giggled.

  "No! No, of course not, sweet pea, I'm glad you found a nice boy that you like."

  "I dunno how nice he is," Wendy said, her lips curling with mischief.

  "What do you mean?" Alan frowned. "I don't like where this is going, Wendy."

  "He has a reputation, sort of." Wendy shrugged and innocently fluffed her hair. "Just that he's a bit of a... a rapscallion, or something. He gets into debates with people and most nights plays piano at the bar down the street--"

  "The Goldfish Bowl?" Alan asked, his throat suddenly feeling dry.

  "Yeah, that's the place." Wendy nodded. "That's his main job and stuff, he just does a shift at this place to fill in one or two days a week. He's a music major. And he's a huge flirt, you know, a skirt-chaser or whatever. But I like it that he's kind of bad--"

  "Now look here," Alan said sternly, putting on his Dad voice, his brow settling into an immobile straight line over his piercing brown eyes. Wendy had deflated a little already. "I know that type of guy, and take it from a man, Wendy, you don't want to get mixed up with a guy like that. He'll make you feel like a million bucks the first couple of days, then slowly pull away from you and get colder and colder until you don't even know who you're dating any more. But it'll happen so slowly that all you can do is wonder where that wonderful man went and when you did nothing wrong, you'll be wondering what you did to ruin it." Alan shook his head and reached for his empty water glass again.

  "Are you okay, Daddy? You're acting kind of..."

  "It's been a rough day," Alan sighed, taking off his glasses to rub eyes tiredly, in an attempt to also rub away the memories of the boy back in his youth who had broken his heart and then abandoned him entirely. That's old news, Linton, stop being such a baby. You've moved on. You have a daughter and a wife. You don't even like men any more, remember?

  Except Thomas. He's pretty cute.

  Shut up.

  "Of course it has, I'm so selfish," Wendy gasped, reaching across the table to grab her father's hands. "I keep forgetting that you're not just here to visit me, Daddy, but you've had a lot to deal with lately. Let's not talk about it any more. Let's go to the movies. There's this awesome old theater downtown that shows second-run films and B-movies and stuff. I think they're running an old movie tonight, something about Marilyn Monroe?"

  "That sounds great, honey." Alan smiled and kissed his daughter's hand. "I could use a distraction."

  Wendy stood up and started putting on her coat, and Alan followed suit. As they walked through the restaurant, Alan was distracted as Wendy babbled about the theater they were going to, relating its history and all the films she'd seen there, and Alan, who was mildly interested in cinema, listened intently. Both of them were so distracted talking to each other that neither saw poor Thomas bent over a table, trying to bus it, until Alan bumped into him, tripped, and they both went to the floor amid a flurry of dirty dishes, used napkins, spilled sodas, and half-eaten Chinese food.

  "Fuck! Shit! I'm so sorry!" Alan cried, his heart nearly stopped as he tried to get back up and Thomas squirmed on the floor beneath him between his legs but Alan slipped in a puddle of spilled Coke and landed flat on Thomas again, fearing he had crushed the skinny little thing until Thomas grabbed the lapel of his coat and whispered into his ear, "I'd like to do this again sometime with less fried rice involved." He licked Alan's earlobe, then, with surprising strength for a boy his size, he shoved Alan off of him and got to his feet, brushing specks of rice and sticky bits of chicken of
f his clothes.

  "Are you okay?" Wendy whispered, wide-eyed as she tenderly picked a straw wrapper out of Thomas's hair.

  "I'm fine, yeah, sure," he said, tossing Alan a smirk. "How about you, Daddy?"

  Alan nearly choked at Thomas calling him Daddy. He hoped that his coat was enough to cover his groin as he could do very little to prevent whatever was happening down there. Alan tied the sash of the coat around his waist and cleared his throat three times before nodding, flicking a used packet of soy sauce off his shoulder. "I'm okay," he mumbled, "sorry for bumping into you."

  "Hey, accidents happen," Thomas said blithely. "No worries. You two run along, I'll get this cleaned up. I needed something to do to pass the time for the rest of the shift, anyway."

  "Thanks for being so nice about it," Wendy said sweetly.

  "No problem." Thomas ran a hand through his hair and grinned at Alan. "See ya 'round, Alan."

  Alan swallowed thickly and said "Bye," but Thomas was already gone into the back to get the mop.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The rest of the week dragged by. The search for a new dwelling was disheartening, at best. What Alan could afford, he didn't want, and what he wanted, he couldn't afford. He had a reasonably good salary as a paralegal and couldn't understand how rent had gotten so damn high, but what could he do but keeping looking? Diligently he checked the classifieds, every single day, submitting applications, inquiries, emails, most of them going unanswered. It was depressing, to put it mildly, to go home with no prospects from his no-prospect job to crash on his daughter's couch. If he were less buoyant of a person, Alan might've gotten deeply depressed. As it was, he only got slightly depressed.

  The weekend came along and Alan gave himself permission to relax a little. Wendy was going out of town with a couple of her girlfriends on a last-minute camping and kayaking trip, so Alan had the place to himself. Wendy left Friday afternoon after class, so, on the way home from work, Alan grabbed himself a bottle of fine Scotch and went back to Wendy's place to relax.