GENRE: Gay Spicy Romance
LENGTH: 5,196 words
RATING:

Part of the Inches of Trust universe

Architect Brian Townsend and his fiancé Tristan Blake have a Halloween party to go to. Brian's friend Alicia throws one every year. In fact, Brian and Tristan met at this same party the year before.

This year they are engaged and planning their wedding. Everything should be coming up roses ... except that Tristan's family still has issues. They'd rather Tristan wasn't gay, and if he can't manage that, then they'd rather he not get married at all.

Well, everything can't be perfect. Can their friends and chosen family help fill in the holes left by bigots and bad family behavior?

EXCERPT:
Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

The bar itself was a fairly impressive mass of dark wood and brass fixtures. The shelves behind it were lined with high end liquor. Brian glanced at what they had on tap. "I'll have a Boddington's."

Tristan ordered him one and got himself one, too. "You've spoiled me. I can barely tolerate the cheap mass produced domestic stuff anymore."

They were shown to a table in a quiet corner and Brian wondered if it was to get them out of plain sight. Tristan didn't seem to notice. They sat across from each other.

"At least your family seems to think us getting married is a good plan," Tristan said, rubbing his hands over his face.

"We never thought convincing your family was going to be easy." Brian reached out and took Tristan's hand in his own, and lightly squeezed Tristan's fingers.

"Would you believe my mother called and told me there was 'plenty of time to call the whole thing off' and that I 'didn't have to go through with it.' Jesus ... you'd think this was a shotgun wedding."

"Knocking me up would be a really difficult task," Brian dead-panned.

Tristan gave Brian a rueful half smile. "Yeah, that it would."

"Can I change the topic?"

Tristan nodded.

"Alicia gave me the invitation to her Halloween party today. I knew it was coming, I just didn't know the date," Brian said. "Since she likes to hold it on a weekend so everyone doesn't have to worry about getting up the next morning."

"I take it we're planning on going?"

"I went makeup shopping a few days ago and put a reservation on a costume for you."

"Do I even dare ask what you ordered?" Tristan grimaced slightly.

"I thought we'd go as Batman and Two-Face. I went thrift store shopping and bought a cheap gray suit. I ran over the left side of it with the car a couple of times and I'm thinking about singeing it with a blowtorch.

"And you want me to be Batman?"

"Hey, I thought we'd continue the theme of not being able to see half your face, since you were Zorro last year." Brian ran a fingertip along Tristan's lips.