It was a cheerful afternoon and the sun was shining warmly into Alex and Spencer's little cottage while Alex puttered around the kitchen making lunch. He had a skillet out on the stove, cooking up some grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches—his and Spencer's favorite lunch. The kitchen was still mostly bare except for the round table they'd brought in here and the couple of garage sale chairs that they'd added. Though they'd been here for a month now, they still had little in the way of furniture. They had the important things, such as their bed and a comfortable couch, but the rest of it was being picked up here and there as they came across it, mostly through second hand stores or the occasional garage sale they passed. Neither man was too worried about supplying furniture for the rest of the house, a house to which they would only be staying in for a few months. They did, however, have a new shipment of lumber sitting on the back patio, ready for work to be started. They'd planned together how to extend and then finish enclosing the patio. Now it was time to start the work.

But that was for after lunch. For now, Spencer was down in the shower, unwinding from this morning's appointment with Dr. Nu, and Alex was out here cooking lunch and reporting in to Scott. They'd already moved past the little bits of catching up—it had been a week since they'd last spoken, and now they moved on to the topic that inevitably came up in any conversation anymore.

"Any sign of Remy yet?" Scott asked.

That was a topic guaranteed to get at least an eye roll out of Alex. He would never understand his brother and what he was doing with this whole Remy thing. None of it made any sense to him. "No. The idiots. It's been, what, two weeks since he tore outta there? What the hell's taking him so long?"

"Well, Sherlock said he wasn't going to make it easy on him."

"Which is stupid." Alex tossed out.

"No, not really. Not if you think about it from Spencer's point of view. You think about it that way, it makes sense."

Made sense? How? What about any of this made any sort of sense? Alex rolled his eyes again and flipped the sandwich by tossing it up in the air. It landed perfectly on the other side and he gave himself a silent cheer. "I don't see how any of it makes any sense." He continued on in their conversation. "Why not just tell him where we are? Why is he insisting on hiding from him?"

"Because, if he comes to me, I want it to be because he wants me, not because he feels obligated." Spencer said behind him.

The sound of his voice had Alex jumping. He spun around, already scowling, to find Spencer standing there with a smirk on his lips. "Dammit, pidge. Quit sneaking up on me! Why do you always gotta do that when I'm on the phone?"

"Why do I always come out to find you talking about me on the phone?" Spencer countered. "You could just try asking me whatever it is you're asking Scotty."

Without skipping a beat, Alex put the phone on speaker and set it back on the base. That freed up his hands to cook with and brought Scott into the conversation with them. Alex made his way over towards the fridge. "Fine then." He said, pausing only long enough to bend and grab the milk. He straightened back up and set it on the counter. "We were talking about Remy and about the fact that he hasn't found you yet."

There was only a small clench around the eyes to give any indicator that Spencer was the least bit bothered by their conversation. Otherwise, he was completely composed as he went to the cupboard to grab two glasses. "I'd be highly impressed if he'd found us already. I laid false trails to give me a head start and to give him time to really think, not just react. If he still manages to find me, I'll know he's serious."

Laughter echoed from the phone base. "You do realize how crazy that sounds, don't you?" Scott asked.

Shrugging, Spencer took the milk from Alex and filled the glasses. "I know. It fits him perfectly, though. You have to admit, Scotty, he's a jump into things sort of guy. This…I just need him to be sure."

There was a faint quaver to those last words. Both brothers detected it and both reacted in their own ways. Alex brushed up against him while he grabbed some plates from the cupboard, a silent sort of support, and Scott quickly changed the subject. "So let's get down to the real reason I called. How'd the doctor's appointment go today? Alex wouldn't tell me anything until you got out here."

That had Spencer pausing in the act of taking the glasses to the table. It was his turn to shoot his brother a scowl while Alex was the one smirking. Even holding a glass Spencer still managed to make an obscene gesture. Alex laughed and turned back to the stove to take the sandwich off the skillet. "Yeah, yeah, love you too, pidge!"

"You're enjoying this way too much, Alexander. It's not funny!" Spencer set the glasses down just a little harder than needed, making one of them spill onto his hand. He cursed and brought his hand up to lick the milk off before it dripped.

"Oh, it's totally funny." Alex brought over two plates, each with their own sandwich, and he set them down at the table. "You just have no sense of humor."

"No sense of…now wait a minute!" Offended, Spencer straightened up and glared even harder than before.

Their argument had no chance to get into full swing. A dry "Children" cut them off at the pass. The two transferred their scowls from each other over to the phone base where their older brother's voice was coming from. "Do you think you two could stop your bickering long enough to actually tell me what the hell is going on before I decide to fly out there and knock your heads together?"

"It's not that big of a deal, Scotty. Alex is just making it out to be more than it is." Spencer quickly tried to reassure his brother. Still, despite those reassurances, he was blushing just the slightest bit as he settled down into his chair and looked down at his sandwich so he could avoid looking at Alex. "Everything checked out okay at my appointment. I'm sixteen weeks and two days along and, though she'd like to see just a bit more weight, she says that both the fetus and I are growing healthily. All of my tests so far have come back clear and there's nothing to indicate any problems. The nausea has tapered off too, thankfully, and I'm finally able to start eating more. All in all, I am doing rather well, she says."

"So what is it that Alex is finding so funny?"

The blush in Spencer's cheeks came back even more. He heard Alex snicker and he shot him a glare. "It's nothing. It's not even that funny. He's just being an idiot."

"It is funny." Alex insisted. He took a bite of his sandwich and grinned around it. "He almost broke the ultrasound machine."

Spencer almost dropped his sandwich piece. "I did not! It didn't break. It just didn't work!"

"The ultrasound didn't work? Why not?"

"Because our walking Taser generates too much electrical energy." Alex teased.

Picking up a piece of his crust, Spencer threw it at his brother, who simply caught it and shot it right back. Ducking quickly, Spencer grabbed another piece so that he could launch it as well. Then Scott's voice broke into the middle of things and both Spencer and Alex froze in surprise. "How many times do I have to tell you two not to throw food?" Scott said in the voice of a beleaguered parent. "Sherlock, quit throwing things at Alex. I know he's an idiot but he can't seem to help it. Alex, quit antagonizing him. Physiological reactions with our mutations are outside of our control and you know that. Now, can the two of you behave long enough to finish telling me what's going on, or am I going to have to place a call to Dr. Nu and get all my information from there?"

Any thoughts of a fight vanished as the two brothers looked at one another and wondered just how the hell Scott managed to do that. He wasn't here and he couldn't see them. How had he known they were throwing food? 'What the hell?' Alex mouthed at him, wide eyed. Spencer shook his head and mouthed back 'I don't know.' Alex turned towards the phone base and stared at it a moment before calmly saying "Sometimes you creep me out, Scott."

"Good. It'll keep you on your toes. Now, report."

Spencer gave one final incredulous shake of his head before giving in and 'reporting'. "You know I've always had to be care of things like MRI's and such. Not just because the electricity is tempting, but because my body naturally produces more electricity than the average individuals. Dr. Nu believes that pregnancy has caused my body to produce a little more and it seems to be just enough to actually prevent the ultrasound machine from working properly. But she says not to worry, that it's a natural part of me and my mutation and so she's sure it won't harm the fetus at all. However, she recommends avoiding anything medical tests with machinery until after the pregnancy is over. She told me we'll just have to do some things the old fashioned way."

"And we'll just get to be surprised on the gender." Alex added in. He'd been all for trying to find out what gender the baby was going to be. Spencer didn't seem the least bit bothered by not knowing. If anything, he was content to simply wait.

The conversation quickly wound down after that and soon the call was ended and the two men were done with their lunch. Spencer took their dishes to the sink to wash them since Alex had been the one to cook. It was a system that worked for them and that they'd always used each time they stayed together. Alex came and perched on the counter next to him while Spencer washed the few dishes they'd used. "So, you got any plans this afternoon, pidge?"

"I was thinking of going into town, maybe. I haven't taken much time to explore the area and there are a few things I need, anyways." Rising off the plate in his hand, he stuck it in the strainer to dry.

"Want me to come with you?"

The casually spoken offer had Spencer smothering a smile. Alex had always been on the protective side. Now that Spencer was finally starting to show a little, at least when he was dressed casually here at home, Alex's protectiveness had grown a little, becoming more apparent the further along that Spencer got. Instead of irritating him as it might've done before, Spencer found himself more amused by it than anything else. He was finding himself surprisingly mellow about quite a few things. "No, it's all right, Xander. I know you were planning on starting some of the work on the patio this afternoon. You go ahead and do that; I won't be gone long."

The use of 'Xander' had Alex smiling a bit. Only Spencer ever called him that. It stemmed from when he was younger and had had a bit of trouble saying 'Alexander'. Whenever he tried to say it, it came out 'Al'xander', and somewhere along the way it had transformed to Xander. No one else got away with calling him that. Scott occasionally called him Lex, but that was it.

Reaching out, Alex caught a bit of Spencer's hair and gave a small tug, chuckling at the swat and indignant look it earned him. "All right, then. But take the Explorer in case you come across something you wanna bring home, 'kay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Spencer waved a hand at him and went back to washing the last glass while Alex headed out to the back porch. He knew Alex wanted him to take the Explorer not just in case he found something, but because he felt it was safer than the little Escort that Spencer was driving. He'd gotten the car from a used lot about a week after his arrival and Alex had loathed the car on sight. He felt his Explorer was much safer for his brother and niece-or-nephew.

The dishes were quickly finished and Spencer soon was grabbing a sweater, which just so happened to be one of Alex's hoodies, and then he was grabbing the keys off the hook on the kitchen wall and his cell phone from the counter and then he was out the door. Best to get on out of here before Alex caught up with him and decided that he really should come along. There was no telling with him. He was creepily domestic in some ways lately. The protectiveness was familiar to Spencer; it was the other things that got to him. Like Alex's seemingly obsessive need to feed Spencer. He was constantly trying to get him to eat. Not just eat, but eat healthy. Spencer shook his head over that as he climbed into the Explorer and got comfortable. He got buckled and the key in the ignition and was soon pulling out of the driveway.

Now, it wasn't like Spencer didn't already eat healthy to begin with, so Alex's restrictions weren't really that hard to live with. It was just strange to watch Alex of all people insisting that they buy organic this, or low-sodium that, or other healthier options. The one area that he did push that was driving Spencer absolutely crazy was the issue of coffee. Alex fell firmly into the category of people that believed that no coffee was best during pregnancy. It didn't matter how many statistics and facts that Spencer quoted, or how many articles he showed that said that a single cup of coffee a day wasn't a bad thing, this was something on which Alex wouldn't be budge.

So, of course, the first place Spencer went to today was a Starbucks.

He smiled happily as he took his first sip off the white chocolate mocha he held. He hadn't had any coffee for a few days now; this tasted heavenly. There was no way he could explain to Alex just how necessary coffee was in his life. Especially as sleep was rather hard to come by lately. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't seem to get comfortable, and he couldn't seem to shut his brain off. During the day he could find countless things to distract himself. In the middle of the night, there was nothing to distract him from all the fears that plagued him. Nothing to keep him distracted from worrying about this baby, about how it was growing and whether it would be healthy, about whether or not he was going to make a good parent. And there was nothing to keep him from thinking about Remy. Those little fears crept to life at three a.m., whispering to him that Remy was never going to come, that he was going to come to his senses mid-search and go right back to Rogue and he, Spencer, was going to be alone.

Spencer firmly shoved those thoughts back. It wasn't the middle of the night right now. It was the middle of the day and he had things to do. Things that could keep him distracted from this. Firmly controlling his wandering thoughts, he put his attention back on the road and on his destination. There were errands he needed to run. He had to stop off and pick up some bathroom items, new shampoo and the like, and he needed to find a new pair of pants or two to replace the ones that were starting to get just a little snug. That right there was the main reason that he hadn't wanted Alex coming with him. To get comfortable pants, Spencer was going to have to hit a maternity store and there was no telling how that would go

Taking the turn that would lead him to the maternity store, Spencer figured he might as well get that part of things done and over with first.

Fifteen minutes later found the genius outside of a maternity store titled 'Baby Bump'. He self-consciously smoothed his hands over the front of his sweater just to make sure that no one would be able to see the small swell underneath. If he was careful, he could go in here and pick up a few things and maybe people would just assume that he was shopping for a significant other. He might just be able to get away with no one realizing that the clothes were for him. It wasn't that he was ashamed or anything like that. Of course not! He just had a very strong sense of self-preservation honed by years of being the 'odd one' and that sense was telling him it'd be stupid to court trouble by openly advertising that he was pregnant before he had to. No need to invite trouble if he could just quietly slip underneath everyone's radar.

He drew in a deep breath and steeled himself. Then he hurried forward and into the store.


Twenty minutes later he emerged from the store much more relaxed than he'd been when he went in. Not only had that been much easier than he'd thought it would be, it had actually ended up being kind of nice. 'Baby Bump' was a store that he quickly discovered carted to both pregnant women and men. They had a whole section of clothes that were male maternity clothes. And, to top it off, they'd even had a male employee who worked that section who was kind, friendly, and who made the whole process as painless as possible. Spencer had come in already knowing what his size was, having measured and figured it out at home, and he'd had a clear idea of what it was he needed, which made it all go even faster.

He was feeling rather good after a trip like that. Just a little more at ease. So it made it all the more startling when he was walking down the street and someone suddenly bumped into him hard enough to knock him into the wall of a building beside him. He barely had his balance before someone spit on the ground at his feet and an oft-heard slur was spat out with it. "Fucking fag."

Spencer's muscles clenched down in preparation for trouble. He pushed against the wall, straightening himself up, and he lifted his chin. There was no way he was going to cower here. This wasn't the first time he'd been insulted like this in his life and it wouldn't be the last. Inside, though, he was cursing himself for being stupid enough to not think about the fact that he was carrying a bag emblazoned with the Baby Bump logo on the outside, clearly labeling it maternity. Obviously someone had looked at the bag and come to the right conclusion.

When he looked up, he found two guys and a woman standing there, all of them staring at him with expressions that carried disgust in them. One guy, the one with his arm around his woman, curled his lip up, and Spencer would bet he was the one that had spit before. "Freaks like you shouldn't be out in public."

"Look at its eyes!" The woman said in a tone full of disgust. "It's a mutant, too!"

The 'it' hit Spencer and had him wincing. He'd heard that before, too, but it never got any easier. He needed to get himself out of here before this progressed to something far worse than it was. "Excuse me." He made himself say in a calm and even voice. Then he tried to step around them and continue on down the sideway.

"That's right, get the hell out of here." The guy without the girl said. "Freak!" And before Spencer could even blink, he found himself covered in the content of the guy's soda cup. Their jeering laughter filled the air as they walked away and left him standing there dripping.

Spencer brought one hand up to swipe across his face. He looked down at his shaking hand and tried to get past the shock of the moment. It never failed to stun him just how randomly cruel people could be. He hadn't done anything to them! He hadn't been doing anything but walking down the street. His only crime was in carrying a bag from a maternity store. If he hadn't had that, they would've just walked right past him, just like everyone else. Just like the people around him were doing now. Everyone was giving him a wide berth, their eyes darting furtively away. All except one.

A soft hand settled onto Spencer's arm, making him jerk back in surprise. He looked over to find an older woman there, concern lighting up her bright blue eyes as she looked up at him. Her hand came to his arm once more and this time he didn't jump. "You poor thing." She had a husky voice, like someone who had smoked one too many cigarettes in her life, but it carried so much kindness to it. "Come on, sweetheart. Come with me. We'll get you cleaned up right."

She steered him to the right, into the building that he'd been knocked into, and Spencer didn't even protest. He just let her sweep him inside. She led him through the front door and into a place that almost instantly started to soothe Spencer. It was quieter in here, with classical music playing faintly in the background, and there were books everywhere. He looked around and saw aisles of books, a children's nook over in the corner with stuff animals, a rocking chair, and children's books, an small book displays set up here and there. This was a bookstore. She'd brought him into a bookstore. He had time only for that brief look around. She kept pulling on him, taking him towards the back of the store, leading him past a young girl who was watching them both with sympathy on her face and a hand over her heart.

"Mind the store, River." The woman called out to the girl.

Spence was taken through a door and into what had to be her back storeroom. He found himself sat down on a very comfortable chair. "Go on and get that sweater off, sweetheart. It's completely covered in soda. I'll go and get you a wet rag to wipe your face off with. Did they hurt you at all? River said she saw you hit the wall out there. She was watching through the window and she called to me when those assholes started."

The bubbling speech rolled over Spencer, but hearing the woman say 'assholes' had him looking up with surprise. The woman caught his stare and her face transformed with a wicked smile that took years off her looks. "What? You never heard a grandmother swear before?" She teased him.

"Not really, no." Spencer answered honestly. He set his bags down beside his chair and then started to peel Alex's sweater off.

The woman was waiting when he finally got the sweater off. She took the sweater from him and traded it for a towel that was wet down on one half of it. "Here, I'll take that and see if I can rinse some of the soda out for you. Go on and get your face wiped off." She told him firmly. "And why shouldn't I call them assholes? That's what they are. How dare they treat you like that? What gave them the right to harass any human being that way?"

"I should've been thinking clearer." He had no idea why he was defending them, but the words sprang to his lips anyways. "If I had been, I would've put my sunglasses on or my contacts in, and I wouldn't have carried that bag so openly. Advertising being a mutant male carrier is just asking for trouble."

"Hogwash!" The woman snapped. She spun away from the sink by the wall and glared at him. She flipped her long gray braid back over her shoulder, out of her way, and fisted her hands on her hips to glare at him. For a pixie like woman whose head just reached his shoulder, she sure had that stern look down pat. It was a look Spencer remembered on his mother's face from when he was younger and he'd just done something she considered absolutely foolish. "This wasn't nothing you did and you didn't ask for any of it. This was on them and their prejudice, not on you. Now quit talking nonsense and get your face washed before it starts to dry."

There was only one response that Spencer could think of to that. "Yes, ma'am."

Humor danced across her face. She turned back to the sink and finished rinsing his sweater, draping it over to the edge to dry, and then she made her way around boxes and back over towards him. He was just finishing wiping his neck and hands and had given up on his hair until he could get home to rinse it. The woman took one look at him and made a soft "Hmm" sound. She held her hand out. "Here, hand over the towel and I'll get this bit outta your hair for you." She didn't really give him a chance to argue it. Taking the towel, she started using it to wipe down parts of hair with a surprisingly gentle touch.

The door to the main store opened and the girl from the front, River, poked her head back. "Nonna Honey? Miz Bea's on the phone and she wants to know what time you want her to drop off that box of party stuff?"

"You tell her to just bring em on by to the house any time after dinner." The woman—Honey, it would seem—told her. She never turned her attention away from Spencer's hair.

River flashed Spencer a brief smile and then darted back out.

A little unsure and still quite a bit more shaken up from things than he'd care to admit to, Spencer drew in a steadying breath and tried to will himself to relax, not even noticing how he brought his hand up to rest on his stomach. His voice was determinedly calm when he said "Thank you very much for helping me clean up, ma'am."

"It's no trouble, no trouble at all, sweetheart." Her voice softened a little more and he felt one of her hands actually stroke over his hair in a gesture he didn't think was meant to help dry it. "How're you doing? That had to shake you up something awful."

"I'm okay."

There was a shakiness to those two words that gave away his lie. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to take another steadying breath. This shouldn't bother him so much. It wasn't the first time he'd been harassed. He'd long ago stopped letting it get to him. If he let it get to him each time he was picked on, he'd spend his whole life being miserable. People always found something to give him trouble over. If it wasn't his mutation, it was his looks, or him being a carrier, his sexuality, his intelligence. There was always something. He hadn't cried over it since he was a teenager! Yet to his horror he felt tears burning at the backs of his eyes. Even knowing that it was just because of hormones didn't help.

Honey made a soft sound and Spencer felt her move the towel away from his hair. Then, stunning him completely, she wrapped her slender arms around him and pulled him in until his head was resting against her stomach. With one hand she stroked at his hair. "It's okay now, sweetheart, you're okay." She murmured to him. "You're safe now."

The warmth of her emotions wrapped around him as surely as her arms had and Spencer was horrified to find that a few tears escaped to drip against the flannel shirt he was pressed against. A few more tears slipped free and his breathing hitched slightly. But with the help of the comforting emotions emanating from her, he slowly got himself under control once more.

When his breathing was finally steady once more, Honey pulled back. She used the towel to wipe his cheeks in a gentle, no-nonsense way that took the edge off his embarrassment. "There," She said, smiling at him. "Better, now?"

He nodded at her. "Yes. Thank you."

"I told you, it's no problem. You can sit back here and relax for a moment, or you can go ahead and go take a look around while I dig up a bag to put your sweater in. We don't want it to get the rest of your stuff wet, too."

Of course, Spencer chose to go wander the store. The loose shirt he'd been wearing underneath the sweat was somehow still dry and though it didn't completely hide his bump, it offered him enough protection to feel at least somewhat comfortable as he went out into the store and started to wander the aisles. Spencer quickly decided that he'd stepped into a little slice of Heaven here. The store was full of books of all different kinds. Children's, adult's, young adults, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, classics, poetry…the list went on and on. Some were new, some were second hand, but all were in good condition. He found a spot at the back that had him smiling brightly, his troubles momentarily forgotten. It was a whole section of classics, written in foreign languages. He absolutely loved reading in Italian or French. They had a flair for words that was so rare to find anywhere else.

By the time Honey came back out with his sweater all bagged up for him, there was a stack of books under his arm and he was reaching out for another. The woman took one look at him and let out a husky laugh. "I had a feeling you were a book lover."

"You have an amazing selection of books in here." Spencer's face was lit with pleasure as he looked around at the store and back to her. "Your store is wonderful. The atmosphere, the layout, the selection—I think I'm in love here. I can see myself returning here frequently."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you." Honey teased. She passed the bag with the sweater over to Spencer and took his stack from him, looking them over as she held them for him. "You've got quite a selection you've chosen here. Proust, Voltaire, Kent, Robert Jordan, Gail Martin. Someone taught you to appreciate literature."

Spencer shrugged one shoulder and gave a half smile. "My mother was a professor of fifteenth century literature. She taught me to appreciate books from an early age."

"It's rare to find someone as young looking as you that enjoys reading as you so obviously do. You wouldn't happen to be looking for work, would you?"

The random question threw him for a moment. He froze in the act of skimming the back of the book he held. "Work?"

"Yeah." She smiled broadly at him. "I need a little extra help around the shop. It'd be good to have someone in here who loves books just as much as I do."

"Oh, well, I'd love to," and really, he would, "but I'm only in Flagstaff until the end of September, early October at the latest." Best as they figured, the baby was due mid-September, and he would need recovery time afterwards.

She waved her free hand dismissively in the air. "That's not a problem. I'm just looking for some summer help. River only works part time and I need someone to help out through our tourist season. I can't promise what the hours would be and the pay is minimum wage, but you're free to read during the downtime. It'll be an easy going job for you even as you get a little further along."

"You barely even know me." Spencer found himself saying. His mind was racing, unable to quite believe that an opportunity like this was just falling in his lap. A temporary job in a bookstore with someone who already knew he was a carrier, knew he was a mutant, and didn't care? It seemed too good to be true!

Honey's smile grew a little brighter. "I know enough to be getting on with. I'm a pretty good judge of characters and you seem like a sweet enough boy to me. So, what do you say? You interested in work?"

It was crazy. The woman didn't even know his name! Yet Spencer was a pretty good judge of character himself and Honey had showed herself to be kind, spunky and funny, definitely someone he thought he'd like to know. Her offer was perfect for him, almost tailor made it seemed, and Spencer found that he couldn't turn it away. Not an opportunity like this. His lips curved up into a smile. "I say I'd love to, ma'am. It sounds wonderful."

His words had Honey beaming at him. "Wonderful! Come on up here, then, and we'll ring you up and pull out the paperwork." She gestured for him to follow her and led him up to the counter. "An none of this ma'am business, sweetheart. You just go on and call me Nonna or Nonna Honey." His books were set down on the counter beside River, telling her "You ring him on up, River-girl, while I go get the paperwork ready for him to fill out."

The teenager was grinning broadly at him as she started to ring him up at the register. "So you're going to work here, huh?"

"It would appear so."

"Well I'm River an it's nice to meet you." She stuck her hand across the counter and held it out to him.

"I'm Spencer." He introduced himself. Though shaking hands wasn't usually something he did, he swallowed down his discomfort and took her hand in his and was caught off guard by a tingle at the touch. He looked down and saw a faint glow around her hand when she drew it back. The glow intensified until finally coalescing into a ball of light in her palm. The little ball moved, zipping around the stack of books before flying up and disappearing in a small flash. He watched it all with a smile on his face. When he looked back at her, her eyes shone just slightly with a hint of the light she'd just made.

"Welcome to The Happy Booker, Spencer."


The scene with the bullies outside the bookstore and then what happened in the back of the bookstore is something that I based off of a real life situation for me with some facts changed to suit the story. My harassment stemmed from my sexuality. I'd happened to be wearing a Gay Pride shirt after being at a gay pride parade and I hadn't changed before walking back to my hotel. My situation was a little more violent than this one, but I did meet a woman just like Nonna in here who took me back into the back of her store and cleaned me up. And, I'm not ashamed to admit this, she held me there as I cried, too. Harassment like that is a painful thing to go through and I wanted to paint a realistic picture of what it can be like sometimes.

Okay, I'm off my soap box now. I won't start preaching at you all about equal rights :) I hope you liked this chapter, even if it was mostly filler, it seems. Still, thanks for reading, and don't forget to let me know what you though!