Mark Arbour

Glad you liked the chapter! I think that Will does better with Jeanine than Brad does because Brad still has all that baggage with his mother killing herself, and I think that tends to make him more reticent with Jeanine. I agree with you on kids and adults. I think Maddy's probably not a bad judge right now. You don't trust me? You think I'd set you up for a fall like that? Muhahahahaha.

I loved Will's line to Hank, where he said that him living with them would be her worse nightmare. I'm thinking that's true. I've had similar cop experiences to yours, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

We haven't seen Jeff lately, but he'll be back. It is pretty gauche of Hank to get involved in Jeanine's financial affairs, but I think Hank's motives are either suspect (she's a gold digger) or more pure (she's watching out for Jeanine).

I don't think Will's worried about what Jeanine could do to him in Italy, nor do I think he should. I don't think Italian authorities are going to step in and overrule an emancipation order arbitrarily, and even if they did, Jeanine would then have to deal with Brad and Stef. Not pretty.

I think they'll definitely have an interesting relationship!

I posted this in the team recognition thread, but I think it is worth repeating here. I was pondering that over the past four and a half years, I've written over 4,000,000 words. That's a lot of freaking words. I've also won three GA Reader's Choice awards for best story (Bloodlines, 2009; Millennium, 2010; and Paternity, 2012), a Reader's Choice award for best villain (Neil, Man In Motion, 2009), and a Reader's Choice award for best protagonist (George Granger, Bridgemont, 2011). Those are pretty big achievements. This thread gives me the opportunity to point the credit for those not to me, but to my team. Without them, I doubt I would have been able to write a fraction of what I've done, and I'm damn sure I wouldn't have won a single one of those awards. They are the wind that blows my writing frigate forward: Sharon: She fixes my grammar and spelling, and while she doesn't say too much, when she does talk, she does so with meaning. She's reeled me in from some major plot and character disasters. But she's also a friend, and I know that she's got my back. Jeremy (Methodwriter): Jeremy gives me lots of ideas. I use a few of them. He keeps an eye on my lingo and the culture of the era, letting me know when I'm being anachronistic. He's always willing to do research if I need him to, and he does a lot of legwork with the timelines for my stories. He's also taken over music recs for my stories, which I enjoy, and he's started a thread for faces for my characters, which is one of my favorites. Adam Phillips, George Richard, Jay (not on GA), and Harry Grace (not on GA) give me a lot of support behind the scenes, sometimes involving details, sometimes just strong encouragement. Peter A. Nonymous (not on GA) is another key member of my team. Peter takes my stories and really pores over the details, looking for inconsistencies, and for things that just don't make sense. He's the guy who calls me on the impossibility of leaving California at 9:00AM and landing in New York for a lunch meeting. Dr. Peter Anderson, who gives me fantastic medical advice for my characters. I think the scenario he built for me for Matt in Bloodlines was just amazing. A newer member, Daisy139, has an extensive knowledge of the figure skating world. She and Jeremy have worked diligently to help me work out a career for one of my characters (JJ Schluter). She's so pleasant to work with, and she has such good ideas about skaters who are fuckable. For my last story, JCashell was fantastic, filling in details on Harvard-Westlake. He's busy with real life, and I don't have a character in that school anymore, but I appreciated the help he gave me. I think it would also be totally unfair to not mention all the feedback I get from my readers in the forums or reviews. So many times, they've given me ideas or input that just made a story work. And so many of them have been willing to help me out, responding quickly to my PM's begging for information. Whether it was Centexhairysub on kinky shit, or PrivateTim on waterpolo, or Westie on how British aristocrats comport themselves, to many others, they've been incredible. To all of you who have helped me out, I bow and remove my hat with a George Granger-esque flourish and salute you.

I was pondering that over the past four and a half years, I've written over 4,000,000 words. That's a lot of freaking words. I've also won three GA Reader's Choice awards for best story (Bloodlines, 2009; Millennium, 2010; and Paternity, 2012), a Reader's Choice award for best villain (Neil, Man In Motion, 2009), and a Reader's Choice award for best protagonist (George Granger, Bridgemont, 2011). Those are pretty big achievements. This thread gives me the opportunity to point the credit for those not to me, but to my team. Without them, I doubt I would have been able to write a fraction of what I've done, and I'm damn sure I wouldn't have won a single one of those awards. They are the wind that blows my writing frigate forward: Sharon: She fixes my grammar and spelling, and while she doesn't say too much, when she does talk, she does so with meaning. She's reeled me in from some major plot and character disasters. But she's also a friend, and I know that she's got my back. Jeremy (Methodwriter): Jeremy gives me lots of ideas. I use a few of them. He keeps an eye on my lingo and the culture of the era, letting me know when I'm being anachronistic. He's always willing to do research if I need him to, and he does a lot of legwork with the timelines for my stories. He's also taken over music recs for my stories, which I enjoy, and he's started a thread for faces for my characters, which is one of my favorites. Adam Phillips, George Richard, Jay (not on GA), and Harry Grace (not on GA) give me a lot of support behind the scenes, sometimes involving details, sometimes just strong encouragement. Peter A. Nonymous (not on GA) is another key member of my team. Peter takes my stories and really pores over the details, looking for inconsistencies, and for things that just don't make sense. He's the guy who calls me on the impossibility of leaving California at 9:00AM and landing in New York for a lunch meeting. Dr. Peter Anderson, who gives me fantastic medical advice for my characters. I think the scenario he built for me for Matt in Bloodlines was just amazing. A newer member, Daisy139, has an extensive knowledge of the figure skating world. She and Jeremy have worked diligently to help me work out a career for one of my characters (JJ Schluter). She's so pleasant to work with, and she has such good ideas about skaters who are fuckable. For my last story, JCashell was fantastic, filling in details on Harvard-Westlake. He's busy with real life, and I don't have a character in that school anymore, but I appreciated the help he gave me. I think it would also be totally unfair to not mention all the feedback I get from my readers in the forums or reviews. So many times, they've given me ideas or input that just made a story work. And so many of them have been willing to help me out, responding quickly to my PM's begging for information. Whether it was Centexhairysub on kinky shit, or PrivateTim on waterpolo, or Westie on how British aristocrats comport themselves, to many others, they've been incredible. To all of you who have helped me out, I bow and remove my hat with a George Granger-esque flourish and salute you.

I'm sure (Will can handle himself). It can't be easy for Hank to come strolling into this family situation. Will's comments to her, when he pointed to Stef, Brad, and Robbie, and their power to cause her issues, was probably on her mind.

A rule of writing: Understand your readers. Guess it makes sense that if I post a chapter on 4-20, not many people read it. LMAO.

I'm with Will on Hank. Her being a good parent to Maddy means a lot.

Actually, if something would happen to Jeanine, then Cody would be Maddy's closest. He's her father. We just met both of them, so it's a little early to judge.

9.11 was my Spring Break effort. I'm going to try to get George back on a regular schedule, but I have some real-life time challenges facing me right now. I'll see what I can do.

June 14, 2001 We got to the airport and found Julian waiting for us next to my dad’s Gulfstream V. He was Stef’s personal assistant, and was about as different from Jeff, his prior assistant, as you could get. Jeff was strong, quiet, big, and masculine. Julian was short, slight, loud, and effeminate. I think he and Stef spent more time bitching than anything, but Stef seemed to really like him, and Julian was remarkably efficient. “Your nose is even bigger than it

I think it's a reasonable concern that Americans could mix the two up. The average US citizen is horrible at geography. Then again, they could just point out that they're from Massachusetts. That would be more accurate (especially in the case of the younger one). The sad thing is most people here probably wouldn't know where that was either.

Go to Community College, get your GPA up, and save some money. A good side benefit is that counselors there are trained to help students transfer to 4-year schools, so they can help. Your first 2 years of college are exploratory anyway, doing a bunch of gen-ed stuff to build a better foundation, and to see what you like. This will help you narrow down your choices of majors, and thus make a better decision on where to go for your final 2(ish) years. California public universities are definitely worth considering. Some people claim that Cal (Berkeley) even rivals Stanford in quality, but those people smoked too much weed with the Berkeley hippies.

Keep on guessing. We'll see what happens. And the truth of the matter is that even though I have 9-11 partially planned out in my brain, I haven't written it yet, so not even I know who's biting the bullet. I promised Sharon that JJ was going to be killed by a bus, though, so he's probably safe for this round. :-)

I'm going to do something I rarely do: I'm going to disagree with you. I think that it was Marie's job to keep quiet about things, but I'm not using the friendship doctrine to mandate them, I'm using the family doctrine. It's a tighter link. Still, I haven't been clear on how Marie initially found out about Kyle and Will's affair, and that may have some bearing, at least from your perspective.

This is one of my all-time favorite reviews. I laughed the first time I read it, and the tenth time.

I'm so glad the void in your life has been filled, although that's a lot of pressure! I like your reference to Will being a work in progress. I think what we've seen from him over the past few stories is that he matures in fits and starts. That's pretty realistic, if you ask me. Growing up is rarely smooth.

I think you're right about WIll, and about Claire. As for Will's position, while I think he's technically 'right', I don't think he's considered all the angles here. As others have pointed out, he hasn't been on the receiving end of a cheating troika. So while he's 'right', he isn't being very nice, or very gentlemanly about the thing. As Sharon noted, he's still young, but i bet he figures that out.

God, I love it when you post things. I spend most of my life in a university setting, where I hear administrators, faculty members, and the staff rant about the undergraduates and their hyper-charged libidos and party habits. And I think to myself about how old they have become, and how if we could look back in time, how badly would they not have behaved. Of course, now they're older and they know better. Or maybe they're just boring hypocrites. ;-)

I think that Will has chosen Escorial as his primary home because it feels right. He likes the structure, and I think he values, more than that, the interaction with Stef and JP. He's learning from them, and he knows it.

Dude, I'm allowed a stereotype once in a while. Besides, all of my past lesbians have been hot women with no overt masculine traits. Except Tiffany, when she's pissed off. :-)

Probably. I would think Hoboken would have a nice view.

Glad you liked it. The name seemed to work. I don't know.