Hey all. Thanks for the feedback and encouragement for the first chapter. I really appreciate it.
I write from a outline that plans out my story arc which means that I don't always write chronologically, so I'm not sure how long it will take between some chapters.
This short and kind of silly but I thought I'd post it anyway because it continues to let you get to know the two main characters you've met so far. Hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
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"Home sweet home," Kieran said pushing the door open. He headed to the kitchen, first stopping to let in his dog, Petunia, in. "Beer or wine?"
"Beer."
Michael looked around the small two bedroom house. "You didn't stray far from home," he observed. "The commute into Oakland everyday must be a bitch."
"It is but I stayed on this side of the tunnel so I could have a big yard for 'Tunie. And I like where I work. Most drug treatment centers are abstinence-only. Bonita House works with a harm reduction model. The commute is worth it."
Kieran returned from the kitchen with a bottle of Milagro Anejo and two old fashioned glasses instead of beer. Michael raised an eyebrow at him. Kieran shrugged and poured them both a finger of the tequila.
"I figured we both could use something a little stronger. I almost never drink it anymore but it's still my choice of poison when I'm just overloaded. You look like you could use it."
"That bad, huh?"
"Stop being a baby and just take it," Kieran said handing Michael a glass.
Michael took it and raised it to Kieran in a salute.
"Left hand closest to your heart," Kieran said automaticlly. Michael smiled as he remembered Kieran's grandfather's saying and switched his glass from his right hand to his left. He saluted Kieran again, this time with the hand closest to his heart, and Kieran raised his glass in return.
Several glasses in and there was a lull in the conversation. They had caught each other up on news about their families. Michael had been telling about where he was living in the City and about his new job with a firm there.
They were both slouched on the couch and nursing their drinks. Kieran was watching his friend. Relaxed by the tequila, some of the stress lines had smoothed out in his face. It was a good face. He was considered black Irish with clear blue eyes and hair of the very darkest brown. It was cut more conservatively than Kieran's, but then Michael was a CPA, Kieran a alcohol and drug addiction counselor; made sense. He had high cheekbones and a dimple on the left side when he smiled. Kieran hoped to see that smile more often than he had recently. Michael was almost as tall as Kieran. About 6' to Kieran's 6'2." He was slighter in build than Kieran; narrower through the shoulders with long lean muscles of a long distance runner. Again, made sense, Kieran knew Michael had ran some half-marathons and one or two full marathons.
Michael saw Kieran watching him. Since they left the restaurant they'd avoided any sensitive topics, but the drinks loosened both their tongues.
"So how are you doing?" Michael asked Kieran. It seemed to be a general opening, but Kieran knew what Michael was referring to.
Kieran thought about it before answering. "For the most part okay. My meds are pretty stable now."
During Kieran's sophomore year of college he had been diagnosed as bipolar. It explained the crippling depression he had experienced in high school. But being diagnosed had just been the beginning of a ever-shifting cocktail of meds, continuing depression, mania--most often dysphoric manias--and ever changing diagnoses from Bipolar II to Bipolar I that were alternatively labeled with catatonic features, ultra-rapid cycling, seasonal affective disorder, and a variety of anxiety disorders.
"I'm working with a new doctor; we're trying to even out some of my meds so that I can go down on the high dosage meds that I'm really dependent on right now." He shrugged. "Always a work in progress. But finally a fairly stable one."
"And about Kelly?" Michael prompted, knowing he was treading on a touchy subject.
"That's well and over," Kieran said. "It fucked me up for a long time. Now that I'm healthier, looking back, our whole relationship was one big mind fuck, but at the time I thought she was the one I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Since I wasn't the most stable while I was in a relationship with her, her breaking up with me by having her other boyfriend facebook me about their relationship didn't leave me in the best condition." He stopped to take a gulp of his drink and poured himself another.
"Fan-fucking-tastic, that was. I usually run towards depression, but I had some pretty crazy manic swings there."
