"I was writing " -- felt *good* to say that -- "and I'm in a
bit of a, how you say, creative fog."
Link took a step back. "I don't want to disturb you," he said.
But for all that, she still approved his outfits before he left
the house, refusing to let him succumb to the ephemeral awful
trendiness of mesh-back caps and too-tight boy-scout jamboree
shirts. Instead, she put him into slightly fitted cotton shirts
that emphasized his long lean belly and his broad shoulders.
"Don't sweat it. I could use a break. Come in and have a drink or
something." He checked the yellowing face of the tick-tock clock he kept
on the mantelpiece and saw that it was just past noon. "Past lunchtime,
that means that it's okay to crack a beer. You want a beer?"
And for all that, her brother still managed to come home looking
like some kind of frat-rat pussy-hound, the kind of boy she'd
always hoped he wouldn't be.
"Beer would be great," Link said. He stepped into the cool of the living
room and blinked as his eyes adjusted. "This really is a hell of a
place," he said, looking around at the glass cases, the teetering stacks
of books that Andrew had pulled down and not reshelved, making ziggurats
of them instead next to all the chairs.
"What can I do for you?" Adam said, handing him a glass of Upper Canada
Lager with a little wedge of lime.
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