2.1 A Terrible Mixologist

Myles is a terrible mixologist, but he has not been fired yet, because drinks that taste like ass are just what is expected at the Devil's Crossroads.

Still, he keeps practicing at home.

What Myles lacks in income he makes up for by being such an understanding boyfriend. The solarium is warm and the waffles are warm, but what really gets Glycerine out of bed on a chilly autumn morning is wanting to hear his pep talks after she tells him about her awful day at work yesterday (they don't get to chat at night, since he gets home so late).

It's Myles's sweet and supportive personality that has held their relationship together for so long, so every day he tries to be the kindest person he can be.

Myles came into the household with the "good" trait. So he's driven to donate a portion of his paycheck to charities. Today he's donating to The Ocean.

He makes angsty wall art when he's alone though.

Mean customers are a constant, but Glycerine gradually gets better at dealing with them.

Tilde loves living in a house without her parents in it. She can eat spaghetti whenever she wants!

Grim has already placed third in a jumping competition. It didn't net much money, but it was enough to cover Tilde's share of expenses for the week. Tilde shares the ambitious trait with her two siblings, and she is determined to make this a real career.

Wary of overworking Grim, Tilde purchases a second horse as soon as she can.

This one is an untrained mare named Bright. Her status as untrained made her... quite cheap, even though she's a quick horse, much faster than Grim. There's a lot of money in training horses and then reselling them, but Tilde and Bright have such an immediate bond, Tilde knows she won't ever be selling this one.

A routine is established.

Jym gets up at dawn to cook the day's meals, since he's the only one in the house who enjoys cooking.

Before everyone is up, he's in the solarium tending to his garden.

By the time Glycerine and Myles are in said solarium eating their breakfast, Jym is across the street at their childhood home, helping their mother with more planting and harvesting.

Glycerine and Myles spend part of the morning together, working on their art.

Myles adores her. That goofy smile of his rarely fails to make her giggle.

Glycerine has to leave for work, always too soon. Her boss has started sending her on house calls to help clients with their wardrobe, while her coworkers handle the walk-ins at the salon.

Myles spends the early afternoon taking care of the dogs. There are five big dogs, and they all need to be fed and walked and played with and cleaned up after.

Speaking of animals... by this point Tilde will be up and working with her two horses, who need to be groomed, exercised and trained for competitions.

After helping his mother with whatever she needs for the day, Jym usually traipses off to see one of his lovers. Sometimes Gus Miller, sometimes somebody else. Despite Gus's sincere revival of their romance, exclusivity with Gus was never an option, since Gus wants a wife and kids and stuff like that! Jym is fine with this, though. Jym has decided he doesn't have time for commitment anyway.

Gus's challenge will be finding a wife who's fine with it.




When Glycerine gets off work, Myles has already left for his bartending job. This makes it easy for her to focus on researching fashion concepts.
 

Or focus on her hobbies.

Jym gets home in the late afternoon. He doesn't seem to know how to relax, so busies himself with some chore, like laundry, or raking leaves...

...or improving the fireplaces...

...or making his own nectar.

He has a pretty nice setup above the barn.

His wine storage area is not a cellar, but is temperature controlled of course.

In the evening, Tilde gets home with tales from the races.

The triplets eat dinner together, then chat and play games until it's time for bed.

Myles is the last one back to the house, after the bar closes. It's always quite late.

Everyone else is already asleep, and this is inconvenient, to say the least.

So when a position for day shift at Barney's becomes available, Myles applies.

"You want to work here?" Alvin Shepherd, night shift, scrunches up his nose in disbelief. "Why?"

"Um. Well-"

"No, no. Forget it. I don't actually care. But I warn you, I used to be day shift. You'd get more tips trying to serve whiskey at the graveyard."

"I don't usually gets tips anyway, so..."

Myles somehow gets the job, meaning he works similar hours to his girlfriend and can spend more time with her. It also pays more, despite Alvin's warnings.

Unfortunately, the schedule change messes up Myles's routine with the dogs. Five dogs is just too much to handle. After a lengthy discussion, the household reluctantly decides to rehome two of them.

Last pic of Salt before Salt leaves the household.

One of Jym's boyfriends is happy to take the dogs.

Toffee and Coffee get to stay, naturally, as they are elders and the family has had them for so long. So it ends up being Salt and Paprika who go to a new home.

Pepper gets to stay, as she is the narrator's favorite.



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Etc.: I really liked Salt and Paprika, too, but I needed to free up space for Tilde's horses.

Is it cheaty for Jym to be harvesting the garden at the old house? I don't control that lot, so the plants never get weedy or die. So, probably cheaty! The current lot doesn't have room for a really big garden, though, so I decided I don't care. Gardening as a career got nerfed with Seasons, anyway.