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

/> “Your Highness, your chariot has arrived,” he panned and Harry lifted his scepter and pretended to knight him.
“Arise, Sir Chan, and prepare to dance the night away, King Harry has his dancing shoes on,” he declared and they both laughed. Harry, of course, brought too much food and they loaded it up.
At the Center everyone gushed at Harry’s costume and they all had a good laugh calling him King Harry and teasing him. Jake and Violet came with the others from their farm dressed as Lancelot and Guinevere. They made a striking couple. He spied Harry immediately and laughed.
“Look over there, its King Harry, the King of Bargains,” he retorted and everyone laughed. Max snorted.
“Don’t you mean the King of the Freaks,” he declared and they all laughed again. Jake sighed. You would have thought that after a hundred and forty some years they would have found someone else to hate but they continued to pick on poor Harry. He ignored them as he usually did and headed for the bar. Violet frowned at him.
“Don’t get too drunk, Jake, I want you to be able to perform later,” she told him. He glared at her and ignored her as usual too. Perform, what the hell was he, a trained seal, he thought. He met Sean at the bar and they laughed because they were both knights.
“I’m Lancelot who are you?” he asked his son.
“I’m Galahad and Georgie is Lancelot too, we’re gay Knights of the Round Table,” Sean told him and they both laughed. They turned around to see Harry dancing with Chan. Both men didn’t like that.
“I don’t know what dad sees in that sleaze ball,” Sean muttered. Jake grinned. So his kids didn’t like Chan; that was good. Cassie walked up to them and waved her head to the dancing couple.
“I set dad up with a really nice man and he ends up with that creep,” she said and Jake grinned and kissed her cheek.
“Who did you set dad up with?” Sean asked.
“Eric Jones, why are you shaking your head?” she asked her brother. He leaned closer so no one would hear their conversation. Jake leaned in so he could hear better.
“Eric pissed on dad’s feet and made him piss on his,” Sean told them. Cassie’s eyes got round and she shoved her brother. Jake laughed.
“No, he did not, you’re making that up,” she declared. Sean shook his head and crossed his heart.
“No, I am not; ask dad about it, he made them take a shower after they had sex because he didn’t want them taking pissy feet back to his nice sheets,” he informed them. They all laughed. Cassie giggled.
“Okay, now that sounds like something dad would do,” she said. “My God, just when you think you know someone.” Then she looked at Jake. “This is all your fault you know, if you’d just go home where you belong poor dad wouldn’t be forced to date freaks and weirdos like Chan and Eric Jones,” she told him. Jake felt like the breath had been knocked out of him.
“Your father wouldn’t take me back,” he said weakly. Sean put his arm around him and patted his back.
“Dad would take you back in a heart beat, Jake, just go home and stop being miserable with Violet and tell Harry you still love him,” he advised. Then Violet walked up and took her drink from Jake’s hand.
“If I waited for you to bring this to me, I’d die of thirst,” she said and looked at his two kids. “Don’t you two look nice, Cassie honey, didn’t you wear that same costume three or four years ago?” she asked. Cassie rolled her eyes.
“No, I didn’t, Violet, but thanks for asking, bye, Jake, see you later and Sean was right, you should do what he said,” she said firmly and kissed his cheek. He nodded and went back to his side of the room. Violet looked at him.
“What did Sean advise you to do?” she asked suspiciously. He shrugged.
“He thinks maybe he can heal you of your allergic reaction to dogs so I can have my dogs back,” he told her. She frowned.
“I’ve never heard of that, I don’t like your kids playing around with my body like that, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sweetie,” she said sweetly and he almost laughed. He had figured out years ago that she wasn’t allergic to dogs; she just didn’t want his big dogs in her precious house. She was around David and Gloria’s little dog all the time and didn’t sneeze or sniffle once, she was as fake as her boobs and he was getting so tired of her.
Harry woke up the next morning next to Chan and couldn’t sleep so got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. It was a little too early to milk the cows but he turned on the coffeemaker and eyed a bowl of very ripe bananas and thought to himself, what the heck. He could not make banana nut bread for the rest of his life just because Jake wasn’t here to eat it; so he got out the bowls and soon had four loaves baking in the oven.
“What are you doing up so early, come back to bed,” Chan spoke from the doorway. Harry smiled as he opened the oven door and peeked in.
“These are almost done, why don’t you run and milk the cow and we can have fresh milk to go with our banana nut bread,” he suggested with a sly look that Chan had grown to love. He grinned and rushed for his pants. He hummed all the way to the barn. He was milking Bessie when Danny walked in and saw him. He paused and looked around and then said hello and began to milk his cow Kelly. Chan finished and stopped by to talk with him.
“Your father is so wonderful, Danny, you wouldn’t believe what he did this morning,” he bragged. Danny rolled his eyes.
“Chan, I don’t need to hear about my Dad’s sexual prowess,” he declared. Chan laughed and he patted the other man on his shoulder.
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” he said laughing. “No, he did something wonderful. He sneaked out of bed this morning and made me banana nut bread, isn’t that wonderful for him to do, he’s such a wonderful man. I’m so lucky to have him in my life. See you later, we are going to have some with fresh milk and go back to bed,” he said with a leer. Then he laughed and whistled out of the barn leaving Danny staring at his back wearing a horrified look. He finished his milking and rushed into the house.
Martin looked at his husband and noticed at once the panicked expression on his handsome face. He stood up and took the pail from him.
“Danny, what’s wrong?” he asked. Danny frowned and rushed to the phone. He quickly dialed Emma’s number and she picked up on the fifth ring. They could see her lying in bed, her long blonde hair all tossed and sexy looking. When she saw her brother she frowned.
“Someone had better be dead or bleeding, its five-forty-five, for Christ’s sake, Danny,” she muttered. He nodded.
“Guess who was in the barn milking Dad’s cow this morning?” he asked in lieu of a greeting. She frowned and quickly sat up exposing her beautiful body and gasping when she realized this and wrapping a sheet around her. DJ laughed and sat up, they could see him in the background.
“Who?” she demanded to know.
“Chan,” Danny informed her. Then he continued. “And guess what Dad was doing in the kitchen while Chan was milking the cow?” he asked. She shook her head.
“What was he doing?” she asked.
“Taking four loaves of banana nut bread out of the oven, that’s what he was doing. Dad made banana nut bread for that sleazy bastard,” Danny’s voice rose almost hysterically. Emma gasped with shock.
“My God, no, he did not, we have to call Cassie, hold on,” she snapped and soon their sleepy sister was on the phone, yawing and looking at the clock.
“Christ, Emma, Danny do you have any idea what time it is,” she muttered.
“What’s so special about banana nut bread?” DJ asked and Cassie sat up.
“Who’s baking banana nut bread?” she yelled. Mike sat up.
“What’s banana nut bread?” he asked.
“Shut up, Mike,” the three siblings yelled at him. He threw his hands up.
“Sorry,” he muttered and put his head back down on the pillow. DJ laughed.
“Dad’s making banana nut bread and guess whose he’s making it for today,” Emma asked her sister. Cassie frowned.
“Who?” she asked weakly as if she was afraid to know the answer.
“Chan,” Danny told her. Cassie closed her eyes as if in pain.
“We have to call the others,” Emma said and the other two agreed.
“I’ll call Adam, you call Jackson, Danny you call the two boys, we’ll meet at Emma’s, Danny bring some donuts,” Cassie ordered and they all nodded.
“What’s so special about banana nut bread?” DJ asked when the fourteen were all together. Of course all of the partners of the seven siblings had to come to such an important meeting. The seven all giggled.
“We don’t really know but when we were growing up dad would get this look in his eyes and he would make four loaves of it and Jake would grin and they’d take two loaves of it into the bedroom and we wouldn’t see them for hours,” Jackson informed them. Sean laughed.
“Yeah and you’d always hear them yelling and shouting like they were killing each other and we knew they were having some wild crazy ass sex in there and all because of the damned banana nut bread,” he said. They all laughed. DJ grinned.
“A food fetish, I seem to remember this,” he declared. Emma smiled.
“Dad would always bake it for one of us as a special pick-me-up if he knew we were feeling low or down and it was always special,” she reminiscence. They all smiled.
“And now Harry’s making it for Chan, this can’t be a good thing,” Mike remarked and they all frowned.
“This is a very bad thing, dad can’t be serious about this guy, he isn’t his type, he’s not at all like Jake,” Danny protested. Martin took his hand.
“Maybe that’s the attraction, Harry might be turning to Chan because he doesn’t remind him of Jake at all,” he informed them. This made them all sad.
“What can we do?” Cassie asked. Adam snorted.
“We can march into Jake’s office and snatch his stupid ass and make him go to Harry’s and tell him how he really feels and beg his forgiveness and ask to come home, that’s what we can do,” he said. Jackson laughed.
“That’s a real good plan and after we do that, why don’t we sell him a bridge,” he taunted. Adam flushed.
“Well, do you have a better plan?” he asked sarcastically. Jackson sighed.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t,” he admitted. They all looked at one another; no one had a better plan.
“Well, let’s not panic, no one’s done anything that we need to panic