Eyes and Ears

Eyes and Ears By A.R. Moler When Alicia leaned into Brian Townsend’s cubicle at the architecture firm, she had a bright orange envelope between her fingers. “Here’s your official invitation to the Halloween party. If you and Tristan don’t show up I’m going to be devastated.” She mimed a back of the hand to the forehead style expression of pain and grief. Brian chuckled. “You just want credit for introducing the two of us.” Almost one year ago, architect Brian Townsend had met NYPD homicide detective Tristan Blake at one of Alicia’s epic parties. Over that past year Brian and Tristan had fallen in love. Tristan had recently proposed. “Damn straight, or maybe rather not so straight. Anyway, you know what I mean. So, where’s my invitation to the wedding?” “Still at the printer’s. I think they’re pissed that we only ordered thirty-five of them.” “Small weddings can be a good thing,” she said grudgingly. “This from a woman that invites eighty-five people to a Halloween party?” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Any joy from Tristan’s family?” Brian let out a long sigh. “It’s not going well.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be meeting Tristan and his father for lunch. I have to bail.” Brian grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. As he waited for the elevator, he thought about the past year. It had started out as little more than a hook-up but had slowly progressed to falling in love. There had been misunderstandings and rocky moments, the good times and the evolution of a relationship outweighed those. Just a few weeks ago, Tristan had proposed. It had blown Brian out of the water for Tristan to make such a serious commitment and Brian had blissfully, happily, said yes. With Brian still healing from a brutal stab wound from a mugging gone bad, Tristan had hired a moving company to transport all of Brian’s possessions from the apartment to the brownstone Tristan owned. That had been mildly frustrating, having so little control over who packed what where. Belatedly, Brian realized that if Tristan hadn’t used the moving company, they would have had to wait a couple of weeks minimum, before Brian could have even halfway helped with the task. Even now, when he twisted wrong, the muscles of his side protested. It’s only been a month, he told himself.