Daddy vs The Invaders
By M.A. Innes
Chapter One
Knightly
“I’ve fucked up. Massively.” My wide-eyed neighbor—the one whose name I could never remember—looked a bit like he was ready to burst like an anxiety balloon. “I’m not manly enough to do this and I need help.”
He just kept getting more and more dramatic.
He was lucky he was cute because this was worse than when he thought the mailman hated him.
“Being gay does not make you less ‘manly’ than anyone else.” Normally I wouldn’t assume anyone’s sexuality but his sparkled. Literally. He was wearing a sparkly pink tank top withTaste the Rainbowin glittery neon print.
And I’d seen some of the guys he’d brought home over the past six months.
Yep, no freak-out over the assumption.
“Some types of gay are less manly than others. I don’t fix sinks. I don’t fix cars. And it turns out that I can’t put together a barbecue grill either.” Other than projecting panic and frustration, I couldn’t decide how he felt about the differentkinds of gay thing. “Why do they come in so many parts? Why do I have to play with fire to be manly?”
I was missing something.
“Who said you had to be able to grill to be manly?” That wasn’t on the weird lists that anyone had ever screamed at me about.
“My grandmother.”
God.
“Okay. We’re going to have to agree to disagree about that.” She was clearly a bitch. “But how can I help?”
Had he come charging over just to vent? I’d dated a few women who expected me to listen and nod and not try to fix anything, but I wasn’t sure what neighbor guy wanted. We hadn’t talked enough for me to be able to guess unless saying hello by the mailboxes counted as quality time.
His serious expression should’ve been my warning. “You have to teach me how to set fire to meat.”
For fuck’s sake.
“I have to be manly by four o’clock.” He looked down, frowning. “And I might need to change.”
“No. You need to show your family that you’re a confident gay man who can tackle anything no matter what you’re wearing.” Even I knew that and I was the least “gay-seeming” bi man anyone had ever met.
Somehow I’d missed out on all the stereotypical traits and several exes had tried to revoke my rainbow card.
Some more violently than others.
“I can’t tackle fire that comes in a thousand parts.” His twitching was easing off but his frantic pitch hadn’t changed… or the look in his eyes that said he was thinking about tackling me and wringing my neck.
Clearly womenandmen could both give me that expression.
“They wouldn’t even sell me propane down at the gas station because she said I’d kill myself with it.” That didn’t make any sense at all, but luckily for me, he didn’t need me to prompt him for an explanation. “I didn’t realize it was a lighter. Anyone could’ve made that mistake and set the counter on fire. Those are dangerous.”
Okay, maybe I agreed with the lady at the gas station.
Was he why that counter was scorched-looking?
Wait.
That really old cranky woman who worked the morning shift?
