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Summary:
July Book of the Month
Haven Hart Universe #6
Lee, Jones, and Ginger deal with dangerous situations and mounting stress daily working for the most powerful assassin organization in the world. All of those things seem like a walk in the park compared to the friction that sparks between them. When all three are assigned to the same job, ignoring the heat from the inferno of desire becomes impossible.
Lee is a master at deciphering codes, skilled in hacking complicated systems, and never misses a target, even from over fifty miles away. His feelings for Jones and Ginger, however, may be the first code he’s unable to crack.
Jones deals in absolutes, but the road to his past is paved with bodies and regrets. Getting Lee to acknowledge the pull they both feel toward Ginger may be the hardest mission he’s ever had to face.
Ginger struggles to cope with the overwhelming guilt that accompanies this new job. Falling for these hired killers will be a risk—one that could wind up with him losing in the end or gaining everything he’s ever wanted.
As the three work together to take down a human trafficking ring—and save a desperate soul—time is of the essence. Their lives are on the line as mysteries unfold and unexpected encounters throw them off course. Will Lee, Jones, and Ginger let doubts come between them, distracting them from their mission and blocking any hope of love? Or can they face the toughest challenge of their lives and become…a triple threat?
I should start by saying M/M/M is not my go-to trope, I don't go looking for them HOWEVER, if one turns up in a series I'm reading or mysteriously finds its way onto my kindle I won't turn away from it😉. Now because its not my normal trope of choice, I don't have a wide variety of experience when it comes to the accuracy to how its written, nor do I know anyone in a poly relationship to make any realistic comparison. So because of my "lack of knowledge" I can only go by how each one is written and how it sucks me in. Well, Triple Threat is A-FREAKIN'-MAZING!!!!
For those who think M/M/M, menage, or poly romances are just porn without plot than you are in for the shock of your life when you open up Davidson King's newest Haven Hart entry, Triple Threat. Oh, sure there's heat, there's lust, there's sexy times that will set your kindle on fire but there is just so much more than the between-the-sheets(there's some fumbling without the sheets too😉) moments. As with the whole series, there is crime, drama, action, violence, drama, humor, mystery . . . well pretty much everything but sci-fi. So sit down, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.
Let's take a look at the threesome, triad, throuple, or whatever label you choose to use. Lee and Jones have been around Haven Hart more than once and called in when their expertise is needed and lets face it, Haven Hart is in dire need of their services. I don't think anyone was surprised to see them connected in more ways than on the job but Ginger on the other hand doesn't exactly fit in on paper. Miss King made it reasonably clear in Snow Storm that the boys weren't exactly unaffected by the younger man so it wasn't a complete surprise to find him as the third side of their trio. As I said, on paper he doesn't seem the type to connect with them but after only a page or two you know that he is exactly what Lee and Jones were missing to make them complete. Whether or not, they come to the same conclusion is something you have to read for yourself but I warn you once you start Triple Threat you won't want to put it down.
Now I have personally made references in my previous reviews to the Star Wars saga and you're probably wondering "you said this has everything but sci-fi so how can you connect them?" Obviously it isn't a literal connection but the passion and draw that I always feel whenever I hear Darth Vadar's entrance music or the hiss of the lightsaber or the whoosh as the Millenium Falcon finally goes into hyperdrive pretty much equals the natural high I get when reading Davidson King. She has this ability to not only create this amazing story with characters who are just out of reach and yet at the same time you feel like you're going to run into them pumping gas and picking up eggs at the store but the city of Haven Hart is so visual I almost feel like I'm living there. As I've said before, there is a difference between an author and a storyteller, they are both great in their own ways but a storyteller has that extra something special connection with words, well Davidson King is a storyteller and I can't wait to see what comes next.
One last note: Although each entry(except for Snow Storm) has a new pairing at its core, Haven Hart series is definitely a series that needs to be read in order. There is just too much ongoing plot and information that is underlying everything where each book puts just a little more of the puzzle together. So if you haven't started this series yet be sure to begin at the beginning with Snow Falling and if you are someone who likes to wait till a series is complete because you can't abide the wait in between releases, there is only one entry left to be written but be sure you put Haven Hart at the top of your TBR list.
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Summary:
DS Billings Mysteries #4
The year is 1894. Europe has been suffering from a series of Anarchist terror attacks, the latest of which was the bombing of a Parisian textile mill which killed thirteen people. The perpetrators of this act - the seven Hirsch Brothers - are believed to be on the run in London. Billings, Flynt and Clarkson are called in by Special Branch to help locate them. But the investigation goes spectacularly wrong. One by one, the Hirsch Brothers are found dead and the police have no idea who is killing them.
Anarchists, terrorist, or something more personal? When the missing Hirsch brothers keep turning up dead suddenly a case of anarchy is looking much more personal. Once again Olivier Bosman throws DS Billings headlong into a case that goes horribly wrong. Has he taken one too many wrong turns finally? For that you have to read yourself but trust me, it is well worth the time to find out.
I absolutely love this series, there is something about Billings that you just want to wrap the poor guy in a bear hug but it's going to take more than that to keep him safe. On the personal side, he's finally opening his heart up to his true nature, reluctantly but still more than he ever has before. Will he find happiness now that he's exploring his heart? You have to read that for yourself but I love how each entry brings him into himself more and perhaps not "risk" the consequences but he's not letting the fear completely shut him off from his heart.
As much of a history lover that I am, I have to admit 1890s England is not my area of knowledge short of what I've seen in films and read in fiction which I know is not always an accurate portrayal of the time. For that reason, I can't say with 100% certainty to the author's stick-to-it-ness of the era but I'm going to guess it is pretty real from what little I do know and that makes Anarchy even better.
The mystery, the romance, the history, all of these aspects makes Anarchy a great read and another great installment to the DS Billings Victorian Mysteries series. If you are new to this series I highly recommend reading it in order. Yes, each entry has a new case but as I already touched on DS Billings grows into accepting himself more and more with each book. The friction between him and his superior, the friendship between him and his partner, all these things continue from one case to the next making the personal side of each book flow better having read the previous ones. After the ending of Anarchy I can't help but fear Billings may suffer a few setbacks but then again it might serve as the kick-in-the-pants he needs to show him what's important. Either way I can't wait to see where Olivier Bosman takes his character next.
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Summary:
Lancaster Falls Trilogy #1
In the hottest summer on record, Iron Lake reservoir is emptying, revealing secrets that were intended to stay hidden beneath the water.
Best-selling horror writer Chris Lassiter struggles for inspiration and he's close to never writing again. His life has become an endless loop of nothing but empty pages, personal appearances, and a marketing machine that is systematically destroying his muse. In a desperate attempt to force Chris to complete unfinished manuscripts his agent buys a remote cabin. All Chris has to do is hide away and write, but he's lost his muse, and not even he can make stories appear from thin air.
Sawyer Wiseman left town for Chicago, chasing the excitement and potential of being a big city cop, rising the ranks, and making his mark. A case gone horribly wrong draws him back to Lancaster Falls. Working for the tiny police department in the town he'd been running from, digging into cold cases and police corruption, he spends his day's healing, and his nights hoping the nightmares of his last case leave him alone.
RJ Scott doing mystery . . . when I heard her newest release was going to be a mystery I just knew I had to read. Yes, I know it's an RJ Scott book so that alone made this a must for me but a mystery? That was like adding another layer of icing on top of an already chocolate frosted cake. Mystery may not be her most-visited genre but whenever she's had it within her stories it has always been extra yummy. What Lies Beneath, the first part of her new Lancaster Falls Trilogy, is nothing short of brilliant.
Before I delve into the story I should mention that though I wouldn't label the ending a cliffhanger it does continue into the next entry and as Lancaster Falls is a trilogy I'm going to go out on a limb and say the second one will continue into the third one(that's just my guess). I'm only mentioning this because not everyone likes the waiting period between continued storylines so if that is you then you might want to hold off reading these till the trilogy is complete but trust me you will definitely want to read it so be sure and mark it towards the top of your TBR list.
Now on to Beneath. Talk about a perfect set up: an author having trouble beginning the finale to his trilogy so his agent finds him the perfect place to buckle down and create, he goes for walk with his dog, finds a skull, meets a cop, and eventually stumbles into a new direction for his already established trilogy. What's not to love? Chris the author and Sawyer the cop are not exactly what I would call opposites but their not two peas in a pod either.
Chris may have internal struggles with his writer's block but his sort-of carefree attitude has a lot more to do with his rambunctious dog, Kota, and his determination to have a drink with Sawyer the cop. There's only a few scenes between Chris and his agent on the phone but its enough to get a feel for their relationship and I don't know if either would call the other a friend but I think it reads as a definite friendship which doesn't always come when a book has author/agent scenes, more times than not its contentious bordering on contract-tearing-up so this was a nice aspect to be added to Chris' character. When he starts doing a little research on his own in regards to the case and tidbits he's heard in the small-town-grapevine I was afraid of where it might lead but once again Miss Scott didn't go where I thought and it was a pleasant change of pace.
As for Sawyer, well its pretty obvious something bad happened with his time as a cop in Chicago that helped him come home. Small towns often mean small crimes which as someone who grew up in a small town can be perfectly true but that also means when a skull is found its big news. A skull found anywhere should be big news but lets face it, in larger cities its really only a blip that will most likely fall into the hands of the cold case division. With Sawyer he's been in the big city so he's able to deal with it better than most would but everything that goes with the big cases have made his already existing nightmares bigger and more personal. Watching the pair navigate the newness with the mystery and their individual struggles really adds to their likability and the realism of the characters.
As for the mystery, I won't say any more than it starts with a skull, some bones, and the possibility of who they might belong to. If you want to more, and you definitely will, you'll have to read for yourself because this is a spoiler-free zone. Chris and Sawyer are a delight and I know that sounds odd to say in a murder mystery and it'll sound even odder when I use the word "fun" to describe how much I loved What Lies Beneath but it is fun and entertaining with just enough dark and disturbing mixed with romance and heat to make this an all-around reading gem. I have my theories and I can't wait to get a hold of book two to see if my theories are on track or if I have to come up with completely new ones.
One last thing I need to add and thank RJ Scott for: I loved the size and feel of Lancaster Falls. I can't say all books because obviously I haven't read every book out there but in my personal reading experience, when an author writes about small towns they tend to go either the route of less than 500 or about 5000, yes both those populations are small towns but I grew up in a town that until the 1990 census was only a village, despite the fact that we were the county seat it took hitting 2500 that made a village into a town. I don't recall a population number actually given(I could be wrong, I might have just missed/forgotten it) but Lancaster Falls reads more like where I grew up and for that I thank you, RJ because it just made the story more real for me.
Audiobook Review November 2019:
Yet another audiobook listened to in the same year as my original reading, not something I often do but as 2019 seems to be my year for audio I thought "Why not another one?". So in I went. Even listening so closely after reading, What Lies Beneath is still amazing and brilliant and has left me even more eager for book 2. As I said in my original review, mystery may not be RJ Scott's goto genre but when she includes suspense and mayhem in her story it makes the experience that much better. As for Sean Crisden's narration? Well it's a no brainer that he is spot on with both Chris & Sawyer. The characters Miss Scott has created is a great combination of fiction and reality, when read by Mr. Crisden they come across as not only realistic but also as your next door neighbor. Just an all around great reading package.
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Summary:
Art of Murder #4
Someone is watching. Someone is waiting.
Despite having attracted the attention of a dangerous stalker, Special Agent Jason West is doing his best to keep his mind on his job and off his own troubles.
But his latest case implicates one of the original Monuments Men in the theft and perhaps destruction of part of the world's cultural heritage--a lost painting by Vermeer. Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander Emerson Harley wasn't just a World War 2 hero, he was the grandfather Jason grew up idolizing. In fact, Grandpa Harley was a large part of what inspired Jason to join the FBI's Art Crime Team.
Learning that his legendary grandfather might have turned a blind eye to American GIs "liberating" priceless art treasures at the end of the war is more than disturbing. It's devastating.
Jason is determined to clear his grandfather's name, even if that means breaking a few rules and regulations himself--putting him on a collision course with romantic partner BAU Chief Sam Kennedy.
Meanwhile, someone in the shadows is biding his time...
Mystery, murder, mayhem . . . just another day in the life of Sam Kennedy and Jason West😉. I can't lie, Sam and Jason are not my favorite Josh Lanyon pairing, nobody beats Adrien and Jake(Adrien English series) but Sam and Jason are nearly neck-and-neck with Kit and JD(Holmes and Moriarity series). Lets face it Sam can be a bit abrasive, at least in the earlier entries. Actually that is a point that I really loved in The Monuments Men Murder, both Sam and Jason continue to "evolve" but I found Sam to be the one who grew the most, he's by the book but his love for Jason is never in question, not that we the reader ever had any doubts but I can certainly see why Jason might have at times. I just love when characters aren't just more of the same, I know some think series tend to be formulaic and in some cases that can be true but I have yet to find a Josh Lanyon book that is and Monuments Men is anything but been-there-done-that.
Let's talk about the mystery, well you know I won't delve into it too much for the whole "I do no spoilers" motto I adhere to. I always love a good mystery that surrounds the past, it adds a touch of the historical flavor I love so much and in Monuments Men, it also adds a personal flare with Jason's grandfather having been one. Yeah, I know what you're saying, Jason should have recused himself from the case but I can understand his reasoning too. Nobody is going to know his beloved grandfather more than he would and sometimes when a case is steeped in the past, detectives are more concerned with what they see and marking closed to the case, afterall those who were there aren't with us so who does it really effect if they don't ask that extra question or two to verify the last link? As for the whos and whats of the case, I may not have been completely flabbergasted when the reveal occurred but I can't say I saw it coming more than a page or two before either and after nearly 45 years of watching and reading mysteries, that isn't something that happens very often to me so that alone puts this one leaps and bounds above many that I've come across in the genre.
The Monuments Men Murder was absolutely spot on in all the yummy goodness I want in romantic suspense: a perfect blend of mayhem and heart. As for Sam and Jason, we get to hear some things we've been waiting for but don't think its all sunshine and roses for the detectives, I wouldn't go as far as to call Monuments angsty but its no where near cutesy-sweet either. The mix of lust, mush, and drama adds just the right amount of tension to heighten the need to not put it down. Once again, Josh Lanyon has proven why she is a permanent fixture on my author-must-read list as well as why she is at the top of my automatic-without-reading-the-blurb-1-click list.
If you are wondering if you can start with Monuments my answer is no. Yes, each entry in The Art of Murder series is a new and separate case but not only do you have the growing relationship between Sam and Jason there is another factor that is growing(I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read this series yet) so I highly recommend reading this one in order.
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Summary:
Accidental Roots #7
Rod Beton and Travis Walker have known each other almost all their lives; since the third grade when Rod was the new kid in town and Travis befriended him with Pokémon trading cards and a fruit snack. Apparently Rod’s easy. Since that day they've had each other's back's, bread and butter, biscuit and gravy...and so on.
Along the way, Rod fell in love with Travis. He's been hoping for some kind of signal from Travis that he returns Rod's feelings. When Travis announces his surprise engagement over Thanksgiving dinner Rod decides he's done waiting for the impossible. He packs his belongings and heads for Skagit and a new life. Even if Travis suddenly decided Rod was the man for him would Rod be able to put aside his insecurities?
Travis always knew he was destined to take over the family business. As the only boy he’s expected to take the helm of the Walker farming operation, and he’s good at it. An engagement to a local girl he’s pals with seems like the perfect solution, gets him mom off his back and ensures the family line -- eventually. When his best friend abruptly leaves town Travis’s eyes are finally opened to the difference between what is expected of him and what he could expect for himself.
In His Best Man we finally get to see Rod Beton and Travis Walker, who we briefly met in Unforgivable when they came into the bar where Cam worked, have their story told. As you can imagine it isn't all roses and rainbows for the pair(it would be a pretty dull and short pamphlet if it was easy😉).
Poor Rod has long since been in love with his friend Travis and just as he's worked up the courage to talk to him about it he finds himself being asked to be Travis' best man. You just want to bundle Rod in bubblewrap to keep his heart safe and I'll admit I wanted to throttle Travis on more than one occasion but there has to be some drama in the seventh entry in Accidental Roots series or it wouldn't fit the Skagit, Washington crew we've come to know and love.
His Best Man is definitely a tale of timing, acceptance, and being who you were born to be. Whether Rod and Travis came find that right timing is something you'll have to read for yourself. Again, this entry has even less to no mystery crime-wise than the previous entries but that lack of who-done-it didn't keep me from devouring the boys' journey. You'll cry, you'll laugh, you'll cry some more, but most of all your heart will be warmed by that last page.
Once again, this entry is a standalone but personally I am glad I read them in order. Mostly its just some secondary character mentions and cameos from the earlier stories that made it flow better for me knowing where their journey took them but if you start with His Best Man you won't be lost. However you choose to read Accidental Roots, I highly recommend giving this series the time because they are all wonderfully written tales that keep you entertained from beginning to end.
Summary:
Love and art escaping the past in 1920s London
London, 1924. Evan Calver is enjoying a quiet pint, when he notices a man smiling at him across the bar. While the Rose and Crown isn’t that kind of pub, Evan thinks his luck might be in, and he narrowly escapes humiliation when he realises the man is smiling at a friend. Eavesdropping on their conversation, Evan discovers the man is named Milo Halstead and served as an army captain during the war.
When they meet again by chance in the British Museum, artist Milo asks Evan if he would sit for a portrait. Evan is amazed that an upper-class artist wants to paint the son of a miner, and he’s just as surprised when their acquaintance blossoms into friendship. When he discovers that Milo is a man like himself, he hopes that friendship might become more. But as Evan and Milo grow ever closer, can they escape the fears of the past to find their future happiness?
Historicals are an absolute favorite of mine and personally I don't think there is enough set in the 1920s so when I find one I gobble it up. Strokes on a Canvas is a wonderful little tale of post-war existence. H Lewis-Foster's attention to detail shows respect for the past but don't think this novella reads as a history lesson because even with the little detail accuracies this is still a romance that made me smile and warmed my heart.
Milo and Evan meet by chance and then find themselves in each other's company once again, but it is not insta-love however it is pretty immediate friendship that quickly turns to love. They really are made for each other and because of friends and family they may have it a bit easier than others of the time but that doesn't mean the danger isn't lurking around every corner. You want them to find happiness, a place where they can just be who they are without fear but then you remember its 1924 and that place probably doesn't exist with any kind of 100% certainty.
Society from an LGBT standpoint has a ways to go to achieve complete acceptance and equality however if you want to appreciate just how far the world has come than look at history. Historical fiction may not be an exact and perfect representation of their reality but it is generally a good place to start to get a feel on how far society has come. H Lewis-Foster's Strokes on a Canvas shows that even with the law and moral stance on gay relationships there were safe places love could exist and that not everyone saw it as a wrong to be punished. It's this representation of Milo and Evan's love from the author that makes Strokes an easy read and by that I don't mean there isn't much substance to it but that it sucks you in and pretty soon you find yourself turning(or swiping😉) the last page, its easy to get lost in and you'll be sad to see it end. Its that feeling of sadness I feel at a story having ended that tells me I found a winner and when its a new author to me that gave me that feeling then I also know I just found another author to add to my keep-an-eye-out-for list.
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Summary:
July Book of the Month
When Jamie Roma and Derek Lee find their blossoming love affair interrupted by dual invitations to a house party from a mysterious unnamed host, they think, Sounds like fun. The next thing they know they are caught up in a game of cat and mouse that quickly starts racking up a lot of dead mice. Yikes, they think. Not so fun.
Trapped inside a spooky old house in the middle of nowhere, with the body count rising among their fellow guests, they begin to wonder if they’ll escape with their lives. As a cataclysmic storm swoops in to batter the survivors, the horror mounts.
Oddly enough, even in the midst of murder and mayhem, Jamie and Derek’s love continues to thrive.
While the guest list thins, so does the list of suspects. Soon it’s only them and the killer.
And then the battle really begins.
John Inman has done it again! I've said it before and I'll say it again(and I'm sure it won't be the last time you'll hear me say it) the man knows how to bring danger, death, and destruction to the page and he manages to keep it fun and romantic too, its the whole package. Longtime friends have recently become friends with benefits who most likely both want more but haven't voiced it yet, receive invitations to a party in the woods from an unfamiliar name but decide to go because it sounds like a laugh, it's a stormy night in the middle of nowhere . . . what could go wrong? Practically everything.
So A Party to Murder sounds like a setup that has been done by many authors and Hollywood directors alike but John Inman makes it original with his own quirky blend of darkness, romance, mystery, and heat that keeps you on the edge of your seat. In a way it reads as a homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Dashiell Hammet's The Thin Man, and any number of 80s horror flicks. You've got a cast of characters that keep dwindling, a dark and trapped setting, and then there is Derek and Jamie who may not be Nick and Nora Charles but their banter and obvious devotion to each other couldn't help but remind me of the chemistry the Charles' share.
Obviously I won't speak to the mystery aspect other than Party may not have had me fooled all the way up until the reveal but it didn't matter. Just because I suspected the who, it was the why that kept me on pins and needles. Just because my guess ended up being the who, doesn't mean I wasn't left wondering "am I right?" and on more than one occasion I found myself "or could it be ??? making this even more disturbing?" so just because you think you know, you really never truly know when it comes to John Inman.
As for Jamie and Derek, the friends with benefits, I think we all know they both want to be more than friends with benefits but its whether or not they'll open up to each other that gives A Party to Murder the romantic element. Some might think its not very believable that two people can find time for love when their fellow party guests are dropping like mayflies but what better time to be honest with your heart than when facing possible death? Not knowing if you'll be walking away is the perfect time to be true to one's heart. I loved their oddities that make them a perfect pair.
Throw in a cast of characters who don't know each other, who don't know the invitation sender, who have never been to the property, and what you have is a story that will keep you hooked from beginning to end. John Inman knows how to set the scene to make the reader feel as if they too got a mystery invitation to the creepy mansion in the woods and why it is perfectly understandable that Jamie, Derek, and everyone else on the fateful guest list would accept such an invite. A Party to Murder is definitely a win-win for mystery lovers, quirky lovers, romance lovers, heck its a win-win for any lover of good storytelling.
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Summary:
Speakeasy #3
Kyle McKee lives a charmed life. He co-owns Under, an uptown speakeasy, where he is chief mixologist. Friends poke fun at Kyle’s tiny one-bed apartment in Chelsea, but they’re the best support system a man could ask for. Unfortunately, Kyle’s lackluster love life has led him to take a break from dating.
Harlem resident Luka Clarke is a lieutenant with Engine 47, the Pride of Morningside, where he carries on his father’s legacy with the FDNY. Luka, who is mixed race and bisexual, has his eye on Kyle, whom he met at a local burger joint and he just needs to make time to visit Kyle’s bar.
Before work one evening, Kyle is trapped inside the luncheonette when a fire breaks out. Luka’s firehouse answers the call and he connects with Kyle again under the most unexpected of circumstances. When Kyle gratefully invites Luka and the firehouse squad to Under, the flirting between the two men leads to a date.
Kyle and Luka quickly grow close, but Luka’s mother and sister distrust Kyle for being both white and gay. Luka believes his family will come around and accept Kyle in the end, but Kyle is not optimistic and hides his disquiet as attraction blossoms into love.
Kyle and Luka’s near-idyllic bubble is shattered one evening after a hate crime leaves them scarred, inside and out. Shaken, they put on a strong front but struggle inwardly against fear and personal demons. As the emotions seething beneath the surface finally come to a head, both men must decide if they have the strength to find love enough to conquer hate.
Reader advisory: This book contains references to non-nurturing parenting; homophobia; racism and racist slurs. There are references to recreational drug use. This book also contains scenes of mmmm ménage and characters caught in fire.
Can I just start by saying that this series just gets better and better! I love Kyle and his ingenuity behind the stick(behind the bar for those of us not in the know when it comes to bartending lingo😉), he has been one of my favorite secondary characters from way back in the Tidal duology when we first met him and now that he finally got his own story he is even more lovable and full of WOW-ness!
Let's talk Luka now. Fireman . . . need I say more😉😉. He has an amazingly supportive family with the exception of his mother and sister when it comes to dating another white man which all stems from his previous boyfriend which you really need to experience Luka's journey as he opens up to Kyle to fully understand where all the characters' thoughts and emotions are coming from. I'll admit my first instinct was to be extremely angry toward's Luka's mom & sis but as you learn more, I remained unhappy with them but I could understood their reluctance. Emotions and support can be an unbalanced teeter-totter but eventually you find what you need to make the ride level out. I guess what I'm saying is don't jump to conclusions because it is actually a pretty perfectly written balance between making the reader think and creating just the right added layer of drama to entertain.
Now putting Kyle and Luka together with Jesse and Cam is fun, sexy, fitting, and simply put a joyous treat. Luka being open to the possibility yet not sure about participating but definitely interested in watching was wonderfully written. Getting to see it unfold through his eyes, knowing that it wasn't a threat to their relationship was really awe-inspiring. I can't help but think some authors would have over-explored the fear of it ruining the relationship, letting one participant's jealousy overshadow the heat for the sake of extra drama but Cole & Vaughn did not. Sure Luka has a moment of clarity but it was never really about jealousy and that was much appreciated and for me made the scene even hotter but more importantly it made it believable and acceptable for the two couples and the individual characters involved.
You'll notice I didn't touch on the hate crime that is mentioned in the story blurb. It will break your heart but unfortunately there is still that level of evil in society but the authors wrote this part of Luka and Kyle's journey so beautifully, an odd choice of wording considering the subject matter but it's how they tackled it and not just thrown it in for relationship drama that made it beautiful for me. In fact, calling it any kind of "drama" I think belittles what Luka and Kyle go through both during and after, and its how the boys, their friends, and family react that made it so well written. This is definitely a defining moment for all the characters but it is not the end-all-be-all of the story, there is just so much more to Behind the Stick. As for the fallout from the attack well you'll have to read it for yourself to see if you feel the same as I did.
So for those wondering about the reading order of The Speakeasy series, yes technically each one is a standalone as it's a different pairing BUT(and I think most of you know what I'm about to say😉) for me I can't imagine reading in any order other than how it was released. Characters from previous entries as well as from the Tidal duology that this spun off of appear throughout and though you won't be lost by any means I found everything flowed better having read those journeys first. As I said, you won't be lost if you don't start at the beginning but because of the ménage/mmmm scene in Behind the Stick I would highly recommend reading Extra Dirty to learn how Jesse and Cam fell in love. Whatever order you choose to read it just be sure to read because this is not only a reading gem but a pure delightful and heartwarming love story with just the right amount of drama and heat, oh the heat, to make you smile and that is never a bad thing.
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Summary:
Luke Lafontaine survived the past year by not thinking about the father he lost, the dairy farm he couldn’t save from bankruptcy, or his way of life that vanished with the rap of an auctioneer’s hammer. Cleaning up city folks’ trash at the Minnesota State Fair is just another dead-end job. But at the Fair, surrounded by a celebration of farm life, ambitions he’d given up on and buried deep start to revive. And seeing Mason Bell in the parade—gorgeous, gay, out-of-his-league Mason—stirs other buried dreams.
Mason left his hometown for college in Minneapolis without looking back. Student life is fun, classes are great, gay guys are easy to find, but it’s all a bit superficial. He’s at the State Fair parade route with his band when he realizes a scruffy maintenance worker is Luke, his secret high school crush. Luke should be safely home working on his dad’s farm, not picking up litter. Mason wishes he hadn’t fallen out of touch. He’s an optimist, though, and it’s never too late for second chances. Now he just has to convince Luke.
Fair Isn't Life is not the first Kaje Harper book I've featured on my blog but it is the first one I've read, I can safely say it won't be the last. Having grown up on a farm I understand the pain Luke feels at the loss of said farm. We didn't have cattle, we had pigs & sheep when I was little but mostly it was a crop farm. I didn't lose a parent but my mother did get sick when I was 10 and we did our best but in 2008 my parents sold the farm in an auction so I can speak from experience that Kaje Harper really hit Luke's fears and heartache on the nose. You can't help but cheer for him from page one.
Watching Luke and Mason reconnect at the fair and continue on afterwards really pulls you in. From renewed friendship to love to finding your place in the world when life's curves have shaken you to the core and completely turned your life upside down is where the boys(Luke more than Mason in the upside down department) find themselves. Fair Isn't Life is heartbreaking at times, especially with Luke's inner thoughts about what he's lost, but mostly this story is quite heartwarming and uplifting. Despite Luke's heartache or maybe because of it, Luke and Mason's journey is a feel-good read that will put a smile on your face.
Personal Sidenote: The Minnesota State Fair, or the Great Minnesota Get-Together, has always been a favorite of mine. Growing up in Western Wisconsin, the fair is only(barring traffic issues) about 30-45 minutes away and my parents took me for the first time when I was 5 years old. Everyone told them "she's too young, you'll be carrying her most of the day"(they say its the 2nd biggest state fair in the country behind only Texas so we're talking about 350 acres so it truly is an all-day event) well, I did walk the whole day and we went every year from 1979 till 2005 except one year when my mother was too ill. We haven't been since 2005 because of my mom's health and it just wouldn't feel right to go without her so we live vicariously through the local networks who broadcast from the fair over the next 12 days(and yes today is the first day of the 2019 Great Minnesota Get-Together) and although the fair is only part of the story in the beginning the author was so descriptive, so accurate, she really captured the feel of the fair that I had tears in my eyes, they were happy tears filling me with years of nostalgia in those few pages and for that I want to say a huge thank you to Kaje Harper.
RATING:
Summary:
Bedknobs & Broomsticks #1
A gay high-society wedding. A stolen book of spells. A love-threatening lie. Can a witch avoid a murder rap without revealing the supernatural truth?
Cosmo Saville guiltily hides a paranormal secret from his soon-to-be husband. And if he can’t undo a powerful love spell, uncertainty threatens his nuptial magic. But when he’s arrested for allegedly killing a longtime rival, he could spend his honeymoon behind bars…
Police Commissioner John Joseph Galbraith never believed in love until Cosmo came along. Falling head over heels for the elegant antiques dealer is an enchantment he never wants to break. So when all fingers point to Cosmo’s guilt, John races to prove his fiancé’s innocence before they take their vows.
As Cosmo searches for the real killer among the arcane aristocracy, John warns him to leave it to the police. But with an unseen enemy threatening to expose Cosmo’s true nature, the couple’s blissful future could shatter like a broken charm.
Can Cosmo find the lost grimoire, clear his name and keep John’s love alive, or will black magic “rune” their wedding bells?
Mainly by Moonlight is the first book in the sexy Bedknobs and Broomsticks romantic gay mystery series. If you like spell-binding suspense, steamy star-crossed fun, and a dash of paranormal, then you’ll love Josh Lanyon’s charming tale.
Another absolutely brilliant bit of storytelling from Josh Lanyon, and yes, it really is storytelling not just writing. I'll start off by saying that this is a series that continues on, not just with the same people but the story as well so don't expect everything to be answered, everything to be revealed, everything to have closure. I am on pins and needles waiting for book two.
Now, let's talk Mainly by Moonlight. I loved how it made me nostalgic for the endearing comedy of Bewitched, the magical drama of Charmed, and the spell-driven romance of I Married a Witch. Magic, romance, murder, spells, mystery, these are all there. We quickly learn that John is under a love spell and as much as Cosmo wants to do the right thing and break off the engagement when he learns it, he doesn't but continually searches for signs that the love John feels for him is real once he demands the spell be removed. Throw in Cosmo being a likely candidate for murder suspect and you have plenty of room for romance, hi-kinks, and drama. Sure there are times I want to kick both characters in the backside and whack them upside the head to make them see sense but there is just as many times I want to wrap them up and say its going to be okay. It's this contradicting hit-and-hug scale that kept me going, that fueled the need-to-know-now speed with which I read Moonlight and had me equally kicking myself for not savoring the story once I reached the final page. That push and pull feeling of needing to know versus savoring is how I know this is a great read for the win-win column.
I have theories percolating for book two(and beyond perhaps) but I won't divulge them as I don't want to spoil anything from Moonlight. It's these theories that make a few things in John and Cosmo's(mostly John) behaviors and actions acceptable. Does that mean if my theories don't pan out I'll rethink how much I loved this book? Not at all because I know the author will further the story in an equally entertaining way.
Now for those who aren't fans of insta-love and question the believe-abilty behind how fast the boys get everything ready in just two weeks time, even throwing out the magic bit that John knows nothing about, I still found it reasonable how he could believe it gets done in just 14 days. Both families seem to be in-the-know when it comes to getting things pushed through fast so magic or not, 2 weeks to set it all up is definitely acceptable. I'll admit, insta-love isn't always well written in the fiction world but when its as well done as Josh Lanyon has with Cosmo and John, it's not only acceptable(even with the magical element) its entertaining and fun.
Josh Lanyon definitely has another winner here in Mainly by Moonlight but as I said above not everything is revealed, not what I would label a full-fledged cliffhanger ending but there are questions yet to be answered. I mention this because not everyone is a cliffie-lover so if you don't like the waiting-for-answers bit, you might want to put this one on hold but if you love well written world-building magical romantic mysteries than you'll definitely want to put her new Bedknobs and Broomsticks series at the top of your TBR list, its not to be missed.
RATING:
Summary:
Jack Addison Vs. A Whole World of Hot Trouble #9
“Mr. Addison… I’m so sorry to impose, but I was hoping you would sign my venator card?”
Jack thought he had it all: a powerful family ready to offer a helping hand in times of need, success and fame, and the most amazing lover in the person of Roux Chat-Bonnes. Problem is, his family would never accept a nonhuman as Jack’s life partner, so for months he was stuck trying to keep his relationship hidden. But when Roux found out Jack had given in to his father and agreed to give a speech at an anti-creature conference, Jack’s beloved chat left him.
Ashamed and heartbroken, Jack needs to choose whether he should go against what he believes in and support his Father’s cause, or follow his heart and try to win Roux back.
Deep down, Jack knows what’s right, but choosing to do the right thing is a whole other matter when it means standing against the world.
I am completely and 100% twisted up inside warring between "YAY!" and "BOO!". Now before you ask, I'm not conflicted between YAYs and BOOs over the quality of Jack Addison's latest adventure, oh no, I'm conflicted because Doing the Right Thing is the final Jack Addison vs A Whole World of Hot Trouble adventure. As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end" but the beauty of books is they never truly end because you can always go back and re-read them and though Jack Addison may not make my annual re-read list I will definitely be re-visiting him, Roux, and all the heated craziness they found themselves in again.
Now as for Doing the Right Thing, this entry picks up pretty much right where Catnip Dealers ended and as the title suggests, Jack has a big decision to make, to do what's right or do what his family expects. Can he say some words to placate his father and then continue on living his life as he has all the while risking everything he's found or will he make a stand and as the title suggests "do the right thing"? What he decides is something you'll have to discover for yourself😉 but trust me if you've been reading Jack's adventures you'll want to see what path he chooses and if you're new to the series, what better time to begin than when you have them all.
I won't go so far as to say Jack has changed from the man he was in Man-Ravishing Spider(book 1) but he has certainly grown into the man he wanted to be, even if he didn't see it wayback when. Roux too has grown though for him it might be more subtle but he's not the chat he was in Spider either. There is definitely things we could learn about ourselves and our fellow man from Jack and Roux but don't think this reads as a life lesson. Jack Addison vs. is a brilliantly and uniquely written series that is pure fun from beginning to end. I stumbled onto this series by accident but I fell in love with it immediately. There's romance, friendship, heart, danger, and plenty of heat. It should be mentioned that the heat might be considered taboo or at the very least a little "out there" so this series might not be for everyone but if you're open to the "out there" heat that can come with paranormal/fantasy then I say "what are you waiting for?"
Now as for Doing the Right Thing, this entry picks up pretty much right where Catnip Dealers ended and as the title suggests, Jack has a big decision to make, to do what's right or do what his family expects. Can he say some words to placate his father and then continue on living his life as he has all the while risking everything he's found or will he make a stand and as the title suggests "do the right thing"? What he decides is something you'll have to discover for yourself😉 but trust me if you've been reading Jack's adventures you'll want to see what path he chooses and if you're new to the series, what better time to begin than when you have them all.
I won't go so far as to say Jack has changed from the man he was in Man-Ravishing Spider(book 1) but he has certainly grown into the man he wanted to be, even if he didn't see it wayback when. Roux too has grown though for him it might be more subtle but he's not the chat he was in Spider either. There is definitely things we could learn about ourselves and our fellow man from Jack and Roux but don't think this reads as a life lesson. Jack Addison vs. is a brilliantly and uniquely written series that is pure fun from beginning to end. I stumbled onto this series by accident but I fell in love with it immediately. There's romance, friendship, heart, danger, and plenty of heat. It should be mentioned that the heat might be considered taboo or at the very least a little "out there" so this series might not be for everyone but if you're open to the "out there" heat that can come with paranormal/fantasy then I say "what are you waiting for?"
Summary:
Boyfriend for Hire #2
When the lines between pretense and reality blur, can the actor and the boyfriend-for-hire discover something real?
Ryan Levesque is Hollywood’s newest blue eyed boy. Moving from soap operas to the big screen has paid off for the kid from Minnesota, and he’s hot property. But, when a video from the lowest point of his past is shared on social media everything begins to unravel and old hurts resurface. His agent suggests a way out of the mess, and he jumps at the chance to make things right by pretending he’s in a committed, loving relationship with the tall, dark, sexy boyfriend for hire, Kaden. Only, he never counted on the impact Kaden would have on his life, or his career.
When Kaden Moore’s next assignment lands in his lap, he’s expecting nothing more than a self-centered celebrity who’s messed up. Kaden’s new role is that of Hollywood A-lister Ryan Levesque’s boyfriend, a PR stunt concocted by his agents to restore the actor’s dented popularity. Kaden is aware of the video that surfaced from Ryan’s past, and though it raises questions about what kind of man Ryan is, it’s not any of Kaden’s business. Kaden has been pretending his entire life, and knows he can show the troublesome actor a thing or two about the world beyond the Hollywood bubble. But maybe Kaden isn’t as clued up as he thinks, especially when it comes to the heart and love.
The fake boyfriend trope can be hard to pull off without sounding cliche but RJ Scott & Meredith Russell have not only managed to give the concept life once but twice(and hopefully more). When a drunken rant and threat is caught on video and leaked to the press, Hollywood actor Ryan Levesque is in need of the services Boyfriend for Hire provides. Kaden Moore may not be too gung-ho about his next job with the actor having seen the leaked video but he has a job to do and he goes with it. As much as I loved Darcy, book one in the Boyfriend for Hire series, I think Kaden is even better(not something one often says).
The set-up of drunken actor in need of good PR may seem a bit cliche or overused on the service but we quickly learn that there is so much more to what was behind Ryan's drunken video. Now you know I won't go into what the "much more" is or touch on what is in Kaden's past either but just know this: I can't imagine any two people who needed each other more than Ryan and Kaden. Life is all about timing, right place and all that jazz, well the stars were definitely aligned when these two were put in each other's radar.
You'll want to hate Ryan when you first meet him, he comes across as the quintessential Hollywood I'm-too-good-for-this type but we quickly see there's more to him than that partial video. That point right there was actually one of my favorite things about this story, the pace Scott & Russell set, some authors might have dragged out seeing the real Ryan to heighten the drama but personally that would have weakened the story's beginning. We might not learn the whole truth behind what led to the video for a bit but I think seeing Ryan's vulnerability(for lack of a better word) early on strengthened the connection between character and reader.
Some might say these two are broken and in need of fixing but I don't see them that way, I saw two people who are brought together out of necessity that led to more and through that "more" they grow stronger. Some might think I'm giving away too much by that statement but we all know its going to end in HEA, the joy, entertainment, and heart comes from the journey not the ending. Trust me, you'll want to know the journey these two took getting from point A to point Z.
RATING:
Triple Threat by Davidson King
With Lee and Jones busy, I popped my earbuds in, hit play on my Spotify, and drowned in the sounds of Pat Benatar. I loved the ‘80s, some of the ‘90s, but damn the ‘80s had amazing music. As with every time I listened to my music, I started swaying in my seat. I closed my eyes, let my hands tap, my feet slide, and that chorus in “We Belong”… it possessed me, and I couldn’t help myself but to sing. I sang softly as to not disturb Lee and Jones.
“What the absolute fuck!” The sound of Jones’ voice broke through. I opened my eyes and pulled my buds out. The van had stopped and now Lee was standing, staring at me, too.
“Hey,” I said meekly. “What’s up?”
“You scared the crap out of me,” Jones said, and Lee nodded in agreement.
“How?”
“One second it’s all quiet, then it’s like opera cats or something,” Lee answered, and this time Jones agreed.
“Wow, that’s harsh.” I drew my legs up to my chest, hearing the faint sounds of Tiffany singing that she thinks we’re alone now.
“Just warn us when you’re going to break out into song is all,” Lee grumbled, and then got back into the driver’s seat. I slipped the earbuds back in.
A tap on my leg had me pulling out my earbuds again.
“You listen to all ‘80s or you got some not shitty crap in there?” Jones asked, and I gripped my phone like he just shit on my dreams.
“Nothing of what I have is shit!”
Lee started to laugh as he pulled back onto the road and Jones had a huge grin. It was a change I hadn’t really seen in a while. Those two actually enjoying each other. I knew there was history there, everyone did.
If they wanted to be that way, okay. “Just for that,” I said as I put the phone on speaker and hit play. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts started singing about loving rock and roll, and because they love it so much, I sang with them.
Jones’ eyes widened and Lee once again pulled to the side of the road and turned in his seat. Seemed I was entertainment. I knew I didn’t have the best voice, but I had rendered these two dangerous men speechless. I was loving the power, the control.
Feeling daring, I inched over to Jones who looked positively terrified, and began drumming on his legs.
“Sweet Jesus,” Lee said and laughed so loudly I lost track of my words and watched him. Tears ran down his face, and he had his arms wrapped around his middle. It was a contagious laugh, and suddenly the three of us were in hysterics.
The Monuments Men Murders by Josh Lanyon
Chapter One
Fear was tiring.
Anger was preferable.
They were both draining.
Not that he was afraid all the time—most days he was too busy to really think about whether he was in danger, but sometimes at night, yes. Less so when he was away from home sweet home, which was ironic.
For a minute or two Special Agent Jason West of the FBI’s Art Crime Team lay motionless, eyes probing the gloom of his Bozwin Montana hotel room, absently listening to—classifying—the nearby ice machine dumping its load, the gunning of a flooded engine in the parking lot, the clicking over of one luminous number in the clock on the nightstand.
3:43.
Make that 3:44.
He could always phone Sam. Even if by some chance Behavior Analysis Unit Chief Sam Kennedy was asleep, he’d take Jason’s call.
Most likely he was awake.
Though Sam was halfway across the country, the thought of him comforted Jason. He could picture Sam, the glow from his computer monitor highlighting his craggy, not-quite-handsome face. Broad shoulders and hard, taut muscles beneath one of those severely tailored white shirts. At this time of night it would be unbuttoned, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He’d be wearing the gold-wire glasses Jason found peculiarly sexy and that distant, meditative look as he read over the day’s bad news.
Tomorrow Sam would be in Montana.
Tomorrow they’d be together for the first time in three weeks. They’d met for a spontaneous (on Jason’s part) and very brief Memorial Day get-together. Before that it had been eight weeks since they’d been in the same room together.
Long-distance relationships were never easy, and this one had more challenges than most. Still, it was better than the alternative. They had come painfully close to the alternative too many times to take it lightly.
If Sam was asleep, he needed the rest, and Jason resisted the longing to hear his voice for a few minutes. He had already called him once this week. He didn’t want Sam thinking the strain was getting to him.
But yeah, of course the strain was getting to him.
Not during the day, not while he was working.
But Dr. Jeremy Kyser had the key to Jason’s dreams, and more evenings than not, he opened the door to Jason’s subconscious and strolled right in. Mostly, it was just a lurking sense of unease, worry. Jason spent a lot of dreamtime looking for Kyser’s lost case file or a missing-person report; it didn’t take a shrink to interpret any of that.
Other nights—like this one—Jason relived some version of his narrow escape from attempted abduction, and woke drenched in perspiration and gulping for air like a landed fish.
The details of the assault remained sketchy in his memory, so he was never sure which, if any, of his nightmares offered a true version of events. He just knew he woke scared and angry, and no end to it in sight.
He reached for the remote control on the bed stand and turned on the television. Late-night TV was his new best friend. There was some crazy old black and white movie on—something to do with a stage magician having marital problems—and Jason folded his arms more comfortably behind his head and settled in, prepared to occupy himself for a few sleepless hours.
The movie, Eternally Yours, reminded Jason of the last time he and Sam had worked together. Well, they had not really been working together. Jason had been recuperating from injuries sustained fighting off Kyser, and Sam had been determined to oversee the process.
Anyway, his memories of the stay with Sam’s mother were good, the movie was pleasantly goofy, and he was content with the way the case had turned out in Wyoming. By the time the Cheyenne Resident Agency had managed to get their search warrants, the magician community of Laramie County had pulled off their own Top Hat White Rabbit. And maybe that was the way it was supposed to go.
Sam did not agree with Jason’s thinking on that score, and it was a given he would not approve of what Jason was hoping to accomplish in Montana. Which was why Jason was planning to get this case wrapped up without ever having to ad—
His cell phone vibrated into life—and Jason vibrated with it. He was immediately aggravated with his jump. He swore, grabbed the phone, growled, “West.”
“Agent West,” Sam said smoothly. His voice was deep, softened around the edges by a hint of Western drawl. “Did I wake you?”
Somewhere along the line, “West,” used when they were on their own, had become kind of a pet name.
Jason relaxed into the pillows. “No. I was just thinking about you.”
“Ah.”
“You might have felt a tingle at the base of your spine.”
Sam’s laugh was quiet, intimate. “You’re in a playful mood.”
“I am, yeah. Looking forward to tomorrow night.”
“Me too.”
Jason closed his eyes for a moment, grateful. There had been a time he wouldn’t have dared take it for granted that if he and Kennedy were sharing air space, they’d be together every possible moment.
Sam sipped something on the other end. Jason smiled faintly, waiting.
Sam asked thoughtfully, “You want to talk?”
Jason admitted, “Not really.”
“You want to listen?”
“Yeah. I want to listen to you talk dirty to me.” He was kidding, of course, but not entirely. No point pretending he wouldn’t like the relief and relaxation that came from sex. Any kind of sex. Sam was not much for dirty talk, especially over the airwaves, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“I should be in the office by noon.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there at some point.”
“Yes, you will. So save the last dance for me.”
Jason grinned into the darkness. On the flickering television screen, David Niven had just managed the ultimate feat of magic by saving his marriage.
“Safe travels,” Jason said. He did not want to hang up. Did not want to sever this tenuous connection.
Sam answered, “Sweet dreams, West.”
“Hey, isn’t that Martinez?” J.J. asked.
They were having breakfast in a restaurant not far from the Holiday Inn while waiting for their complainant, a Dutch investigator specializing in stolen art. The plan was to compare notes before heading out to interview Bert Thompson. Thompson, who ran a dude ranch in the next county, was the nephew of the recently deceased Roy Thompson, prime suspect in the theft of priceless art treasures during the final days of World War II.
“Hm?” Jason looked up from his coffee mug. Another cup and he might feel almost human. Or at least awake. His sleepless nights were catching up to him—although last night there had been a bright side to the insomnia.
He followed J.J.’s gaze to the café’s hostess stand, where a man and woman dressed in that particular brand of budget-conscious business attire that proclaimed law-enforcement officers! waited to be seated.
Jason’s mind was mostly on the upcoming meet with Hans de Haan, their contact. He vaguely remembered being introduced to Special Agent Martinez at the Bozwin resident agency the previous afternoon. She was a petite woman, probably early thirties, with very short dark hair and big brown eyes. Certainly attractive, though not J.J.’s usual type. Typically, Jason’s partner went for statuesque blondes whose life ambition was a full page in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” J.J. slid out of the booth. “I’ll ask them to join us.”
He didn’t wait for Jason’s reply, leaving the table and going to greet the newcomers.
Jason mentally sighed. Technically, J.J. was still a first office agent. Not probationary, but still pretty green—although he’d had one hell of a first year, even excluding the time partnered with Jason. They’d been paired since February. Four long months. At first, Jason had been sure one of them was going to end the year in jail on homicide charges, but they had eventually settled into a functional and not unfriendly partnership. They were very different personality types, and J.J. believed his talents were wasted by his being shackled to the LA Field Office’s Art Crime Team agent—and Jason wholeheartedly agreed, though for different reasons.
He lifted a hand in greeting when the two agents looked over at the table.
J.J. ushered Martinez and her partner through the crowded dining room. Jason rose. Martinez, smelling of Vera Wang (which Jason’s sister Sophie wore) slid into the empty booth, her partner slid in beside her, and Jason waited so that J.J. could position himself across from his quarry.
The male agent, who introduced himself as SA Travis Petty, looked to Jason to be a bit younger than him, tall, blond, and muscular. He could have commanded his own SI layout.
“Good to meet you, West,” he said. And then, “You were with Sam Kennedy in Massachusetts.”
Jason studied him. “I was.”
Yes, Petty was very good-looking. Blue eyes, square jaw, boyish thatch of springy light hair. As a matter of fact, he looked like a 1950s poster boy for the manly-occupation-of-your-choice.
Petty’s smile was white and rueful. “What an opportunity. To work with Sam on his last case as a field agent.”
“It was a learning experience.”
Not BAU Chief Kennedy, but Sam Kennedy. In fact, just plain old Sam, which, given Sam’s general reputation in field offices and resident agencies, seemed to imply an unexpected social connection. Or, at the very least, an out of the ordinary interest in the legendary BAU Chief.
“I was part of the Deerlodge Destroyer task force he headed two years ago. It was really enlightening.”
“I bet,” Jason said.
The disturbing case Petty was referring to was why Sam happened to be in Montana at the same time as Jason. The capture of a serial killer who had been using the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest as his personal hunting ground had been one of Sam’s final field assignments and, being Sam, he was following it to its final conclusion, helping the local team finalize their court case. Delegation was not and had never been his default setting.
“You’re also Art Crime Team?” Martinez asked J.J. She had a pretty smile, but then tall, dark, and handsome Russell brought out the pretty smiles in women, young and old.
“God no.”
Jason said, “It’s more of a hostage situation in Russell’s case,” and the others—including Russell—laughed.
“He thinks he’s kidding,” Russell said.
“Yeah, no I don’t.”
Petty said, “I can tell you one thing, if there’s ever an opening on his team, I’m going for it.”
Jason smiled politely. Back to Sam, because no way was Petty talking about signing on with Jason or the ACT. It was doubtful he even registered on Petty’s consciousness beyond being someone who had spent significant time with Sam.
He glanced at Martinez, who was eyeing her partner with affectionate resignation.
J.J. said, “You know, you’re talking to Kennedy’s BFF.”
BFF could have meant exactly that—best buds—but Martinez’s instant, “Oh,” indicated she’d interpreted correctly. As did Petty, given his almost comical change of expression.
Jason directed a look at J.J., who said, “Hey, it’s the truth.”
Petty’s mouth curved, but that was as far as the smile went. “Lucky you,” he said.
Strokes on a Canvas by H Lewis-Foster
London, April 1924
Evan took a sip from his pint of beer. It wasn’t the best ale he’d tasted, but he intended to drink every drop, delaying his return to Beston House and another inedible meal served up by his landlady, Mrs. Grindley. To be fair, the boarding house wasn’t a bad place. His room was clean and the bed was bigger than the one he’d shared with his brother, but Mrs. Grindley’s cooking would challenge the strongest constitution. Her stew had the texture of wallpaper paste, her soup was little more than hot water, and it was said the pastry on her blackberry pie had broken a former tenant’s tooth.
The barmaid handed Evan his change and narrowed her eyes in what may have been interest or disapproval. Evan was hopeless at reading female gestures and hints, but he was worse at interpreting men’s secret signals, which could sometimes prove to be quite a problem. He took another mouthful of beer and was wondering how long he could make his drink last, when he glimpsed a man with sweetly tousled black hair a short way across the bar.
The Rose and Crown was by no means rough, but the man seemed out of place, his brown tweed jacket and gold-rimmed glasses lending him an academic air. He looked older than Evan, somewhere around thirty, and his blue, almost turquoise, eyes were striking behind his spectacles. Evan had a soft spot for men in glasses. For one thing, he thought their imperfect vision might make them less aware of his physical quirks—namely his slightly crooked nose, broken in a cricket match, and the unruly mop of ginger hair he’d inherited from his father.
Evan also fancied bespectacled men were a cut above the intellectual average, a quality he found far more attractive than a flawless face. While he’d left school at thirteen, Evan had tried to improve himself by reading and learning as much as he could, and he was drawn to scholarly types like the man at the bar. He imagined them strolling in cap and gown across a sunlit college quad, then retiring to their rooms for philosophical debates with their old school chums. Evan saw such men in the shop from time to time, buying tobacco or cigarettes, but he rarely spoke to them if he could help it, afraid they’d laugh at the Derbyshire accent he tried his best to disguise.
Despite his cultured appearance, the man in the tweed jacket didn’t look like he’d mock Evan’s working-class roots or lack of formal education. His blue eyes were kind, as was his smile, which Evan suddenly realized was directed at him. Evan looked down at his pint, unsure of the smile’s meaning. The man may have been the sort who smiled a lot, an open and friendly person who liked to put people at ease. Or perhaps his smile signified something quite different.
While the Rose and Crown wasn’t that kind of pub, it wasn’t unknown for illicit liaisons to begin in respectable places. Evan was no innocent in such matters, but he always waited for his partner in crime to make his intentions clear. He’d never been in trouble with the law, not even scrumping apples when he was a boy, and he didn’t intend to go to jail now because of a misunderstanding.
Evan lifted his gaze to see the man was still smiling. He knew it could be a ruse—a policeman out to trick men into revealing their true nature—but Evan couldn’t help smiling back. He raised his glass in a tentative greeting and the stranger nodded in reply, his eyes flickering in the direction of the pub door. Unable to believe his good fortune, Evan gulped down the rest of his beer as the man stepped purposefully toward him. His haste wasn’t surprising—he probably had a wife to get home to once he’d satisfied his immoral desires—but he didn’t look nervous, as most men did in such a risky situation.
The man held out his hand, and Evan prepared to return the affable gesture. Then he caught a glimpse of movement to his left and the sleeve of an overcoat skimmed his arm. There beside him was a tall, blond-haired man offering his hand to Evan’s prospective playmate. Evan froze where he stood, his hand raised from his side. Then he slowly turned to the bar, trying to look casual as he leaned against the counter. Evan rested his fingers against his temple so that he could discreetly observe the two men. The man in the glasses was first to speak, his accent implying a privileged background somewhere in the south of England.
“I’m so glad you got in touch, Haynes. How is your dear wife? And your two beautiful girls?”
“They’re very well, thank you, sir.” The blond’s voice was a comforting Norfolk burr. “Vera sends her regards and said to thank you for the cake you sent at Christmas. It was most appreciated.”
“It was my pleasure, Haynes. And please don’t call me sir. It’s been a long time since I held rank. I’m plain Milo Halstead now.”
“You’ll always be Captain Halstead to me. The best officer in the regiment by a mile.”
Evan tilted his head and saw Milo blush endearingly.
“Nonsense, Haynes. Now, let me buy you a drink. Is beer all right, or would you like something stronger?”
“I’d better stick with the ale. My train back to Norwich is in an hour, and Vera won’t be happy if I miss it.”
Milo laughed and they moved to the bar. For a moment, Evan thought they might stand next to him, but thankfully they settled a few feet away, where Milo ordered two pints of beer.
Evan’s pulse throbbed in his eardrums and his heart thumped in his chest as he realized how close he’d come to disaster. However intelligent he looked, however refined he sounded, Milo was a former soldier and seemingly a good one. If Evan had offered his homosexual hand, he might well have received a vicious beating in return, and the thought of his landlady’s woeful cooking suddenly seemed quite enticing. Evan took a last glance at Milo and Haynes drinking and chatting, then slipped unnoticed out of the pub and into the London mist.
“Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Grindley. I got held up at work.”
With her dark hair scraped back in its customary bun and a look even more frosty than usual, Mrs. Grindley plunged a knife into a large and sagging suet pudding.
“You’re working at the pub now, are you, Mr. Calver?”
Evan was amazed by his landlady’s sense of smell. She could detect a mere hint of alcohol across a crowded room, and if her gifted nose told her that one of her charges had missed his weekly dip in the tub, she dispatched him to the bathroom with a flea in his ear and a bar of carbolic soap.
“I only had the one, Mrs. Grindley. It’s been a tough day.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t know working in a grocer’s was so tiring. I suppose your wrist must be dropping off, what with taking all that money and writing receipts.”
“It’ll not be writing receipts that’s hurting his wrist.”
A collective snort of laughter erupted around the table.
“What was that, Alexander Wallace?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Grindley.” Sandy smiled, angelic as ever with his rosy cheeks and waves of golden hair. “But I’m looking forward to your delicious supper.”
Mrs. Grindley slopped a portion of pudding onto Sandy’s plate, and he beamed like he’d been served caviar and smoked salmon at the Ritz. He rarely ate a mouthful of her meals, but Sandy knew there were worse places to board at higher prices, so he used his easy Scottish charm to keep on Mrs. Grindley’s good side. With his own greasy helping swimming on his plate, along with two bullet-hard potatoes, Evan picked up his fork and prodded something that may have been kidney, though he couldn’t be sure.
Evan forced down a few morsels of food, still not certain what he was eating, and joined in the mealtime conversation. Sandy was entertaining as always. He worked at the nearby chemist’s and was a good one for gossip, divulging the locals’ embarrassing ailments and intimate irritations. While he never named his customers, everyone knew that the auburn-haired woman with a bad case of piles was Mrs. Kent from number twenty-two, and the pipe-smoking man with constipation was Reverend Maguire. Mrs. Grindley scolded him for discussing such subjects at dinner, but she enjoyed his stories too much to stop him and loved a bit of tittle-tattle as much as anyone.
Apart from Sandy, there was Dennis, an insurance clerk who worked down the road from Evan and told his share of anecdotes about his customers’ dubious claims. He wasn’t a bad bloke and was certainly good-looking, with his sleek brown hair and pale green eyes, but he had a slightly superior air that wound Sandy up something rotten. Then there was Victor, a shy young student with an adorable smile who was happy to share the regular gifts of sweets and chocolate his mother supplied. Finally, there was Fred, a cheery lad who worked in a brewery and was therefore the subject of their landlady’s scrutiny more than the rest of them.
They were all far from their families, having made the move to London in the hope of making something of their lives, but they were a jovial bunch and mostly rubbed along well, sharing their triumphs and tribulations in work and football, and sometimes romance. Sandy was the group’s Lothario and always had a girl on the go. He’d even sneaked one or two into his room when he knew Mrs. Grindley was out. Sandy was also the one person Evan could talk to about his own private life.
Evan still wasn’t sure how Sandy had guessed his sexual inclination, but as they’d strolled home with their chips one Saturday night—Mrs. Grindley took a welcome break from her culinary duties at the weekend—Sandy had asked, completely out of the blue, if Evan preferred boys to girls. Evan had almost choked on a scalding hot chip, and once Sandy had thumped him on the back, he’d cautiously admitted he wasn’t all that keen on girls, at least not in that way. He’d been sure Sandy wouldn’t use his confession against him, but Evan had still been wary, having never confided in anyone before. Sandy, however, had been unflustered by his revelation. He’d asked a few forthright questions, to which Evan had given self-conscious replies, then he’d let the subject drop, telling Evan he could talk to him if he wanted or needed to.
Evan had been astounded by Sandy’s generosity, and he’d slept exceedingly well that night, knowing he’d found a friend who would listen to him without judgement. He’d soon called on Sandy’s counsel, when he’d been confused—as he usually was—by signals he’d been getting from a new chap at work. After a lengthy conversation with Sandy, Evan had decided not to act on his unreliable intuition. The lad had been more than friendly since he’d started at Bailey’s, but Evan couldn’t afford to lose his job, which would be the least of the repercussions if he turned out to be mistaken. When his colleague had announced his engagement to a girl from Clapham the following month, he’d been sincerely grateful for Sandy’s wise advice.
As Evan attempted to finish his dinner, he thought he’d have a natter with Sandy later. They often met up for a chat in one or other of their rooms before they turned in for the night. Today’s topic of choice would no doubt be Sandy’s latest rendezvous with Ada, the girl from the Lyons tea shop, but Evan thought he might mention his close shave with the man in the pub. Cheered by the prospect of a chinwag with Sandy and his afternoon off the following day, Evan found his last mouthful of suet pudding just a little more palatable.
The Party of Murder by John Inman
Chapter One
FROM THE passenger seat, Jamie Roma slipped a hand under the shirttail of the man driving the car. He chuckled to himself when the car swerved off the road, then lurched back onto the asphalt in a spray of gravel and mud.
Derek Lee growled through what Jamie considered to be the sexiest pair of lips he had ever seen in his life. “Jesus, if that hand had gone into my pants, we’d be dead now.”
“Dead but happy,” Jamie whispered back.
Derek made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. Mostly, Jamie figured, it was a groan. Jamie didn’t mind not getting a laugh at his feeble joke, because at the same time as he was groaning, Derek was also tucking his own hand under his shirt and stroking Jamie’s fingers.
They were motoring across the high desert thirty miles outside San Diego. Even had there been daylight, there would have been nothing to see but rolling hills, a bunch of boulders scattered around like spilled Legos, and about a gazillion clumps of sagebrush. As it was, they couldn’t even see that because darkness had fallen with a resounding thud about three hours back. And now not only was it night, it was a moonless and starless night, thanks to the rain clouds that had been forming overhead all day. If not for the Toyota’s headlights and the gleam of the GPS system on the dashboard, they would have been floundering through a sea of bottomless black shadow—blind, directionless, lost.
It was also lonely. They hadn’t seen another car for ages.
Jamie jumped, pointing through the windshield at a sudden twitch of movement up ahead on the side of the road. “Lookie! A coyote!”
No sooner had he cried out than the animal froze, every ounce of its attention trained on the approaching car. The coyote’s eyes were like teeny tiny flashlights, beaming straight back at them. The beast didn’t run; it didn’t cower; it simply stood there with its front feet on the road and its rear end in the bushes, waiting patiently for the car to speed past so it could go on about its business.
“It’s not afraid of us,” Jamie said.
“Why should it be?” Derek snorted. “It’s not the one that’s lost. And don’t say ‘Lookie.’ You sound like a three-year-old.”
Jamie slapped Derek’s arm at the exact moment he spun around in his seat to look behind them as the car zoomed past the coyote. For the briefest of moments, he spotted the creature flashing to life in the red glow of the car’s taillights. Then the animal melted into the receding darkness as if it had never been there at all. Jamie swung back around and replaced his hand on Derek’s bare belly.
He sighed.
“What’s with the sigh?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“You’re not getting romantic, are you?”
It was Jamie’s turn to snort. “I don’t get romantic. I’m just a guy who’s having fun driving along with his oldest friend in the world who happens to be an occasional trick.”
“Occasional as in every single night for the last two months.”
“Well, yeah.”
“After all these years of friendly abstinence together, we suddenly jump into bed and pork like bunny rabbits for eight solid weeks.”
“Pork like bunny rabbits. What a lovely expression. Rates right up there with fuck your balls off.”
“Oh hush. I wonder how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
“How we ended up in bed together that first night.”
Jamie gave Derek time to think about it while he enjoyed the sensation of exploring Derek’s tight little belly button with a fingertip. “Hormones, I guess,” Derek finally said. “Horny, humpy hormones.”
This time when Jamie groaned, it was a real one. “Yeah. And tequila. Lots and lots of tequila. My head still hurts.”
“How about your ass?”
“That too. But in a good way. And that’s from last night, not two months ago.”
They laughed, and Derek stroked Jamie’s hand again, making Jamie’s laugh ratchet down to a dreamy little smile. He couldn’t see it on his own face because he was too lazy to look in the visor mirror, but he knew it was there all the same. It was somewhat worrisome, too, that dreamy, contemplative smile he could feel twitching on his lips. My God, what if he was beginning to feel romantic about Derek? What would that do to their lifelong friendship?
“We met in fifth grade,” Jamie said, pondering out loud.
Derek cracked the window to get some air into the car. Either the night had grown warmer, or he was having a hot flash. He realized, of course, that Jamie’s roving fingers so close to his groin might have something to do with that. “I know. I was there. You tried to steal my milk. Hmm,” he hummed, sticking his nose through the crack, “smell that night air.”
Jamie rolled his own window down, letting in a blast of air that made his hair thrash around on top his head. He stuck his face through the opening, squinting into the night. “Smells like a monsoon coming!” he yelled into the empty countryside.
“They don’t have monsoons in California!” Derek bellowed. “And get back in here. You look like a Rottweiler hanging out a car door with his tongue flapping in the wind.”
Jamie dragged himself back inside. He was grinning like an idiot, hair going every which way. Batting his eyelashes, he leaned against his seat belt and laid his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Ooh, if I was a Rottweiler, we could do it doggy style.”
Derek laughed. “And break every law of nature there is. You’re impossible.”
A sudden flash of lightning sizzled across the sky in front of them, making them both jump. A moment later, fat raindrops began pelting the windshield. Derek switched on the wipers. Soon their comforting song filled the interior of the car. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It was a pleasant sound, Jamie thought. With his head still snuggled against Derek’s shoulder, Jamie returned his hand to Derek’s bare belly. His fingers twiddled idly with the hair around Derek’s navel. Both men grew quiet as they watched the road in front of them darken with rain.
“Any idea where we are?” Jamie asked.
With his lips in Jamie’s hair, Derek gave a good-natured growl. “Oh ye of little faith. I know exactly where we are.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere north of Mexico and south of the Bering Strait.”
“Very funny.”
Derek tapped the GPS monitor on the dashboard. “Honestly. We’re right where we’re supposed to be. See? There should be a turnoff coming up soon, and a few miles after that, a bridge. We’ll cross the bridge and continue on down a gravel side road for fifteen miles or so, and that will lead us unveeringly toward the house we’re trying to find.”
“So you hope,” Jamie drawled.
To which Derek didn’t quibble. “Yes. So I hope.”
For the space of about fifteen seconds, the rain came down so hard that even the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The sound was deafening. The downpour pummeled the car, almost stripping Jamie’s breath away. Being a Southern California boy, Jamie was more accustomed to drought. He didn’t like storms. When the rain eased up a little, his blood pressure dropped. He tried to relax. Through the streaming windshield, he could see the empty highway stretching out before them, disappearing into the rainy, wind-tossed distance. Derek tapped his index finger against the steering wheel. Clearly he was about to say something important. Which he finally did.
“I know we’ve been over this a dozen times, but I still don’t understand why we both received invitations to a house party from someone we don’t know.”
“From someone we assume we don’t know,” Jamie corrected. “Since the invitations weren’t signed, we really don’t know if we’re acquainted with the person who sent them or not. Personally, I think it’s some idiot friend of ours.”
“But we don’t know that for sure,” Derek pointed out. “And still, Jamie Roma, you putz, you insisted we come anyway.”
Jamie laughed. “Because it’s an adventure! It’s a lark. It’s mysterious. It’s a weekend house party in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles out of the city, cut off from the world, and being hosted by someone we may or may not know for reasons we haven’t got a clue about. Besides, at the bottom of the invitations they promised heart-stopping door prizes. Quote, unquote. Who could say no to heart-stopping door prizes?”
“Anybody with brains!” Derek snarled. “I’ve seen horror movies that start this way. While we’re tooling down this spookyass, rain-drenched highway heading straight into the maw of oblivion with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing all around us, I can imagine the opening credits of a really gory slasher movie unscrolling over our heads as we speak. Jamie and Derek on the Highway to Hell. Three for the Road with Jamie, Derek, and Leatherface. Queers on Elm Street.”
“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there. Listen. Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
“Oh please, Jamie. When have you ever not steered me wrong? Remember that Mexican restaurant you wanted to try last week? The one where the cockroach crawled out of my taco?”
“You should have had a burrito.”
Derek ignored that. “I wonder how many guests there will be.”
“Like I care. Let’s just hope the booze doesn’t run out.” Jamie perked up. “Suppose there will be tequila?”
This time Derek’s groan came from the heart. “Oh God, I hope not. One shot of tequila and you end up with your legs in the air, toes pointed straight at the ceiling.”
“Why, thank you.”
Derek laughed. “No, thank you.”
Derek took their lives in his hands by leaning into the darkness and planting a kiss on Jamie’s eagerly expectant mouth. At the same time, their lives were further imperiled when Jamie’s fingers diddled their way south, burrowing under the buckle of Derek’s belt, which he cleverly unclasped with a flick of his thumb. Houdini couldn’t have done it better.
The car swerved again when Jamie wiggled out from under his shoulder harness and lowered his head to Derek’s lap. Rooting around with his nose like a hog hunting truffles, he unearthed exactly what he was searching for, and for the next three miles, not a word was spoken between the two.
The silence was finally broken when Derek stiffened all over and gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. Far beyond his ability to do anything about it, his hips lurched upward and he emitted a delicious moan.
“That’s my boy,” Jamie mumbled, smiling. “Let it go. And try not to run us off a cliff when you do.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Derek gasped, once again lifting his ass off the seat until there was a good six inches of daylight showing beneath him—if there had been any daylight available on this miserably stormy night. While a brand-new onslaught of rain and wind pummeled the car and rocked it back and forth, he clutched a fistful of Jamie’s hair with the one free hand he dared take off the wheel.
For the next thirty seconds or so, Jamie Roma worked just as hard as the windshield wipers—trying desperately to stay ahead of the deluge.
Behind the Stick by K Evan Coles & Brigham Vaughn
Kyle McKee set down his gym bag and yoga mat and pulled up a seat at his gym’s juice bar. The class he’d taken had warmed his skin and stretched his muscles and joints to their limits. He felt like the world’s most relaxed slab of single New York man, which was good for Kyle’s state of mind. He’d been stressed lately, about his love life in particular. Because damn if every guy he’d been out with in the last two months hadn’t turned out to be a shitheel of epic proportions. So much so, Kyle had decided to stop dating entirely.
Eyes closed, Kyle forced away thoughts of dating catastrophes. He rolled his neck from side to side but peeled his lids open again when the chair on his left slid back and his friend Malcolm Elliot dropped into the seat. Malcolm gave Kyle a lazy grin. At six-three, he stood a few inches taller than Kyle, and he looked rosy-cheeked and loose limbed, his blue-gray eyes shining.
“I am a man-sized untwisted pretzel,” Malcolm said. “I’m not sure what that means, so don’t ask.”
“You’re yoga-stoned, dude.” Kyle smiled at Malcolm’s laugh.
“Is that a thing?”
“Totally a thing.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes at Kyle. “You’re the one with the bloodshot eyes—what did you do after class?”
“Ugh, nothing but itch from allergies. Ragweed is my kryptonite.” Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, then nodded at the menu on the wall behind the counter. “What are you drinking?”
“I’ll do a Kale Storm with protein,” Malcolm said.
Kyle held up a hand when Malcolm reached for his wallet. “I’ll grab these—you paid last week.” He smiled at the barista who’d stepped up to take their order. “A Kale Storm with a protein powder shot and a Peanut Butter Baby with chia, please. You headed home after this?” he asked Malcolm.
Malcolm shook his head. “I’ve got errands to run. My kitchen has mysteriously emptied itself of food since my brother and his girlfriend came back to town. What about you?”
“I’m opening tonight, so I’ll just head to the bar. I have extra clothes at the office I can change into.” Kyle co-owned a speakeasy called Under with his friend Jesse Murtagh and, while he loved his job, the commute uptown from Chelsea to Morningside Heights could be a pain in the ass. He welcomed the option to skip extra stops when he could.
Malcolm ran his gaze over Kyle’s gray Henley and dark jeans. “You could always serve in what you’re wearing, you know. You’d blow Jesse’s mind.”
Kyle covered a theatrical gasp with one hand. “I would never!” His preference for black or dark gray clothing while working was a source of gentle teasing among his friends. “Seriously, I don’t feel like I’m working unless I’ve got my blacks on. I’ve done it for so long it’s just part of how I do my job.”
Fair Isn't Life by Kaje Harper
MASON BELL hadn’t thought of himself as stupid until three microseconds after he said, “Hey, isn’t that Luke Lafontaine?” Because yeah, it definitely was, but in that flash of time, he realized that Luke was picking up trash along the State Fair sidewalk with a long-handled stick, and that he’d said those words to Arnie Green. Arnie was a great horn player, and a funny guy on the baseball field, but he’d also been one of Luke’s casual tormentors through their four years of high school.
Arnie leaned forward to look past him from where they sat on the curb. “It is! Luke the Puke. And look at his great summer job. State Fair garbage guy.” He raised his voice. “Hey! Luke!”
Luke hunched but didn’t turn their way, just picked up another cup that had missed the trash and deposited it in the barrel.
“Hey! Talking to you, Fountain,” Arnie called.
Mason grabbed his arm. “Forget him. We’re heading out soon.” He hoped. They were twenty-third in the parade, and the sun was melting his brain. Why he’d signed up for marching band in the furnace of a Minnesota August, he’d never know.
Because you love to show off for a big crowd with your bandmates. Don’t front.
Arnie shook him off and waved at the staging area. “The hell we are. Look at them all. Fifteen minutes, at least. Let’s say hi to our old friend.” He pushed up off the curb and turned toward Luke.
Shit, shit, shit. Mason scrambled to his feet too, clarinet in hand.
Arnie walked around Luke, forcing the guy to look at him. “Hey, Fountain, it’s been years. Whatcha doin’?”
“Working.” Luke’s answer was barely audible over the noise of performers warming up.
“Working? Picking up other people’s trash?”
Luke shrugged one big shoulder, his dangling ID badge sliding over the faded blue of his T-shirt. Mason suddenly had a flash memory of Luke’s eyes, that same gentle blue, staring into his. Damn it, Arnie. Calling Arnie off when he was on the hunt for fun wouldn’t work, but he might intercept. “Hey, Luke. Can you show me the nearest portapotty? I think I’m gonna puke.”
Luke darted a look at him. “Sure.”
“Lead the way?” He hurried away from Arnie, dodging a tall woman in heels and kid in a Twins hat, relieved when Luke followed him.
“Jeeze, Mason,” Arnie called after them. “Gonna let Fountain take you to the bathroom?”
Mason gave him a middle finger behind his back as he led the way deeper into the crowd. When they were screened from view, he paused and turned. Luke was right behind him and had to put a hand on his chest to keep from running into him. Mason felt the warmth of Luke’s palm through the polyester of his band uniform. “Sorry about Arnie. He hasn’t grown up since eighth grade.”
“It’s okay.” Luke lowered his hand. “Do you need the portapotty?”
“No. It was all I could think of, y’know?”
Luke shook his head, a frown creasing his forehead beneath the brim of his John Deere cap. He looked as uncertain as he had when Mason had tutored him in algebra. A tiny pang tugged inside Mason’s chest. That lost look had always made him feel protective, like Luke was some kind of little brother instead of a year older. “I’m sorry I pointed you out to Arnie.” What else to say? “It’s good to see you. How’ve you been?”
That got him another lopsided shrug and an “Okay.” But he’d tutored Luke in math for a whole year, and he recognized the okay that meant Luke was about to go under water.
Are you in college? He managed not to say that, even though it’d explain why Luke wasn’t an hour away, back home in Buffalo. Luke hadn’t been much of a student, and there’d never been money for college. His dad barely scraped by on their farm. Luke wore a lot of secondhand-looking clothes with holes that weren’t fashionably distressed by some sweatshop worker in China. “How’s the farm?”
Luke’s full lips pressed into a straight line as he glanced past Mason. They were blocking traffic on the sidewalk. People streamed around them, heading for the parade route. “Don’t you have to get back? To march?”
“Eventually, yeah. I’ve got time.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m on the clock.”
“Summer job?” Why? Summer should be the busy time on the farm. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why Luke was here instead.
“Yep.” Luke moved off down the sidewalk, deftly snatching litter without tripping anyone up. Also without looking back. Mason followed him.
“Does it pay well?”
That got him a sideways glance. “What d’you think?”
“Okay, probably not.” He had to jog a couple of steps to keep up. He was short, and Luke looked like he’d kept growing past the towering six-foot-something that Mason remembered from graduation. “Some State Fair jobs do pay. I know guys who make a mint working the two weeks of Fair.”
“Good for them.” Luke closed his grabbers on a cup, hard enough to pop off the lid and spray bright blue Freezie-melt out the top.
A passing man did a quick jump to avoid soaked sneakers and grunted, “Shit! Watch what you’re doing.”
“Sorry, sir.” Luke transferred the cup to the nearby barrel, then deftly bagged the lid as well, and strode on.
“Come on, dude.” Mason grabbed at Luke’s arm. “Hold up a sec. I just want to talk.”
Luke turned. “About what?”
“How you’ve been. What’s new. It’s been two years.”
“Yep. And you’re still hanging out with Arnie.”
Ouch. “We’re in the band together. I don’t spend much time around him, normally.” That was true, although with rehearsing for the Fair, they’d somehow drifted closer together again. He’d felt strangely rootless this summer, and Arnie was a face from home. Though not a good one. “When classes start, I’ll see him for maybe three hours of rehearsal a week.”
“What kind of classes? Math?”
“Psychology. College math isn’t my thing.”
“You did great in math.”
“For high school, sure.” He’d managed a 790 on the SAT, and he was proud of that. Didn’t make him a math geek, though. “I don’t love it. Now psych? That shit’s interesting.”
“Like what?”
He groped for something Luke might appreciate. “Like taste-aversion learning. Rats have it. They can’t barf anything up, so if a rat eats something poisonous, they’re gonna die. So if something they eat makes them even a little sick, they’ll never, ever eat that again. One trial, and they hate it for life. Keeps ’em safe.”
Luke nodded slowly. “Good thing people aren’t like that. Beer sellers would go out of business.”
“Fuck, yeah.” He grinned.
Luke pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Hot one today. You should drink lots, when you’re marching. Don’t keel over.” He put the cap back on, tugged it down, and hefted his stick.
“Wait!”
“What? You’ll be up soon. You should get back to Arnie.” That might’ve been disinterest, except for the hint of emotion that sharpened Arnie’s name.
“I’d rather hang out with you.”
“The band might miss your flute.” Luke waved at his clarinet.
“It’s not”—they both said together—“a flute.” For a second, Mason was transported back to eleventh grade and a school hallway. Our stupid routine. Luke repeating, “Well, what is it, then?” and me inventing things like “music-teacher torture device” and “blowpipe.” Behind them, a new band launched into their first number. Mason blinked. “I guess I should get back. Hey, can I call you sometime? Catch up?”
The light dimmed in Luke’s blue eyes, like shutters closing. “Not much to tell. Good luck with school. No heatstroke, now, y’hear?” This time when he strode off, there was no way Mason would keep up short of running. And how stupid would he look, running after a guy who clearly didn’t want to see him again? He watched Luke vanish into the crowd, his green cap bobbing above other heads for a while, and then gone.
He made his way back to where the band was waiting. They were on their feet, rolling out their shoulders, adjusting instruments, and tugging hats straighter on sweaty foreheads. Arnie hurried up and shoved Mason’s hat at him. “You almost missed it. Are you really sick?”
He tightened the binder on his ponytail, then crammed the hat on his head. “Nah. Just the heat, y’know.”
“Yep. Whose idea was it to do this in full uniform?”
“That would’ve been Dr. Tristan’s. You want to complain to him?”
Arnie shuddered. “Nope. I prefer heatstroke.” He led the way to where they were forming up. “We need some band groupies. Like, that high school band that went off had a dozen moms running alongside spritzing them with water. I want pretty girls in shorts with water pistols.”
“Or pretty boys,” Mason agreed.
“You are so gay.”
“Well, duh.” He usually dialed it back around Arnie, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t come out years ago. Arnie knew he was fucking gay. Or currently nonfucking gay. “Maybe leather guys, with naked chests and—”
Arnie elbowed him harder than usual. “Shut your trap. The doc’s about to give us our orders.”
Mason listened with half his attention to Dr. Tristan’s clear voice. They’d practiced for so long, he could practically quote the pep talk. So he stood in the brilliant August sunshine with sweat trickling down his back and wondered if Luke might turn back to watch them go. Wondered why Luke hadn’t said one word more than necessary about his last two years or the farm. Wondered if the big guy was so desperate for money that picking trash sounded good. Wondered—a toot into his ear from Arnie’s horn woke him to the fact that they were poised and ready. He raised his clarinet, hoping his reed was holding up in the heat. Then he had no room in his head for anything but the doc’s tricky arrangements and following his field commander.
LUKE MADE sure he was well down Judson Avenue before Mason and Arnie’s band started. He didn’t want to see Mason pull his long, dark hair back, tilt his stupid plumed hat to just the right angle, and raise his instrument. He wanted to forget how that always pulled the jacket tight across Mason’s slim shoulders. Not to mention the bibber overall-things the bands wore that were pure sin around an ass like Mason’s. Luke had managed, over the last two years, to forget how good Mason looked in that uniform. He hadn’t needed a reminder. That’d been a different life, hanging around after school to watch the high school band practice, yearning after one more impossible fantasy.
This was real, and dreaming just hurt.
He slowed at the splat of a cup hitting the sidewalk. Crap! Job. He made himself stop and pick it up. Get back to work. He’d walked beyond his zone, but he could work back up Judson. By the time he reached the parade staging area, Mason would be off down the route. Out of sight. Out of his life and thoughts and dreams again. Hopefully for good. His stomach twisted unpleasantly.
Shouldn’t have skipped lunch. But spending the whole day picking up the remains of other people’s food would put anyone off. He’d eat something cheap and not deep-fried later.
He worked doggedly, eyes on the ground, shutting out the sounds of the crowd—the fussing of tired kids, the laughter of someone trying to eat key lime pie on a stick, the shrieks from around the haunted house. Following his assigned route, he traded overflowing trash bags for empties in the barrels, stowing the full ones out of sight till after closing. His shirt clung sweatily to his back. His feet swam in his sneakers. I’m glad plastic gloves are optional.
Somehow, on this tenth day of the Fair, it was much harder to shut out distractions and just work. Till now, he’d treated this like the high-rise janitorial job he’d had—pretend to be invisible, ignore everyone, focus only on the cleaning. But today, familiar sights and sounds kept breaking through his walls.
The clop of horses’ hooves down the paved street made him look up. Two preteens rode their ponies side by side, tan Stetsons hanging down their backs by the chin cords, feet dangling out of the stirrups. The sun lit the kids’ blond hair and the ponies’ black-and-white manes. He was hit with envy so intense it made his vision darken. 4-H days when the Fair meant showing off Dad’s best heifer and riding double behind Nick past the Coliseum. They’d ambled along on Nick’s quarter horse, like those kids, so superior to the poor city folk who came to the Fair to see livestock like they were seeing tigers at the zoo.
Luke leaned against the side of the Dairy Building, squeezing his eyes shut. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember. Someone passed close by, chattering about the sculpture of Princess Kay of the Milky Way done in butter. Nick’s sister had been a finalist when she was a junior. She said her butter sculpture made her look like Mulan. Don’t remember.
This was just a job. He’d applied for sanitation work, not barn crew, on purpose. Ten bucks an hour. No stupid memories. Do the job for thirteen days, get the check, go away. Go on. Go on. He pushed off the wall, glanced around, and snagged a paper napkin blown up against a post. Doing his job.
He made it through the rest of his shift somehow, riding on waves of mini donut aroma—I ate three bags one time—and the creak of the skyride overhead—Nick dared me to drop a shoe from up there once, had to buy flip-flops, and Dad took it out of my allowance—and a hundred flashes of the red, white, and blue Twins logo—I don’t even know how the team’s doing this year. Time seemed to stutter back and forth. One moment he could still hear the sound of the marching bands on the parade route, taking forever to finish, and an instant later, it was the end of his shift.
After clocking out, he checked his near-empty wallet. He wouldn’t get paid for over a week. Smart thing would be to head out the gates, catch the bus, and go home to his ramen noodles and a tub of cold water for his feet.
I’ve never, ever been smart.
Being at the Fair today hurt in an odd way. Like jumping into the pond the first sunny April day, when it was still way too cold. Like crashing a sled at the bottom of a snow hill, a shock that reminded you how incredibly alive the run had felt. He’d been so numb, he’d forgotten there was still color and music in the world. And mini donuts. Must have mini donuts. He found the nearest stand and handed over his money like he was a millionaire. Hell, yeah. Give me the expensive manna from heaven. The first bite, crunchy with cinnamon sugar, soft and greasy-sweet with dough, burst on his tongue.
Since he was clearly a masochist and wallowing in memories, he headed toward the barns, but halfway there, his resolve ran out. In that cattle barn, he’d shown his 4-H calf, Anne, as a senior yearling, and again as a two-year-old when they’d won her class. He’d shown Brandy to first place as a dry cow before she sold at auction. Dad told him he’d done great.
He couldn’t go there.
Off to his left he spotted the veterinary college’s Miracle of Birth Center. They’d have lambs and piglets and ducks, maybe goats. Critters that were alive and real but not full of memories. He followed the families streaming into the red metal barn.
Inside, the scent hit him first. Clean shavings and hay, and warm animals—sweat and manure and feed—in a mix that made him breathe deep to hold it in his lungs. The aisles were more crowded than he expected. He shuffled along as the kids ahead of him darted between metal pens, oohing and ahing over the wobbly lambs and the huge sows nursing litters of piglets.
A girl pointed at twin lambs nursing. “Look. They like it! They’re wagging their tails.”
There was no reason for that to blind him with tears, but he found himself staggering past the kids toward the back, winding up scrunched against the rails of a pen that held a fine, big-bellied Holstein. Damn it. God damn it. He wiped his face on his shoulder, still clinging to the pen, and knocked his cap off over the rail into nice fresh cow shit. Damn it!
He blinked, then bent stiffly to pick it up. A man’s gnarled hand got it first and held it out. “Here you go, son.”
He kept his face averted. “Thank you, sir.”
“Got a little dirty.”
“It’s good clean dirt.”
The man laughed, deep and hoarse. “Most folk wouldn’t say that about cow crap.”
“It’s just manure.” He glanced up, getting the impression of a weathered face under thick gray hair. “Now if it was pig shit….”
“Hah. Yes.” The man paused.
Luke turned the stained cap around in his hands, staring at his feet because they were easier to look at than the friendly man or the pretty cow.
“Son, are you all right?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“That Deere cap’s seen some weather. You a farm boy?”
“Yes, sir. Dairy. A little beans.”
“Around here?”
“Buffalo.” He pushed enough air through to say, “Was. Was my Dad’s.”
“Was?”
He kicked at a bit of straw with the toe of his sneaker.
“Ah.” There was enough understanding in that single syllable to make his breath come short. “And what’re you doing now?”
“Working the Fair. Sanitation.”
“That’s good, honest work. College in the fall?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s okay. It’s not for everyone.”
“I’ve never been book smart.”
“Animal smart, though?” The man leaned against the rails beside him. “That girl, for instance. What do you think of her?”
Luke pulled himself together, squaring his shoulders like he was in 4-H judging class, and looked at the cow. “Nice strong frame, pinbones a bit high, nice feminine head. Good dairy character, deep chest, wide ribs. Decent legs, pasterns kind of long. Good udder, rear attachment a bit narrow. How many lactations?”
The man laughed. “I knew it. 4-H kid, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So was I. About fifty years before you.” He let out a long breath. “Farming’s never paid worth a damn, but it’s a noble calling. I went on to vet school, made a good living from it, now I’m teaching. But every year, there’s less and less kids with a real feel for cattle or pigs or sheep.”
“I guess.” Down the aisle, a little kid was patting a ewe on the head like a dog. Probably thought she was a dog. A giant poodle maybe.
“You miss it, son?”
His throat closed up completely. He pushed the loose straw back under the bottom rail with his foot.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make that hurt. You have some kind of job? After the Fair ends?”
“I guess.” Maybe. The janitor company let him go when they’d lost a big contract, but they’d give him a reference. As a cleaner.
“Well, if it doesn’t work out for you, there’s always farmers looking for hands. Pay is generally bad, but there’s decent places out there that could use a guy who knows not to put the milking cluster on sideways.”
He had to chuckle.
“Yeah. See? You wouldn’t have cows kicking expensive equipment into the gutter.”
“Someone did that?”
“You’d be surprised at the unskilled help farmers end up with. You’d be a treasure.”
The vet was looking over the rails at the cow, not at Luke, so he was able to relax a little. “I dunno.” Until this moment he’d have said he couldn’t stand being on someone else’s farm, handling someone else’s cows. Imagining Dad around the corner; Anne and Coco and Belle and Winnie and the others out in the field. Until the moment he’d look, and they wouldn’t be there.
But he was suddenly hungry for it, for hard work that did more than polish a floor for expensive shoes to mark up again next day. He could almost hear the hiss and clunk of the milking machine, feel the steering wheel vibration of a tractor and the warm hardness of a cow’s shoulder under his hands as he backed her out of her stall. “I wouldn’t know where to look.” Not around home, that’s for sure, even if the feedstore did have a bulletin board. There were probably jobs online, like everything else. Maybe somewhere he wouldn’t run into folk who’d known him before, who’d be all sorry about his dad and the farm. Maybe.
“The U has job listings for the agriculture students. Might be something there.”
He stared at the cow, imagining tending her, seeing her calve, making sure the baby nursed right away so it’d thrive. Imagining a farmyard in winter, with ice on the ground and the cows’ breath like fog at the barn door. And summer, hot in under the roof with the steady swish and slap of tails at the mosquitoes. No Dad, though.
The vet reached into a pocket, got out his wallet, and found a card. “Here. My name and email. If you want to follow up, get in touch. What’s your name?”
“Luke Lafontaine.” He took the card.
“Good to meet you, Luke. I have to check on a sheep, but you’re welcome to stay here, long as you like.”
“Thanks.”
“That cow’s Pansy. This’ll be her third calf. I won’t mind if someone knowledgeable keeps an extra eye on her, although I don’t think she’s gonna go tonight.”
The vet turned and headed to where a crowd was gathering. Luke thought about following because there wasn’t much cuter than a newborn lamb. But the excited group of city folk needed to see this more than he did.
He eased along the rail into the corner, close to the cow’s head. She turned, blinking big purple-brown eyes at him, then went back to chewing her cud. She had the longest lashes he’d ever seen on a cow. Totally ridiculous. “I bet none of the bulls can say no to you.” Although no doubt the U used artificial insemination. “I bet you don’t get to have the actual fun, huh?”
He blinked away an image of Mason, looking up from under his own ridiculous eyelashes, saying, “Enough math. Time for us to have some fun.” That moment of soaring hope, before Luke realized fun meant video games, and the flash of hurt after. Back before he knew what real hurt was.
Jesus, seeing Mason is screwing with my head.
Pansy came closer and leaned in like she was looking for a scratch. He rubbed her neck and her wide forehead, then lightly slapped her shoulder. “There’s little kids on the other side. Go show off for them.” She ambled over that way. When he raised his hand, his fingers smelled like home. He ducked out the side exit.
The sun was gold on the horizon. Colored lights on the Midway beckoned. He wasn’t going to waste money on rides—Nick had been the one who loved the swooping, twirling, stomach-churn of the Midway. After Nick and his family moved away, it hadn’t been worth the bucks to go alone. But it was good seeing people have fun.
He crossed the grass between rickety metal fences, stepping over the guard strips covering a hundred power cords. The kiddy rides were the other side of the grounds, but here folk from teens to white-haired grandmas laughed and shrieked and clowned around. The tinny tunes from a dozen flashing speakers met in midair, like a collision of middle-school marching bands. It was loud enough to drown out any sound from the horse barns nearby.
He walked the Fair for a long time, wandering up the sidewalks as the setting sun colored the sky red behind the glowing Ferris wheel. A concert in the bandstand rocked the air as he passed. He walked down Machinery Hill, where lumbering balers and high-end harvesters gleamed softly green and yellow. Dad had never bought new like that. Secondhand was cheaper. But he’d always spent time talking to the salespeople, getting ideas.
The crowds gradually changed, fewer kids, more teens. A father trudged past, pulling two little ones asleep in a red wagon. A tall patch of feed corn loomed out of the dimness to Luke’s right, higher than an elephant’s eye, the cobs drying nicely. A brief flash of reflected eyes between the stalks made him think raccoon, but it vanished with a soft rustle. He passed on by.
Eventually the outer gates were in front of him, and he went through. Happy, tired crowds waited for the buses. He found his line, tuning out the chatter about feet and sunburn and chickens and food and prices. After ten days working, he could predict everything going-home people said, starting with “my feet are killing me.” Except Thursday when number one was “it’s way too hot.”
He pulled the rags of his don’t-care attitude around him. One more day done and dusted. Eighty more bucks. Do it again tomorrow. But all through the ride—standing because other folk needed the seats more—through climbing the stairs to his apartment, washing sketchily, and falling on the couch because it was still his week without a bed, music played in his head. It didn’t sound like Mason’s marching band. Not at all. He repeated that firmly as he crashed into exhausted sleep.
Mainly by Moonlight by Josh Lanyon
Prologue
Jack Addison Vs. Doing the Right Thing by KA Merikan
Jack sat in his opulently decorated room with hastily made notes. How had he even gotten here in the end? He should have ditched the conference being held for an idea he despised and tried to find Roux, but if he made Father look bad by ignoring the keynote speech, their relationship might not survive. He would never spew anti-creature nonsense the way he used to before he discovered the truth, but stories about his travels could hardly do any harm. After his family supporting him for so many years, he owed Father that much
It wasn’t a big deal.
So why was his stomach in knots? Even the view of the grand Versailles gardens couldn’t lift his mood.
That was pretty clear, no matter how much his mind tried to deny facts. Ditching Roux like this and, trying to hide the truth from him made him a lousy person, and an even lousier partner. The only thing keeping his heart from collapsing was the thought that maybe his stories could shed a different light on creatures and sow the right seeds in at least some minds. Ones that weren’t completely hardened yet.
He squeezed the paper as his chest tightened again.
He didn’t want to be here, socializing with people who’d likely treat Roux like trash or with polite hostility, at best. He wanted to be at Roux’s side, stargazing and walking the narrow streets of Montmartre, cuddling into his warm, fragrant fur.
The knock on the door made him groan. Was it really his time already? He glanced to the tall window. Despite the cold weather outside, the garden beckoned him with promises of freedom.
“Come in…” he groaned without enthusiasm.
A hotel worker in a neat burgundy uniform entered, carrying a tray of food and two glasses of wine. “Good afternoon, Mr. Addison.”
Jack offered him a smile, because what was the point of unloading his frustration on anyone but himself? “What is it?”
Cute dimples appeared in the man’s cheeks when he smiled. “Mr. Addison… I’m so sorry to impose, but I wanted to treat you, and I was hoping you would sign my venator card?” He put the tray on the bed and fished a little collectible wallet out of his pocket.
Jack’s shoulders slumped, and he grabbed a pen from the nightstand before scribbling his name on the back of the card featuring a photo of him holding a whole bundle of necrorats.
He didn’t deserve the high stats he had in the Game of Venators.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you very much!” The man blew at the ink to make it dry faster, but he didn’t seem ready to leave. “About the symposium… I cannot wait to hear you speak, Mr. Addison. I’ve read so much about you.”
Jack’s lips tightened. “The reporters exaggerate all stories. I’m just a venator like many others.”
With Lee and Jones busy, I popped my earbuds in, hit play on my Spotify, and drowned in the sounds of Pat Benatar. I loved the ‘80s, some of the ‘90s, but damn the ‘80s had amazing music. As with every time I listened to my music, I started swaying in my seat. I closed my eyes, let my hands tap, my feet slide, and that chorus in “We Belong”… it possessed me, and I couldn’t help myself but to sing. I sang softly as to not disturb Lee and Jones.
“What the absolute fuck!” The sound of Jones’ voice broke through. I opened my eyes and pulled my buds out. The van had stopped and now Lee was standing, staring at me, too.
“Hey,” I said meekly. “What’s up?”
“You scared the crap out of me,” Jones said, and Lee nodded in agreement.
“How?”
“One second it’s all quiet, then it’s like opera cats or something,” Lee answered, and this time Jones agreed.
“Wow, that’s harsh.” I drew my legs up to my chest, hearing the faint sounds of Tiffany singing that she thinks we’re alone now.
“Just warn us when you’re going to break out into song is all,” Lee grumbled, and then got back into the driver’s seat. I slipped the earbuds back in.
A tap on my leg had me pulling out my earbuds again.
“You listen to all ‘80s or you got some not shitty crap in there?” Jones asked, and I gripped my phone like he just shit on my dreams.
“Nothing of what I have is shit!”
Lee started to laugh as he pulled back onto the road and Jones had a huge grin. It was a change I hadn’t really seen in a while. Those two actually enjoying each other. I knew there was history there, everyone did.
If they wanted to be that way, okay. “Just for that,” I said as I put the phone on speaker and hit play. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts started singing about loving rock and roll, and because they love it so much, I sang with them.
Feeling daring, I inched over to Jones who looked positively terrified, and began drumming on his legs.
“Sweet Jesus,” Lee said and laughed so loudly I lost track of my words and watched him. Tears ran down his face, and he had his arms wrapped around his middle. It was a contagious laugh, and suddenly the three of us were in hysterics.
The Monuments Men Murders by Josh Lanyon
Chapter One
Fear was tiring.
Anger was preferable.
They were both draining.
Not that he was afraid all the time—most days he was too busy to really think about whether he was in danger, but sometimes at night, yes. Less so when he was away from home sweet home, which was ironic.
For a minute or two Special Agent Jason West of the FBI’s Art Crime Team lay motionless, eyes probing the gloom of his Bozwin Montana hotel room, absently listening to—classifying—the nearby ice machine dumping its load, the gunning of a flooded engine in the parking lot, the clicking over of one luminous number in the clock on the nightstand.
3:43.
Make that 3:44.
He could always phone Sam. Even if by some chance Behavior Analysis Unit Chief Sam Kennedy was asleep, he’d take Jason’s call.
Most likely he was awake.
Though Sam was halfway across the country, the thought of him comforted Jason. He could picture Sam, the glow from his computer monitor highlighting his craggy, not-quite-handsome face. Broad shoulders and hard, taut muscles beneath one of those severely tailored white shirts. At this time of night it would be unbuttoned, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He’d be wearing the gold-wire glasses Jason found peculiarly sexy and that distant, meditative look as he read over the day’s bad news.
Tomorrow Sam would be in Montana.
Tomorrow they’d be together for the first time in three weeks. They’d met for a spontaneous (on Jason’s part) and very brief Memorial Day get-together. Before that it had been eight weeks since they’d been in the same room together.
Long-distance relationships were never easy, and this one had more challenges than most. Still, it was better than the alternative. They had come painfully close to the alternative too many times to take it lightly.
If Sam was asleep, he needed the rest, and Jason resisted the longing to hear his voice for a few minutes. He had already called him once this week. He didn’t want Sam thinking the strain was getting to him.
But yeah, of course the strain was getting to him.
Not during the day, not while he was working.
But Dr. Jeremy Kyser had the key to Jason’s dreams, and more evenings than not, he opened the door to Jason’s subconscious and strolled right in. Mostly, it was just a lurking sense of unease, worry. Jason spent a lot of dreamtime looking for Kyser’s lost case file or a missing-person report; it didn’t take a shrink to interpret any of that.
Other nights—like this one—Jason relived some version of his narrow escape from attempted abduction, and woke drenched in perspiration and gulping for air like a landed fish.
The details of the assault remained sketchy in his memory, so he was never sure which, if any, of his nightmares offered a true version of events. He just knew he woke scared and angry, and no end to it in sight.
He reached for the remote control on the bed stand and turned on the television. Late-night TV was his new best friend. There was some crazy old black and white movie on—something to do with a stage magician having marital problems—and Jason folded his arms more comfortably behind his head and settled in, prepared to occupy himself for a few sleepless hours.
The movie, Eternally Yours, reminded Jason of the last time he and Sam had worked together. Well, they had not really been working together. Jason had been recuperating from injuries sustained fighting off Kyser, and Sam had been determined to oversee the process.
Anyway, his memories of the stay with Sam’s mother were good, the movie was pleasantly goofy, and he was content with the way the case had turned out in Wyoming. By the time the Cheyenne Resident Agency had managed to get their search warrants, the magician community of Laramie County had pulled off their own Top Hat White Rabbit. And maybe that was the way it was supposed to go.
Sam did not agree with Jason’s thinking on that score, and it was a given he would not approve of what Jason was hoping to accomplish in Montana. Which was why Jason was planning to get this case wrapped up without ever having to ad—
His cell phone vibrated into life—and Jason vibrated with it. He was immediately aggravated with his jump. He swore, grabbed the phone, growled, “West.”
“Agent West,” Sam said smoothly. His voice was deep, softened around the edges by a hint of Western drawl. “Did I wake you?”
Somewhere along the line, “West,” used when they were on their own, had become kind of a pet name.
Jason relaxed into the pillows. “No. I was just thinking about you.”
“Ah.”
“You might have felt a tingle at the base of your spine.”
Sam’s laugh was quiet, intimate. “You’re in a playful mood.”
“I am, yeah. Looking forward to tomorrow night.”
“Me too.”
Jason closed his eyes for a moment, grateful. There had been a time he wouldn’t have dared take it for granted that if he and Kennedy were sharing air space, they’d be together every possible moment.
Sam sipped something on the other end. Jason smiled faintly, waiting.
Sam asked thoughtfully, “You want to talk?”
Jason admitted, “Not really.”
“You want to listen?”
“Yeah. I want to listen to you talk dirty to me.” He was kidding, of course, but not entirely. No point pretending he wouldn’t like the relief and relaxation that came from sex. Any kind of sex. Sam was not much for dirty talk, especially over the airwaves, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“I should be in the office by noon.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there at some point.”
“Yes, you will. So save the last dance for me.”
Jason grinned into the darkness. On the flickering television screen, David Niven had just managed the ultimate feat of magic by saving his marriage.
“Safe travels,” Jason said. He did not want to hang up. Did not want to sever this tenuous connection.
Sam answered, “Sweet dreams, West.”
* * * * *
“Hey, isn’t that Martinez?” J.J. asked.
They were having breakfast in a restaurant not far from the Holiday Inn while waiting for their complainant, a Dutch investigator specializing in stolen art. The plan was to compare notes before heading out to interview Bert Thompson. Thompson, who ran a dude ranch in the next county, was the nephew of the recently deceased Roy Thompson, prime suspect in the theft of priceless art treasures during the final days of World War II.
“Hm?” Jason looked up from his coffee mug. Another cup and he might feel almost human. Or at least awake. His sleepless nights were catching up to him—although last night there had been a bright side to the insomnia.
He followed J.J.’s gaze to the café’s hostess stand, where a man and woman dressed in that particular brand of budget-conscious business attire that proclaimed law-enforcement officers! waited to be seated.
Jason’s mind was mostly on the upcoming meet with Hans de Haan, their contact. He vaguely remembered being introduced to Special Agent Martinez at the Bozwin resident agency the previous afternoon. She was a petite woman, probably early thirties, with very short dark hair and big brown eyes. Certainly attractive, though not J.J.’s usual type. Typically, Jason’s partner went for statuesque blondes whose life ambition was a full page in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” J.J. slid out of the booth. “I’ll ask them to join us.”
He didn’t wait for Jason’s reply, leaving the table and going to greet the newcomers.
Jason mentally sighed. Technically, J.J. was still a first office agent. Not probationary, but still pretty green—although he’d had one hell of a first year, even excluding the time partnered with Jason. They’d been paired since February. Four long months. At first, Jason had been sure one of them was going to end the year in jail on homicide charges, but they had eventually settled into a functional and not unfriendly partnership. They were very different personality types, and J.J. believed his talents were wasted by his being shackled to the LA Field Office’s Art Crime Team agent—and Jason wholeheartedly agreed, though for different reasons.
He lifted a hand in greeting when the two agents looked over at the table.
J.J. ushered Martinez and her partner through the crowded dining room. Jason rose. Martinez, smelling of Vera Wang (which Jason’s sister Sophie wore) slid into the empty booth, her partner slid in beside her, and Jason waited so that J.J. could position himself across from his quarry.
The male agent, who introduced himself as SA Travis Petty, looked to Jason to be a bit younger than him, tall, blond, and muscular. He could have commanded his own SI layout.
“Good to meet you, West,” he said. And then, “You were with Sam Kennedy in Massachusetts.”
Jason studied him. “I was.”
Yes, Petty was very good-looking. Blue eyes, square jaw, boyish thatch of springy light hair. As a matter of fact, he looked like a 1950s poster boy for the manly-occupation-of-your-choice.
Petty’s smile was white and rueful. “What an opportunity. To work with Sam on his last case as a field agent.”
“It was a learning experience.”
Not BAU Chief Kennedy, but Sam Kennedy. In fact, just plain old Sam, which, given Sam’s general reputation in field offices and resident agencies, seemed to imply an unexpected social connection. Or, at the very least, an out of the ordinary interest in the legendary BAU Chief.
“I was part of the Deerlodge Destroyer task force he headed two years ago. It was really enlightening.”
“I bet,” Jason said.
The disturbing case Petty was referring to was why Sam happened to be in Montana at the same time as Jason. The capture of a serial killer who had been using the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest as his personal hunting ground had been one of Sam’s final field assignments and, being Sam, he was following it to its final conclusion, helping the local team finalize their court case. Delegation was not and had never been his default setting.
“You’re also Art Crime Team?” Martinez asked J.J. She had a pretty smile, but then tall, dark, and handsome Russell brought out the pretty smiles in women, young and old.
“God no.”
Jason said, “It’s more of a hostage situation in Russell’s case,” and the others—including Russell—laughed.
“He thinks he’s kidding,” Russell said.
“Yeah, no I don’t.”
Petty said, “I can tell you one thing, if there’s ever an opening on his team, I’m going for it.”
Jason smiled politely. Back to Sam, because no way was Petty talking about signing on with Jason or the ACT. It was doubtful he even registered on Petty’s consciousness beyond being someone who had spent significant time with Sam.
He glanced at Martinez, who was eyeing her partner with affectionate resignation.
J.J. said, “You know, you’re talking to Kennedy’s BFF.”
BFF could have meant exactly that—best buds—but Martinez’s instant, “Oh,” indicated she’d interpreted correctly. As did Petty, given his almost comical change of expression.
Jason directed a look at J.J., who said, “Hey, it’s the truth.”
Petty’s mouth curved, but that was as far as the smile went. “Lucky you,” he said.
Strokes on a Canvas by H Lewis-Foster
London, April 1924
Evan took a sip from his pint of beer. It wasn’t the best ale he’d tasted, but he intended to drink every drop, delaying his return to Beston House and another inedible meal served up by his landlady, Mrs. Grindley. To be fair, the boarding house wasn’t a bad place. His room was clean and the bed was bigger than the one he’d shared with his brother, but Mrs. Grindley’s cooking would challenge the strongest constitution. Her stew had the texture of wallpaper paste, her soup was little more than hot water, and it was said the pastry on her blackberry pie had broken a former tenant’s tooth.
The barmaid handed Evan his change and narrowed her eyes in what may have been interest or disapproval. Evan was hopeless at reading female gestures and hints, but he was worse at interpreting men’s secret signals, which could sometimes prove to be quite a problem. He took another mouthful of beer and was wondering how long he could make his drink last, when he glimpsed a man with sweetly tousled black hair a short way across the bar.
The Rose and Crown was by no means rough, but the man seemed out of place, his brown tweed jacket and gold-rimmed glasses lending him an academic air. He looked older than Evan, somewhere around thirty, and his blue, almost turquoise, eyes were striking behind his spectacles. Evan had a soft spot for men in glasses. For one thing, he thought their imperfect vision might make them less aware of his physical quirks—namely his slightly crooked nose, broken in a cricket match, and the unruly mop of ginger hair he’d inherited from his father.
Evan also fancied bespectacled men were a cut above the intellectual average, a quality he found far more attractive than a flawless face. While he’d left school at thirteen, Evan had tried to improve himself by reading and learning as much as he could, and he was drawn to scholarly types like the man at the bar. He imagined them strolling in cap and gown across a sunlit college quad, then retiring to their rooms for philosophical debates with their old school chums. Evan saw such men in the shop from time to time, buying tobacco or cigarettes, but he rarely spoke to them if he could help it, afraid they’d laugh at the Derbyshire accent he tried his best to disguise.
Despite his cultured appearance, the man in the tweed jacket didn’t look like he’d mock Evan’s working-class roots or lack of formal education. His blue eyes were kind, as was his smile, which Evan suddenly realized was directed at him. Evan looked down at his pint, unsure of the smile’s meaning. The man may have been the sort who smiled a lot, an open and friendly person who liked to put people at ease. Or perhaps his smile signified something quite different.
While the Rose and Crown wasn’t that kind of pub, it wasn’t unknown for illicit liaisons to begin in respectable places. Evan was no innocent in such matters, but he always waited for his partner in crime to make his intentions clear. He’d never been in trouble with the law, not even scrumping apples when he was a boy, and he didn’t intend to go to jail now because of a misunderstanding.
Evan lifted his gaze to see the man was still smiling. He knew it could be a ruse—a policeman out to trick men into revealing their true nature—but Evan couldn’t help smiling back. He raised his glass in a tentative greeting and the stranger nodded in reply, his eyes flickering in the direction of the pub door. Unable to believe his good fortune, Evan gulped down the rest of his beer as the man stepped purposefully toward him. His haste wasn’t surprising—he probably had a wife to get home to once he’d satisfied his immoral desires—but he didn’t look nervous, as most men did in such a risky situation.
The man held out his hand, and Evan prepared to return the affable gesture. Then he caught a glimpse of movement to his left and the sleeve of an overcoat skimmed his arm. There beside him was a tall, blond-haired man offering his hand to Evan’s prospective playmate. Evan froze where he stood, his hand raised from his side. Then he slowly turned to the bar, trying to look casual as he leaned against the counter. Evan rested his fingers against his temple so that he could discreetly observe the two men. The man in the glasses was first to speak, his accent implying a privileged background somewhere in the south of England.
“I’m so glad you got in touch, Haynes. How is your dear wife? And your two beautiful girls?”
“They’re very well, thank you, sir.” The blond’s voice was a comforting Norfolk burr. “Vera sends her regards and said to thank you for the cake you sent at Christmas. It was most appreciated.”
“It was my pleasure, Haynes. And please don’t call me sir. It’s been a long time since I held rank. I’m plain Milo Halstead now.”
“You’ll always be Captain Halstead to me. The best officer in the regiment by a mile.”
Evan tilted his head and saw Milo blush endearingly.
“Nonsense, Haynes. Now, let me buy you a drink. Is beer all right, or would you like something stronger?”
“I’d better stick with the ale. My train back to Norwich is in an hour, and Vera won’t be happy if I miss it.”
Milo laughed and they moved to the bar. For a moment, Evan thought they might stand next to him, but thankfully they settled a few feet away, where Milo ordered two pints of beer.
Evan’s pulse throbbed in his eardrums and his heart thumped in his chest as he realized how close he’d come to disaster. However intelligent he looked, however refined he sounded, Milo was a former soldier and seemingly a good one. If Evan had offered his homosexual hand, he might well have received a vicious beating in return, and the thought of his landlady’s woeful cooking suddenly seemed quite enticing. Evan took a last glance at Milo and Haynes drinking and chatting, then slipped unnoticed out of the pub and into the London mist.
* * * * *
“Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Grindley. I got held up at work.”
With her dark hair scraped back in its customary bun and a look even more frosty than usual, Mrs. Grindley plunged a knife into a large and sagging suet pudding.
“You’re working at the pub now, are you, Mr. Calver?”
Evan was amazed by his landlady’s sense of smell. She could detect a mere hint of alcohol across a crowded room, and if her gifted nose told her that one of her charges had missed his weekly dip in the tub, she dispatched him to the bathroom with a flea in his ear and a bar of carbolic soap.
“I only had the one, Mrs. Grindley. It’s been a tough day.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t know working in a grocer’s was so tiring. I suppose your wrist must be dropping off, what with taking all that money and writing receipts.”
“It’ll not be writing receipts that’s hurting his wrist.”
A collective snort of laughter erupted around the table.
“What was that, Alexander Wallace?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Grindley.” Sandy smiled, angelic as ever with his rosy cheeks and waves of golden hair. “But I’m looking forward to your delicious supper.”
Mrs. Grindley slopped a portion of pudding onto Sandy’s plate, and he beamed like he’d been served caviar and smoked salmon at the Ritz. He rarely ate a mouthful of her meals, but Sandy knew there were worse places to board at higher prices, so he used his easy Scottish charm to keep on Mrs. Grindley’s good side. With his own greasy helping swimming on his plate, along with two bullet-hard potatoes, Evan picked up his fork and prodded something that may have been kidney, though he couldn’t be sure.
Evan forced down a few morsels of food, still not certain what he was eating, and joined in the mealtime conversation. Sandy was entertaining as always. He worked at the nearby chemist’s and was a good one for gossip, divulging the locals’ embarrassing ailments and intimate irritations. While he never named his customers, everyone knew that the auburn-haired woman with a bad case of piles was Mrs. Kent from number twenty-two, and the pipe-smoking man with constipation was Reverend Maguire. Mrs. Grindley scolded him for discussing such subjects at dinner, but she enjoyed his stories too much to stop him and loved a bit of tittle-tattle as much as anyone.
Apart from Sandy, there was Dennis, an insurance clerk who worked down the road from Evan and told his share of anecdotes about his customers’ dubious claims. He wasn’t a bad bloke and was certainly good-looking, with his sleek brown hair and pale green eyes, but he had a slightly superior air that wound Sandy up something rotten. Then there was Victor, a shy young student with an adorable smile who was happy to share the regular gifts of sweets and chocolate his mother supplied. Finally, there was Fred, a cheery lad who worked in a brewery and was therefore the subject of their landlady’s scrutiny more than the rest of them.
They were all far from their families, having made the move to London in the hope of making something of their lives, but they were a jovial bunch and mostly rubbed along well, sharing their triumphs and tribulations in work and football, and sometimes romance. Sandy was the group’s Lothario and always had a girl on the go. He’d even sneaked one or two into his room when he knew Mrs. Grindley was out. Sandy was also the one person Evan could talk to about his own private life.
Evan still wasn’t sure how Sandy had guessed his sexual inclination, but as they’d strolled home with their chips one Saturday night—Mrs. Grindley took a welcome break from her culinary duties at the weekend—Sandy had asked, completely out of the blue, if Evan preferred boys to girls. Evan had almost choked on a scalding hot chip, and once Sandy had thumped him on the back, he’d cautiously admitted he wasn’t all that keen on girls, at least not in that way. He’d been sure Sandy wouldn’t use his confession against him, but Evan had still been wary, having never confided in anyone before. Sandy, however, had been unflustered by his revelation. He’d asked a few forthright questions, to which Evan had given self-conscious replies, then he’d let the subject drop, telling Evan he could talk to him if he wanted or needed to.
Evan had been astounded by Sandy’s generosity, and he’d slept exceedingly well that night, knowing he’d found a friend who would listen to him without judgement. He’d soon called on Sandy’s counsel, when he’d been confused—as he usually was—by signals he’d been getting from a new chap at work. After a lengthy conversation with Sandy, Evan had decided not to act on his unreliable intuition. The lad had been more than friendly since he’d started at Bailey’s, but Evan couldn’t afford to lose his job, which would be the least of the repercussions if he turned out to be mistaken. When his colleague had announced his engagement to a girl from Clapham the following month, he’d been sincerely grateful for Sandy’s wise advice.
As Evan attempted to finish his dinner, he thought he’d have a natter with Sandy later. They often met up for a chat in one or other of their rooms before they turned in for the night. Today’s topic of choice would no doubt be Sandy’s latest rendezvous with Ada, the girl from the Lyons tea shop, but Evan thought he might mention his close shave with the man in the pub. Cheered by the prospect of a chinwag with Sandy and his afternoon off the following day, Evan found his last mouthful of suet pudding just a little more palatable.
The Party of Murder by John Inman
Chapter One
FROM THE passenger seat, Jamie Roma slipped a hand under the shirttail of the man driving the car. He chuckled to himself when the car swerved off the road, then lurched back onto the asphalt in a spray of gravel and mud.
Derek Lee growled through what Jamie considered to be the sexiest pair of lips he had ever seen in his life. “Jesus, if that hand had gone into my pants, we’d be dead now.”
“Dead but happy,” Jamie whispered back.
Derek made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. Mostly, Jamie figured, it was a groan. Jamie didn’t mind not getting a laugh at his feeble joke, because at the same time as he was groaning, Derek was also tucking his own hand under his shirt and stroking Jamie’s fingers.
They were motoring across the high desert thirty miles outside San Diego. Even had there been daylight, there would have been nothing to see but rolling hills, a bunch of boulders scattered around like spilled Legos, and about a gazillion clumps of sagebrush. As it was, they couldn’t even see that because darkness had fallen with a resounding thud about three hours back. And now not only was it night, it was a moonless and starless night, thanks to the rain clouds that had been forming overhead all day. If not for the Toyota’s headlights and the gleam of the GPS system on the dashboard, they would have been floundering through a sea of bottomless black shadow—blind, directionless, lost.
It was also lonely. They hadn’t seen another car for ages.
Jamie jumped, pointing through the windshield at a sudden twitch of movement up ahead on the side of the road. “Lookie! A coyote!”
No sooner had he cried out than the animal froze, every ounce of its attention trained on the approaching car. The coyote’s eyes were like teeny tiny flashlights, beaming straight back at them. The beast didn’t run; it didn’t cower; it simply stood there with its front feet on the road and its rear end in the bushes, waiting patiently for the car to speed past so it could go on about its business.
“It’s not afraid of us,” Jamie said.
“Why should it be?” Derek snorted. “It’s not the one that’s lost. And don’t say ‘Lookie.’ You sound like a three-year-old.”
Jamie slapped Derek’s arm at the exact moment he spun around in his seat to look behind them as the car zoomed past the coyote. For the briefest of moments, he spotted the creature flashing to life in the red glow of the car’s taillights. Then the animal melted into the receding darkness as if it had never been there at all. Jamie swung back around and replaced his hand on Derek’s bare belly.
He sighed.
“What’s with the sigh?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“You’re not getting romantic, are you?”
It was Jamie’s turn to snort. “I don’t get romantic. I’m just a guy who’s having fun driving along with his oldest friend in the world who happens to be an occasional trick.”
“Occasional as in every single night for the last two months.”
“Well, yeah.”
“After all these years of friendly abstinence together, we suddenly jump into bed and pork like bunny rabbits for eight solid weeks.”
“Pork like bunny rabbits. What a lovely expression. Rates right up there with fuck your balls off.”
“Oh hush. I wonder how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
“How we ended up in bed together that first night.”
Jamie gave Derek time to think about it while he enjoyed the sensation of exploring Derek’s tight little belly button with a fingertip. “Hormones, I guess,” Derek finally said. “Horny, humpy hormones.”
This time when Jamie groaned, it was a real one. “Yeah. And tequila. Lots and lots of tequila. My head still hurts.”
“How about your ass?”
“That too. But in a good way. And that’s from last night, not two months ago.”
They laughed, and Derek stroked Jamie’s hand again, making Jamie’s laugh ratchet down to a dreamy little smile. He couldn’t see it on his own face because he was too lazy to look in the visor mirror, but he knew it was there all the same. It was somewhat worrisome, too, that dreamy, contemplative smile he could feel twitching on his lips. My God, what if he was beginning to feel romantic about Derek? What would that do to their lifelong friendship?
“We met in fifth grade,” Jamie said, pondering out loud.
Derek cracked the window to get some air into the car. Either the night had grown warmer, or he was having a hot flash. He realized, of course, that Jamie’s roving fingers so close to his groin might have something to do with that. “I know. I was there. You tried to steal my milk. Hmm,” he hummed, sticking his nose through the crack, “smell that night air.”
Jamie rolled his own window down, letting in a blast of air that made his hair thrash around on top his head. He stuck his face through the opening, squinting into the night. “Smells like a monsoon coming!” he yelled into the empty countryside.
“They don’t have monsoons in California!” Derek bellowed. “And get back in here. You look like a Rottweiler hanging out a car door with his tongue flapping in the wind.”
Jamie dragged himself back inside. He was grinning like an idiot, hair going every which way. Batting his eyelashes, he leaned against his seat belt and laid his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Ooh, if I was a Rottweiler, we could do it doggy style.”
Derek laughed. “And break every law of nature there is. You’re impossible.”
A sudden flash of lightning sizzled across the sky in front of them, making them both jump. A moment later, fat raindrops began pelting the windshield. Derek switched on the wipers. Soon their comforting song filled the interior of the car. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It was a pleasant sound, Jamie thought. With his head still snuggled against Derek’s shoulder, Jamie returned his hand to Derek’s bare belly. His fingers twiddled idly with the hair around Derek’s navel. Both men grew quiet as they watched the road in front of them darken with rain.
“Any idea where we are?” Jamie asked.
With his lips in Jamie’s hair, Derek gave a good-natured growl. “Oh ye of little faith. I know exactly where we are.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere north of Mexico and south of the Bering Strait.”
“Very funny.”
Derek tapped the GPS monitor on the dashboard. “Honestly. We’re right where we’re supposed to be. See? There should be a turnoff coming up soon, and a few miles after that, a bridge. We’ll cross the bridge and continue on down a gravel side road for fifteen miles or so, and that will lead us unveeringly toward the house we’re trying to find.”
“So you hope,” Jamie drawled.
To which Derek didn’t quibble. “Yes. So I hope.”
For the space of about fifteen seconds, the rain came down so hard that even the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The sound was deafening. The downpour pummeled the car, almost stripping Jamie’s breath away. Being a Southern California boy, Jamie was more accustomed to drought. He didn’t like storms. When the rain eased up a little, his blood pressure dropped. He tried to relax. Through the streaming windshield, he could see the empty highway stretching out before them, disappearing into the rainy, wind-tossed distance. Derek tapped his index finger against the steering wheel. Clearly he was about to say something important. Which he finally did.
“I know we’ve been over this a dozen times, but I still don’t understand why we both received invitations to a house party from someone we don’t know.”
“From someone we assume we don’t know,” Jamie corrected. “Since the invitations weren’t signed, we really don’t know if we’re acquainted with the person who sent them or not. Personally, I think it’s some idiot friend of ours.”
“But we don’t know that for sure,” Derek pointed out. “And still, Jamie Roma, you putz, you insisted we come anyway.”
Jamie laughed. “Because it’s an adventure! It’s a lark. It’s mysterious. It’s a weekend house party in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles out of the city, cut off from the world, and being hosted by someone we may or may not know for reasons we haven’t got a clue about. Besides, at the bottom of the invitations they promised heart-stopping door prizes. Quote, unquote. Who could say no to heart-stopping door prizes?”
“Anybody with brains!” Derek snarled. “I’ve seen horror movies that start this way. While we’re tooling down this spookyass, rain-drenched highway heading straight into the maw of oblivion with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing all around us, I can imagine the opening credits of a really gory slasher movie unscrolling over our heads as we speak. Jamie and Derek on the Highway to Hell. Three for the Road with Jamie, Derek, and Leatherface. Queers on Elm Street.”
“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there. Listen. Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
“Oh please, Jamie. When have you ever not steered me wrong? Remember that Mexican restaurant you wanted to try last week? The one where the cockroach crawled out of my taco?”
“You should have had a burrito.”
Derek ignored that. “I wonder how many guests there will be.”
“Like I care. Let’s just hope the booze doesn’t run out.” Jamie perked up. “Suppose there will be tequila?”
This time Derek’s groan came from the heart. “Oh God, I hope not. One shot of tequila and you end up with your legs in the air, toes pointed straight at the ceiling.”
“Why, thank you.”
Derek laughed. “No, thank you.”
Derek took their lives in his hands by leaning into the darkness and planting a kiss on Jamie’s eagerly expectant mouth. At the same time, their lives were further imperiled when Jamie’s fingers diddled their way south, burrowing under the buckle of Derek’s belt, which he cleverly unclasped with a flick of his thumb. Houdini couldn’t have done it better.
The car swerved again when Jamie wiggled out from under his shoulder harness and lowered his head to Derek’s lap. Rooting around with his nose like a hog hunting truffles, he unearthed exactly what he was searching for, and for the next three miles, not a word was spoken between the two.
The silence was finally broken when Derek stiffened all over and gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. Far beyond his ability to do anything about it, his hips lurched upward and he emitted a delicious moan.
“That’s my boy,” Jamie mumbled, smiling. “Let it go. And try not to run us off a cliff when you do.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Derek gasped, once again lifting his ass off the seat until there was a good six inches of daylight showing beneath him—if there had been any daylight available on this miserably stormy night. While a brand-new onslaught of rain and wind pummeled the car and rocked it back and forth, he clutched a fistful of Jamie’s hair with the one free hand he dared take off the wheel.
For the next thirty seconds or so, Jamie Roma worked just as hard as the windshield wipers—trying desperately to stay ahead of the deluge.
TEN MINUTES later, Derek’s clothes were once again buttoned, zipped, and properly tucked into place, thanks to a little help from Jamie, who proved to be equally adept at getting Derek dressed in the cramped front seat of the car as he was in getting him undressed. With his heart still thumping in his ears and feeling smugly self-satisfied now that Jamie had had his way with him, which was what Derek had hoped for all along, he repositioned himself comfortably behind the steering wheel and drove on through the pounding rain.
Beside him, Jamie—also licking his lips but for different reasons—leaned forward and squinted through the rainwater sluicing down the windshield. He instantly gave a whoop.
“There’s the turnoff!” he cried, grabbing the dashboard. “Right there. Don’t miss it. Turn! Turn!”
Derek jumped in response and banged his head on the roof of the car. Then he slammed on the brakes, all but strangling them both against their seat belts. The car jolted to a stop in a mudhole the size of Lake Tahoe. Outside, the rain had turned to hail. It clattered off the hood and pounded on the metal roof while Derek stared out, bug-eyed, at what lay ahead. He glanced at Jamie, and in the glow from the dash lights, saw the look of horror on Jamie’s face. He was pretty sure that same horror was plastered all over his own puss. And why wouldn’t it be? After all, the situation, the night, and especially the road ahead, looked far from promising. To say the least.
They both peered intently forward, studying the terrain.
What was labeled a county road that appeared perfectly respectable meandering its way across the map on the GPS monitor was in reality little more than two muddy ruts awash in the storm. Those ruts wove their way toward a wind-tossed wilderness of trees—some pine, some deciduous and bare. They were etched into stark relief by an occasional stab of lightning sizzling across the heavens above.
“Think this is where the Donner party got lost?” Derek mumbled under his breath.
“Don’t be silly. Just keep driving,” Jamie said. “What have we got to lose?”
“I shudder to think,” Derek answered, but he did as directed and drove on anyway.
The road was rent with washboards and potholes, and muddy water splashed all the way up to the door handles as they bumped and lunged their way along. If not for their seat belts, they would have had their brains bashed out on the roof of the car. The chassis of the vehicle squeaked and creaked beneath them, complaining every inch of the way, and Derek wondered if his poor old Toyota would survive the journey at all.
After several minutes of this, while rain and hail pelted them from above and gale-force winds jostled them from the side, Jamie leaned forward and, with his hot breath steaming the windshield in front of him, cried out, “There’s the bridge!”
Once again, Derek slammed on the brakes. This time the car slued sideways. It sloshed to a stop, still hanging on to the narrow roadway without sliding off into the bracken on either side.
Derek was just beginning to wonder if Jamie’s fingernails were leaving claw marks on his faux-leather dashboard when he decided to lean forward and study what lay ahead, hoping to come up with a game plan on how to proceed. With help from the headlights and an occasional explosion of lightning, he got a pretty good idea what they were up against, and it wasn’t encouraging.
Tucked in among the pine trees, the contraption that had the audacity to call itself a bridge squatted there in front of them in all its rustic splendor. In truth, it was merely a one-lane clapboard affair with no visible metal framework or overhead support beams and no railings on either side. Rickety, wooden, poorly constructed, the bridge looked like a death trap gleefully waiting for the next two gay boys to come along so it could snatch them into a premature and entirely unprepared-for afterlife.
“Is that thing safe?” Derek asked through squeaky, tight lips. “It doesn’t look safe. Do you think it’s safe?”
“Like I know,” Jamie all but snarled, clearly not optimistic.
In a momentary lull in the downpour, while the precipitation once again shifted from hail to rain—which in Derek’s opinion was a step in the right direction—he cocked his head to the side and breathed, “Listen!” For the space of half a dozen heartbeats they sat frozen in place, staring out the windshield. The air around them was alive with the sounds of the storm above their heads.
“If this rain keeps up,” Derek said, “it could cause a flash flood in the arroyo under the bridge.”
Jamie groaned. “Great. Could the water get high enough to wash the bridge away?”
“I don’t know.”
Jamie tried again. “Well, if we get across and the bridge is washed away behind us, is there a way for us to get back to where we started?”
“You mean back to the city?”
“Yeah. Back to the city.”
Derek punched a few buttons on the GPS monitor, scanning the maps that popped up, tracing the lines depicting roadways with a trembling fingertip.
Finally he said, “No. If we cross this bridge, there’s no way back, not on any sort of marked road at any rate.”
“And if we don’t cross the bridge, we’ll miss the party. Not to mention having driven all this way for nothing.”
“What are you doing?” Derek asked. “Weighing our lives against the possibility of free booze and door prizes?”
Jamie turned to him, his face suddenly lit with a familiar glimmer of mischief. It was his “it’s Saturday night, let’s get rowdy and raise hell, screw the consequences, I’ve got bail money” look. Derek knew it well.
“Well, yeah,” Jamie patiently explained. “What other criteria do you need?”
“I’m vaguely appalled by that devil-may-care light in your eyes,” Derek drawled. He tore his gaze from Jamie’s sexy grin and back to the bridge in front of them. “Almost as appalled as I am by the prospect of driving over that ricketyass bridge. Think the other guests got across already?”
Jamie thought about that for a minute. “Actually, we don’t even know if there are any other guests.”
“You’re right,” Derek agreed. “We don’t. What sort of idiots accept a party invitation in the middle of nowhere when they don’t know who sent the invitation or how many guests will be there when they arrive?”
“Idiots like us. I say we go for it. Cross the bridge.”
“What if it collapses?”
Jamie gave a dismissive wave at the structure in front of them. “Oh pshaw. It looks like it’s been standing for a couple of centuries already. What are the odds of it collapsing tonight at the exact moment we’re scurrying across?”
Derek chewed on the inside of his jaw. “I hate it when you say pshaw. It sounds so bucolic.”
“I’m a bucolic sort of guy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a citified wimp! But you’re right. Statistically, if the bridge has withstood the elements this long, it should be safe enough for the next two minutes.”
“Exactly. And we definitely need to get where we’re going, because I could really use a drink right now. If this party is hosted by teetotalers, I’m going to be extremely upset. Cross the fucking bridge.”
“You’re crazy.”
Jamie shrugged. “So are you. Cross the bridge.”
“We should have packed our own booze.”
“You’re right, but it’s too late now. Oh wait, look up ahead. What’s that tucked in among the brambles and the blackberry bushes? Can it be? It is! It’s a liquor store!”
There was nothing ahead but trees and mud and rain. “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
“Who me? Cross the bridge.”
Derek slipped the car into Drive. “If we die, thanks for the blowjob.”
“No, thank you,” Jamie innocently beamed, licking his lips.
And with both men holding their breath, Derek floored the car and sailed out across the bridge.
Still holding their breath a moment later, they came to a sloshing, jolting stop inside a foot-deep mudhole on the far side. They turned to peer through the rear window. In the red glow of taillights, the wooden structure gave a shudder, then seemed to settle.
“See,” Jamie said. “We’re fine.”
As if his words had conjured disaster out of thin air, there came a horrific grinding, tumbling, rushing noise that seemed to be churning its way up from the depths of the earth itself. A surge of dark water poured down the arroyo and dashed against the side of the bridge. With a heave upward amid a tiny explosion of splintered timbers, the bridge collapsed in upon itself and disappeared without a trace. One second it was there, the next it was gone, washed away in the churning flood below.
“Well, poop,” Jamie whispered in the sudden silence. His eyes, Derek noticed, were as big as dinner plates.
Less than eagerly, they turned back to study the muddy, rutted path ahead. The storm had sprinkled it with evergreen bows and pine cones ripped from the living trees. The trees themselves appeared beaten down and half stripped bare, their heads bowed in the gusting wind. Fighting to stand upright against the onslaught, they shook and thrashed on both sides of the road. Derek didn’t want to think about what might be lurking among the spookyass shadows between their battered trunks. He forced his attention dead ahead at the disappearing roadway weaving a winding narrow mud-holed path through the trees toward a stormy, uncertain distance.
“This had better be a damn good party,” Derek muttered.
Jamie grunted in agreement. Terse for Jamie, Derek thought, who usually blathered on endlessly about everything. With Jamie’s fingers tightening on his thigh, Derek tapped the accelerator enough to urge the car slowly forward into that nightmarish tunnel burrowing its way between the trees ahead. The car rocked and lurched as they sloshed and splashed and squelched along, sinking hubcap-deep into every rain-glutted pothole they passed.
Derek decided on the spot that the only enjoyable part of this miserable night was having Jamie at his side to suffer through it with him. Creeped out by the storm and the collapsing bridge and the wind and the spooky, shadowy trees, Derek was nevertheless vaguely astounded by how much he enjoyed having Jamie with him. After all, Jamie was just a friend, although there was no denying they had suddenly slipped into the realm of fuckbuddydom lately. So what did that mean exactly? Did it mean Jamie had suddenly become something more than a friend?
Dumb question.
Derek allowed a smile to play at the corners of his mouth as he drove down the miserable, bumpy cow path. He glanced down at Jamie’s hand still resting on his thigh, and his smile widened.
“Don’t worry,” he softly said. “We’ll be fine.”
Jamie didn’t speak, but his fingers tightened on Derek’s leg, and that was answer enough.
Turning his attention back to the road, Derek drove on through the storm. Comforted by Jamie’s touch, he hummed a quiet song deep in his throat to the rhythm of the whooshing wiper blades.
With hail still clattering across the roof of the car and the bridge now washed out behind them, he suddenly wondered what the heck he was humming about.
He also began to wonder—all kidding aside—if they’d really be fine at all.
Behind the Stick by K Evan Coles & Brigham Vaughn
Kyle McKee set down his gym bag and yoga mat and pulled up a seat at his gym’s juice bar. The class he’d taken had warmed his skin and stretched his muscles and joints to their limits. He felt like the world’s most relaxed slab of single New York man, which was good for Kyle’s state of mind. He’d been stressed lately, about his love life in particular. Because damn if every guy he’d been out with in the last two months hadn’t turned out to be a shitheel of epic proportions. So much so, Kyle had decided to stop dating entirely.
Eyes closed, Kyle forced away thoughts of dating catastrophes. He rolled his neck from side to side but peeled his lids open again when the chair on his left slid back and his friend Malcolm Elliot dropped into the seat. Malcolm gave Kyle a lazy grin. At six-three, he stood a few inches taller than Kyle, and he looked rosy-cheeked and loose limbed, his blue-gray eyes shining.
“I am a man-sized untwisted pretzel,” Malcolm said. “I’m not sure what that means, so don’t ask.”
“You’re yoga-stoned, dude.” Kyle smiled at Malcolm’s laugh.
“Is that a thing?”
“Totally a thing.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes at Kyle. “You’re the one with the bloodshot eyes—what did you do after class?”
“I’ll do a Kale Storm with protein,” Malcolm said.
Kyle held up a hand when Malcolm reached for his wallet. “I’ll grab these—you paid last week.” He smiled at the barista who’d stepped up to take their order. “A Kale Storm with a protein powder shot and a Peanut Butter Baby with chia, please. You headed home after this?” he asked Malcolm.
Malcolm shook his head. “I’ve got errands to run. My kitchen has mysteriously emptied itself of food since my brother and his girlfriend came back to town. What about you?”
“I’m opening tonight, so I’ll just head to the bar. I have extra clothes at the office I can change into.” Kyle co-owned a speakeasy called Under with his friend Jesse Murtagh and, while he loved his job, the commute uptown from Chelsea to Morningside Heights could be a pain in the ass. He welcomed the option to skip extra stops when he could.
Malcolm ran his gaze over Kyle’s gray Henley and dark jeans. “You could always serve in what you’re wearing, you know. You’d blow Jesse’s mind.”
Kyle covered a theatrical gasp with one hand. “I would never!” His preference for black or dark gray clothing while working was a source of gentle teasing among his friends. “Seriously, I don’t feel like I’m working unless I’ve got my blacks on. I’ve done it for so long it’s just part of how I do my job.”
Fair Isn't Life by Kaje Harper
MASON BELL hadn’t thought of himself as stupid until three microseconds after he said, “Hey, isn’t that Luke Lafontaine?” Because yeah, it definitely was, but in that flash of time, he realized that Luke was picking up trash along the State Fair sidewalk with a long-handled stick, and that he’d said those words to Arnie Green. Arnie was a great horn player, and a funny guy on the baseball field, but he’d also been one of Luke’s casual tormentors through their four years of high school.
Arnie leaned forward to look past him from where they sat on the curb. “It is! Luke the Puke. And look at his great summer job. State Fair garbage guy.” He raised his voice. “Hey! Luke!”
Luke hunched but didn’t turn their way, just picked up another cup that had missed the trash and deposited it in the barrel.
“Hey! Talking to you, Fountain,” Arnie called.
Mason grabbed his arm. “Forget him. We’re heading out soon.” He hoped. They were twenty-third in the parade, and the sun was melting his brain. Why he’d signed up for marching band in the furnace of a Minnesota August, he’d never know.
Because you love to show off for a big crowd with your bandmates. Don’t front.
Arnie shook him off and waved at the staging area. “The hell we are. Look at them all. Fifteen minutes, at least. Let’s say hi to our old friend.” He pushed up off the curb and turned toward Luke.
Shit, shit, shit. Mason scrambled to his feet too, clarinet in hand.
Arnie walked around Luke, forcing the guy to look at him. “Hey, Fountain, it’s been years. Whatcha doin’?”
“Working.” Luke’s answer was barely audible over the noise of performers warming up.
“Working? Picking up other people’s trash?”
Luke shrugged one big shoulder, his dangling ID badge sliding over the faded blue of his T-shirt. Mason suddenly had a flash memory of Luke’s eyes, that same gentle blue, staring into his. Damn it, Arnie. Calling Arnie off when he was on the hunt for fun wouldn’t work, but he might intercept. “Hey, Luke. Can you show me the nearest portapotty? I think I’m gonna puke.”
Luke darted a look at him. “Sure.”
“Lead the way?” He hurried away from Arnie, dodging a tall woman in heels and kid in a Twins hat, relieved when Luke followed him.
“Jeeze, Mason,” Arnie called after them. “Gonna let Fountain take you to the bathroom?”
Mason gave him a middle finger behind his back as he led the way deeper into the crowd. When they were screened from view, he paused and turned. Luke was right behind him and had to put a hand on his chest to keep from running into him. Mason felt the warmth of Luke’s palm through the polyester of his band uniform. “Sorry about Arnie. He hasn’t grown up since eighth grade.”
“It’s okay.” Luke lowered his hand. “Do you need the portapotty?”
“No. It was all I could think of, y’know?”
Luke shook his head, a frown creasing his forehead beneath the brim of his John Deere cap. He looked as uncertain as he had when Mason had tutored him in algebra. A tiny pang tugged inside Mason’s chest. That lost look had always made him feel protective, like Luke was some kind of little brother instead of a year older. “I’m sorry I pointed you out to Arnie.” What else to say? “It’s good to see you. How’ve you been?”
That got him another lopsided shrug and an “Okay.” But he’d tutored Luke in math for a whole year, and he recognized the okay that meant Luke was about to go under water.
Are you in college? He managed not to say that, even though it’d explain why Luke wasn’t an hour away, back home in Buffalo. Luke hadn’t been much of a student, and there’d never been money for college. His dad barely scraped by on their farm. Luke wore a lot of secondhand-looking clothes with holes that weren’t fashionably distressed by some sweatshop worker in China. “How’s the farm?”
Luke’s full lips pressed into a straight line as he glanced past Mason. They were blocking traffic on the sidewalk. People streamed around them, heading for the parade route. “Don’t you have to get back? To march?”
“Eventually, yeah. I’ve got time.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m on the clock.”
“Summer job?” Why? Summer should be the busy time on the farm. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why Luke was here instead.
“Yep.” Luke moved off down the sidewalk, deftly snatching litter without tripping anyone up. Also without looking back. Mason followed him.
“Does it pay well?”
That got him a sideways glance. “What d’you think?”
“Okay, probably not.” He had to jog a couple of steps to keep up. He was short, and Luke looked like he’d kept growing past the towering six-foot-something that Mason remembered from graduation. “Some State Fair jobs do pay. I know guys who make a mint working the two weeks of Fair.”
“Good for them.” Luke closed his grabbers on a cup, hard enough to pop off the lid and spray bright blue Freezie-melt out the top.
A passing man did a quick jump to avoid soaked sneakers and grunted, “Shit! Watch what you’re doing.”
“Sorry, sir.” Luke transferred the cup to the nearby barrel, then deftly bagged the lid as well, and strode on.
“Come on, dude.” Mason grabbed at Luke’s arm. “Hold up a sec. I just want to talk.”
Luke turned. “About what?”
“How you’ve been. What’s new. It’s been two years.”
“Yep. And you’re still hanging out with Arnie.”
Ouch. “We’re in the band together. I don’t spend much time around him, normally.” That was true, although with rehearsing for the Fair, they’d somehow drifted closer together again. He’d felt strangely rootless this summer, and Arnie was a face from home. Though not a good one. “When classes start, I’ll see him for maybe three hours of rehearsal a week.”
“What kind of classes? Math?”
“Psychology. College math isn’t my thing.”
“You did great in math.”
“For high school, sure.” He’d managed a 790 on the SAT, and he was proud of that. Didn’t make him a math geek, though. “I don’t love it. Now psych? That shit’s interesting.”
“Like what?”
He groped for something Luke might appreciate. “Like taste-aversion learning. Rats have it. They can’t barf anything up, so if a rat eats something poisonous, they’re gonna die. So if something they eat makes them even a little sick, they’ll never, ever eat that again. One trial, and they hate it for life. Keeps ’em safe.”
Luke nodded slowly. “Good thing people aren’t like that. Beer sellers would go out of business.”
“Fuck, yeah.” He grinned.
Luke pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Hot one today. You should drink lots, when you’re marching. Don’t keel over.” He put the cap back on, tugged it down, and hefted his stick.
“Wait!”
“What? You’ll be up soon. You should get back to Arnie.” That might’ve been disinterest, except for the hint of emotion that sharpened Arnie’s name.
“I’d rather hang out with you.”
“The band might miss your flute.” Luke waved at his clarinet.
“It’s not”—they both said together—“a flute.” For a second, Mason was transported back to eleventh grade and a school hallway. Our stupid routine. Luke repeating, “Well, what is it, then?” and me inventing things like “music-teacher torture device” and “blowpipe.” Behind them, a new band launched into their first number. Mason blinked. “I guess I should get back. Hey, can I call you sometime? Catch up?”
The light dimmed in Luke’s blue eyes, like shutters closing. “Not much to tell. Good luck with school. No heatstroke, now, y’hear?” This time when he strode off, there was no way Mason would keep up short of running. And how stupid would he look, running after a guy who clearly didn’t want to see him again? He watched Luke vanish into the crowd, his green cap bobbing above other heads for a while, and then gone.
He made his way back to where the band was waiting. They were on their feet, rolling out their shoulders, adjusting instruments, and tugging hats straighter on sweaty foreheads. Arnie hurried up and shoved Mason’s hat at him. “You almost missed it. Are you really sick?”
He tightened the binder on his ponytail, then crammed the hat on his head. “Nah. Just the heat, y’know.”
“Yep. Whose idea was it to do this in full uniform?”
“That would’ve been Dr. Tristan’s. You want to complain to him?”
Arnie shuddered. “Nope. I prefer heatstroke.” He led the way to where they were forming up. “We need some band groupies. Like, that high school band that went off had a dozen moms running alongside spritzing them with water. I want pretty girls in shorts with water pistols.”
“Or pretty boys,” Mason agreed.
“You are so gay.”
“Well, duh.” He usually dialed it back around Arnie, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t come out years ago. Arnie knew he was fucking gay. Or currently nonfucking gay. “Maybe leather guys, with naked chests and—”
Arnie elbowed him harder than usual. “Shut your trap. The doc’s about to give us our orders.”
Mason listened with half his attention to Dr. Tristan’s clear voice. They’d practiced for so long, he could practically quote the pep talk. So he stood in the brilliant August sunshine with sweat trickling down his back and wondered if Luke might turn back to watch them go. Wondered why Luke hadn’t said one word more than necessary about his last two years or the farm. Wondered if the big guy was so desperate for money that picking trash sounded good. Wondered—a toot into his ear from Arnie’s horn woke him to the fact that they were poised and ready. He raised his clarinet, hoping his reed was holding up in the heat. Then he had no room in his head for anything but the doc’s tricky arrangements and following his field commander.
LUKE MADE sure he was well down Judson Avenue before Mason and Arnie’s band started. He didn’t want to see Mason pull his long, dark hair back, tilt his stupid plumed hat to just the right angle, and raise his instrument. He wanted to forget how that always pulled the jacket tight across Mason’s slim shoulders. Not to mention the bibber overall-things the bands wore that were pure sin around an ass like Mason’s. Luke had managed, over the last two years, to forget how good Mason looked in that uniform. He hadn’t needed a reminder. That’d been a different life, hanging around after school to watch the high school band practice, yearning after one more impossible fantasy.
This was real, and dreaming just hurt.
He slowed at the splat of a cup hitting the sidewalk. Crap! Job. He made himself stop and pick it up. Get back to work. He’d walked beyond his zone, but he could work back up Judson. By the time he reached the parade staging area, Mason would be off down the route. Out of sight. Out of his life and thoughts and dreams again. Hopefully for good. His stomach twisted unpleasantly.
Shouldn’t have skipped lunch. But spending the whole day picking up the remains of other people’s food would put anyone off. He’d eat something cheap and not deep-fried later.
He worked doggedly, eyes on the ground, shutting out the sounds of the crowd—the fussing of tired kids, the laughter of someone trying to eat key lime pie on a stick, the shrieks from around the haunted house. Following his assigned route, he traded overflowing trash bags for empties in the barrels, stowing the full ones out of sight till after closing. His shirt clung sweatily to his back. His feet swam in his sneakers. I’m glad plastic gloves are optional.
Somehow, on this tenth day of the Fair, it was much harder to shut out distractions and just work. Till now, he’d treated this like the high-rise janitorial job he’d had—pretend to be invisible, ignore everyone, focus only on the cleaning. But today, familiar sights and sounds kept breaking through his walls.
The clop of horses’ hooves down the paved street made him look up. Two preteens rode their ponies side by side, tan Stetsons hanging down their backs by the chin cords, feet dangling out of the stirrups. The sun lit the kids’ blond hair and the ponies’ black-and-white manes. He was hit with envy so intense it made his vision darken. 4-H days when the Fair meant showing off Dad’s best heifer and riding double behind Nick past the Coliseum. They’d ambled along on Nick’s quarter horse, like those kids, so superior to the poor city folk who came to the Fair to see livestock like they were seeing tigers at the zoo.
Luke leaned against the side of the Dairy Building, squeezing his eyes shut. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember. Someone passed close by, chattering about the sculpture of Princess Kay of the Milky Way done in butter. Nick’s sister had been a finalist when she was a junior. She said her butter sculpture made her look like Mulan. Don’t remember.
This was just a job. He’d applied for sanitation work, not barn crew, on purpose. Ten bucks an hour. No stupid memories. Do the job for thirteen days, get the check, go away. Go on. Go on. He pushed off the wall, glanced around, and snagged a paper napkin blown up against a post. Doing his job.
He made it through the rest of his shift somehow, riding on waves of mini donut aroma—I ate three bags one time—and the creak of the skyride overhead—Nick dared me to drop a shoe from up there once, had to buy flip-flops, and Dad took it out of my allowance—and a hundred flashes of the red, white, and blue Twins logo—I don’t even know how the team’s doing this year. Time seemed to stutter back and forth. One moment he could still hear the sound of the marching bands on the parade route, taking forever to finish, and an instant later, it was the end of his shift.
After clocking out, he checked his near-empty wallet. He wouldn’t get paid for over a week. Smart thing would be to head out the gates, catch the bus, and go home to his ramen noodles and a tub of cold water for his feet.
I’ve never, ever been smart.
Being at the Fair today hurt in an odd way. Like jumping into the pond the first sunny April day, when it was still way too cold. Like crashing a sled at the bottom of a snow hill, a shock that reminded you how incredibly alive the run had felt. He’d been so numb, he’d forgotten there was still color and music in the world. And mini donuts. Must have mini donuts. He found the nearest stand and handed over his money like he was a millionaire. Hell, yeah. Give me the expensive manna from heaven. The first bite, crunchy with cinnamon sugar, soft and greasy-sweet with dough, burst on his tongue.
Since he was clearly a masochist and wallowing in memories, he headed toward the barns, but halfway there, his resolve ran out. In that cattle barn, he’d shown his 4-H calf, Anne, as a senior yearling, and again as a two-year-old when they’d won her class. He’d shown Brandy to first place as a dry cow before she sold at auction. Dad told him he’d done great.
He couldn’t go there.
Off to his left he spotted the veterinary college’s Miracle of Birth Center. They’d have lambs and piglets and ducks, maybe goats. Critters that were alive and real but not full of memories. He followed the families streaming into the red metal barn.
Inside, the scent hit him first. Clean shavings and hay, and warm animals—sweat and manure and feed—in a mix that made him breathe deep to hold it in his lungs. The aisles were more crowded than he expected. He shuffled along as the kids ahead of him darted between metal pens, oohing and ahing over the wobbly lambs and the huge sows nursing litters of piglets.
A girl pointed at twin lambs nursing. “Look. They like it! They’re wagging their tails.”
There was no reason for that to blind him with tears, but he found himself staggering past the kids toward the back, winding up scrunched against the rails of a pen that held a fine, big-bellied Holstein. Damn it. God damn it. He wiped his face on his shoulder, still clinging to the pen, and knocked his cap off over the rail into nice fresh cow shit. Damn it!
He blinked, then bent stiffly to pick it up. A man’s gnarled hand got it first and held it out. “Here you go, son.”
He kept his face averted. “Thank you, sir.”
“Got a little dirty.”
“It’s good clean dirt.”
The man laughed, deep and hoarse. “Most folk wouldn’t say that about cow crap.”
“It’s just manure.” He glanced up, getting the impression of a weathered face under thick gray hair. “Now if it was pig shit….”
“Hah. Yes.” The man paused.
Luke turned the stained cap around in his hands, staring at his feet because they were easier to look at than the friendly man or the pretty cow.
“Son, are you all right?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“That Deere cap’s seen some weather. You a farm boy?”
“Yes, sir. Dairy. A little beans.”
“Around here?”
“Buffalo.” He pushed enough air through to say, “Was. Was my Dad’s.”
“Was?”
He kicked at a bit of straw with the toe of his sneaker.
“Ah.” There was enough understanding in that single syllable to make his breath come short. “And what’re you doing now?”
“Working the Fair. Sanitation.”
“That’s good, honest work. College in the fall?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s okay. It’s not for everyone.”
“I’ve never been book smart.”
“Animal smart, though?” The man leaned against the rails beside him. “That girl, for instance. What do you think of her?”
Luke pulled himself together, squaring his shoulders like he was in 4-H judging class, and looked at the cow. “Nice strong frame, pinbones a bit high, nice feminine head. Good dairy character, deep chest, wide ribs. Decent legs, pasterns kind of long. Good udder, rear attachment a bit narrow. How many lactations?”
The man laughed. “I knew it. 4-H kid, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So was I. About fifty years before you.” He let out a long breath. “Farming’s never paid worth a damn, but it’s a noble calling. I went on to vet school, made a good living from it, now I’m teaching. But every year, there’s less and less kids with a real feel for cattle or pigs or sheep.”
“I guess.” Down the aisle, a little kid was patting a ewe on the head like a dog. Probably thought she was a dog. A giant poodle maybe.
“You miss it, son?”
His throat closed up completely. He pushed the loose straw back under the bottom rail with his foot.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make that hurt. You have some kind of job? After the Fair ends?”
“I guess.” Maybe. The janitor company let him go when they’d lost a big contract, but they’d give him a reference. As a cleaner.
“Well, if it doesn’t work out for you, there’s always farmers looking for hands. Pay is generally bad, but there’s decent places out there that could use a guy who knows not to put the milking cluster on sideways.”
He had to chuckle.
“Yeah. See? You wouldn’t have cows kicking expensive equipment into the gutter.”
“Someone did that?”
“You’d be surprised at the unskilled help farmers end up with. You’d be a treasure.”
The vet was looking over the rails at the cow, not at Luke, so he was able to relax a little. “I dunno.” Until this moment he’d have said he couldn’t stand being on someone else’s farm, handling someone else’s cows. Imagining Dad around the corner; Anne and Coco and Belle and Winnie and the others out in the field. Until the moment he’d look, and they wouldn’t be there.
But he was suddenly hungry for it, for hard work that did more than polish a floor for expensive shoes to mark up again next day. He could almost hear the hiss and clunk of the milking machine, feel the steering wheel vibration of a tractor and the warm hardness of a cow’s shoulder under his hands as he backed her out of her stall. “I wouldn’t know where to look.” Not around home, that’s for sure, even if the feedstore did have a bulletin board. There were probably jobs online, like everything else. Maybe somewhere he wouldn’t run into folk who’d known him before, who’d be all sorry about his dad and the farm. Maybe.
“The U has job listings for the agriculture students. Might be something there.”
He stared at the cow, imagining tending her, seeing her calve, making sure the baby nursed right away so it’d thrive. Imagining a farmyard in winter, with ice on the ground and the cows’ breath like fog at the barn door. And summer, hot in under the roof with the steady swish and slap of tails at the mosquitoes. No Dad, though.
The vet reached into a pocket, got out his wallet, and found a card. “Here. My name and email. If you want to follow up, get in touch. What’s your name?”
“Luke Lafontaine.” He took the card.
“Good to meet you, Luke. I have to check on a sheep, but you’re welcome to stay here, long as you like.”
“Thanks.”
“That cow’s Pansy. This’ll be her third calf. I won’t mind if someone knowledgeable keeps an extra eye on her, although I don’t think she’s gonna go tonight.”
The vet turned and headed to where a crowd was gathering. Luke thought about following because there wasn’t much cuter than a newborn lamb. But the excited group of city folk needed to see this more than he did.
He eased along the rail into the corner, close to the cow’s head. She turned, blinking big purple-brown eyes at him, then went back to chewing her cud. She had the longest lashes he’d ever seen on a cow. Totally ridiculous. “I bet none of the bulls can say no to you.” Although no doubt the U used artificial insemination. “I bet you don’t get to have the actual fun, huh?”
He blinked away an image of Mason, looking up from under his own ridiculous eyelashes, saying, “Enough math. Time for us to have some fun.” That moment of soaring hope, before Luke realized fun meant video games, and the flash of hurt after. Back before he knew what real hurt was.
Jesus, seeing Mason is screwing with my head.
Pansy came closer and leaned in like she was looking for a scratch. He rubbed her neck and her wide forehead, then lightly slapped her shoulder. “There’s little kids on the other side. Go show off for them.” She ambled over that way. When he raised his hand, his fingers smelled like home. He ducked out the side exit.
The sun was gold on the horizon. Colored lights on the Midway beckoned. He wasn’t going to waste money on rides—Nick had been the one who loved the swooping, twirling, stomach-churn of the Midway. After Nick and his family moved away, it hadn’t been worth the bucks to go alone. But it was good seeing people have fun.
He crossed the grass between rickety metal fences, stepping over the guard strips covering a hundred power cords. The kiddy rides were the other side of the grounds, but here folk from teens to white-haired grandmas laughed and shrieked and clowned around. The tinny tunes from a dozen flashing speakers met in midair, like a collision of middle-school marching bands. It was loud enough to drown out any sound from the horse barns nearby.
He walked the Fair for a long time, wandering up the sidewalks as the setting sun colored the sky red behind the glowing Ferris wheel. A concert in the bandstand rocked the air as he passed. He walked down Machinery Hill, where lumbering balers and high-end harvesters gleamed softly green and yellow. Dad had never bought new like that. Secondhand was cheaper. But he’d always spent time talking to the salespeople, getting ideas.
The crowds gradually changed, fewer kids, more teens. A father trudged past, pulling two little ones asleep in a red wagon. A tall patch of feed corn loomed out of the dimness to Luke’s right, higher than an elephant’s eye, the cobs drying nicely. A brief flash of reflected eyes between the stalks made him think raccoon, but it vanished with a soft rustle. He passed on by.
Eventually the outer gates were in front of him, and he went through. Happy, tired crowds waited for the buses. He found his line, tuning out the chatter about feet and sunburn and chickens and food and prices. After ten days working, he could predict everything going-home people said, starting with “my feet are killing me.” Except Thursday when number one was “it’s way too hot.”
He pulled the rags of his don’t-care attitude around him. One more day done and dusted. Eighty more bucks. Do it again tomorrow. But all through the ride—standing because other folk needed the seats more—through climbing the stairs to his apartment, washing sketchily, and falling on the couch because it was still his week without a bed, music played in his head. It didn’t sound like Mason’s marching band. Not at all. He repeated that firmly as he crashed into exhausted sleep.
Mainly by Moonlight by Josh Lanyon
Prologue
Something dark was following him.
Preoccupied with his thoughts, he didn’t notice at first.
When he did, he was not unduly concerned. It was an old part of town, a dark part of town—and Valencia Street ran through one of the darkest of the dark parts. Not in the sense of street lamps—or beings—missing a few light bulbs, though yes, come to think of it, it was a Stygian sort of night in the Mission District. The witch’s moon peeping slyly through the purple-edged girders of clouds shed little light on the closed shop fronts and wide empty streets. Deep shadows crawled from the mouths of alleyways, loitered by doorways.
A good night to get yourself mugged. Or magicked.
Neither thought worried him overmuch. He was running late. As usual. His main concern was that Seamus might grow impatient and leave—or worse, take offense and change his mind entirely.
In fact, it was hard to believe Seamus had invited him to this private viewing in the first place. They were not friends. Not even friendly.
Not after the incident of Great-great-great-uncle Arnold and the Louis XVI rococo hanging mirror.
Maybe offering Cosmo first chance at the grimoire was Seamus’s attempt to make amends. Though that was unlikely. There was no more arrogant son of a warlock than Seamus Reitherman. It was doubtful he believed he had anything to make amends for.
No, this gesture, if sincere, would be nothing more than a calculated effort to get the best price possible.
Which he would. If this was the real thing, Cosmo had no intention of quibbling over money. Let alone magic.
In three long strides he reached the darkened storefront of the Creaky Attic. His heart sank.
CLOSED read the sign in the front door. It was gently swinging, as though it had only been turned over a few moments ago.
Oh, but then the shop would be closed. It was well past midnight. Cosmo reached for the door handle.
Wrong again. It was locked.
He swore softly, studying the front of the store for movement within the indistinct interior. With the exception of the swaying sign, nothing moved. Even the playful night breeze stilled. Cosmo took a step back, absently considering the flowery white and gold script that flowed across the top of the unlit bay window: Antiques and the Arcane.
Though the lights were off, he could see straight down the crowded, shadowy center aisle to a sales desk—and the black outline of a doorway beyond. Pale lamplight glowed from within Seamus’s office.
Cosmo raised his hands before the front door. He murmured, “Ticktock, turn the lock.”
Simple magic. The kind of thing they learned as children. He didn’t expect it to work, but like the mortals say, it’s the little things. The locks turned—there didn’t appear to be any wards or enchantments protecting the entrance at all—and the door swung silently open as though pushed by an unseen hand.
Cosmo stepped inside. “Hello? Seamus?”
The shop smelled of old books and furniture polish and incense.
Barring the incense, it smelled like his own shop, though there was a sharp, unpleasant undernote he didn’t recognize. But then disagreeable smells were part of the antiques dealer job description. More often than not, the past stank.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cosmo called into the resounding silence. “Hello?”
No one answered. Nothing moved.
Yet the shop did not feel empty.
Framed in the office doorway, the lamp on Seamus’s desk shined with cheery disregard, a sharp black silhouette against the red walls. Cosmo walked soundlessly down the aisle, passing a Secor wooden barrel chest worth a couple grand, a late 19th century Broadwood upright piano in an ebonized and satinwood decorated case. The ivory keys rippled a ghostly little tune as he passed. Fauré’s “Clair de Lune.”
On the other side of the aisle he could make out Goddess boxes, smudging kits, and figure candles in the gloom. Seamus sold both the cheesy and the costly with equal aplomb.
“Seamus?” This time Cosmo did not call out. Something in the listening silence made him uneasy.
He remembered the presence he had felt on the street outside. But no, whatever that had been, it was still behind him. Unable to cross the shop’s threshold? Perhaps he had been wrong about the lack of wards and enchantments on the front door.
He reached the old-fashioned wooden circulation desk, went behind it, and entered the office. He froze on the threshold.
Seamus was on the floor, lying prone in twin pools of lamplight and blood.
Cosmo stared and stared and yet couldn’t seem to make sense of it.
Every detail was imprinted on his mind—the strands of gray in Seamus’s long ponytail, the silver glint of the ring on his hand, his staring bloodshot eyes—and yet he couldn’t seem to take in the whole picture. He felt strange. Cold and far, far away. Not astral projection far, far away. More Am I about to faint? far away.
Seamus was…dead?
Dead?
Not just deceased. Violently dead.
He could not see a wound, but all that blood had to be coming from somewhere. Some opening not intended by Goddess or nature. He swallowed his rising sickness.
An ebony-handled athame—the double-edge blade black with gore—lay a few inches from Seamus’s outstretched hand.
But this was not suicide.
Murder?
Who? Why?
Cosmo’s stricken gaze lit on what appeared to be yellow chalk markings above Seamus’s head. He moved closer for a better look, and his scalp prickled in horror.
The first strokes of a sacred symbol. Had someone begun to draw a pentagram?
No. This was truly unthinkable. Seamus had been slain by someone within the Craft. Cosmo knelt to reach for the dagger but remembered in time—all those hours spent watching television finally going to good use—and drew back.
He must touch nothing. He must leave. Now.
But those markings. He should make some record. He should… He felt for his phone.
A rustling sound overhead made him look up.
The image sliding across the low ceiling was straight out of his childhood, out of a lot of people’s childhoods: the sharp black silhouette of a witch on a broomstick. His relationship with that symbol was vastly different from most people his age—most people of any age. Even so, ridiculously, the sight of that profile—crooked hat, crooked nose, crooked chin—paralyzed him for a second or two.
“SFPD. Don’t move!” a voice bellowed from the doorway behind him—and Cosmo jumped.
“Keep your hands where I can see ’em. Do. Not. Move. A. Muscle.”
After his initial start, Cosmo did not move a muscle. He did not dare so much as breathe. Even with everything that had happened in the last four minutes, he could not believe he had not sensed the cop’s approach. Fool. Fool. Fool. He really was out of Practice.
“Facedown on the floor and lock your hands behind your head.”
Cosmo said urgently to the blinding white light, “I haven’t touched him. I found him like this—”
“Get on the floor. Facedown. Now.”
There were two of them. Two flashlight beams hitting him square in the eyes, and although the room was not in total darkness, it was disorienting. With time and cover there were evasive actions he could have taken, but he had neither.
The shock of finding Seamus dead had chased everything else from his mind. Now he remembered. The grimoire. Where was it? Was it in the shop? Had Seamus’s assailant taken it?
“Last chance. Get on the fucking floor, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
They were as frightened as he was.
He could not be arrested. There had to be some way—
Getting shot was not a viable alternative.
Though possibly preferable to having to explain…this.
Cosmo placed his hands on the floor, surreptitiously wiping the heel of his hand across the yellow chalk. He lowered himself, trying to avoid the spreading cobweb of Seamus’s blood weaving across the channels of woodgrain.
He blinked into the glare of the flashlights, forcing his soft voice to an even quieter and more soothing tone, seeking to reach them, to convince them. “This is a mistake. I’m not who you’re looking for. I just got here—”
“Hey,” the voice behind the second flashlight beam interrupted. “Isn’t that…”
“Isn’t that what?” demanded the first cop.
No, no, no. He tried again to reach them, keeping his voice so soft, so soothing… “This is a mistake. I’m not—”
The second cop said in a wondering tone, “Holy shit. I think I know him.”
“Well, who the hell is he, then?”
Goddess, no. Please no. He gulped. “Just listen, will you? This is not what it appears—”
“Holy shit,” the second cop repeated. Then in that same slow, incredulous voice, “Isn’t he the guy Commissioner Galbraith is supposed to be marrying this weekend?”
Jack Addison Vs. Doing the Right Thing by KA Merikan
Jack sat in his opulently decorated room with hastily made notes. How had he even gotten here in the end? He should have ditched the conference being held for an idea he despised and tried to find Roux, but if he made Father look bad by ignoring the keynote speech, their relationship might not survive. He would never spew anti-creature nonsense the way he used to before he discovered the truth, but stories about his travels could hardly do any harm. After his family supporting him for so many years, he owed Father that much
It wasn’t a big deal.
So why was his stomach in knots? Even the view of the grand Versailles gardens couldn’t lift his mood.
That was pretty clear, no matter how much his mind tried to deny facts. Ditching Roux like this and, trying to hide the truth from him made him a lousy person, and an even lousier partner. The only thing keeping his heart from collapsing was the thought that maybe his stories could shed a different light on creatures and sow the right seeds in at least some minds. Ones that weren’t completely hardened yet.
He squeezed the paper as his chest tightened again.
He didn’t want to be here, socializing with people who’d likely treat Roux like trash or with polite hostility, at best. He wanted to be at Roux’s side, stargazing and walking the narrow streets of Montmartre, cuddling into his warm, fragrant fur.
The knock on the door made him groan. Was it really his time already? He glanced to the tall window. Despite the cold weather outside, the garden beckoned him with promises of freedom.
“Come in…” he groaned without enthusiasm.
A hotel worker in a neat burgundy uniform entered, carrying a tray of food and two glasses of wine. “Good afternoon, Mr. Addison.”
Jack offered him a smile, because what was the point of unloading his frustration on anyone but himself? “What is it?”
Cute dimples appeared in the man’s cheeks when he smiled. “Mr. Addison… I’m so sorry to impose, but I wanted to treat you, and I was hoping you would sign my venator card?” He put the tray on the bed and fished a little collectible wallet out of his pocket.
Jack’s shoulders slumped, and he grabbed a pen from the nightstand before scribbling his name on the back of the card featuring a photo of him holding a whole bundle of necrorats.
He didn’t deserve the high stats he had in the Game of Venators.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you very much!” The man blew at the ink to make it dry faster, but he didn’t seem ready to leave. “About the symposium… I cannot wait to hear you speak, Mr. Addison. I’ve read so much about you.”
Jack’s lips tightened. “The reporters exaggerate all stories. I’m just a venator like many others.”
Davidson King, always had a hope that someday her daydreams would become real-life stories. As a child, you would often find her in her own world, thinking up the most insane situations. It may have taken her awhile, but she made her dream come true with her first published work, Snow Falling.
When she's not writing you can find her blogging away on Diverse Reader, her review and promotional site. She managed to wrangle herself a husband who matched her crazy and they hatched three wonderful children.
If you were to ask her what gave her the courage to finally publish, she'd tell you it was her amazing family and friends. Support is vital in all things and when you're afraid of your dreams, it will be your cheering section that will lift you up.
Born to Dutch parents and raised in Colombia and England, I am a rootless wanderer with itchy feet. I've spent the last few years living and working in The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sudan and Bulgaria, but I have every confidence that I will now finally be able to settle down among the olive groves of Andalucia.
I'm an avid reader and film fan and I have an MA in creative writing for film and television.
RJ’s goal is to write stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, that hint of a happily ever after.
RJ is the author of the over one hundred novels and discovered romance in books at a very young age. She realized that if there wasn’t romance on the page, she could create it in her head, and is a lifelong writer.
She lives and works out of her home in the beautiful English countryside, spends her spare time reading, watching films, and enjoying time with her family.
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit and has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
She’s always thrilled to hear from readers, bloggers and other writers. Please contact via the following links below.
Bestselling author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON has been called "the Agatha Christie of gay mystery."
Her work has been translated into eleven languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first male/male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list).
The Adrien English Series was awarded All Time Favorite Male Male Couple in the 2nd Annual contest held by the Goodreads M/M Group (which has over 22,000 members). Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads Favorite M/M Author Lifetime Achievement award.
Thanks for stopping by, I’m Elle Keaton and I hail from the northwest corner of the US where we are known for rain, rain and more rain. I write the Accidental Roots series, set here in the Pacific Northwest featuring hot mm romance and the guarantee of a happy ending for my men. They start out broken, and maybe they end up that way too, but they always find the other half of their hearts.
I started writing way back when but only began publishing about two and a half years ago and now have nine books out. Each features a couple in my little universe, sometimes there is added mystery and suspense.
Thank you for supporting this Indie Author,
Elle
Find me, follow me, friend me.
H. has worked with books for a number of years, and is delighted to finally find herself on the author’s side of the bookshelf. She enjoys writing historical romances, and contemporary stories too, and while her characters travel all over the world, they always have a touch of British humour.
H. has lived in various parts of the UK and currently lives in the north of England, where she’s enjoying city life as much as the beautiful countryside. In her spare time, H. loves going to the cinema and theatre, and her very eclectic tastes range from quirky comedy to ballet and Shakespeare, and pretty much everything in between.
John has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. Born on a small farm in Indiana, he now resides in San Diego, California where he spends his time gardening, pampering his pets, hiking and biking the trails and canyons of San Diego, and of course, writing. He and his partner share a passion for theater, books, film, and the continuing fight for marriage equality. If you would like to know more about John, check out his website.
K Evan Coles
K. Evan Coles is a mother and tech pirate by day and a writer by night. She is a dreamer who, with a little hard work and a lot of good coffee, coaxes words out of her head and onto paper.
K. lives in the northeast United States, where she complains bitterly about the winters, but truly loves the region and its diverse, tenacious and deceptively compassionate people. You’ll usually find K. nerding out over books, movies and television with friends and family. She’s especially proud to be raising her son as part of a new generation of unabashed geeks.
K.’s books explore LGBTQ+ romance in contemporary settings.
Brigham Vaughn is on the adventure of a lifetime as a full-time writer. She devours books at an alarming rate and hasn’t let her short arms and long torso stop her from doing yoga. She makes a killer key lime pie, hates green peppers, and loves wine tasting tours. A collector of vintage Nancy Drew books and green glassware, she enjoys poking around in antique shops and refinishing thrift store furniture. An avid photographer, she dreams of traveling the world and she can’t wait to discover everything else life has to offer her.
Her books range from short stories to novellas. They explore gay, lesbian, and polyamorous romance in contemporary settings.
To stay up to date on her latest releases, sign up for the Coles & Vaughn Newsletter.
Kaje Harper grew up in Montreal and spent her teen years writing, filling binders with stories about what guys like Starsky and Hutch really did on their days off. (In a sheltered-fourteen-year-old PG-rated romantic sense.) Serious authorship got sidetracked by ventures into psychology, teaching, and a biomedical career. And the challenges of raising children.
When Kaje took up writing again it was just for fun. Hours of fun. Lots of hours of fun. The stories began piling up, and her husband suggested it was time to try to publish one. Kaje currently lives in Minnesota with a creative teenager, a crazy little omnivorous white dog, and a remarkably patient spouse.
KA Merikan
K.A. Merikan are a team of writers who try not to suck at adulting, with some success. Always eager to explore the murky waters of the weird and wonderful, K.A. Merikan don’t follow fixed formulas and want each of their books to be a surprise for those who choose to hop on for the ride.
K.A. Merikan have a few sweeter M/M romances as well, but they specialize in the dark, dirty, and dangerous side of M/M, full of bikers, bad boys, mafiosi, and scorching hot romance.
Meredith Russell
Meredith Russell lives in the heart of England. An avid fan of many story genres, she enjoys nothing less than a happy ending. She believes in heroes and romance and strives to reflect this in her writing. Sharing her imagination and passion for stories and characters is a dream Meredith is excited to turn into reality.
Davidson King
EMAIL: davidsonkingauthor@yahoo.com
Olivier Bosman
Elle Keaton
EMAIL: elle@ellekeaton.com H Lewis-Foster
John Inman
K Evan Coles
GOOGLE PLAY / BOOKBUB / B&N
Brigham Vaughn
SMASHWORDS / PINTEREST / SCRIBd / B&N
EMAIL: brighamvaughn@gmail.comKaje Harper
GOOGLE PLAY / SMASHWORDS / B&N
EMAIL: kajeharper@yahoo.com
KA Merikan
PINTEREST / SMASHWORDS / B&N
Meredith Russell
EMAIL: meredithrussell666@gmail.com
Triple Threat by Davidson King
Anarchy by Olivier Bosman
What Lies Beneath by RJ Scott
The Monuments Men by Josh Lanyon
His Best Man by Elle Keaton
Strokes on a Canvas by H Lewis-Foster
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
B&N / KOBO / PRIDE PUBLISHING
iTUNES / GOODREADS TBR
The Party of Murder by John Inman
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
Behind the Stick by K Evan Coles & Brigham Vaughn
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK / B&N
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
PRIDE PUBLISHING / GOODREADS TBR
Fair Isn't Life by Kaje Harper
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK / B&N
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
DREAMSPINNER / GOODREADS TBR
Mainly by Moonlight by Josh Lanyon
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK / B&N
KOBO / iTUNES / AUDIBLE
iTUNES AUDIO / GOOGLE PLAY
SMASHWORDS / GOODREADS TBR
KOBO / iTUNES / AUDIBLE
iTUNES AUDIO / GOOGLE PLAY
SMASHWORDS / GOODREADS TBR
Jack Addison Vs. Doing the Right Thing by KA Merikan
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK / GOODREADS TBR
Kaden by RJ Scott & Meredith Russell
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK / GOODREADS TBR
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