---

I'd only been at Kevyn and Bastian's place for a few days, but I could definitely tell that they were very much in love. It wasn't because they were always saying, "I love you" to each other, they didn't when others were around, and I didn't know if they did when they were alone. But I could tell just from the way they'd look at each other, do things for each other, etc. It was obvious that they were very much in love.

Shortly after the first of the New Year, I'd contacted the school to find out about my request for a dorm change and was told that they couldn't, or wouldn't, change my living arrangements. I was stuck with Jayson for the rest of freshman year. I inquired about living off campus and was told in no uncertain terms that freshmen were required to live on campus and if I were found to be living off campus, I'd have my financial aid revoked.

After I was done with that bit of not so good news, I contacted the records office and put in a change of address to Kevyn's place for all my mail that would normally be sent back to the 'rents house. Since I wasn't going to be living there any more, it didn't make sense to have my school stuff sent there.

The phone call that I received from Tristan's best friend Aric really upset me. I'd not heard from him either and I had told Aric as much. I didn't know if Aric knew what my relationship to Tristan had been, and I didn't tell him, just in case Aric didn't know about Tristan. I told Aric that other than his cell phone, I didn't have any way of contacting him. Aric left me his number along with a promise that he'd call me if he heard from him and asked me to do the same.

Kev and Bas had started back to school shortly after the first of the year. Unlike my school that was off until the beginning of February, they went back to school right away. They were gone for most of the day and if they weren't in school, they were working. I spent the first week I was there alone a lot during the day. I'd do a lot of reading, it was one of my favorite things to do, or I'd end up visiting with Kevyn's landlady, Mrs. K. She was a sweet old woman who knew all about Kevyn and Bastian and thought the world of them. I found out from her that she had one son, Francis, and he was gay as well. He and his partner lived out in San Francisco and were always sending her flowers or small gifts from their travels. Apparently Francis' partner owned a glass blowing company and was well known for his designs and work. As a result, they were rather wealthy and were always jetting off to one part of the world or another.

It was only a week or so after I had gotten to Kevyn and Bastian's when Jayson called and told me he didn't want to be living in the same room with a fag. We had a big fight about it and I was pretty much in tears by the end of the conversation. I didn't have anywhere to go live during school. They wouldn't help me find another roommate and I couldn't live off campus. I was screwed.

"Why don't you go to school with us?" Kevyn inquired after I had told him and Bastian what had happened earlier in the day. We were sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner. I'd made us tacos since both Bas and I liked them. Kevyn wasn't big on them but he tolerated them. "You're more than welcome to stay with us, we've got the room. The second bedroom is yours. I know Mrs. K wouldn't mind. She made some comment the other day about what a nice young man you were. She also made some comment about you having a nice backside too." I turned several shades of red at that comment. "I, of course, acted shocked. She told me not to worry, that she was too old for you."

Bastian couldn't help but laughing at both his comment and my embarrassment by it. "Laugh all you want, boyfriend," he said to Bastian. "She said the same thing about you soon after you moved in." It was my turn to laugh and Bastian's turn to blush.

"Well, thanks Kevyn, that's very generous of you," I replied putting together another taco. "But what about the cost? I can't afford the tuition here anymore than I could afford the other place. And the other place had financial aid for me."

"I was thinking about that," Kevyn answered after drinking some milk. "It would be too late for you to start up this semester, but you could work this spring and summer and use that money to help defray costs here and for your school books, and you could apply for hardship financial aid with the university. I was talking with Cy the other day and he said the university sets aside money for local kids that can't afford to go. He works in the admissions office and could get you the paperwork you need and help push your request for aid through. I'm sure you'd get it. He also said any of your aid that is through any of the federal programs will probably transfer here once you're accepted."

I sat there in stunned silence for a few minutes, not believing what I was hearing. I'd only met Kevyn a couple of times and been living with them for a couple of weeks, totally out of necessity and here he was offering me a place to live and help with getting into the university that he and Bastian were going to.

"I don't know what to say," I finally said. "Thank you just doesn't seem adequate enough."

"You don't need to thank me," Kevyn answered, putting his glass of milk down. "Bastian thinks the world of you and I've really enjoyed having you here. You're like the little brother I never had. And without having to actually grow up with you." He grinned when he said that.

True to his word, when Kevyn arrived home from classes the next day he had a packet of information for me on the financial aid process and the other information I'd need to fill out in order to transfer my credits from my old school to this one. It was a lot of paperwork and I wasn't looking forward to having to fill it out, but at least I would be able to continue my education.

It took me a couple of days to fill out the applications and the paperwork and contact the school and request a copy of my transcript. I gave the information to Kevyn at the beginning of the next week and he promised he'd get it to Cyrus as soon as he could. After I had completed that task, I set out to find a job. If I was going to continue to live with Kevyn and Bastian, I needed to be able to help contribute to the monthly expenses. I pored over the classifieds from the Sunday paper and circled a few prospects. By the end of the week, I'd secured employment as a "Kitchen Sanitation Technician" at a local restaurant. They needed help on the breakfast/lunch shift and I didn't have much to do during the day so I took it. It allowed me to work and still be home in time to make dinner for the guys. Sunday was their busiest day because of the brunch buffet they had, so I had to work Sunday through Friday mornings. I was lucky in that I got Saturdays off. I also kinda fell into prepping dinner for our little group. I didn't mind. I liked to cook, having learned it from mom when I was much younger.

Over the next couple of weeks we settled into a routine and I had completely forgotten about my application for the financial aid and transfer to the university until the Wednesday before Valentine's Day when a plain white envelope arrived at the apartment for me. I arrived home just after the guys did and Bastian and Kevyn were grinning and had their hands behind their backs when I came through the back door.

"What?" I asked pulling my coat off and hanging it up. I took my boots off and walked across the dining area into the kitchen and began to pull stuff for dinner out of the fridge.

"Dinner can wait for a few minutes, JJ," Bastian said holding up an envelope. "You got mail!"

I put the ground turkey for spaghetti sauce down on the counter. I walked over to him and took the envelope from him. "Who could be mailing me here? Who knows I'm here?" They didn't say anything. I turned the envelope over and noticed the university name on the upper left corner. "Holy shit. Could this be what I think it is?"

"Go on, open it," Kevyn said, almost in a whisper, as though he didn't want to speak it too loudly incase he could cause the answer to change.

I ripped open the envelope and pulled out the single piece of paper. I read it to myself, my eyes getting wider as I read it.

"Well?" Bastian asked impatiently. "What does it say?"

I looked at the guys and looked back at the letter, double-checking to make sure the letter hadn't changed. "I got accepted to the school for the fall semester as a second quarter freshman and I got the financial aid as well!"

Kevyn and Bastian both whooped and hollered and came over to hug me in congratulations. "This definitely deserves a celebration dinner!" Kevyn declared as he pulled out from hugging me.

"Yeah!" Bastian agreed. "How about Saturday night?"

Kevyn thought for a second before he answered. "Um, Saturday is Valentine's Day."

"Oh, that's right! And it's your birthday too, JJ! We have three things to celebrate!"

Kevyn turned to look at me. "It's your birthday? On Valentine's day?"

I blushed. "Yeah."

"Is it going to feel weird celebrating your birthday by yourself, without your twin?"

Bastian turned to face his boyfriend. "The twins were born across a midnight. So Jayson was actually born on the thirteenth and Justyn came out the fourteenth."

"Really?"

"Really," I replied. "When we were younger, he used to make such a big deal over the fact that he was a 'day' older. I used to remind him that he was like only five minutes older than I was, that we just happened to be born across midnight. He finally gave it up in junior high when he realized that I didn't really give a shit and he didn't get any special treatment because of it."

"And you guys never had parties together, being born across the midnight?"

"We did when we were younger, but as we started to get older," I answered him. "Like third or fourth grade, we started doing separate birthdays. We had a few of the same friends so some kids came to two parties but for the most part we each had our own group of friends so they weren't just the same party two days in a row."

"Wow. So where should we go to dinner to celebrate all three things?"

I walked back to the kitchen and grabbed the ground turkey and started opening the package so I could cook it. "You know where I'd really like to go?"

"Where?" Bastian asked.

I dropped the slab of ground turkey into the frying pan. "I know it's kinda far from here, but how about Granny J's?" I used a wooden spoon to break it up into more manageable chunks.

Bastian and Kevyn both looked at each other. "That sounds good to me," Kevyn finally said. "You do realize that she's going to give us shit for not being there in a while."

"Yeah," Bastian replied agreeing with him. "But it'll be worth it for the food."

* * *

Even though it was only three days until Saturday, the days seemed to last forever. It felt like it had been several weeks by the time Saturday rolled around. I always enjoyed Saturdays, but especially now that I was working six mornings a week. I could sleep in on Saturday and be really lazy about getting up. The Saturday of my birthday was no different. I woke up around 9:30 or so but lay in bed for another half hour or so. If it weren't for the fact that I had to piss really badly, I wouldn't have gotten up at all. Fortunately by the time I got up, my morning wood had gone down so I didn't have to wait for it before pissing like most mornings.

After finishing up in the bathroom I walked into the living room to find Kev and Bas kissing rather deeply. A large bouquet of roses was on the coffee table and there was a small box surrounded by some wrapping paper too. I was pretty certain that they had been kissing for a while because they both had tenting in the front of their boxer shorts.

My brother had always had a good body while growing up from all the sports he played but apparently his going away to college had been good to him as well. The karate lessons and the gym membership had given him more muscle tone and definition. Kevyn was looking hot as well. He wasn't as muscular as my brother was, but he still had some nice definition.

It was a little strange seeing my brother kissing another guy. Yeah, I knew he's gay, and I've known for a while but I'd never seen him kiss anyone, boy or girl, nor had I ever seen them affectionate before. I knew that they were very much in love, but they usually expressed their love for each other in private. They apparently didn't realize I had come into the room, or possibly that I'd even woke up. As my dick started to harden in my boxers, I retreated quietly back the way I came.

I closed the door behind me as I reentered my bedroom and sat down on the bed. Seeing Bas and Kev together like that, kissing, obviously arousing each other made me start thinking of Tristan and the fact that I hadn't seen or talked to him since November. I'd found myself thinking about him more and more as we got closer to Valentines Day. I'd never really considered Valentine's Day as a day for lovers before, mostly because I never had one before now. Yeah, I had dated a girl, Suzy, back in high school, but that was just for show. She was never interested in guys, only girls, and I wasn't interested in girls, only guys. So it worked out. Yeah, I had bought her flowers on Valentine's Day, but only for show. She never knew I liked guys, she just thought I was a good friend for helping her to cover the fact that she was a lesbian. She was dating a girl from a neighboring town. Me? I just went along to the movies for the free ticket and popcorn.

I'd last talked to Aric a week or so ago. He called to let me know that he'd still not heard anything from Tristan and that the cops seemed to be giving him the run around on the missing persons report he filed on Tristan a couple of weeks earlier. The cops had Tristan's truck towed back to his parent's house after it had been sitting abandoned in the park for a few days. Aric didn't know the whole story but apparently his father had told the cops something about Tristan going away for part of Christmas break with some friends and had left his truck there, not realizing it would be towed. Aric wasn't hopeful that the police would be doing anything more to try to find him.

My cock was still tenting my boxers so I shucked those and settled back into the bed. It was definitely easier for me to jack off here than it had been living at home or in the dorm with Jayson. The house I grew up in wasn't that large, three bedrooms, and with having three kids, that meant two of us had to share a room. I don't know how often Jayson had 'choked his chicken' as they say, since we'd never jerked off together but I was able to manage a couple of times a week while living at home and in the dorms and since I coming here, I was doing it almost daily.

I stroked my cock as my thoughts turned to Tristan. It was almost five months since we'd fooled around with each other. I don't think you could call it making love cause I'm not sure at that point we were in love with each other. I had definite feelings for him at that point, but I'm not sure they were as strong as love. I've not seen him since just after Thanksgiving, and that was almost three months ago. I've never stopped thinking about him and my feelings for him hadn't lessened. Maybe I did love him.

I continued to stroke my cock as I thought about the one and only time that another guy touched my dick. Not only did he touch it, he also sucked it. We never got any further than that. I think it was because we weren't ready to take that step yet, plus we were also just in Tristan's dorm room and we could have been walked in upon at any time. We didn't want to risk being in the middle of fucking and have his roommate or someone else just come breezing in.

I'd only seen two other cocks in my young life. I wasn't like Jasyon and on the football team so I didn't have the opportunity to see other guys naked. We didn't have to shower after gym class so most of the guys only went down to their underwear. I saw quite a few bulges and some nice backsides, but they were always in underwear. The only two guys I'd ever seen naked were my best friend Cam and my twin. Of course, seeing my twin brother naked is the same as looking in the mirror. About the only real difference between us was that Jayson was a little more built up from his being on the football team. We had a fitness set in the basement growing up and we had worked out there together. He preferred to work out at home and he needed a partner so being twins, it naturally fell to me to be his workout partner.

The continued stroking on my cock was having the desired effect. The feelings coming from my cock and throughout my body were as strong as though I hadn't beaten off in over a week though I had just done it the previous night before going to bed. I was just getting ready to shoot my load when I heard a door slam. I stopped in mid stroke wondering what was going on. It wasn't even ten seconds after the door had slammed that I heard Bastian call out "Sorry!" They must have decided to move into the bedroom to continue what they had been doing in the living room and the door got away from them. I'd been woken up a few times in the night by that door when the boys had come home from a night out with their friends.

I returned to my ministrations and it didn't take much longer for my balls to finally pull up into my body and for the floodgates to open and for cum to shoot out of my cock. The first shot landed up on the pillow next to my head and the next few landed on my pecs. I stroked a few more times as the last of the jizz dribbled out. I wiped off my cock with my hand and rubbed the now drying cum into my skin.

I lay on the bed in the afterglow of my orgasm and zoned out for a bit. It wasn't until I heard the bedsprings creaking in the bedroom next to mine that I ended up returning to the present. I looked over at the clock and discovered that I had been zoning out for about twenty minutes. The sounds of the bedsprings were going steady which meant they would be there for a bit. I climbed off the bed and decided to get my shower in while I could. The guys usually took a shower together on the weekend and sometimes that would last longer than their sessions in the bedroom.

I didn't bother with my shorts or anything and went over to the bathroom completely naked except for the cum still on my body. My cock, while not huge by the standards of the porn industry had softened up and was lying in front of my balls. I was tempted to kneel down in front of the door to their bedroom and peer in the keyhole and see what I could see. This house was old enough that all the interior doors had the old-fashioned keyhole locks. You could see into the room if there was enough light. You couldn't see the whole room but you could see enough.

I'd decided against spying on my brother and his boyfriend and had just about reached the bathroom door when a rather loud groan came out of their bedroom and the voice of Kevyn panting "faster, harder." In two steps I was at their door kneeling down to look through the keyhole, the idea of not looking was gone from my head faster than the calculus equations that I had hated in high school math so much. I don't know if they realized that the position of the bed in the room lent itself to being seen from the keyhole or not. If they did, they didn't care.

I looked through the keyhole and I had a perfect view of Kevyn from the front bouncing up and down as he straddled Bastian. It was obvious that my brother was fucking him, thrusting up into him from beneath Kev's flushed and sweaty body. The sight of Kev's hard cock and balls bouncing around was enough to bring my flaccid penis back to life. It was hard in an instant and I could have sworn that the guys and the entire neighborhood could have heard it slap against my stomach as it reached full mast.

I started to stroke it as Kevyn continued to ride up and down my brother's cock. It only took a minute or two of watching them before I shot my load again. It wasn't as strong as my eruption some twenty minutes earlier. I placed my hand in front of cock and caught the cum as it dribbled out. After I finished shooting and came down off of my post orgasmic high I stood up quietly and went into the bathroom as my cock deflated.

Closing the bathroom door behind me I licked the cum from my hands. I would occasionally do that. I liked the taste of it and the feelings that it gave me when I rubbed it into my chest as I had earlier. I pulled a towel out of the linen closet and put it on the toilet. I reached behind the curtain and turned on the water in the old claw foot tub that was on the far side of the bathroom. There was a big window on the wall the tub was on and a previous tenant or owner had put wooden blinds to keep people in the next house from seeing in.

The water had warmed up to a comfortable temperature and I stepped into the tub and pulled the valve on the faucet causing the water to run up the pipe on the wall to the shower head stationed there. The house had been built before showers were invented so someone had come through afterward and added a showerhead in. I'd never seen a setup like this before and had said as much to Kevyn my first morning there when I went to take a shower. The tub was a wonderful thing though, nice and long and deep. It was great for relaxing in. Bastian had confided that he and Kevyn also liked to take baths together, especially on cold winter mornings where they didn't have anywhere to go or anything too pressing to do.

The warm water felt good on my skin and I took my time washing my hair and soaping up my body. My cock twitched a little bit as I washed it and my balls but refused to rise. I'd shot twice in a twenty-minute period and apparently that was enough for my body. After I finished rinsing off the soap and shampoo I stood under the showerhead and let the warm water work it's magic on my body. The pulsing of the water felt good and helped to relax my muscles. They were still a little tight from bending over the sink all day at the restaurant.

I'd probably been in the shower for twenty minutes or so before I finished. I grabbed the towel off the toilet as I moved the curtain aside. I dried off some while still standing in the tub then I moved over to the rug that was on the floor in front of the tub and finished my drying off. I hung the towel on the rack to dry and went to the sink to finish the items I needed the bathroom for.

Ten minutes later I left the bathroom and headed back to my bedroom. I couldn't hear any noise from the guy's room so they must have fallen back asleep or were just lying there recovering from their earlier adventures. I started to head over to my dresser to grab my undies when I noticed something on the bed. I detoured over there and discovered a piece of paper and Kevyn's digital camera. Being totally confused I picked up the note and read it. It said "Trying taking a picture the next time. It might last longer." I was still confused when I heard laughing behind me.

I turned around, still in my birthday suit to discover Kev and Bas in the doorway, also naked. I'd never seen either one of them naked, except Kevyn a little bit ago and I liked what I saw. They both had very nice bodies and equally nice cocks. I wasn't into that whole incest thing, but I was still a gay guy and I liked looking at naked men. I held up the camera with a questioning look.

Kevyn laughed, gave Bastian a kiss and went into the bathroom. Bastian came into my room and took the camera out of my hand. He gave me a smile and said, "if you want to watch us fucking bro, take some pictures next time so we can see how we look."

My face turned redder than a fire truck when I realized that they'd discovered that I had been watching them. "But how?" I finally managed to choke out.

"We came out to use the shower and I stepped in your little swimmers. You really should check the floor when you jerk off in front of our door."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Mad? No, we're not mad. Just a little surprised that you were watching us, that's all. I didn't know you were a voyeur."

"I'm not," I stammered. "I didn't mean to, I'd come out earlier and I saw you two kissing on the couch and I've never seen you do anything like that before and then I came back to my room and I was thinking about Tristan and the first time we kissed and well, one thing lead to another and I ended up beating off. Afterwards, I decided to get my shower and I was just about at the bathroom door when I heard Kevyn scream out and natural curiosity got the best of me and I looked through the keyhole and saw you two going at it."

"How long were you out there watching us?"

I had started to get hard again talking about this and I noticed that my brother was too. "Only a couple of minutes. As soon as I saw what you were doing I was hard again. It only took a couple of strokes before I came again."

"Yeah, and left the guys all over the floor."

I looked down, my face getting red again. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry JJ. Just clean up after yourself next time." He reached out and squeezed my shoulder before turning around and heading toward the door.

"Bas," I called after him as he reached the door. He stopped and turned around.

"Yeah kiddo?"

"Today was the first time I've ever seen you guys kiss and I wouldn't have even seen that if I hadn't come out of my bedroom. How come you guys aren't very affectionate?"

He leaned up against the doorway. "You think we're not affectionate cause you never see it?"

"Yeah. There are always people in malls and movies and stuff kissing and hugging and you always see them doing that on TV too. But you guys don't."

"Well, we'd get our asses kicked if we tried to do that in public, especially in this state, so we do it in the privacy of our home. And before you came to live with us, we used to do it all the time here too. But we decided to keep that stuff private when you arrived."

"Why? It's not like I'm some homophobe, I'm not Jayson." I crossed my arms across my chest.

"Calm down JJ, it's not that at all." Bastian came back into the room and stood next to me. "We just weren't sure how comfortable you'd be with us being all intimate and affectionate, that's all. I've not talked to you much about sex and love so I don't really know how you feel about these things. I don't know what you're comfortable with and what you're not. We didn't want to risk offending you by going at it on the couch when you got home from work. We weren't sure how you'd react." He reached over and put his arm around me, pulling me into him. His skin felt warm next to mine. "The last thing we want to do is to make you uncomfortable."

"You guys kissing won't make me uncomfortable."

"Okay, that's good to know." Bas pulled me into a hug. "I love you JJ."

I squeezed him back. "I love you too."

Bastian broke the hug. "Well, I better get into the shower before my boyfriend uses up what's left of the hot water."

I watched him leave, amazed at how my life had changed since going to college. I'd known I was gay for a while. I think it was when I was around ten, but I never had imagined that my oldest brother was gay too. Of course I never figured, even back as far as last August when I was getting ready to move to college that everything that had happened would have happened. I'd thought about trying to find a boyfriend, but having never met another gay guy, I didn't exactly know where to start. My ex-girlfriend was a lesbian and she didn't even know any gay guys, at least that she knew were gay.

I started getting dressed as I thought about the incidents that lead me up to here. First I ended up discovering that Tristan was gay and we started going out, then I discovered that my oldest brother was gay, then Tristan got attacked and I ended up coming out to Jayson because of what he was saying about Tristan. Then Christmas Eve happened and I got kicked out of the house after Dad discovered that I was gay too. I stayed with my best friend, who had come out as gay at Thanksgiving and was dating Jayson's best friend who'd come out several months earlier. I ended up coming here when I overheard Cam's mom complaining about the fact she seemed to be taking in every gay kid and she didn't want to be running a gay halfway house.

Now I'm living with my brother and his boyfriend and it's my nineteenth birthday. I'd been accepted to college here where they're going and I'd told the school that I was going to that I wasn't coming back. I'll end up graduating late cause I'd miss the spring semester of my freshman year but I was sure I could make it up as I go along. Now I just had to find out what happened to Tristan and everything would be good-that is, if he's okay.

I finished getting dressed and headed off to the kitchen while the boys showered. I grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down to read the paper while I waited for them to finish what they were doing. I'd just about finished the paper when they came into the kitchen all showered, shaved and dressed.

"Heya Tom," Kevyn called out to me as he grabbed a bowl out of the cabinet. I blushed when I realized he was referring to me as a peeping Tom. "Glad to know you liked our show."

"Sorry Kevyn, it won't happen again."

"Don't worry about it bro, I'm not angry. Just never figured that our sex life would be worth getting off to."

Bastian laughed and joined me at the table. He took a sip of my orange juice and grabbed the paper that I had already read. We spent the next half hour or so reading the paper in relative silence.

The day was fairly quiet. The guys took me out shopping at the mall and paid for two of the music CDs that I had been eyeing as part of my birthday present from them. We walked around the mall for a bit, checking out the cute guys and just hanging out. We went home for a bit and visited with Mrs. K. before heading off to dinner at Granny J's.

I'd not been to Granny J's since I'd moved in with my brother and Kevyn. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd been since before Thanksgiving. It was a lot longer of car ride from Kevyn's to Granny J's than it was from where I had been going to school. The guys teased me on the way over there how they were going to tell Granny J it was my birthday and how everyone in the restaurant would sing to me, especially since I was a Valentine's baby. I kept threatening unpleasant things happening to them if they dared to let her know it was my birthday.

The parking lot behind Granny J's was full when we got there so we had to drive around for a few minutes to find a place to park. We finally parked in a department store's lot up the street. They were closed so it wasn't like we were keeping a paying customer from having a place to park. It took us like five minutes to walk to Granny J's from there.

The full parking lot out back should have been an indication that the place was busy. I'd only been there a few times but it was never as busy as this. I don't think it was ever half this busy the few times I'd been. Most of the tables were full and there were a few people waiting by the entrance. A girl I'd never seen before was holding a clipboard and greeting people.

"Hi, do you have a reservation?" she asked us as we came in.

Kevyn and Bastian looked at each other. Apparently we'd not considered the fact that the restaurant would be busy on today, of all days. "Um, no, we don't."

"Well, I'm sorry, we can't take you unless you've got reservations."

We were about to leave when Charlie appeared beside the girl. "It's okay, Heather, Granny J invited them. You can seat them at the booth in the corner." He smiled at us and went back to clearing tables.

Heather grabbed three menus and motioned for us to follow her. She brought us over to the booth that we had sat at the last time. She placed the menus down on the table and left to go back to the entrance. Kevyn sat on the side facing toward the kitchen and Bas sat down next to him. I sat in the middle of the booth on the opposite side. With all the additional people, the noise level in the restaurant was a bit higher as well. We all grabbed our menus and started to look through them.

I'd just started reading the specials for the night when a voice called out near me. "Well, as I live and wheeze!" We all put our menus down and found Granny J standing at our table. She looked the same as the last time I'd seen her. "It's about damn time you came to see Granny J!"

"Sorry Granny J," Kevyn started to say.

"Yeah, I know, you kids have been busy," she responded putting her hands on her hips. "But you still need to eat, and there's no better place to do that then Granny J's!"

"We weren't sure we'd get to eat here. We didn't think about needing reservations and if it wasn't for Charlie telling Heather that you had invited us, we'd be on our way home."

Granny J didn't get a chance to answer Kev's question before Charlie showed up with the glasses of water and some bread. "Did you tell him?" he asked Granny J after he'd placed the items on the table.

"No, I hadn't gotten that far yet." Kev, Bas and I all exchanged glances, not knowing what they were talking about. We'd only decided Wednesday or something like that to come here for dinner and none of us had called. What could they be talking about? Did they figure out it was my birthday?

Granny J looked at me and smiled, her chubby cheeks pooched out and her bright eyes twinkled. "Tristan's here." My heart skipped a beat. I must have heard her wrong. Did she just say that Tristan was here? I turned and scanned around the restaurant. I didn't see him but I couldn't see all the booths from where I was. I looked back at her, the unasked question obvious on my face. Where was he? "He's in the back, washing dishes. Go back and see him."