Peach Tree Family: Gay Romance

by Trina Solet

  While Ace played, Seth stayed and watched the game-play closely. Theo kept glancing at him, checking for any sign that he and Hannah made out on the ride over. There weren't any, but that didn't mean anything.

  Theo knew he was too intent on knowing. He should have never gone to Seth's room that night. Instead of curing Seth of wanting to be with Hannah, all Theo did was make the whole thing harder on himself.

  So what if Seth wasn't straight, but that didn't mean he wanted Theo more than some girl.

  Ace was trying to play and explain the game to Seth at the same time, so Theo took over. "There are mages and warriors trying to get to the elemental treasures. You need to gain a minimum of twenty MPs and a team of at least three to move on from each quest."

  "There are three of us," Ace said and looked over at Seth then back to the screen.

  "It doesn't support multiple players, actually. The other team members are NPCs. You help them out and they become part of your team until the next quest. The game is full of bugs. And you can't save, only pause," Theo said to Seth.

  Ace didn't play for long before the game froze on him. "It did it again, Theo. And I almost got the treasure."

  "You picked up the glowing spear, didn't you?" Theo asked. He shut down then restarted the laptop.

  "I thought maybe it would work this time," Ace said.

  "While it restarts, go put down some dinner for Butter," Theo told him.

  Once he went, Seth pointed at the laptop. "That game looked good."

  "We can play longer than that usually. We learned what choices to avoid to keep the game going. And restarting is painfully long, but the game won't run on anything newer than this." Theo sighed. "It almost makes me want to tackle those bugs."

  "You mean fix them? You can fix the bugs but you don't?" Seth said, confused.

  "Some of them, but Ace has grown up with those bugs. He might miss them."

  "And you would too," Seth guessed.

  It was true. "The bugs are my dad's. It would be like erasing his spirit from the game. I can't do it," Theo said. "Now I'll distract Ace with this."

  Theo got out the enlarged photo he had framed and showed it to Seth. "Ace doesn't know about this. Someone tagged a concrete wall with the name Ace. Ace was just learning how to write his name when he spotted it. He got so excited so I took a picture of it and had it printed up and framed."

  "You're a good brother," Seth told him.

  "It's a small thing. I failed Ace when it comes to the big stuff," Theo said. What Ace had to go through was never far from his mind.

  "No way," Seth said, not believing him.

  When Theo showed Ace the framed graffiti, he wasn't sure if he would remember it, but he did. "How did you get it, Theo?"

  "It came in the box. We'll hang it up in the bedroom," Theo told him.

  "That means I'm cool!" Ace said pointing at his name.

  Seth agreed. "You sure are." He then nodded toward the kitchen door. "But it looks like Butter wants to go outside."

  Ace went out with her then poked his head back inside yelling. "I see a car."

  Theo's first thought was that it was Hannah, but going out he saw it wasn't her car.

  They all went out and watched as a gray car parked and a petite, young woman with short, dark hair stepped out. She waved and Ace waved back then she went to open the trunk.

  "That's my teacher, Ms Kurtz," Ace said.

  "Is she here to check up on you?" Seth asked and Theo frowned.

  "Oh no. I didn't finish my homework," Ace said and Seth reminded him he had the whole weekend.

  Despite being worried about why she was here, Theo tried not to show it as she approached carrying over a small space heater. She set it down and offered Theo her hand. "I'm Noreen Kurtz, Ace's teacher. And you must be the big brother."

  "I'm Theo Atkins. Nice to meet you," he told her then he introduced Seth.

  "I brought you this thing," she said pointing at the space heater. "This is a noisy space heater my grandparents hate. Ace mentioned you didn't have heat."

  "We have the fireplace working now," Theo told her.

  "It might be good to have heat in the bedroom too," Seth said.

  "See if you can use it," Noreen told them. "Just don't expect to hear anything else while it's running."

  "It looks new," Theo said. "I should pay you for it."

  She agreed right away. "Fine. I'll take a dollar."

  Theo started to argue. "It's worth..."

  "Fine, you drive a hard bargain. Zero dollars. And I have a no return policy. If you hate it, just chuck it. I never want to see it again."

  "All right. Thank you." Theo then prompted Ace. "Want to say thank you to your teacher?"

  "Thank you, Ms Kurtz," Ace said but he looked uneasy. "Is it charity, Theo?"

  Noreen answered before he could. "No. You have to pay me." While Ace looked worried, Noreen named her price. "I know you have a cat. You have to let me cuddle with your cat any time I want. Deal?"

  Ace thought about it hard. "OK. It's a deal."

  "And I want my first payment right now," Noreen demanded.

  "We have to find Butter first," Ace said and started searching for her. Noreen really had him convinced that she was taking proper payment.

  "That was nice of her," Theo said while Noreen went to get paid.

  "Yeah. She doesn't seem too nice, but she is. Sort of like you," Seth said and Theo gave him the side-eye.

  "I bought an ax and a hand saw at the hardware store in town. Left them in the kitchen," Seth told him.

  "For chopping wood?"

  "And I can trim some of these trees that are close by the house." Seth pointed out a few of them.

  "I was going to buy what we needed," Theo told him.

  "I'm supposed to pitch in. I did pick up the dinner shift Saturday and Sunday, but I'll help you out as much as I can this weekend."

  Theo told him about his plans, though he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to get as much done as he wanted since he was working Sunday.

  Noreen spent some quality time with Butter then left her to Ace, and came over to them. "That is a nice cat."

  "She's always jumping on us," Theo told her.

  "Theo likes her," Seth said and got another dirty look from him.

  Noreen was looking at something over his shoulder though. "Oh, no," she said and they saw that they had a new visitor.

  A car parked next to Noreen's and soon Sammy and that little redhead, Gloria, were released from the back and went running over to Ace. They were yelling for him, then yelling for the kitty.

  Following them much slower was a redheaded woman who had to be Gloria's mother. She was young and hot and had the kind of curves that did nothing for Theo, but he had to resist the urge to check if Seth was drooling over her.

  He was distracted by the welcome Noreen gave the hot redhead. "And what are you doing here?"

  "Don't pretend you didn't know what would happen when you texted me to brag that you were over here cuddling with the new cat," the redhead told her then she offered her hand to Theo. "Lara Salinger. Sorry to just show up, but I told the girls what Noreen was up to and they started jumping up and down. 'Please, Momma!' and 'Please, Gloria's momma!' I had no choice."

  "We're happy to have you. I'm Theo Atkins. This is our friend Seth Brewer."

  "Nice to meet you guys," she said.

  "You have more guests coming," Noreen said and pointed to the arrival of another car.

  This one Theo recognized. It was Wyatt and the boys. The boys ran off to join the other kids and Wyatt came over to greet Theo and the others.

  "We were visiting Sam at the café when Lara texted, and the kids wanted to meet the cat," Wyatt said and held up his phone. "I did try texting you then decided to take a chance and swing by."

  Theo checked his pockets. "I guess I left my phone inside. Sorry. But you guys are welcome."

  "Thanks," Wyatt said while doing some texting. "Now Sam is raking me over the coal
s for us inviting ourselves over here."

  "He's always in trouble with Sam," Lara said, shaking her head.

  "What she means is that we're deeply in love," Wyatt said.

  "You can invite yourself over," Theo told Wyatt. He was picking up Ace after school. He was owed.

  "Should I get us some drinks?" Seth asked.

  "I'll help you out," Theo volunteered. As they went in, he couldn't help mentioning Gloria's mom. "That Lara is something."

  "Sure. Should we take some snacks out there?"

  Theo almost brought her up again, but just took a deep breath instead. Maybe Noreen was more to his liking. Or maybe Theo just needed to stop fixating on Seth and women.

  They had guests and not a lot to feed them – half a bag of chips and a small bag of pretzels. As he was sandwiching together crackers and peanut butter at record speed, Seth wasn't worried. "This is fine, and I can cook up something."

  "I'll make food if we need to," Theo said.

  "You forgetting our deal again?" Seth asked.

  Theo grumbled but didn't argue. "I'll start taking this out there."

  Before he was out the door, Seth turned to him and smiled. "It's kind of nice how they all dropped in. It's real friendly, isn't it?"

  Theo couldn't help smiling back at him. "It's friendly."

  "I'm not used to seeing it up close," Seth admitted and Theo realized how lucky he was. After Aunt Cindy kicked him out, he had friends who put him up and helped him out, who dropped in to hang out with each other and knew they would be welcome. It hurt him to think that Seth didn't get to have that.

  So far no one had any complaints about the food or the drinks, other than they didn't have beer. Then they had more guests. Wyatt got a text from Rob asking if he could bring Danny over.

  "Of course he can," Theo told him.

  A little later, Rob arrived with little Danny as well as their tiny dog, Lenny.

  Seth was all over that dog, but then all the children ran over and the little dog had to greet all of them too. The kids had brought Butter, but Lara took over holding her.

  "I hear her name is Butter," Rob said with a chuckle.

  "Ace was talking about getting a dog, but this cat got right in his face," Theo said to Rob as he scratched her behind the ears.

  "We know how it is when you go to that animal shelter in Ashbury. You get caught up in a pet warp," Rob said then he leaned down to talk to Danny. "The cat came from the same place where we got Lenny. That makes her like Lenny's sister or something." Rob was joking but Danny took him seriously.

  Standing on his toes to have a closer look at Butter, Danny asked her, "Are you Lenny's sister?"

  All the kids waited with bated breath except for Ace and DJ, who shook their heads. When all the younger kids decided that Butter's meow meant that she must be Lenny's sister, DJ looked like he didn't know how to tell them that was impossible. Helplessly he looked over at Ace, but he only shrugged. And none of the adults wanted to set them straight either.

  "You like going to school here?" Rob asked Ace.

  "The other kids told me there's a scary teacher. So I don't know," Ace said.

  "That's me," Noreen told him.

  Ace looked up at her. Frowning and staring at her, he finally said, "I just don't know."

  Lara cracked up but Noreen only shrugged, like scaring the hell out of kids was a feature not a bug.

  "It's cool out here," Rob said, looking around. "Kind of wild."

  "The kids are having a blast," Wyatt said. "I'm tempted to climb a few trees." He winked at DJ and Ry, but the younger boy objected.

  "Don't let him. He isn't any good at climbing." Ry pouted up at Wyatt. "He fell down from a tree. On his butt."

  "He loves reminding me of every time I screwed up," Wyatt said as he ruffled Ry's blond hair thoroughly.

  "Like a tiny mother in law," Lara said.

  "We have a robot tree," Ace said and all the kids ran off because a robot tree was a thing that had to be investigated immediately.

  Some time later, Mitch came by to pick up Sammy then the others started leaving too. Going inside after everyone left, the first thing Theo did was light the fire with Ace's help. Ace was still hyper from having all the kids over and Butter was a little restless too.

  Seth was frying bacon for some BLTs, and the smell drew Theo to the kitchen. He started pulling out the other ingredients.

  "So you had a good time," Theo said noticing that Seth looked pretty cheerful.

  "Yeah. And I'll make sure to buy some food you can serve up for the next time people come over," he said.

  "You think this is going to keep happening?" Theo said.

  "I think it's likely," Seth told him. "And you still haven't had the rest of them over."

  "The rest?"

  "Sam. Then there's Mitch's husband, Rico from the cafe, and Rob's fiancé. I forgot his name," Seth said. "They're getting married soon. Everyone is talking about it. Rob's fiancé is a big deal in Peach Tree."

  "I guess I need to be ready for more guests," Theo said. "Mitch is married to Rico?"

  "I thought you knew that," Seth told him. "They're an odd couple for sure."

  Theo liked how casually he spoke about guys being married to each other, but he was still obsessed with who Seth was attracted to.

  Theo started up the noisy space heater so Ace could go to sleep in a warm bedroom for once. Listening to it, he wondered if the noise was a safety feature so people couldn't leave it on if they wanted to get any sleep.

  Ace got to play Dad's game until he crashed it. Then it was a few shows and off to bed.

  After he had Ace settled in bed, Theo went to the kitchen and found Seth in there with a pen and a piece of paper.

  "I'm making a shopping list. Need to restock the snacks for sure."

  "You certainly take keeping us fed seriously," Theo said and he pulled up the list of chores he put on his phone.

  "Of course. Food is my responsibility, and I don't want you worrying you don't have anything to feed guests," Seth said. It was another sign that he was a guy who was used to taking care of things and not having other people take care of him.

  "I'm getting texts from my friends about their plans to party and drink until dawn, and I'm making plans for household repairs. It's like they're texting from a different planet," Theo said.

  For some reason that made Seth frown. He leaned with his back against the counter and lowered his head. "You said a friend of yours sent you that box. Did you have to leave a lot of friends when you came here?" he asked.

  "Some," Theo said while wondering why Seth had his head down while asking him that.

  "And, you know... boyfriends?"

  "What, you think I had a bunch of boyfriends to juggle?" Theo asked.

  "You could, I bet, if you wanted to," Seth said, but still didn't look up.

  "Aha." Theo raised an eyebrow at Seth, but he just pressed on with his questioning.

  "So did you have a boyfriend?"

  Theo was surprised he was that curious. "Not really. Dated some guys."

  Seth nodded. "But you did stuff right."

  "Yes. You want me to tell you all about it?" Theo didn't intend to, just wanted to see Seth's reaction.

  "No," Seth said and raised his eyes, but kept his head down. That made him look like he was glaring at Theo pretty hard.

  By now Theo knew that look might not have any meanness behind it, so he just waited. Seth's harsh gaze moved from Theo's face to roam his body. Then Seth pushed himself away from the counter and came over to him. His hands went to Theo's hips and suddenly Seth was kneeling in front of him.

  "Whoa, Seth. What are you doing?" That wasn't the right question, but Theo couldn't think. Still he had to know why Seth was doing this. "Trying to prove something?" Theo accused him, restraining him with a hand on his shoulder.

  Seth drew back a little but didn't get up off the floor. He was breathing hard as he said, "No, I just... I just want to do something for you, like wha
t you did for me."

  "So you're paying me back?"

  "I guess I don't blame you for thinking I'm so desperate to stay with you and Ace, but I'm not trying to pay rent with a blowjob," Seth said.

  "That's not..." Theo didn't know what he was thinking questioning this. Seth wanted to blow him. As turned on as he was, Theo had to be crazy to fight against this.

  Now Seth could see he was too weak to resist him and he reached for him again. Moving slowly, like he didn't want to spook him, Seth unbuttoned his fly.

  With a shiver of intense pleasure, Theo sagged against the fridge. He hung on to the edge of the kitchen counter on one side and reached out to shut the door to the living room with the other.

  Seth let his tongue explore, making hot trails over Theo's cock. That went on for a while leaving Theo shaky. Then Seth took him into his mouth and moaned around his cock. Seth pushed forward slowly, not sure how far he could take him. Another moan and Theo had to breathe through the vibration as it traveled up his spine.

  Theo was hardly able to catch his breath before Seth started sucking. He was uncertain, halting, but the pressure and heat of his mouth felt amazing.

  Theo released his grip on the edge of the counter and reached for Seth. He would much rather hang onto Seth, raking his fingers through his hair and over his powerful shoulders and arms.

  Seth's sucking turned eager, fast and Theo felt his orgasm building. Cursing under his breath, he warned Seth he was coming and saw he had his own cock in his fist and was pumping it hard.

  They came together and Seth swallowed his come like he was starving for it while he shot over his own hand. It was a hot, incredible sight that had Theo reeling.

  After collapsing to the floor, Theo found himself sitting between Seth's legs as he sat against the lower cabinets. Seth's knees were up on either side of him and his arms were locked around Theo like he was never going to let him go.

  Chapter 14

  On Sunday morning, Seth was making pancakes and Ace was challenging him to make different shapes. Occasionally Theo would look over Seth's shoulder only to see some lumpy shape that didn't look like anything. The game made Ace happy, and when they sat down to eat, the pancakes looked weird but tasted fine.