Graeme

Thanks, @Defiance19. Having parents who are perfect would be wonderful, but most parents don't meet that ideal. Mason's parents may not be very close, but their heart is in the right place. If only their brains weren't in a "we know best" mindset...

Best wishes, @Renee Stevens for you and your (expanding) family!

Oops...I missed that

Buddy just can't take a break. It had to be the Chambers's house he delivered the drugs to, and Brad had to see him. I hope the drugs were paid in advance, because the last thing Buddy needs is for a large sum of cash to be found on him. Being in that neighbourhood with lots of money would raise alarm bells for the police investigating. At least Brad and some of his cohort were taken by the police. Do they suspect what happened, or were they caught smoking (and probably also underaged drinking)? As others have said, the glimpse of a silver lining is that Kyle's family (apart from Melissa) may now get involved with Buddy. Speaking of Melissa, did her father get her to ring her friend to stop the rumours from starting? After all, she had already set the wheels in motion, so it's possible it maybe too late. If I were her, I'd be ringing her friend straightaway to stop those plans they had. Otherwise, its bye-bye to all her friends, and hello Grandmother...

When your paramedic arrives by bicycle...

Melissa really is heartless. She's willing to destroy her brother to get revenge on Brad. A really sad person... I found it interesting in that first encounter between Brad and Kyle that Brad's teammates were trying to stop him. Now, that could be because they didn't want him to get into trouble by doing something out in the open, but it could also be that at least some of them knew what he wanted to do was wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know if the football players who supported his actions after school were the same ones in the earlier incident, or if Brad went looking for like-minded teammates to help him out. Being generous, I'm hoping it was the latter. On a happier note, I'm still not convinced that Buddy was actually asleep during History. I thought the timing of his snoring was actually a sophisticated critique on the quality of his group's play. It's just too much of a coincidence, otherwise

Thanks, Sammy! A few other people have been thinking about that place, too. You'll just have to wait to see who buys it...

Real life 'spider-man' saves boy dangling from Paris balcony

4 year old Harry can't walk, but he's kicked his first footy goal

Thank you, @Rndmrunner. As you may recall, the issue of married gay men with children is something I'm very familiar with, being in that situation myself. In my case, my wife and have stayed together after I came out, but it was touch-and-go for awhile. As it is, I've just passed a milestone -- I have now spent half my life married to a wonderful woman. I'm 55 and I've been married for 27.5 years, and been out for just over half of that time. @impunity, I understand and appreciate your comment about Jeremey's "as a little gay" statement, but as you've guessed, it was to reflect the casual homophobia that exists. Indeed, from Mason's lack of reaction, you can assume that either he's used to it, or he didn't even pick up on it being homophobic. The word "gay" used to mean "happy". Then it meant "homosexual". Today, for many young people, it means somethings else again. Yes, the new meaning is derived from homophobia, but I believe a lot of them don't realise that. It's only because it also means "homosexual" that it impacts on us.

Ah... @Timothy M. Let's see what I can respond to... Okay, done. I hope you found that informative. Seriously, though, Tim, thank you. As always, I look forward to your speculations.

Thanks, @BlindAmbition. I agree that it would be better for Mason's parents to tell him the truth, but his father has decided otherwise. He thinks he's protecting Mason, and now that Mason's safe, he doesn't see any point in mentioning it. Not the best approach, but Mason's father is clearly an old-school type who believes he knows best and it'll take a lot to make him change his mind once it's made up. The Australian press is generally pretty good about keeping names out of things when appropriate. There was an incident a couple of years ago where a young AFL player was catfished, and the nude photos he thought were going to a girl ended up on a gay website. The name of the player and the club he played for were never mentioned in any of the Australian media as far as I know, though I believe at least one USA media outlet mentioned both. One of the things in Dave's favour is that there are very few media companies in Australia, and none of them would like to be blacklisted by a major sporting organisation such as the AFL, especially as in a case like this, the other major sporting codes would probably follow suit with a blacklist. Yes, Neil is still fragile. He's a lot better than he was, but change can be traumatic, and moving to another city, a long way from almost everyone he knows, is definitely traumatic.

Nineteen hours after Sydney celebrated the New Year, it was time for Los Angeles to do the same. Mason was with his friends from school at a party as they waited for midnight to approach. The majority of attendees were Hispanic, with most of the rest being African American. Mason was one of the handful that belonged to both groups, though given some of the pairings that were occurring that night, it was likely there would be more in the next generation. “Yo, dude,” Mason said as he approache

Almost the same for me, except I was considerably older than 16 when I read them. Like more than double. They're good, simple escapism. They have some nice twists, but overall I didn't think they were special enough to re-read (unlike a number of other series I own). If you enjoyed the first two, I would recommend reading the rest of the series. I'll leave it up to you as to whether your borrow or buy the extra books.

Kyle's life is looking up, or at least a little better on the home front, but Buddy's life is close to rock bottom. He sees no hope for himself, no future, and is contemplating if it's worth going on. Even so, seeing Kyle has had an impact. All we can do is hope it's a positive one.

If you want to check a potential "before" case, the second chapter of Leopard Hunt was originally posted as unpublished, and sometime later I edited to put in a publication date of this coming Saturday. You can check it's current status, and then use that information if it doesn't appear in the story update list to work out why.

Thank you @Dr. John NYC

A sad chapter where everything goes wrong. Kyle is outed, even if it's with a fake picture. Buddy's in trouble with Aubrey for losing the bag of weed. Kyle is about to find out who his mother is going to side with, and Buddy is going to be paying the price for being jumped. The only good news is that we all know Ron generally likes happy endings, so I hope things start to get better soon...

Happy Birthday! Just remember, no matter how hard you try, you won't catchup to me in age... 😛

While Kyle is obviously going to have trouble with Melissa, and Buddy is receive trouble from Brad, it was Buddy giving up that scared me the most. While I don't like drugs, Buddy exchanging sexual favours for weed is much better than my initial thought of what he had planned. Buddy's still at risk, but I'm hoping Andre is enough to keep him alive until he and Kyle can connect.

Congratulations!

@Myr, I understand. Don't go to any trouble for me. I was just curious.

For curiosity's sake, only, I wouldn't mind seeing the same data presented with the genre combinations as separate slices. I've seen a lot of romance/drama stories, so I suspect the pie chart is overstating those genres because of the double counting. Simply because I'm curious, I would like to see a chart where each story is only counted once.

Thanks, everyone! I re-introduced many of the characters for exactly the reason you mention: it's been quite a while since the last book and not everyone will remember all the charcters. However, given the sheer number of characters in the previous books, I couldn't introduce everyone. I know what you mean, but Ithink I had more than enough characters being re-introduced already. A few of the others will appear in upcoming chapters, but I'm not going to try to re-introduce everyone -- they would be too overwhelming. I'm always cautious with introducing new characters. They have to have a reason to be interacting with the Leopards. We can see Ben's motivation: a club known to be supportive of a gay player would be attractive for a closeted footballer. We're yet to see how Mason will fit into things...

Thank you!