Andrew Q Gordon

Despite all the 'best' wishes we got the results of the ultra sound and they were . . . . First a little background. As is common knowledge, I am a prosecutor. For some unknown reason, my boss decided to pull a power move and prove she can make me do things, because - God if that isn't good practice for being a parent, I don't know what is. Basically a co-worker had a trial last week that was continued to this week, which she was scheduled to do intake - a crappy job to be sure. Not only did I have the conference call today, I have a doctors appointment tomorrow at 3 that I made 6 months ago that I couldn't miss AND I leave for two weeks of vacation on Friday, In short it would be really hard for me to take this trial - so I offered to let my co-worker keep the case and I would do intake. Nope, the boss wanted me to take the case - no reason given, just I needed to take it. [Actually the reason given was the co-worker didn't want to keep it and general practice was if it got changed to someone's intake week, they transfer the trial to someone on trial week - however, my co-worker asked to keep it and was told no, they would give it to me, so basically the supervisor lied to me.] Like I said, this was her proving she could make me take a case she wanted me to take - proving to who I have no idea. But I digress - so rather than fuss, I asked the Judge if we could take an early lunch break from the trial so I could be on the conference call. She said no. Honestly, I wasn't mad at the Judge, it was my boss who was being ridiculous not the Judge. But fate intervened and the defendant pled guilty. So despite the boss's best effort, I made it back in the office in time for the call. So since, I just wasted 250 words or so to drag this out - we got to hear the heartbeat. Not beats but beat - one baby, doing very well, doctor is pleased, Mike is relieved and I am thrilled. Sorry to anyone who bet on multiple babies, but it is just one. Now before you ask what people in my office all asked, yes he looked around, no, he didn't miss one. Since he knows where he put the embryos, he knows where to look. Just one. Whew!! On a slightly different note - OMG how freaking loud and strong the baby's heart beat was. I was so surprised by that. I mean this baby is supposedly the size of a dime or less and using the ultrasound they could let us hear the heartbeat. It was very cool. Needless to say I was rather pleased the rest of the day. Not too much longer until we find out the sex. So there you have it, baby update complete - the doctor said now we heard the heartbeat, it is officially a baby. WOO HOO!!!!. Father hood here I come, ready or not.

I think that is a valid point but look at it from Peter's stand point, unless he creates the next Facebook or founds his own investment bank, he is not likely to ever be on the same footing at Jason going forward. Even Jason's dad, successful as he is, is not the main source of the family money, the heiress wife is. So I think [obviously right?] that Peter's concern is legit. Then again, Royce over came the problem and is doing quite nicely for himself. Peter might do well to learn from that. Thanks for reading Tim and for the comments. - Andy

Exactly - Paranoid is a good word to explain the - Oh shit what if someone finds out but damn I wanna boy friend days. In this case when the moment came where he realized he might lose his best friend anyway, he finally over came the last bit of fear and the result was positive.

No promises on Christmas, but I will see what I can do for the boys. Agreed, money is great but it can also be the bane of peoples relationships. Hopefully it won't be the bane of this one. Jason is not as dense as some folks think. He is no rocket scientist that is for sure and maybe he isn't a smart as Peter, but his heart is in the right place and that helps in many situations. You have not seen the end of Ray and Flora Henry, B-man. Promise. As for the paralysis - when he was admitted it was unknown if he would be affected, evidently he was not. I'm no doctor so I can't say why or why not, only that he is expected to make a full recovery with only minor permanent effects. Thanks to you three for the post and for reading. Andy

A Long List of Nevers: Author is Hylas. Click the title, it is a link to the story. Andy

Oh Kevin, do you really expect that? Really?? Well no promises BUT I'll see what I can do.

No it was intentional, I have a tendency to screw up the words to songs so I projected that onto Darryl. Just for this scene of course.

Thanks Drew. I think the rule was written by a fat out of shape panel of ex players who are pissed they can't pull their shirts over their heads at all any more and if they could they would scare women and children. Actually the rule is classified as 'sportsmanship.' I referee. If they pull the shirt over their head they get a yellow card for unsporting behavior. Thanks for reading, I have a few more soccer/football scenes left in the story. Andy

Chapter 38 is up a bit early - am likely to be really busy tomorrow so I am posting it tonight. Here's the link: Chapter 38: For Richer or For Poorer Hopefully this answers a few question about what Jason is going to do.

Jason tossed his backpack on the front seat, searching for his phone. Scrolling down he found his dad’s number. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and held it while the phone rang. Anxious, he didn’t exhale until just before his father answered. “Hey, Jason. How are you tonight?” His father’s enthusiastic greeting helped calm him slightly. Hopefully this would go smoothly. “I’m good, Dad. Just leaving the hospital to go study. The nurses won’t let me stay a minute past nine

Okay Stu - as promised my questions - Dan's new powers while not quite the status of a Lord seem to be somewhat impressive - is it all because of his spirit? [sorry forgot how to spell her name so let's refer to her as "S" for now] After S leaves does he retain these powers? Was Matt human at first? As I read this chapter, he was but transformed into his new Studlier self at some point. What's the deal with Mistress A? Is she the grand high lady of the house??? I mean is she the supreme over lady of Galwrock? How did Dan know how to use his powers so quickly?? I didn't hear S helping him, so how did he know how to do what he did? It would seem that messing with his powers like that - I mean using them on Matt - had the potential to hurt Matt. I would have thought Matt would be a bit more upset than he was - hell he wasn't upset at all. Using powers without fully understanding them isn't a smart move is it?? Okay, I am sure I will have more, but that is all for now. As I said in my review, it was a very good chapter all around. Andy

Okay so you made us wait for that???? I mean, that?? Yeah makes sense, that was um, damn it was a lot! Konstantine is clearly Mikal's soul mate - which is good because they are good together but Pavel better be careful in his 'admiration' for Konstantine- hands off the future emperor's man! It's also good that Mikal and Fabian kissed - err well what they did - and made up. From what seems to lie ahead, Mikal is going to needs a confident like his familiar. Nice chapter and PLEASE don't make us wait this long until the next one - okay??? Andy

Well let me add my three cents worth - sorry I am high brow - 2 cents isn't enough. I have a few questions but I will ask them on the forum. As for the chapter itself - nice stuff. It was a good balance between the budding relationship btw Matt and Dan, and working on world building. Both at once is hard but you did it well. Although I had to cover my eyes when Dan was giving Matt his first blow job - well I opened one so I could read it Anyway, I will ask my questions later on your forum, that way I can argue with you when I don't like your vague non committal answers :PAndy

No comment - well not until I comment in a chapter soon to be released. Chip?? What Chip??? [Note the INCREDIBLY OLD electronics. Sadly I had one of each of those in my day.] As for the money comment see above.

Skipped? Did you think this was a Tiger Tale??? I don't really write sex scenes, though I MAY put in two at the end. Usually I get them to the point of sex and then let you - the readers - fill in the blanks. that way they have sex the way the reader wants - err that and I don't write sex scenes very well - maybe I will run it by someone who is better at them - perhaps a gun tottin liberal type - before I dip my toe in that water Thanks again for the comments. Andy

Take your time reading Tim, it will take me a few weeks to finish writing/posting this. Thanks for reading - hopefully you will like it through the end

Stuart dear, Some of us are old and lazy - it is customary for the author to make it as easy as possible for the lazy sots who said author wishes would read his story. So to that end, I will help you out - just this once - in exchange I would like a "Stop Stuart from kicking my ass" pass. So next time I piss you off I can whip it out and stop the probably well deserved ass kicking Chapter 11 Whew - that was hard work, I am not sure I have the strength to read the chapter now. Oh who am I kidding, I'm gonna go read it now, compliments of the new link Andy

Friday was the surrogate's birthday - and we weren't sure what to do about it. Of course we were going to acknowledge it, but we weren't sure about the gift thing. On the one hand, we wanted to send her something, because - well it is a pretty amazing thing she is doing - but on the other hand, we're still a bit concerned about the whole 'I'll be your nanny' comment. We are walking this fine line between being friendly and calling, etc and keeping things a business transaction. We decided flowers would be a good gift - shows we were thinking about her, but nothing too crazy. Mike placed the order Thursday afternoon for a Friday delivery. We asked that a tag/notice be left if she wasn't home - she works like most of us and we didn't expect her to be home when they tried. Friday comes and I exchanged a few text messages with her, not mentioning the flowers. When I walked into the house around 7 pm., Mike is seething. At first I figured I did something wrong - yes I am the slightly paranoid type. But I find out the florist and AT&T are the cause of his wraith. The florist in California, - the one who was supposed to create and deliver the arrangement we ordered from the national service - called and said, She wasn't home and we did NOT leave a tag and did we want them to try again. Now here is where things get murky. Mike got more than a bit annoyed and suddenly his call was 'dropped.' The florist used a blocked number - which makes sense because they were the local agent of the large national company. The Nat'l company wouldn't want us to get the local number because then we would cut out the middle man. Problem was the local folks never called back. So Mike called the Nat'l company. After a few choice words about the intelligence of the local florist, this call gets 'dropped.' Well these folks can't hang up and pretend it was a dropped call and never speak to us, we called back. After a lengthy conversation, the Nat'l folks get a hold of the local florist and tell them to attempt delivery again. Mike also is very clear that if they can't deliver, leave a tag. Saturday morning we got an email saying they could not make delivery and per our request they did not leave a notice. After calling back, they agree to try again to deliver. We knew from our text messages with the surrogate that she was going to be home in the morning so we asked they try in the morning. Sure thing they tell us, and for your trouble they'll refund half the service fee - we asked for it all back but they offered us half. This morning we got up and no email telling us they did or did not make delivery. SO we call back again - they can't tell if a note was left but delivery was not made. They could try Monday. F NO!. Just give us our money back, thank you. When we spoke to the surrogate today, we found out a) she was home in the morning but no one came by and b ) no one ever sent her flowers before. We are tempted to try again with a new service but the issue is still she works during the day and there is no one there to accept - we are buying her a gift card instead. Sucks that the florist screwed up - it would have been really nice to have surprised her with the flowers. Even if they had left the note, she would have known we sent them and she could have picked them up on Saturday. Like the title says, we had the best intentions. The ultra sound is set for Wednesday the 9th - there was some confusion in the last entry as some people thought it was the 2nd. Hopefully we will know if there are two or one, but we can't be sure. Might need to wait for the 23rd to know for sure. Oh yeah, she is saying she thinks it's twins, because she is gaining wait faster than her first pregnancy. I thought at 7 weeks it wouldn't affect your weight, but what the hell do I know right? It's gonna be a long week until Wednesday. Andy

Totally not the chapter I expected after Chapter 12. Very well done. Last Chapter I felt a bit sorry for Candice, but after this, Sam has it right, she is stupid and well, Sam should have just carried out her threat, although with all that flotation, Sam was gonna have a hard time drowning her. The stuff with Annie and the documents makes me wondered. Could it be she finally realizes she should have left when Seth left and she is going to do something that will keep Billy and David together? One does hope. My only complaint is the delay between chapters. Nice job. Andy

I don't think I kept to a time line - or better said, I didn't plan it that way. There were places where I would have two or three chapters devoted to a day or two - then skip two or three months between chapters. What controlled the pace was essentially conflict - interesting conflict or the lack thereof. So where there were things to write about that were moving the story forward, I would use however many chapters I needed, and when it would get redundant, I skipped them. I think when I was planning this out, I had a vision that this would encompass about a year and a half give or take. I wanted to include certain aspects - holidays apart while Jason was in the closet, being outed, summer apart and the temptation [Ethan] that entailed, a new school year, the assault - and so forth. [the so forth being what is still to come - Sorry Sara, no hints here either lol] To my mind - it made more sense that not everything would happen in a few weeks or even a few months. To me, saying I love takes a while. It took me and my partner 6 months before we said to each other. that was a bit over 15 years ago. I also think it is silly to expect everything will happen - being outed, mom and her classes, the attack, etc, in a few weeks. I wanted to give the characters some life to develop them away from the conflicts in the hopes folks would relate to them better. As to the other side, why didn't I skip some time between attack and recovery, IDK. This seemed the right amount of time - enough to show the effect on Jason, Peter's family, the reaction of Jason's family - .i.e. Dean, his friends while at the same time not just having him pop up in a day and say all is better. I did a bit of math - the first almost year when by in 24 chapters. The next week took 12 and counting to tell. The attack, it's affect etc, was the main focus of the story, we are starting to deal with the affect and that will be where it wraps up. Sorry if that was a long answer to a short question, but I wanted to give you better insight into the thought that went into this. Anyta and I bounced around a few things before settling on the end and while I think she is amazing, I begrudgingly admit she is not infallible so maybe we got some of it wrong. IDK. So far, I am happy with how it has come out and the response to it, but then again, I am not finished so I have time to screw it up I suppose. Thanks for the question, it made me really think about the 'why' that went into this. Andy

No comment - on what happens next. Sorry - you can't trick me that easily.

Thanks Mark, you have a ways to go on this - I think there will be 48 [maybe 49] chapters total, I am working on 45 now so pace yourself and give me time to finish it. I don't need anymore folks asking for the next chapter. Thanks for reading, appreciate hearing from you. Andy

Thanks

IDK about Peter sharing Jason and Darryl's place - I mean Jason has a lease with Darryl through the end of the year so it's not like he can move out or nothing. And I am not sure Peter wants to move in with them. Then there is how Darryl would feel. Umm you will just have to wait to see how Jason deals with this nettlesome problem - next chapter I suppose.

Wow - have I done a TERRIBLE job of conveying Peter's character - live in Jason and Darryl's place? Really??? As I have said else where, you have not seen the last of the dynamic duo of Belle and Dravek - and you may like them even less after their next appearance - I know the boy will. And B-man, I NEVER said they won't be sanctioned, I just said I wasn't going to deal with it. If it was up to me - which it is not of course - forget the frat house, I would boot them all from school. Remember, Raymond Henry is Graydon's most well heeled Alumni. His grandson is now a student, his other grandson is being courted by the school soccer team. I would think the Univ would want to keep him as happy as they can given he is getting along in years and bequeaths are common in one's will - no??? Just sayin, it I were king [or queen] of their world. Andy