Which Way the Wind Blows

Chapter 21

Warren punched the coding into his keyboard absently, his mind not really on his work at the moment. His mind wasn’t likely to come back to its task soon anyway. It didn’t need to, thankfully, as this part of the programming maintenance was very familiar to him and could be done automatically. Warren sighed as he looked around his cluttered desk for his notes on the last HR upgrade. Finding them under his newspaper, he pulled them out and studied his scrawl. He knew he should learn to neaten his handwriting but he never seemed to have time to work on it.

His office was quiet today and he’d closed the door so he wasn’t disturbed while he worked. Of course, he usually never was unless one or all three of the other guys came in to chat or go to lunch. But this was financial closing time for accounting so Freddy wasn’t going to be free for lunch for at least a week. And Pete was busy trying to flirt with the new marketing assistant, so he’d been conspicuously absent recently. And Jake was trying to keep one of the servers from crashing again after a hacker managed to slip in a virus.

Chris admitted he’d taken Warren for granted and cheated on him. And yet … he’d come to New York anyway. Warren still felt his life was a thousand times better now than it had been in Seattle. He had more friends … and some gay ones now, too. He’d started hitting on guys and found he wasn’t as dorky and undesirable as he’d thought he was. And yet, the thought that Chris had made the effort to look for him seemed to warm the dark haired man’s heart somehow. But Chris hadn’t done what Warren had expected when he’d first seen him. He hadn’t chased him, hadn’t even bothered trying to approach him again after the initial meeting ... though Warren knew that his own behavior had more than likely influenced that decision.

But Chris had said he didn’t know Warren had lived in the building and wouldn’t have taken the apartment if he had known. He hadn’t believed the blonde then, but he wasn’t as sure now. His ex said he would find someone to take his apartment and he had. He’d said he’d seen Warren and his friends laughing and having fun. … and that he didn’t want to intrude on his happiness. Warren shook his head now as he thought about it. Really, Chris had done as he’d said he would do and left Warren’s life. It had already been several weeks since he’d left and Warren hadn’t seen or heard from him once.

What he was really dwelling on now was the last conversation he’d had with his ex before he and Victoria disappeared. He’d asked Warren why he became an asshole like he’d been. At first the dark haired man had been incensed to hear himself compared to Chris, especially by Chris himself. Who does he think he is? And yet the more he mused on it, the more he was willing to see Chris’ point. Chris had been a horrible boyfriend, there was no denying that. And Chris himself didn’t even try. He’d said as much when he’d tried to apologize to Warren for his behavior. Of course, an apology for six years of taking Warren for granted would never cut it, as far as he was concerned.

But Chris was right about not making Warren actually witness anything like he’d done with David in the hallway. The idea had seemed perfect at the time but when it was over and Chris left him standing there, Warren only felt dirty and ashamed of himself for going through with it. What had he accomplished, other than prove that he could be as big an asshole as Chris had been to him? Nothing. And the thought was making him feel sick all over again. Chris’s absence hadn’t solved a damned thing, he decided.

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“Are you sure I should be here?” Victoria asked the small brunette woman as she tried on her wedding gown in the bridal shop. “I mean, we just met and all.”

“Are you kidding?” Lauren squeaked, looking up for a second before going back to her original task of trying to fit her chest into the bodice of the gown. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for Kee to bring an actual woman into the fold?”

“Huh?”

“Look,” Lauren sighed, giving up on the bodice. It needed to be let out some more that was for sure. The gown still felt like it was made for a waif like Kate Moss. What the hell was wrong with these designers, anyway? Didn’t they understand that real women had boobs? Then again, they were likely gay and didn’t care for boobs. Damned if she would mention that to Kee though. He was pretty sensitive when it came to gay stereotypes. “I have some female friends back home, but not many here.”

“Why’s that?” the black haired woman asked as she straightened the long train in the back of Lauren’s dress and began to do up the bustle. “You seem sweet.”

“Thanks,” Lauren grinned. “I like to think so. But some of the native New York women seem to frown on ‘sweet’, if you know what I mean.”

“Eh.” Victoria briefly thought of Elaine. “They defrost eventually if you’re persistent.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Lauren looked at herself in the mirror and smiled excitedly. “What do you think?”

“It looks gorgeous on you!” Victoria gasped.

“Hey, when can I see it?” Kee demanded from the other side of the dressing room door.

“No boys allowed!” Lauren teased.

“I’m no boy!” Kee exclaimed, barging in and grinning triumphantly. “I’m a gay man!”

“I thought you frowned on stereotypes,” Victoria smirked.

“Only when straight people make them,” he replied imperiously. “And that means you, lady!”

“I’m bi,” she shot back with a smirk. “So, nyah!”

“You’re what?” he cried.

“You heard her,” Lauren snorted.

“You are not!”

“I am so,” Victoria said.

“I thought only Chris was.” Kee scratched his head.

“Chris is, too, but we both lean more towards same sex relationships.” She turned back to finish the bustle. “That’s why we both had to leave Seattle.”

“Well, it’s your families’ loss,” Lauren declared. “And my gain. Ooh! I needed another bridesmaid!”

“What?” Kee turned to her with the same expression he’d given Victoria a moment before. “Why?”

“Claudette’s husband was transferred to Hong Kong,” Lauren said with a wave of her small hand. “They leave in three weeks.”

“Why are you so calm?” Kee demanded. “This screws up the whole seating chart!”

“It does not!”

“It does so! Claudette’s husband was supposed to be sitting at your great aunt May’s table to keep the peace!”

Lauren’s face fell as the news sunk in. “Oh no! That’s right! We have her sitting next to my cousin Helen!”

Victoria kept her laugh inside as she watched the exchange. Coming from a huge wealthy family, she’d had a lifetime of dealing with such problems. Come to think of it, so had Chris.

“Um, if I can make a suggestion?” she said softly. The two distraught people turned to her beseechingly. “First off, if you need another bridesmaid, I’d be happy to stand in, though are you sure you don’t have anyone else you know better?”

“No, I’m sure!,” Lauren jumped in. “And you look like you’re almost exactly the same size Claudette is so the dress shouldn’t need too much altering.”

“Okay,” Victoria reluctantly agreed. She wasn’t sure why someone she’d never met before would be so quick to add her to a wedding party, but c’est la vie. Lauren did seem stuck for a bridesmaid. “And if you don’t mind having Chris come, he’s very well-versed in mediating family squabbles.”

“He is?” Lauren and Kee asked hopefully.

“You should meet his family,” Victoria sighed sadly. “On second thought, you don’t deserve the migraine.”

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“Ah, Chris,” a man in his sixties said in a heavily Greek accented voice as he smiled when the blonde approached the house he and Victoria now lived in. “Is good you come home early today.”

He was the landlord and he and his family lived on the lower level of the house. Chris was glad the family was kind-hearted when they’d moved in. In fact, their two sons, both inn their late teens, had helped Victoria carry boxes and groceries up and down the stairs quite often. Though puberty might have had more of an effect on them than chivalry.

“You okay, Mr. Korvos?”

“How many times I need to tell you to call me Tony?” the man grinned. He was heavy set and was breathing a bit heavily as he sat on the porch.

“Sorry, Tony,” Chris smiled. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

“I’m fine,” the older man scoffed. “But I do need to ask a favor.”

“What’s up?”

“Benny and Michael, they’re in school sports now.”

“Yeah, I heard that football was starting up.”

“Yes. I am very proud of them.” Tony mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “But they were helping me down at the shop on the weekends over the summer and I’m afraid I can’t find anyone yet to take their place.”

Chris nodded in understanding. Tony owned a small auto body shop on the other side of Brooklyn. In addition to regular clientele, he found wrecks and such at junkyards and restored old classic cars to their former glory, selling them when he was done. But he was getting on in years, and though the boys were very interested in helping their dad with his business, they still had to finish school and that meant time away from the shop.

“I’ll help you anyway I can,” Chris told the man, happy to have something to do in his spare time other than kick himself for the ass he’d been in the past. He’d decided he’d been spending way to much time doing that anyway. “But I’ve never worked on cars before.” He held out his hands to show Tony. “See? Not one callous.”

“I change that,” the man smirked. “And you only help me with the non-customer cars.”

“Will you show me the difference between a carburetor and fuel injection?”

“I even teach you how to rebuild a whole engine!”

“Sweet!”