Read Something Beautiful for Free Online Page B

after."
     
    Leo's voice was gentle. "Stuart's not as bad as everyone thinks he is."
     
    "You say that about everybody." He smiled with affection. "He was horrible to Jamie, Dad."
     
    "He was good to Jamie for a long time first, Dunie. And everybody makes mistakes. Micah did and you like him just fine. Breaking someone's heart doesn't make a person evil."
     
    "I've never broken a heart," Dune muttered. It was time for a subject change. "You're going to the barbeque at the Laird and Tristan’s Monday, right?"
     
    "Yes, I am. We are, if I can get Adam away from his desk. Your mothers are still in Key West, I think."
     
    "Yeah, Frances said they won't be back until later in the week in her last email. They really like it there -- their vacation gets longer every year."
     
    "Yes." Leo paused a moment. "They're thinking of moving there."
     
    "They've been talking about it for years, I'm sure they'll do it someday."
     
    "I mean, after this year is over. Frances didn't get tenure."
     
    Dune sat up and said, "Oh."
     
    "She's put off telling you," Leo said with a sigh.
     
    "Yeah, she has." That didn't surprise him, actually: he usually was the last person to find out anything in his family. "Well, they like Key West. They'll be happy there. And now I'll have an excuse to visit out there more often. I haven't been since I was thirteen, I think."
     
    "That infamous summer," said Leo. "Though I sometimes think I'd worry more if you'd never rebelled at all. I'd wonder what kind of Stepford child we were raising."
     
    "But aren't I practically perfect in every way, Daddy-daddy?" Dune said dramatically, and Leo chuckled.
     
    "Yes, you are, my son. I'll let you sleep. Or whatever you intend to do this beautiful Sunday. Love you."
     
    "Love you, too," said Dune and hung up the phone. He pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, looking at the sliver of half-hearted sunshine that shone beneath the heavy curtains over his window. It would probably be a lovely day once the fog burned off.
     
    That did, of course, raise the question of who to spend the day with. Jamie and Ben, possibly -- they were always good company. If he didn't think Micah was at least as exhausted now as he'd looked last night, Dune would be happy to go kidnap him for a day of debauchery in the city, but Micah was probably still sound asleep. If Frances and Ocean were home he'd be happy to go to Berkeley and spend the day with them: his mothers would spoil him senseless and send him home with homemade pomegranate jam or a canister of oolong tea. But they were still on vacation -- and, apparently, he'd have to get used to them being on the other side of the country eventually. He might as well start now.
     
    Dune was not a solitary creature by nature. He did not consider this a failing on his part -- he just liked people, preferred to be around them rather than not. Friends, lovers, strangers -- it was all the same to him. He could, for example, go to the coffee shop on the corner for a late breakfast and find somebody who'd like to tell him their life story -- that would be a pleasant way to pass an hour or two.
     
    Or he could stay home. Putter. Do some laundry, start next week's column, and if he wanted company he had a PDA full of phone numbers of people who'd say "Me please!" if he asked them, "Who wants some sex?"
     
    Hell of a way to live, he thought with a chuckle and threw back his sheets. The old floorboards creaked under his feet as he crossed to the kitchen, but they wouldn't be too cold to walk on barefoot until at least, oh, November.
     
    Dune picked up the phone and dialed Daniel's number: he was also always good for a laugh, he'd eat whatever Dune put in front of him and tell him honestly if it was any good or not, and there was a ninety-nine percent possibility of what Jamie liked to refer to as beautiful, long-legged sex later.
     
    Daniel was very beautiful. And his legs were very, very long.
     
    "Hey," Dune said cheerfully