Chapter 1: Shanghai Can Go Screw Itself

“Devon! Stop staring at yourself in the mirror and come down here to help your old man!”

“I have NOT been staring at myself in the mirror!” I yell back.

I snap my attention away from the full length mirror I had spent ages trying to position at the right height on my wall, first making sure that my hair hadn’t gone out of shape from the car ride here.

Satisfied with my hair I quickly adjust the collar on my pink shirt, turning it inside out and flipping it upwards, and smooth out any creases on my jeans before heading down the stairs of the new house.

At the bottom of the stairs, my ‘old man’ was trying to look over a mattress he was slowly pushing up the stairs. A lot of people have remarked on my father’s good looks, commenting on his dark green eyes and his shoulder length dirty-blonde hair, both traits that I haven’t had the fortune to inherit. Add to that how he spends a horrific amount of time at the gym and at the tanning salon and you’ve got a Dad that my female friends all thought of as ‘hot.’ Ugh.

“Devon champ, help me out? This needs to go in the master bedroom.”

I grab hold of the other end of the mattress, and, looking over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t trip on any stairs, start to help my father maneuver the said mattress.

“Dad, remind me again why we aren’t letting the movers do this?”

“Well, if we all help out, we can get settled in a lot faster, and we won’t have to pay for as many movers.”

I sigh at my father’s penny pinching. “Dad, we’re freaking moving to one of the richest cities in the country, I’m sure a few extra bucks shelled out will save you from having to pay for expensive back surgery in a few year’s time. Think of it as both an investment and being lazy!”

“Devon’s right you know. I did tell you to not interfere with the movers.” Comes a voice from the top of the stairs. I look up to see a dark haired man standing at the entrance to the master bedroom with his hands folded across his chest and a smirk written across his face. The mattress finally reaches level ground on the second floor and my father lets go for a moment, leaving me alone to try and keep it from toppling over. My father walks up to the other man and, wrapping his arms around dark haired man, pulls him in and kisses him on the lips.

Oh gross.

“Dad! Pops! The mattress? A little help?”

The two men break apart and the dark haired man goes to the other end of the mattress, helping me support it. This man, who happens to be my OTHER father has wavy black hair (which he constantly battles with… and loses) and almond shaped dark brown eyes. He’s slimmer, but still fit because green eyed father drags him to the gym every so often. Again, referring back to my female friends, my darker haired father gets his fair share of compliments from them as well, which never ceases to disturb me. But no, I didn’t inherit any of these highly-praised traits either, because I was in fact adopted by the two of them when I was six. Since I’ve been little, I’ve come up with my own nomenclature for both of them, to save myself a lot of trouble. I’ve always called my green eyed father ‘Dad’ and I used to call my dark eyed father ‘Papa,’ only more recently shortening it, much to his annoyance, to ‘Pops.’

“We’ll be needing this.” Says Pops, giving Dad a suggestive wink.

My Dad comes and takes my place at the head of the mattress, grinning. “Hey Devon, knock on our door when the movers are done ok? I’ll be doing some activity that may or may not be too good for my back, depending.”

I look from one end of the mattress to the other, noting the identical grins. “Oh gross Dad, couldn’t you spare your kid from SOME bit of embarrassment?”

“Only if said kid leaves us alone for an hour or so.” Says Pops, pushing the mattress into the master bedroom and closing the door behind him, and I hear the audible click of a lock being locked.

Deciding not to stick around, I traipse downstairs, dodging moving furniture and busy people, making my way to the front door.

I guess living in the states won’t be all that bad, I admit to myself as I walk out the front door and am greeted with a gentle breeze and bright rays of sunlight. The new house is in a neighborhood built on terraces overlooking the ocean, and far below us I can see and hear the blue waves crashing on the shore of a beach. On the beach a lot of tiny dots – people walking around. I wonder how they are like here – I mean afterall, Pops grew up here and Dad lived here for a few years and they both turned out alright, so I’m sure there’d be a few interesting people around.

I look at the other end of the driveway where the moving vans aren’t parked and find the other significant advantage to living in Parsimony, Florida compared to Shanghai. A sleek apple green convertible, whom I’ve christened with the name ‘Sexy’ is parked there; a new toy my parents bought me to help me ‘get around,’ the city. Hell yeah. I daresay that I’ll miss my friends in Shanghai, but it’ll be a bit difficult to be missing them when I’m riding around in sexy under bright beautiful sunlight. It’s not like I won’t ever see them again or anything, I could always go with my folks the next time they go on business to Shanghai.

I walk out of the gate at the end of the driveway and turn around to examine house my parents bought, putting on my rose tinted sunglasses to get a better look. Well. A good word to describe would be huge. Although Dad is pretty stringent with money, Pops kind of knows how to spend it. The house has a gate at two ends of the driveway, and the driveway itself makes a huge circle around a large patch of grass that, knowing Pops, will contain a fountain of some sort by the end of the week. The house itself is two stories tall, with a huge master bedroom, four upstairs rooms (one of which is now sort of an upstairs living room, the other a guest room, and the last two combined to become my room.) Downstairs is a whole new story, (haha, see what I did there with the words?) with the huge kitchen (both parents love to cook,) another living room, a game room, a music room (Pops plays the piano… sorta, and I play the guitar… sorta.) It’s very different from the penthouse suite in Shanghai, where for the same price as this house we got much less space.

My eyes drift to the house to our right, separated from ours by an empty lot which I believe is actually part of our house and that we aren’t allowed to build on. It’s not quite so looming as ours, but it’s still rather large, and similarly, so are all the other houses along the lane.

As I’m scrutinizing my neighbor’s house, the front door of it opens, and someone steps out, her hair slightly blowing from her face in the breeze. I notice that she catches sight of me, and she gives me a wave. I wave back, uncertain whether or not it was me that she was waving at, and she walks up to her gate, exiting through a smaller door and coming up to me, standing on the road.

“Hi, you must be the new neighbor.” She says, smiling and extending her hand. Her smile is something straight out of a magazine, with her perfectly straight teeth and the dimples that deepen when she does it. She’s wearing a short skirt and a sleeveless top, both of which I notice really match her hazel eyes and her light brown, slightly longer than shoulder length hair, and all of it is topped off by a runway model’s body.

Ok. I’ll admit it, she’s gorgeous.

And yes. I’m walking proof that homosexuality isn’t conditional and is instead inherent, because with all the homosexuality that goes on in my household it’s a wonder that I turned out straight.

“Hi,” I say, taking her hand and shaking it. “I’m Devon.”

“I’m Michelle, welcome to Parsimony.” She fixes her hair, and yes God damn it she’s hot. “You know, the neighbors have been talking about you for a week or so now. There’s been a few stories circling around.”

I laugh. “Haha yeah, the house of the gays. It’s a shame we don’t have the inside color coordinated yet, or else I’d show you around.”

She smiles gently, and I realize she probably didn’t know if I was kidding or not. Shit I’m an idiot. So I change the topic.

“So… you go to high school here?”

“Yeah. I’m at Parsimony High, are you going there this coming school year?”

“Yeah, junior year.”

She raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh! I’m going to be a junior too, we might be classmates!”

“Oh, cool.” I say, killing off that thread of conversation. I quickly think of something else to say but she beats me to it.

“Well,” she says, “I need to get going, my parents want me to meet some of their friends tonight. I guess I’ll see you at your housewarming party. You are throwing one yeah?”

“Yeah.” I answer, not really sure if we were. “I’ll see you around Michelle.”

“See you Devon.”

Yeah. I could definitely see how Florida could be much better than Shanghai.

--

“Damn it Devon! Move already!” yells Pops from outside my room.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” I yell back, putting my eyelash comb back into its case and taking out my hair gel. My hair is black with bright green streaks, and I style it differently from day to day. When it’s normal it’s just straight and as black as my eyes are, both of which I got from my biological mother. I’m Caucasian by blood, which is like Dad, even though we aren’t even related, but my skin is fair, more like Pops. Sometimes people think I’m the biological son of one or the other, even though I myself think I look nothing like them.

“You said that fucking twenty minutes ago!” he yells back, frustration lining every syllable.

I hear Dad’s calm voice talking to Pops. “Babe, language?”

“Blake, you DO know that it’s not my name’s down as one of the council members right? You DO know it’s YOUR name?”

“What?!” Dad hisses back. “Devon! Get your butt out here NOW!”

I flip the cap back onto my hair gel, satisfied with how it my hair turned out (today I decided to spike it diagonally upwards), I head to my bedside table and open my collection of jewelry. I pick a silver goth looking necklace design and a pair of silver studs as my earrings to match, putting them on, before opening the door to my room to see my parents standing there, dressed, worried, and looking like they’re ready to knock down my bedroom door.

“All set!” I chirp, and with that we are off on a mad dash to the car, where Dad, now very much high strung, tells the chauffer to step on it and get us to the center as fast as possible.

What? Perfection takes time.

The dark car speeds through Parsimony city, and soon the view from outside the tinted windows changes from large houses on terraces to high rise buildings that belong to the multitude of businesses in the area.

I’ve been to Parsimony a few times, mostly to visit my grandparents who still live here, and I know that the reason it’s so pricey to buy property here is because many multinational companies and rich investors come through this area from all corners of the globe, causing he prices of the real estate here to soar through the roof. Sun, surf, and sand. It screams to everyone “Own me now!”

The car finally comes to a halt in front of a tall high rise, and I practically get dragged out by my parents, who waste no time in going in and straight into the elevator, hitting in the floor for the GLBT center.

I suppose I should explain. The Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender center in Parsimony caters to its people within Parsimony. When we decided to move to Parsimony, my parents decided they would take part in the running of this center, since they had been here when it was first set up, many years ago. Today is the center’s PFLAG meeting (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) to discuss the upcoming school year, and they dragged me along so that I could make some new friends.

Now, I’m pretty sure my parents know I’m straight. I mean, it’s not like I’ve had a boyfriend or anything… well… not that I’ve had a girlfriend either… but that’s due to circumstances that I will now explain. See, I just don’t click well with straight guys. The friends I have tend to be either straight girls, lesbians, or gays. Now, when you hang out with straight girls all the time, they tend to dismiss you from being possible relationship material. You become their confidante, their ‘nice guy’ who listens to their relationship problems. Gay friends of mine have tried to introduce their female friends to me, but then we always seem to share far too many interests, then we end up as friends, and so begins the cycle anew. Opposites do tend to attract, and apparently I’m not enough of an opposite of girls. It’s really quite depressing.

We exit the elevator into a well lit reception area and the reception brightens up upon seeing my parents.

“Ah, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Lee, we’ve been waiting for you!”

“Sorry about that Ms. Chua, we were a bit… delayed.” Answers Pops, shooting me a glare. I pretend to not notice.

“Well, I’ll just notify Mr. Bliek that you’ve arrived, and he should be ready to get the meeting going.”

I’m steered into the room, where a lot of kids my age, along with their supportive families are milling around, snacking on refreshments and the like. Pops places me beside the snack table, mouthing the words “behave” to me before disappearing with Dad in the direction of the stage.

Oh goodie. They still have one glass of coke left! As I reach for it a manicured hand snatches it in front of me, and brings it to a set of heavily made up lips. Bitch! I’m about to say something nasty when she begins to speak.

“Oh hiiiiiii!” she drawls, blondeness resonating in every letter. “I’m Olivia! It’s so nice to like, meet youoooo!”

Temporarily caught off guard by this plastic woman, I mutter back a “Oh, hi, I’m Devon.”

“Hiiiii Devon! I’m not really a lesbian!”

“Erm, that’s… good?”

“I’m just here because my sister, she’s the one over there,” she says, pointing to another blonde girl in far less make up that this current one, “she’s the lesbian of the family. We as her family fully support her choice, and we still love her!”

Ok. So I can’t stay mad at a loving, supporting family member, even if she DID just refer to homosexuality as a “choice,” which I’ve come to learn is far more complicated than that. So I just give her a faint hearted smile.

“So like, are you starting school in Parsimony High? You’re new right? I’d like, remember that hair, it’s so cool, oh my God I love your earrings! Are they real silver?”

Ok, definitely can’t stay mad at a girl with some good taste.

“Yeah. To both questions. You a student there?”

“Oh my God totally! I’m going to be a junior this coming year!”

“Me too.” I answer, and she claps excitedly.

“I should like, totally introduce you to all my friends and stuff!”

I smile as I picture myself meeting some hot Parsimony girls, hopefully with more brain cells than Olivia. Definitely could see how I’d like my life here. Parsimony High, ready or not, here I come.

If you've read my other story "Perhaps Love" and realize that I seem to have used the same names/descriptions of characters, it's because well... I have. HOWEVER it does NOT mean that they are the same person. In fact I envision this story to take place in "modern times" and not in the future of my other story, so anything that occurs in this story between the characters that have the same names does not in fact occur to the characters in my other story, even if they may share similar characterstics and backgrounds, etc.
I also kept the name of the city and the type of city it is, because I'm rather attached to it :)

Anyways, please read and review, and let me know what you liked or what you think I can improve!