EYES OF LOVE : SEASON TWO

Chapter One

                             Washington DC
                             October 2024

The day at the Hara - Handel house started much the same as usual.

Eighteen year old Mary Hara spent entirely too much time hogging the bathroom as she carefully made up her heart shaped cinnamon brown face with delicate tasteful makeup and arranged her jet black curls about her face in a messy but cute hair style. It was her senior year at the prominent private school Horace Stewart Memorial Academy and she planned to make the best of it. After all this was her and her friends' last chance to have mad fun before they all headed off to college after graduation. She smiled faintly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking that her brother Michael and brother in law L.L. were actually panicking at the thought of her attending Harvard University all on her own to study pre-med and biology but she was looking forward to it. She was not like her sister Charlie or her brother Frank, she vowed. She was going to make Michael and L.L. proud of her. And , Pop , she thought with a sharp pang to her heart as she remembered her sweet grandfather who had been killed by the sister that also tried to kill her brother and brother in law. A cold shiver came over her small slim body as she also thought of her sister who was still locked up at St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Hopefully forever.

Thirty one year old Michael Hara - Handel was in the large spacious kitchen of his family's two story house in Georgetown. He was as usual running late but taking it in stride as he wiped off the milky cereal covered hands and mouth of the five year old nephew he had legal custody of James " Jamie" Hara - Handel. He had very little time to get his nephew off to the child care center and himself off to the bookstore he owned in Foggy Bottom. And of course to kiss goodbye his own beloved husband. " There ," he said with a laugh," you're all clean! "

Jamie clapped his small chubby brown hands and chanted over and over again," All clean , all clean, all clean! Luv you, Daddy! "

Michael's heart as usual soared when he heard the little boy call him daddy. To Jamie Michael was Daddy and L.L. , his adoptive father, was Poppy. But for a second the twinge that hit his chest was not just love or pride. It was something different. Michael gripped the side of the kitchen table and closed his brown eyes until it passed. Wow. The attacks of heartburn were getting worse lately. He needed to watch his diet more. After all he was over thirty.

Fifty six year old Lincoln Lewis " L.L. " Handel tapped his long white with red tip cane all the way into the kitchen from their first floor master bedroom, looking as gorgeous as the day that Michael had saved him from a would be mugger in the Metro with his greying blond hair , blue eyes hidden behind a pair of sunshades and long lean body in an expensive designer suit. In his other hand he held the leashed harness of Sadie Dog, their golden retriever who proudly wore her Service Dog sash.

Michael fought back the wave of pain and whistled at his husband as he got Jamie dressed in his jacket and hat. " Looking good, Judge Handel. How does your first day as a judge feel? "

L.L. smiled genuinely towards the sound of the most important man in his life. His wonderful husband Michael. " Not half as good as when we got married. Or when I adopted Jamie. I love you, Damsel. "

" I love you, Prince," Michael said gently. Then another small pain hit his chest. He needed to pick up Tums before work.