The Kids Grow Up by Trish Hanan (novel24 .TXT) 📖

gently and she flushed. Barb giggled.
“Fine, I won’t say another word but,” Kate began. Jackson stood up.
“No buts, Grandmom, you said not another word and we certainly don’t want to hear lecture seven hundred and forty-seven so please drop it,” he said in a loud voice. She flushed and looked offended. All the kids laughed.
“I do not have seven hundred and forty-seven lectures, good God, is that what you all think of me,” she spat. They all nodded. Cassie giggled.
“You do have about a hundred lectures, Grandmom, and we’ve heard them all a million times so hush up. Today we all flew and we want to remember that and not you ragging on poor Dad,” she said. Kate sighed and sipped her soda.
“Fine, fine, gang up on me why don’t you,” she whined. Ryan grinned and wiggled two of his fingers together and held them out for her to see. She looked confused.
“What on earth is that supposed to be,” Kate snapped at him. Sean giggled.
“That’s the planet’s smallest violinist playing hearts and flowers in sympathy for you, Grandmom,” he interpreted for her. Barb giggled while Kate laughed and threw her napkin at her wise ass grandson. Everyone laughed.
“No one loves a smart-ass, Ryan, James, you must leave him immediately,” Kate told him. James grinned and kissed his love.
“I love his ass, smart and all,” he informed everyone and Ryan winked at them. Kate rolled her eyes.
“He’s a smart ass too, they deserve each other,” she declared. They all laughed and talked all the way home.
At the job site the next day all of the kids showed off their new powers to their friends and family and everyone was awed and impressed with the flying Talberts. Word got out and all of Harry’s eighteen other children visited the work site to see for themselves and he told them all if they drank their green milk, about a half gallon a day in about three or four weeks, they should all be flying too and he promised to take them to Sherwood for their own flying lessons. They all begged for their own green cows and he took them to the field to pick them up. He was very proud of them. Flying would make their brain lobes larger which would make their healing powers more powerful, and that was a good thing. Already some of the kids were able to heal small cuts and bruises and soon they would all be able to bring people back from the dead like he could.
Once the buildings were finished Harry began bringing bins from Sherwood to fill the stores. He let the kids do most of the flying and they brought thirty the first time and unloaded them. It was a lot of work to separate and hang up all the clothes and figure out which store each item belonged. It was a lot of fun too. It was during this phase that Harry accepted a dinner invitation from Chan and went out with him.
“I’ve been calling you for weeks, what made you come tonight?” Chan teased as he held out the chair for Harry in the Italian restaurant he had chosen. Harry laughed.
“I didn’t feel like cooking tonight to be honest,” he teased back and Chan laughed as he took his seat. The waiter poured the alterian red wine which was really sweet but rather good and they ordered.
Chan found Harry a delightful companion, he didn’t glance around a lot at the other customers or leer at other men, he seemed to hang on every word he said and laughed at his silly jokes. And he made real conversation and was charming. They had a really good time and when they returned to his house, he kissed him and Harry discovered the other man to be an adequate kisser. He invited him in for coffee and a tour of the house which included the bedroom and that led to the bed where he found the slightly younger man an adequate but lazy lover who made him do more than his fair share of the work.
But it was his first time having sex with someone other than Jake and it was nice to have a male body in the bed next to him. In the morning Harry performed fellatio on Chan and drove the man out of his skin by the way he was screaming and wiggling on the bed sheets. After he swore Harry was the most incredible lover he had ever been with and they took a shower together where he gave Harry the vastness of his experience and Harry insisted he was fantastic himself but Harry once again found him adequate.
He fed him breakfast and sent him on his way and cried when he left because Jake was a much better lover and now he was never going to make love with him again and that was the saddest thing of all. Then he went to work because due to Chan he had missed his run on the beach and sighed, he would have rather had his run.
Harry continued to see Chan because at least he was getting laid and when word got around to the kids they were slightly shocked and a little appalled.
“Dad and Chan, he’s really not his type is he?” Cassie asked and they all shook their heads. Ryan snorted.
“Chan’s been bragging to everyone that Dad’s the most incredible lover he’s ever had and how he does fellatio better than anyone,” he told them. They all looked horrified.
“That little son-of-a-bitch, I should punch his lights out,” Adam declared. Jackson shook his head.
“Dad would kill you if you did, the best thing we can do is just ignore him, he’s the rebound man and he’ll be out of the picture soon,” he informed them. Emma grinned.
“What we need to do is find Dad someone nicer than that sleaze Chan to go out with,” she decided and they all agreed to set their Dad up with someone they knew to be interested. And that was easy, once word got out that Harry was dating again; he got more calls for dinner and movie dates than he knew what to do with. He accepted a few and decided, what the hell, he was young and single; he might as well get out there and see what all the other kids were doing. Thirty years was a long time to go without sex and adequate Chan was not going to do it.
Harry’s next date was a movie date with Phillip and Stuart’s son Eric and he took him to the movies and Chinese. They had fun and Eric obviously wanted to make it an all night date so he took him home and took him to bed. They had a great time and Eric was more than adequate and Harry was quite satisfied until they got to the bathroom and Eric wanted him to pee on his feet. Harry didn’t know what to do, so he stood in the bathtub and peed on his feet and Eric peed on his and they had another great sex session and Harry teased him into a shower because frankly he didn’t want to take pissy feet into his bed. He decided never to invite the young man home again. What if the feet were only the first step in a long road of pissing and sex? He just wasn’t into that kind of thing.
When Chan found out that Harry was seeing other people he was not pleased but what could he do? Harry was a free agent and could see anyone he wanted but he persisted in calling so Harry went out with him again and again because he didn’t want to hurt his feelings and didn’t know how to tell him gently he wasn’t interested. He had never dated before like the kids had and had no dating etiquette to fall back on and was too embarrassed to ask his kids for help.
It took a hundred and twenty bins to fill all of the stores and three extra stores, Harry couldn’t open without a toy store and more clothes and shoes so he brought over a few extra stores. He had plenty of them so he figured they wouldn’t be missed. He took some of the gold and his giant rose crystal and had a jeweler make them into a big throne and made himself a fancy robe and had another jeweler make him a gold crown with gems from his canyon, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, rubies and topazes and it looked spectacular as well as the throne, that looked fantastic. Then he had flyers printed up with him standing next to the throne wearing the robe and crown proclaiming that he was King Harry, the bargain king and his prices couldn’t be beat. So come on down to King Harry’s bargain warehouses for the best prices in Edenville and every customer would receive a free blue Savannah orange with no purchase necessary.
They opened on June first and everyone in Edenville giggled all the way to the store as well as hundreds of alterians and they all picked up their blue oranges on the way in the store and bought stuff on their way out. King Harry’s Bargain Warehouses were a success.
“Can you believe this throne, it must be worth millions,” Gloria said as she eyed the gold and crystal throne. Violet sighed and wished she could sit on it.
“I wished he had found the damned caves before Jake and he split up, that crystal could be mine,” she muttered. Gloria grinned.
“If you had just waited one more year,” she said snidely. Violet glared at her.
“He never would have gone exploring without Jake leaving him,” she informed her smugly. Gloria shrugged.
“His stores were empty and he didn’t have anything to do. I think he would have gone exploring anyway, but you’re right, Jake wouldn’t have gone with him and old Harry might have taken years to find the cave. Jake would have divorced him long before he found the cave, maybe,” she added the last word when Violet began to look as if she felt better. Gloria giggled and walked away, she’d had enough of the bargain stores; she liked high quality stores herself, like Macys. This town just wasn’t the same without Macys she thought to herself.
July twenty-seven came and Harry threw himself a big birthday bash on the beach like he used to and invited the whole town except for the people of Farm One who didn’t hear about it until the day of the event when they saw all the stores closed and wondered why. They started calling people and were offended when they realized that the whole town was having a party without them.
“He’s got a lot of fucking nerve inviting everyone except for us,” Linda fumed as she paced her living room. June shrugged.
“We don’t like him anyway, why would we want to go to his stupid birthday party?” she asked her. Max shrugged.
“Because he’s serving lobster and free booze that’s why,” he told her and everyone sighed thinking of all that free booze and wonderful food they were missing. Plus all of their kids would be there and they were missing seeing them. It seemed they could hardly get the kids to come over for dinner these days. They all begged off with excuses