Krista

A chaotic and a wee bit filthy book at that. The comments that is, my story is mostly wholesome with a lot of F-bombs.

Lol, that is probably Roy's major disappointment too... bless him.

I don't blame you, 24k is a lot for 6am. I am not functioning at 6am.

Joel believing in himself is a good ending to a story that's beginning for him, I think.

Wow thank you, it gives more weight to his decision. Something he probably needs to hint about when it comes to spilling his plans and dreams to his parents. They may respect/accept it more if it involves a more formal plan than just up and running off to Nashville. But I honestly don't see them hindering him if it is something he's had his heart set on for a bit. They don't seem like the types anyway.

You're just trying not to let yourself think Colt is sexy again. It's okay. Groan if you must, but a tight pair of jeans, a guitar, some angry/angst and a wet butt makes him the total package. Other than that straight thing he has going on. It was another crappy "after party" wasn't it... Fletcher sucks, Tempton definitely throws better parties. I wish I was a songwriter. I dabble at poetry and mostly suck at it.

I did... I did know that. And we already know Davin will eat both kinds of cake with enthusiasm.

Theory No. 2 has some movement in it, I hope you can deliver on it. It sounds fun. Theory No. 1 may not be far off, but it was early in the writing... lol. Joel/Joey. I find it cute when toddlers just learning to speak butcher a lot of words. I've kept the names of our dogs as their butchered attempted at saying them. My oldest named them as puppies, but the younger ones really did with their flawed pronunciation of them. So that was the birth of that idea, despite Cody being older, the habit might be something from when he was much younger and carried over. He'll probably grow out of it in a year or so, he's just turning eleven. When it does, Joel may miss ever being called Joey. I'm tearing up thinking about the casual and silent shift that often happens when something is outgrown. And oh yes, all the wet butts were for you my dear, every single one. I'm glad the brats weren't too annoying. I think Gavin really would bust some kneecaps for Davin, Joel better behave himself. I see a running joke abut Lorianne seeing Davin naked first developing whenever it crossed Gavin's mind... it obviously hasn't yet or it already would be a thing.

lol! Can't say that I have, as I've yet to read Encrypted. I'll have to slot it into my reading schedule now that I'm more or less clean slate. Feisty judgmental mothers are a thing, I'm seeing. I'm glad Trace put her in her place, she may be family, but she is also a guest. She needed to show a little bit more respect.

Yeah, the chapter was a series of revelations and unspoken things coming to light. Lorianne just has the pairing wrong. I do wonder if she'll start seeing Roy in a different light, now that she knows Roy isn't also gay. Francine McCorbyn I almost didn't write her in at all. At the time I was really bogging down the writing with negative weight. Without the new writing between this chapter and the thin agreement about him playing baseball. She might have been too much. I think the new writing saved the story quite a bit. Although, Jaxton I think fell a little short. He felt rather cliche to me anyway. Davin seems like the type that falls headfirst into strong feelings. People like that are easily broken, I'm thinking.

Nope, no Epilogue series.

Yeah I kind of swamped e-fiction with three stories, tons of chapters. I had another story here that I've since deleted, because I never finished it. I can't remember the title. Then "Roommates" followed right after, and I want to say the beginning of, "Are You Christian," so I more or less introduced myself by dropping tons of content on the clunky e-fiction system... coming right out of Yahoo groups and Nifty... It was an interesting time.

Yeah, it was a rapid fire series of events with Gavin being followed up by Lorianne. Then Joel took it further and outed his original tale of how he came to live with them. A story that Trace kept, which he promised he would. To Francine, and Celia. I thought it was a lot of steps in that direction for him to take, but we have sort of learned that Joel is reactive. So he gave the grandma more than she bargained for there. Roy is straight, bummer, those eyes, the sweetness of character... missed opportunity. Cody overall was bittersweet for me. So much.

Thank you. It was a massive chapter. I had fun writing it, I think I went a bit too big with the party. I even had Celia comment on it, thinking it was too much when a more casual thing that put more of a family connection and allowed for less distractions with Cody and him, but overall I left it all in. There was too much surrounding the backdrop chaos that I liked.

It does seem that way, me creating a female character that becomes a bit of an antagonist. For the longest time the trope was, 'accepting mother,' 'frigid/rigid unaccepting' father, or male caregiver. So I sort of balked at that in my later writing. Might be becoming a bit heavy handed with the Cindy, Franny, Lisa Benton types. They're still out there though, unaccepting people. And to be honest Franny is loosely based on someone I know, she was written a bit more extreme, but based on someone. This comment was so lovely. How you summed them all up. I will miss them for a bit, these characters.

And thank you for your continued support throughout this story. I'm glad you liked the 'ending.' Overall I think it is a story I can sit back and be proud with. A story that wasn't on my radar until the Secret Author contest came around and @wildone let me run with the idea. I never expected it to grow into this. Here we are though.

'that idiot' aww. He was put back into his place when he started bragging about his cleverness too.

An extra 200k words might get them into September, who knows. And Jason is rather efficient at everything he does... trolling mostly, but the rest, sure.

Aww. Also, do keep in mind that this chapter was written sometime in the early parts of 2025. So, are you inside my head.. or are we just predictable and generally similar in our thoughts at times? SCARY if so... for the rest of them, but not us... probably.

Also, this story was one of the most read stories in GA's e-Fiction era back in the day. So, it once got a lot more attention back when I would have defended it tooth and nail, overlooking the flaws of it all. It got buried and overlooked when we switched over to the Story Archives, and then to Stories. A lot of older stories lost their views, comments, and I don't even know if Reviews were a thing back then? To make way for the new structure of Stories that we see today. The stories served their purpose. They were a start to where I am now. I say all these negative things about them, but I am here because of them too. Some of the stories I'm more proud of came from the growing pains. I can appreciate them for that. But yeah, buried in a very distant memory, mostly fond memory.

You do not. Hush. I about said, "you may suck well with other things, but you don't suck at writing.." but I'm a lady and can't be doing that.

You don't have to come back to this tomorrow. Monday is coming on fast. The ride was fun today, but it can most definitely end, I won't think less of you, I rather think you've been overly generous with this story so far. Soldiering on as you have.

I wish it was buried about 12 feet under... mostly. But this has been fun, me mostly in the dark. Y'all being very generous with your reading time and allowing for a lot of grace in the flawed storytelling, grammar, sentence structure... the need to fill every dialog tag with a unique close. Stated, stuttered, sighed, said, exclaimed, bellowed, snorted, yelled, confided, mumbled, ordered, whispered... couldn't be repetitive, no no no.

Wait what? All this started from the attempt to hunt down my filthy writing? 😮 ALL THIS? It makes sense now... shame on all of you.

If this was more dramatic than your beach scene I might have to cringe my way through this chapter to see...