🦃Tales of Turkey Day 2020🦃

Two Man Advantage by VL Locey

Summary:
Point Shot #1

Victor Kalinski, all-star forward for the Boston Barracudas, is one of the biggest jerks in professional hockey. Before long his aggressive attitude gets him shipped off to play in the minor leagues.Furious, he takes to the ice with equal amounts of skill and scathing sarcasm, which doesn’t win him any friends—except for good-natured alternate captain Daniel Arou. He won’t take any of Vic’s crap, and he won’t take no for an answer. But Vic’s trouble-making is pulling his career one way while Dan’s talent is pushing his in the other. However much they scorch the sheets, they might soon be separated by more than Vic’s fear of being hurt.

Original Review November 2019:
Sometimes there is just that one person who pushes your buttons and no matter what anyone else thinks they tick all your boxes.  Well that is who Victor is to Daniel in VL Locey's Two Man Advantage.  As much as I wanted to whack Vic upside the head and shake Dan till he realized he deserves better, they didn't listen to me and its probably a good thing because they really are perfect together.

You may ask if Vic is such a jerk(BTW that's the lady-in-me-description) and Dan is such a sweetheart how can they be perfect for each other?  Sometimes there is no real answer as to why people are made to be together other than "they just are", I can't imagine either of the men being with anyone else, to be soppy and way too Hallmark-y, they just complete each other.  The heat and the snark that pretty much resonates throughout is what makes the pull and the heart of the story so believable.

This is a rarity for me to have listened to the audiobook version before reading the story, both the author's Point Shot Trilogy and her Cayuga Cougars series was already on my 2020 TBR list but when she released the audio of Two Man Advantage I decided to throw caution to the wind and listen first.  I loved it! Sean Crisden's narration brings Vic and Dan to life that sucked me in from the beginning.  Now with the holidays upon us I won't be returning to Vic, Dan, and the Cougars until 2020 but they will definitely be explored and I look forward to doing so.

RATING:

Cinnamon Spiced Omega by Susi Hawke

Summary:

The Hollydale Omegas #2

I vow to love you and protect you as my omega, my husband, and my mate. I vow to be a good father to every child born of your womb whether born of my seed or not. 

Christian Hawkins, owner and operator of Greasy Fingers Garage in Hollydale is in a rut. His life is spent taking care of his business and looking after his younger brother Kent. The scent of cinnamon is everywhere as the alpha finds himself haunted by the memory of the omega that he ran into...literally...on his way home from work one night. 

On the run from the abusive ex who had no desire to be a father to the child he carries, omega Liam Leigh finds himself homeless, hungry, alone, and pregnant in the sweet little town of Hollydale just a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. 

Christian and Liam both keep running into each other, as well as an odd little old man with a penchant for appearing just when he's most needed. But what's up with the unique golden tipped white feathers that keep popping up? 

This is the second book of The Hollydale Omegas series. This book is 31k and most likely contains an HEA. 18+ readers only please! And yes, this book contains M/PREG, adults adulting in sexy grown-up ways, and way more than an occasional use of potty mouth language. Caution for possible triggers: The homeless MC is an assault survivor. No assault scenes are shown, just a factual, non-detailed accounting of past events.

Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price
Summary:
Psycop #3

Thanksgiving can't end too soon for Victor Bayne, who's finding Jacob's family hard to swallow. Luckily, he's called back to work to track down a high-profile missing person.

Meanwhile, Jacob tries to find a home they can move into that's not infested with either cockroaches, or ghosts. As if the house-hunting isn't stressful enough, Vic's new partner Bob Zigler doesn't seem to think he can do anything right. A deceased junkie with a bone to pick leads Vic and Zig on a wild chase that ends in a basement full of horrors.

Original Audiobook Review October 2020:

I don't think I can add anything to my original review.  Once again, the blending of mystery, humor, paranormal, heat, creepy, romance . . . well it's just absolutely brilliant!  Vic and Jacob just keep getting better and better.  As for Gomez Pugh's narration?  That too keeps getting better and more fitting with each adventure.

Original ebook Review March 2020:

Another new partner for Victor Bayne and let's hope this one is a keeper.  I think this one is even creepier than the previous entries.  Where the case leads Vic and Zig(his new partner Bob Zigler) is so not what I was expecting but HOLY HANNAH BATMAN! I couldn't put Body & Soul down.  That's it, that's all you're getting from me about the mystery side of PsyCop #3.

As for Vic and Jacob?  Who knew there was so much to think about when it came to househunting when you see dead people?  Another element of ghost & spirit stories that I've never thought about before, and Jordan Castillo Price's world building and character development is pretty amazing when it comes to Vic's "talent".  Jacob is still incredibly supportive especially about finding properties that didn't have any kind of history that could lead to spirit roommates.  The scene where he rips into their estate agent over just such a thing, well if I didn't already believe in his love for Vic and his passion for standing up for his love than that scene cemented it for me.

I don't think I'll say much more because I'm off to start book 4, Secrets.  I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those series that if the author chooses to write only a 5 sentence coda or 100 full length novels, I'll be first in line(once I get caught up) to gobble it up.  Victor Bayne, Jacob Marks, and the whole PsyCop universe is incredible storytelling at it's finest that leaves me smiling, cringing, laughing, "awwing", and a dozen other emotions on the feelings spectrum.  A definite keeper from start to finish.

RATING:

Last Call by Felice Stevens & Christina Lee

Summary:

Heartsville #1

Quinn Monahan and Grayson Page have been friends since high school. Despite their differences, they’ve been there for each other through thick and thin. Opening Last Call together, a bar tucked away in the small town of Heartsville, PA seemed a natural progression—even if it makes it harder to live with the secret longing they’ve always had for each other.

Hoping to score an easy buck and a place to sleep, unemployed circus roadie Emery Woods chooses Last Call to run a few bets and enjoy a decent beer before moving on. When he finds himself stranded, the unexpected kindness Quinn and Gray show him leads to temporary work and a couch to lay his head. Sensing unresolved history between Quinn and Gray, he squashes his immediate draw to the men, opting to avoid trouble. But as days turn into weeks, denying the attraction is easier said than done.

When the men finally give in to the simmering sexual tension, it quickly develops into more than a way to pass the lonely nights. And as they begin to lean on each other for emotional support, it becomes nearly impossible to think of one man without the other two. But while Quinn and Gray are afraid to cross the line of friendship between them, Emery fears once they do, he’ll quickly be cast aside. A real family is finally within their grasp, but unless the men can learn to trust each other, they just might miss their hearts’ last call home.

Hannah's Big Night by Mary Calmes
Summary:
Matter of Time #8.5
A Jory and Sam Thanksgiving Ficlet.

6th Re-Read Review 2020:
There is just something about Hannah and Kola that bring a fresh level of love and fun to an already brilliant Matter of Time series.  This short story is an absolute delight and never fails to make me smile.  I can't imagine two kids more prefect for Jory and Sam than the feisty, free-spirited brother and sister team of Hannah and Kola and her adventure on Thanksgiving just, well, it's just feel-good from the first word to the last.

1st Re-Read Review 2016:

Another one I originally read August 2015 & forgot to mark it here. I re-read it again and I love Hannah & Kola nearly as much as the dads, Sam & Jory. You can definitely see Hannah takes after Jory and Kola is more like Sam.  A little adventure of Thanksgiving as only Jory, Sam, and their kids could find before them.

RATING: 

Two Man Advantage by VL Locey

Prologue

“Victor, are you impressed by the outstanding shots from point that Darren Wilson executed during tonight’s game?” 

I looked up from my sock-covered feet to the obese reporter. His brow was speckled with perspiration, there was mustard dried on his pornstache and his breath reeked of garlic. Thirty men stood around me, eyes wide with expectation. The buzz of after-game interviews filled the dressing room. Sweat ran down the crack of my ass. I hated talking to the press still soaked in game-sweat. Fuckers were like miserable old vultures, sitting on the sidelines of pro games, stuffing fried sausage sandwiches into their mouths while dreaming up asinine questions. The fat shits couldn’t play chess without hyperventilating, so they lived vicariously through the professional athletes they harangued. Was it asking too much to be able to wash my balls before the flock of buzzards descended? 

“Wilson is a good player but it was me feeding the puck to him that got that hat trick. Jim, you really need to find a container of fucking breath mints,” I moaned, shoving the fat bastard back a few steps. I mean, this is my cubicle with my clothes hanging in it. Who the double-shit wants to smell like fat, garlic-laced reporter when they’re dressed?

A subtle wave of disbelief mixed with lust went through the press crowded around me. Yeah, they were stunned that someone had told them the truth. They were also creaming their pants over their next sound bite for the eleven o’clock news. I’d only said what everyone knew. Wilson wouldn’t have made half the goals he had if not for me shoving pucks at him all night. 

“Kalinski!” someone shouted from the back of the pack. I wiggled around on the hard plastic bench, trying to see which gossip-whore had called my name. The dressing room was mobbed, as it always was after a Boston Barracudas game. We were odds-on favorites to win the Cup this year, and my skills as center on the first line were a large part of those high odds. “Kalinski, can you substantiate the rumor that you were seen with Roxanne Mikkola last night?” 

Shit. I turned my head slightly, just enough to see if Edvard Mikkola, our backup goalie, had heard the question. Seeing the big Finn sizing me for a pine box, I had to assume that he had. 

“You heard wrong,” I stated loudly, “I was with Pete Dubroski’s daughter last night. Why would I pass up cherry for something that has fruit flies?” I chuckled, because it was a joke, folks. 

The D-man came through the mob like a juiced-up rhino, which was a pretty good description of the guy to be honest. The press cleared a path, or was knocked aside, take your pick. I got to my feet and met the charging defenseman with a clinch around his middle. It didn’t stop him but it slowed him down. Then we both got tackled by an irate Finn.

Just for the record, I want it stated that I can handle myself. I’m a six-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-and-ninety-pound redheaded Pole who was raised in Englewood, Chicago by a single mother who spent her nights with Jack Daniels. For the unenlightened, Englewood has the distinction of being consistently rated one of the worst neighborhoods of the Windy City. I grew up learning how to fight, win face-offs and lead breakouts. Being blindsided by a goalie who was still in pads while wrestling with an angry dad wasn’t a fair fight. Just so everyone knows the situation. It was, however, the fight that left me with a black eye and a new team to play with. Some fucking people just can’t take a joke.

Chapter One

Four days later I was throwing my packed bags into my Escalade. An hour after that I was saying goodbye to Boston. My latest whatever-he-was had insisted I sublet my condo. What do you call a dude you fuck when the itch to fuck a dude gets too strong to ignore? He’s not my lover. Lover means there are emotions involved. The last emotional thing I had was two years ago, right before I came up from Cayuga. Gina had been a good girl, and I’d really cared about her, but there had been something lacking. What had been lacking was that her pussy hadn’t been a cock. I still grabbed tang when it was offered, and that was quite often, but there is something about whiskers abrading the insides of your thighs… 

Hold on. Wait. Let me clear something up. I misrepresented about Gina. She had been carrying around a pussy instead of a prick, true, but that hadn’t been what was missing. What had been missing from our relationship was my giving a shit about it. Hard to make it work when one half does not give two flying fucks. Can I get an amen? 

So yeah, back to Jerry. Jerry is my latest man-fuck. That term will work. My latest man-fuck had insisted I sublet my condo to him. There was no way I was going to let Jerry live there rent free, toss his used condoms into my toilet and bang strange guys while I was gone. He could do that in his own place.

Besides, I’d be back in a week. As soon as the asshats in Boston realized how vital I was to the team, the GM would be calling me in Cayuga with a “Let me kiss your nuts” apology. The ride from Boston to Cayuga would take about five hours, I recalled from when I had been called up two years before. Being sent back was a shitty stain on my career. 

“Disciplinary action”, this little trip had been called. I had been defending myself. You didn’t see the other two overreactionary assholes being busted down to fucking Cayuga. I pulled into a roadside rest to walk off the anger and humiliation. The cold November air would help. The trees were bare, or just about. A few curled, brown leaves rattled in the wind. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. My breath lingered in front of me for a second. I did not want to go back to New York State. How the shit was it my fault that certain guys can’t take some lighthearted ribbing? I walked to a scenic overlook. The wind threw wild strands of ginger over my eyes. Thumbing them back, I stared down at the vineyards that made this part of New York State so famous. This was what I was coming back to? Fallow fields, sour grapes and a team what wouldn’t know what to do with a player of my caliber. 

“Fuck this minor-league time-out in the corner,” I told the touch of winter blowing across the Finger Lakes. I leaned my hip against the rustic wooden railing. Snow would soon be flying. The tang of it was on the air. I turned from the panoramic view of rolling hills. No need to admire the landscape. I’d be back in Bean Town before the first flake fell.

After a pit stop to grab some food and gas, I sailed into the amazingly boring town of Cayuga, New York, population who-gives-a-tinker’s-touchhole. The streets and shops were just as quaint as I recalled. People should choke on quaint. Since it was early November, the tourists were long gone, and only a few brave souls were out and about. Not wishing to hear the sound of that angel on my right shoulder gabbing about quaintness any longer, I reached over to turn up the metal on my stereo. 

I know what you’re thinking. That an asshole as famous as Victor L. Kalinski doesn’t have a conscience. Hell, he barely has a soul. Well, you’re wrong. I do have a conscience. You can ask my mother, Sally. I mean, it was she who passed her morals on to me. Just a warning, though—if you want to ask Mom about my principles, make sure you ask when she’s sober. She packs one hell of a left when she’s shitfaced. 

Anyway, I was beyond caring what the asshole in white robes on my shoulder was ragging about, so up went the rock and roll. It’s amazing how much shit you can find to drown out an unhappy set of scruples. Pulling up to a red light, I spied the winter sun kissing the mirrored sides of the Rader Arena, named after the only idiot who wanted to have a suck-ass team playing in Cayuga, Ronald D. Rader, the owner of Rader Wineries. 

Ron Rader was a grape-loving sot on par with Dionysus, who decided that he wasn’t happy owning a winery and half the land in the state of New York—he also wanted a hockey team. Why, you may ask? Who the fuck knows? RDR, as he’s known in the pages of the Cayuga Courier, doesn’t know a grape from a puck. He was left his fortune by his father, who at least had enough sense to stay out of hockey. Somehow he managed to convince the city council to let him build the Rader Arena and plunk a team into it. When he approached the NHL owners, they laughed in his face when he asked for a pro team to fill his new arena. Well, not right in his face, but behind his moronic back. 

RDR was mad. The powers that be decided to toss Rader a bone, and offered him the minor-league team for the Boston Barracudas. So that was how the Cayuga Cougars came into being. A more horrendous bunch of losers you will never see. They do have a nice stadium, though. Nothing like the Bilko Center in downtown Big B, but for a nowhere town, the Rader is pretty tight. 

I wheeled the Escalade around to the players’ entrance, turned off the engine and sat staring at my playpen for the next week. Even though I was sitting there gaping at it, I couldn’t believe it was really happening to me. I slammed from the Caddy, kicking the door shut. A gust strong enough to blow a man off his feet railroaded across the empty parking lot, chugging over and around me like an icy locomotive. Fuck, but it got cold early here. I drew my shoulders up then headed inside. You can walk into any hockey venue in the world and the smell will be the same—leather, ice, sweat, excitement, blood and determination. That smell is almost as good as the smell of hot bodies sliding against one another on damp sheets. I felt a tingle in my balls just breathing in the zesty air.

I walked past the dressing and weight rooms, my feet familiar with the path to the ice from the locker room area. Just follow the paw-print carpet. It was a silent walk over the blue and gold kitty-cat Berber. One that led me to the ice far too quickly. 

I glanced around at the stadium, not at all amazed that it looked the same. It holds perhaps half of what the Bilko in Boston holds, which is roughly nineteen thousand, give or take. The Rader seats about nine thousand or so. They do have an electronic scoreboard to rival the one in Boston, or any other pro stadium. Pity the players here don’t measure up like their arena scoreboard does. The team was on the ice doing offensive drills. By the looks of their recent game highlights, they needed offensive drills. And defensive drills. And a tendie who could actually cover his crease against midget-league shots. Leaning against the glass by the rink gate, I watched my former teammates take a simple offensive 2-1-2 drill and royally fuck it up the ass. No, let me rephrase, because a good fuck in the ass is enjoyable. This was a fisting by Andre the Giant, bless his big heart. My eyes rolled to the rafters. 

“No! For the sake of my mother’s fucking frizzled muff, no!” shouted Martin Lambert, head coach of this glorified bunch of monkey-humpers. All the baboons behind the goal stopped whatever the hell it was they were doing. Lambert skated over to them, the veins in his forehead bulging. Coach was an ex D-man who’d never crawled out of the minors. He was big, bold, bald, brash and knew his stuff. Someday a pro team would give him a call. Maybe.

I chuckled at the show. Christ, but this brought back memories. Watching whatever line was out there being ripped a new anus, I tried to pick out players I knew from my time there. Most were familiar to me and would be lifetime Cayuga Cougars. 

One short little shit got my attention when Lambert told them to try again. He was a dark-haired little scrapper with a light-sienna complexion, who got into the corners, putting elbow to nose and lumber to teeth with no remorse until he got the puck free. I liked his grit. And the way his black hair hung out from under his lid, flipping up at the ends. The man had some good flow going on. 

His style was good, his eyes sharp, his stick handling above par and his ankles strong. He was the only one who had a grasp of what he was supposed to be doing, if you asked me. When he skated past in pursuit of the puck, I got a glimpse of a round, cute face with a button nose and lapis lazuli eyes. He executed a perfect side-stop, his plump mouth drawing up as he looked at me. 

“Holy shit, it’s the big bad boy of Beantown,” he yelled to be heard over the shouts of his teammates. There was a noticeable Canadian accent when he spoke. He was probably no older than my twenty-four, if that. He wore the big A on his shoulder, so I knew he was an alternate captain. Shit, but he had a sexy Elvis Presley mouth. “What’s your expert opinion on how we’re looking, Kalinski?” 

“To quote Reggie Dunlop as played by Paul Newman in Slapshot, ‘Jesus Christ, what a fucking nightmare.’”

He chuckled, then skated down ice. His jersey said his last name was spelled A-R-O-U. 

Coach Lambert skated into my line of sight. I smiled pleasantly. 

“What kind of fresh holy fucking hell is this?” Coach asked, coming through the gate and stalking past me. 

I gave Arou one last look. He was down at the goal, having a good laugh with his team about something. Being reasonably sure it was me, I threw myself into catching up with the walking wall of sweat and swear-words that was Martin Lambert. 

“Did you think I was kidding when I told you never to darken my door again, Kalinski?” he asked, throwing the door to his office open. 

“You’re going to fuck the shit out of those blades,” I pointed out as I lingered in the doorway. Coach Lambert threw me a blistering look. I didn’t remember him hating me quite this badly. “But hey, it’s your nutsack Carl will roast over an open fire, not mine.” 

“Shut the door, sit down and keep that toxic fucking mouth of yours closed.” 

I did as he asked. Lambert fell into a rolling office chair to unlace his skates. The plastic wheels whimpered at the abuse. His gray eyes drilled into mine as he untied his laces with short, jerky motions. One skate sailed across the room, hitting the wall with a sickening thud.

“I can’t believe this is how the cocksuckers repay me for fourteen years of coaching expertise,” Coach snarled, yanking violently on a hellacious knot in his laces. 

“Your team has come in last for the past two years. I’m not sure you can call that expertise.” 

Lambert nearly ripped his foot off. The skate flew past my left ear and embedded itself a good four inches into the sheetrock behind me. Slowly shifting my attention from the skate of doom to Lambert, I gifted him with one of my “I was only kidding” smirks. It had little to no effect. If anything, the vein right above his left eye thumped faster. He pointed a meaty finger at me. 

“You are a fucking canker sore on the dick of professional ice hockey, Kalinski,” he told me. 

I winced. That was rather harsh. 

“There is no way in hell I’m putting up with you being on this team. I’d sooner saw my balls off with a rusty butter knife than have to put up with your bullshit again.” 

“Words hurt, you know,” I said, inspecting my fingernails for dirt. He erupted from his seat like a missile from a silo. The vein above his eye was engorged. I lowered my hand. “You’d better sit down before you blow a ventricle or something. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

“I don’t know what I ever did to Davidson, but it must have been good. You think I fucked his mother in a previous life or something?” Lambert asked, stalking around his office, cell phone to his ear. I shrugged. Personally, I didn’t care if Lambert had screwed the GM for the Barracudas’ mother and wife. 

“I’ve seen his mother. You’d be better off fucking your own wife if, you know, she’s dropped those hundred and fifty extra pounds.” 

“That’s leftover baby fat,” he snarled, his fist beginning to renovate the wall where the team picture hung. 

“Your youngest kid is thirty-four,” I pointed out. Then I was shown out. 

Turning and listening in the corridor, I heard something taking place that sounded a good deal like a tornado having anal sex with a hurricane. Shit bounced off walls. Glass shattered. Cursing in at least three different languages occurred. Smiling at the ease with which one man could lose his mind, I turned around and went chin-to-forehead with the Rumpelstiltskin of ice hockey. 

Fuck, but his mouth was tempting. Pity it was drawn up into a half-assed grin. He extended his gloved hand. I looked down at it blankly. 

“Daniel Arou,” he said, shaking his hand at me. “I’m one of the alternate team captains, so it’s my job to welcome all new players to the Cougars.” 

“Look, Arrow—” 

“No, not Arrow, ah-roux,” he said, while the rest of the team filed off the ice. I guessed practice was over. “Ah-roux. Ah as in the sound you make when you understand something. Oh! I’m sorry. You don’t make that sound too often, do you, Kalinski?” 

“Is that a fucking Polack joke?” I asked, wondering which pretty blue eye to blacken first. Laughter at my expense reverberated off the nicely painted walls. Each of those walking scrotums was being mentally tagged, rest assured. 

“Do you think it is? I can get you a chair to sit in while you figure it out.” 

Having decided on his merry left eye, since I’m a righty, I drew back and popped the smug little gnome in the face. Arou staggered back toward the wall, bouncing off a soda machine. I raised both fists. The team as a whole closed in on me. 

“No, it’s okay!” the midget shouted. The wall of bodies parted as if Chuck Heston had done his Red Sea shtick. I kept my eye on Edgar Winterson, a hulking Swedish enforcer who cruised the ice like a Zamboni. Arou wiggled through the tightly packed horde, his cheek covered with blood where my fist had split the skin. “I was taunting him.” He smiled, then patted my shoulder. “I’d say he owed me a good one, wouldn’t you, guys?” 

They murmured and scratched their chins, their heads going dully up and down. Fucking A. No wonder Lambert couldn’t get a winning streak longer than his dick. These guys were nose-picking morons. Except for Arou. You could see the intelligence in those blue eyes of his. Well, you could see it in the one eye that was visible. The other was swelling rather nicely, despite the glancing shot. I blew on my knuckles as if they were a smoking gun, then slowly lowered my fists. 

“You’re so short you could milk a cow standing up,” I said. 

Arou snorted, clapped me on the back, then walked off with the odd gait all men skating on carpet have. His girlfriends followed him. 

“Nice to have you back, Kalinski. See you bright and early tomorrow!” he shouted over his shoulder. I flipped him off. That amused him greatly. Folding my arms over my chest, I wondered just what kind of an asscake Daniel Arou was.

Cinnamon Spiced Omega by Susi Hawke

Chapter 1

Christian

“It’s the head gasket, sir. I’m going to need another day before your car will be ready.” I was looking over my schedule, while I balanced the phone on my ear.

The man’s irate voice let out a stream of profanities before finally sighing and asking: “I assume this means that the higher estimate you quoted is the one I’m looking at now.” 

Returning my focus to the matter at hand, I agreed and quoted the new estimate. I finished our conversation and hung up the phone. It was always a bitch to give people bad news about their cars, but at least I could usually fix the problem. Eventually.

I took a drink of coffee, irritated to notice that it had gone cold. After I quickly updated the file for the repair that had just been authorized, I stood and went back out to the garage. An old Kansas tune was blasting in the cavernous space, joining the cacophony of the other sounds that filled my workday. 

The clamor of a metal tool hitting the cement floor when Scott dropped a wrench over by Mr. Tso’s Prius, the impact gun Neal was currently using to remove the lug nuts from Mrs. Peterman’s Buick, the revving engine coming from ’78 Camaro where Tim was checking the carburetor: these were the sounds of my world. 

Tim poked his head around the hood, wiping his hands on the shop rag that hung from the pocket of his navy coveralls. “Hey, boss man. Are we a go on the Dodge? I already talked to Dennis over at the machine shop, they can fit us in first thing tomorrow for the head resurfacing. I told him I’d drop it off by the end of the day if you gave the thumbs up.” 

“Sounds good, Tim. Both thumbs way up, we’re definitely a go. He wasn’t thrilled, but can’t say I blame him. He’s already sunk a lot into that old beater.” 

“True. But once he gets past all this, it’s gonna be a good, solid ride for his kid. Hell, it’s gonna be too much car for the kid if you ask me.” Tim smirked at the old muscle car parked over in bay five. “With a good restoration job and a complete overhaul on the engine, that car would be my baby. I’d never need to get laid again. That car would be enough to do it for me.”

Chuckling, I shook my head. “Yeah, well, instead it will be doing it for a teen-aged alpha. I don’t know how much his dad plans to fix it up, but he did mention it’s getting painted next week.” 

Tim shook his head and turned back to the Camaro. “Well, shit. That kid won’t be sitting home on Friday nights. He’s pretty much guaranteed to get all the action he wants if they do even a half decent job painting it. Those little omegas will go nuts over him.” 

“I imagine they already are, since he’s on the football team. Oh, well. Forget the kid. Tell me some good news about this Camaro. I need to call the owner for an update. He’s already left two messages this morning.” 

“Sure thing, Chris. It’s not as bad as we’d expected. Come on over, let me walk you through it.” 

After he filled me in, I went back to the office to call the customer. The rest of the morning flew by, one car or customer at a time. At lunch time, I dragged myself out of the office and decided to go check in on my kid brother over at Sweet Ballz where he’d worked since high school. 

I’d opened Greasy Fingers Garage here in Hollydale about five years ago. I had moved home to take care of my kid brother after our omega dad died. Neither of us knew our alpha fathers. It had always just been the three of us. The three amigos.

The three musketeers. It had been a ballsy move to open my own business with my share of the meager life insurance our dad had left for us, especially for a kid just barely old enough to drink. 

I had needed the income to take care of my brother, and mechanics was what I knew. When I saw that the town had no decent garage, it had seemed like a no-brainer. Luckily, it had paid off. Now I had a good staff and a steady stream of customers. My brother had been able to finish high school and never needed to worry about having a roof over his head. 

Kent was six years younger than me. He was twenty now, but still so young in so many ways. His job at the candy shop was a perfect fit for him. My dad would’ve loved to know that his younger alpha son made a living making candy. It was so different from the career paths that most alphas took. Kent was a gentler alpha though. He was a sweet kid, with none of the normal alpha characteristics, at least not so far. Maybe he just hadn’t come in to his own yet. 

I headed out the backdoor of the garage, ducking through the alley that separated my garage from the backside of the row of shops where Sweet Ballz was located. As I passed the row of dumpsters that served the different businesses, an old man stepped out from between two of them. 

Jumping back, I willed myself to calm down and breathe. The old dude looked harmless enough but his sudden appearance had scared the shit out of me. He was shorter than me, his head about level with my shoulder. The sunlight sparkled against his shiny bald head, highlighting the wispy white hairs that grew in sparse little patches around the sides and back of his head. 

He was about two days past shaving, with a grizzled white stubble covering his wrinkled jaw. I looked into his surprisingly sharp blue eyes that twinkled merrily. The old guy was grinning like a loon, his yellowed teeth flashing. 

“Whoa, there! You kids are always in hurry. Almost stopped my heart, you coming up like that.” 

I grinned back at him. “I think you have that backwards, sir. I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who almost had the heart attack with the way that you jumped out at me.” 

He chuckled with the breathy rasp of a lifetime smoker. “Sorry, kid. And the name’s Otis, no need to bother with that sir shit. What are you doing back here anyway, kid?” Otis dug around in the pocket of his crackled leather jacket, looking for something. No old man cardigans for this guy, he even wore his khakis at his natural waist level, instead of up to his armpits like most old timers. 

“Okay, Otis. I’m Chris. I own the shop back there,” I pointed a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of my shop. I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d extended the conversation, but I continued. “I haven’t seen you around here before, Otis. Are you new in town?” 

Otis finally found what he was looking for as he triumphantly pulled a partially smoked cigar out of his pocket. He lit it and gave a few satisfied puffs before answering me. I took a polite step to the side, hoping to get out of the path of his smoke. 

“Not new, no. Just don’t get around as much as I used to, I suppose.” He spoke around the fat cigar that was now nestled in the corner of his mouth. He eyes glinted with humor, as though laughing at a private joke. 

“Oh, I see. Well, it was nice to meet you, Otis. I’m actually headed over to have lunch with my kid brother. Can I bring you anything? Or would you like to join us?” Again, I had no idea why I’d offered that, but the satisfied gleam in his eye told me that it had been the right thing to say. 

“Ha! I knew you were a good kid. I always was a good judge of character. Nah, kid. I’m good. I’ll be around for awhile, so we’ll see each other again. Count on it.” 

It felt like I was being dismissed, so I took the hint. “Alright, Otis. Well, it was nice to meet you. I’m right over there in the Greasy Fingers Garage if you ever need to find me. I’d better get going before I run out of time for lunch.”

With a grin and a wave, I hurried on down the alley and ducked into the backdoor of the kitchen where Kent would be busy rolling balls or melting chocolate. Today he was rolling doughy balls, with the help of the store manager, Tom. 

Tom looked up as I came in the door. As I pulled it shut behind me, he gave me the once over and pointed to the sink. “As much as Tom loves a grease covered alpha, Christian must wash up first.” 

I grinned. “Well, I washed my hands before I came over, but no problem. This is a kitchen, I get it. Do you want me to take off the coveralls or put on an apron?” 

Tom fanned his face. “What does Christian have on under those coveralls? Do not disappoint Tom, alpha.” 

I slowly lowered my zipper with a teasing grin, enjoying the way the bossy little omega eyed me as I removed them to reveal a tight-fitting tank top and running shorts. I laid them on the counter by the backdoor with a shrug. “What? It gets hot under those but I don’t wear them when Kent and I go to lunch. So, yeah. Light clothes underneath.” 

Kent’s head came up then. He looked over at the clock and back down at the table in front of him, before turning to look at me with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, Chun! I lost track of time. There’s no way I can leave right now. This order needs to get done by five.”

I smiled at the childhood nickname Kent insisted on calling me. When he was little, he couldn’t say Christian. Instead, it had come out as ‘Chun’ and had stuck within our family ever since. “It’s okay, Kent. I’ll be happy to run and grab us all sandwiches from next door if you want?” 

Tom gave me another slow elevator eye treatment. “Tom will call in an order. Christian can help Kent play with his balls.” 

He and I both snickered. Seriously, when Kent’s boss had named this place he obviously hadn’t been thinking about all the ball jokes that would just roll off the tongue. Even the name. Sweet Ballz? It was epic. I grinned at Tom and went over to take his place as he got up to go order our usual from the Sub Shoppe next door. Seriously. It was named Sub Shoppe. This town and its names. That’s why I’d gone for the tongue in cheek name Greasy Fingers when I’d named my garage. Not only did I get to laugh at the pun, I fit right in with the rest of the businesses. 

Kent was barely noticing me as he deftly rolled the little balls of dough and lined them up on the paper covered trays that were arranged in the center of the large metal island where we were working. I began rolling the balls, making sure they were the same size as the others or Kent would freak out on me. I’d made that mistake before. 

“Hey, Kent. What are these? They smell interesting. Almost like apple pie.”

Kent’s head came up, his eyes lit with excitement. “I know! This is for a special fall party at the apple orchard. They’re celebrating the new cider recipe and asked me to use the cider in a hands-free dessert. This is a basic cookie dough, done with the apple cider and little bits of apple. Once we’re done rolling them, I’ll bake them. After they’re cool, I’m dipping them in cinnamon infused white chocolate.” 

I shook my head, amazed at his creativity. “And you came up with this recipe yourself?” 

Kent shrugged. “Milo and I were spit-balling ideas after the order came in. I suggested this idea. We tried a few different recipes until we ended up with this one. They’re actually really good. It’s like a mix of a snickerdoodle and apple pie, if I had to describe it. They will be more like a cookie ball then a candy ball, but that’s fine. We’re calling them Cider Ballz.” 

My stomach growled then, making us both laugh. “Can I just ask you to save me a few? I really need to try these. You know how much I love cinnamon. And apples. Damn, Kent. These are my dessert version of a wet dream.” 

As if my words had conjured him, Tom popped through the swinging door from the main shop right then. He held a bag of sandwiches in the crook of his arm, and a big grin on his face. “Oooh. Tom arrived just in time. Christian needs to tell Tom more about these wet dreams.”

I tossed him a wink and went back to rolling balls. I figured we’d be done in about five minutes and then I could dig into the food Tom held. “Is there more dough to roll, Kent? Or will we be done after this last bit?” 

Kent shook his head. “No, this is the last of it. As soon as we get them all done, I’ll slip the first batch into the oven and we can eat.” 

Tom slid onto the stool beside me and waited for us to finish while he scrolled on his phone. I spent another half hour with them. As soon as I finished eating, I reluctantly slid my coveralls back on so I could head back to work. As pleasant as these little breaks with my brother were, I had a business to run. I said good-bye to Tom and reminded Kent to bring some of those amazing Cider Ballz home with him tonight. 

While I was walking back down the alley, I thought back to my earlier meeting with the interesting old guy. It didn’t surprise me that Otis was long gone. I just wondered if I’d ever see him again, and what his story was anyway. When I passed the spot where I’d met him, a large feather caught my eye. I bent down and picked it up. 

It was a pristine white quill feather with golden edges. The feather was long and wide. It looked just like the ones used for, well, feather pens. I held it up, admiring its beauty. There was no way this came from a bird. It had to have blown here from someone who used it for crafts or designs of some sort. It was too beautiful to be found in nature. 

I was still holding it when I walked into my office. I laid it on the shelf where I kept photos of my family from when we were younger. My dad would’ve loved this feather. Fanciful bits of fluff had been his thing. Smiling, I gave it one last glance and went back to work. I had customers to deal with, parts to order, and a garage full of cars waiting to be fixed.

Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price

"Uncle Jacob? Did you get to shoot anybody since last summer?"

Jacob’s nephew, Clayton, asked this with the eagerness and joy of a kid who’d just learned that school was cancelled. Clayton was in fifth grade. I have no idea how old that would make him.

"You shot someone last summer?" I muttered, smoothing my napkin on my lap to the point where I probably looked like I was playing with myself. Not exactly the impression I’d wanted to make on Jacob’s family on our first Thanksgiving together.

The muttering? Not usually my style, but I was feeling uncharacteristically mouthy. It seemed like the moment I had a thought, it made its way through my vocal cords and out my mouth before I had a chance to pat it down and make sure it wasn’t going to jab anyone. I’d been this way since I’d stopped taking Auracel and Seconal over a month ago. Here I thought I’d been mellowing all these years, when really, it had just been the drugs.

"No," Jacob answered patiently. "I try to avoid shooting people." And then he looked at me. "Carolyn and I walked in on an armed robbery in progress at the convenience store on California and Irving. It was a clean shot to the leg."

Departmental policy allows us cops to decide whether to go for a lethal or a non-lethal shot when a criminal’s got an unarmed civilian at gunpoint. If Jacob had shot someone’s leg, I had no doubt it was exactly where he’d been aiming. Jacob is a Stiff, the non-psychic half of a PsyCop team, and not only are Stiffs impossible to influence by sixth-sensory means and impervious to possession, but they’re usually crack shots. The Stiffs who I know, anyway.

I’m the other half of a PsyCop team, the Psych half. Not Jacob’s team; Carolyn Brinkman was Jacob’s better half, on the job at least. I didn’t currently have a Stiff of my very own. Maurice, my first partner, retired, although I still lean on him way too much. Lisa, my second partner, was kicked off the force when they discovered that she was as psychic as Jean Dixon. She’s off being trained for the psy end of the whole PsyCop business now, out in California. Technically she's just a phone call away, and yet sometimes it feels like she’s on an entirely different planet. Even when she gets back, I won’t get to partner with her, since they only pair up Psychs with Stiffs.

And then there was my third partner, Roger. The bastard kidnapped me for some under-the-table drug testing, and I’d been so gullible I’d practically given him a key to my apartment. Roger was rotting in a jail cell, last I’d heard. The whole affair was pretty hush-hush. Maybe I could’ve gleaned a few more details, if I was the type to obsess about the little things, like where one’s arch-enemy is incarcerated, and whether or not he’s shown up for roll call recently. But, frankly, I’ve never found details very comforting. I think about them, and I just get overwhelmed. Roger went bye-bye, and I came out of our encounter intact. That’s all I really need to know.

Six weeks later and I was still on medical leave. I felt fine, probably due to the amount of actual blood cells coursing through my system in lieu of the drug cocktail I was accustomed to.

"Did you ever shoot anyone?" Clayton asked me, eyes sparkling.

"Sure."

"Wow. Did you kill ‘em?"

Clayton had Jacob’s phenomenal dark eyes. Or Jacob’s younger sister Barbara’s eyes. Which were Jacob’s father’s eyes, as well as the eyes of the wizened old lady at the head of the table who was about a hundred and five. She’d been giving me a look that could probably kill an elephant ever since we’d gotten there and Jacob had introduced me as his boyfriend.

I think he’d primed his family over the phone. But still. He had to go and say it out loud and rub it in. Because that’s the way Jacob is. Not that he’d be bringing a man home for Thanksgiving for any other reason. But that’s beside the point.

"Clayton Joseph," snapped Barbara. She might have had Jacob’s eyes, but she certainly couldn’t hold a candle to his cool composure. "That is not an appropriate question for the dinner table."

Grandma Marks glowered at me from the head of the table, her dark eyes, half-hidden in folds of wrinkled skin, threatening to pierce me right through. I’d figured she hated me because I was doing the nasty with her grandson. Maybe she had a thing against psychics. Hell, maybe both. I’m usually just lucky that way.

"Bob Martinez retired down at the mill," Jacob’s father, Jerry, announced in a blatant attempt to change the subject. If we’d been in Chicago, where I grew up, Jerry would have been talking about a steel mill. But we were in Wisconsin, an alien land of rolling hills and cows with signs advertising something called "fresh cheese curds" every few miles. I gathered that the mills made paper in this alien, wholesome land where Jacob had been born and bred.

"And when are you going to think about retiring, dad?" Barbara asked. She had a trace of an accent that sounded Minnesotan to my untrained ear. I wondered if Jacob had ever had that same funny lilt. Probably once, but it’d been erased by him living over half his life in Chicago.

"Your father’s got another ten years in him, at least," said Jacob’s mom, Shirley. Shirley wore her hair in a white, poofy halo. I suspected she’d been a blonde in her younger days. "What’s he going to do around here but get in my way?"

"Your mother plays Euchre on Tuesdays and Thursdays," said Jerry, as if his retirement hinged around a card game.

"You have hobbies," said Barbara. "You could fix up your woodshop and actually finish a few things."

"Ah, I’d rather earn an honest wage than stay home and make birdhouses."

"And you could teach Clayton all about woodworking."

"He’s too young," said Jerry. "He’d cut his finger off."

"Wood is stupid," Clayton added.

I wondered if calling wood stupid was heresy in this land of trees and paper. But Grandma didn’t fall out of her chair clutching her heart, so I figured that kids were allowed to say the first thing that popped into their minds these days. Or maybe they always had been. I must have been on my third foster home by the time I was Clayton’s age. I was probably in fourth grade, held back for being thick, stubborn, and socially retarded. But that would’ve put me at just about the age where I’d learned that my opinion was neither desired nor appreciated.

Jingle bells announced the opening of the front door -- that and a massive blast of arctic air, complete with a whorl of snowflakes.

"Uncle Leon!" Clayton leapt up from the table and thundered toward the door.

I looked at the empty place setting across from me and heaved an inward sigh of relief. I’d been hoping that an actual person would fill it, that it wasn’t left open as a tribute to Grandpa Marks, or some other long lost family member.

Leon rounded the corner of the dining room and Shirley stood up to greet him. I glanced around at the rest of the table to see if I was supposed to stand up, too. But Jacob and Jerry were still sitting. Jerry was even packing away mashed potatoes like he was trying to beat everyone else to the punch.

Uncle Leon was in his mid to late sixties and had the same white hair and rounded snub nose as Jacob’s mom. Shirley kissed him on the cheek and unbuttoned his thick corduroy jacket. "Jacob brought his friend with him," she said, gesturing toward me. "This is Victor."

She peeled Leon’s coat off him and whisked away with it just as Leon turned to shake my hand. He led with his left hand, which confused me. His bare right arm flapped at his side, with his right sleeve rolled up to his shoulder.

I shook his left hand in a daze.

Leon nodded his head toward his right shoulder. "Lost it at the mill in seventy-eight. Damn thing still hurts."

I blinked. Leon’s right sleeve wasn’t rolled up. It was pinned to the shoulder of his shirt. He didn’t have a right arm -- not one made out of real flesh and blood, anyway. And I could still see his missing arm. The party’d finally gotten started. Hooray.

"Oh," I said. "That sucks."

"Shirley tells me you’re a PsyCop."

I nodded. "Yeah."

"That’s some kind of program they got going on down there," he said. His ghost arm joined his corporeal arm in pulling out the chair across from mine. "What kind of talent you got?"

I sank back into my seat and swallowed a mouthful of dryish turkey meat I’d been talking around for the last several minutes. "Medium."

"No shit?"

Grandma frowned harder, but Leon didn’t seem to notice. "Can I get you anything to drink?" Shirley asked me, but I mumbled that I was okay.

"That girl Jacob works with, she’s a telepath, isn’t she? Wow, a medium. How ‘bout that?" Leon’s ghost hand caressed the silverware as he spoke. I wondered if I looked like a freak for staring at his salad fork while he talked to me. "So how strong are they, your impressions?"

I drained my glass of soda to wash down the turkey and wished I’d taken Shirley up on her offer of a refill. "Pretty strong."

"What, do you hear ‘em talking to you? In their own words?"

"Uh huh."

"Holy cow, now that’s what you call a psychic. We got ourselves a Marie Saint Savon right here at the table."

Good old Marie had died right around the time I’d been shoehorned into the police academy. She’d been the world’s most powerful medium, and no one could touch her talent. Not that I could figure why anyone would want to. I was surprised that Leon actually knew her name. Maybe it was a generational thing. She’d been big news maybe fifteen years ago, and then was quickly forgotten by almost everyone but the psychic community.

"That’s got to make your police work a little easier," said Leon. "Huh?"

I nodded and swallowed some mashed potatoes. They were salty enough to stimulate my flagging salivary glands. A little.

"Only if you work homicide," Jerry piped in. The whole family had been skirting around my psychic ability, but since Leon had started the ball rolling and I didn’t seem too tender about the topic, it’d become fair game.

"I do."

"Holy shit. I didn’t know they used mediums in homicide."

Grandma glared at Leon.

"You mean medium, like a psychic medium?" Clayton asked.

"Uh huh."

"Wow, you see dead people?"

"That’s just in the movies," Barbara said. "Like the telekinetics who can shoot bullets with their minds." Metal was incredibly resistant to telekinesis, but I’d trained with one guy who could fling a mean stone. He got these splitting headaches afterward, though, so he was never one to show off with party tricks.

"I can see them," I said.

The table went quiet. "Whoa," said Clayton. "Like, right now?"

I avoided looking at the spot where Leon’s arm was flopping around on the table. "There aren’t any spirits here for Victor to see," Jacob explained. We knew that to be the case because we’d called Lisa Gutierrez in Santa Barbara and asked her if there were any ghosts in Jerry and Shirley’s house, and she’d said no. Lisa’s precognitive, and if she says no, the answer is unequivocally no.

I guess she couldn’t have known about Leon’s arm. Not without us asking specifically.

"And when you see ‘em," Clayton went on, "are they all scary and gross?"

"Sometimes."

Everyone at the table seemed to lean forward just a little. Even Jacob.

"Can you see right through them?"

"Sometimes. Or sometimes they look like regular people."

Leon’s facial expression was open and eager, but his phantom limb was clenching and unclenching its fist, and bright red droplets had appeared all over it as if it was sweating blood. I buried my face in my glass, tilting a final droplet of soda onto my tongue.

"Can you touch ‘em?" Clayton asked, his voice dropping down into a reverential whisper.

I swallowed around a hunk of turkey that’d lodged in my esophagus. Jacob slid his glass over to me, and I took it and drank it down. He’d been drinking milk. I just barely kept myself from gagging.

"You don’t want to touch ghosts," I said.

The house around us, the very air, went quiet. Everyone strained forward to catch whatever crumbs of information I might care to scatter. Because we’re a nation that grew up on Lovecraft and Sleepy Hollow and Friday the Thirteenth, and people are dying to know if all that shit’s really real.

"They’re creepy," I added. And I swallowed some more milk.

"Why don’t you tell Uncle Jacob and Uncle Leon about the report you did on salamanders?" Barbara suggested to Clayton.

"Creepy how?" Clayton asked.

"Clayton got an A minus," said Barbara.

"Creepy how?"

"I don’t know," I said. I’d started spreading my food around my plate, mixing my corn and my potatoes, ruining both. "The way they look in scary movies? Pretty much like that."

"How can you say that?" Barbara demanded, suddenly so vehement that I wondered how I’d ever pegged her as a sheepish single mom in her pale yellow cardigan and perfectly creased khaki pants. "When people die, they go to heaven."

Oh. Christian. Or had Jacob said Catholic -- or was that the same difference? I didn’t remember, must not have been paying close enough attention when Jacob had tried to prepare me.

"Barbara," said Jerry. Her father didn’t have a follow up ready. Just her name, sounding like a warning.

"If he says he sees spirits, then he does," Leon said, hopping to my defense despite the fact that he made me squirm in my seat. Or, more accurately, his right arm did. "They have tests." He looked to me for affirmation. "Don’t they have tests?"

"All kinds of tests," I said, burying the last of my corn.

"And being able to see them, you’re what, a level three? Four?"

"Five," I said. Level five was a couple of steps down from good old Marie. But Marie was only a step lower than God. Or maybe Satan.

The table went quiet again.

"Are you a millionaire?" asked Clayton.

"It is not polite to ask people how much money they make," said Barbara. She was the same age as me, thirty-eight. She had Jacob’s flashing dark eyes and high cheekbones, but she looked just as worn out as I always felt. Even more so, now that we were attempting civil dinner conversation.

"It’s okay," I said. "No, I’m not a millionaire. I make more money than a regular detective, but not as much as my supervisor."

"And you spend as much money as someone who’s lived through the Great Depression," Jacob added, sotto voice.

Clayton scrunched his face up. I saw mashed potatoes lurking behind his teeth. "You should find Al Capone and make him tell you where his vault is."

Jerry and Leon laughed, but the way they kept their eyes trained on me, I could tell they were hoping that maybe I’d think that dredging up Al Capone was a grand idea. And I just so happened to need a couple of assistants over the age of sixty-five.

"He’s probably not around," I said. "He’d be a little old by now."

Everyone chuckled, except for Barbara, who evidently thought I was a devil-worshipper. And Grandma, who was possibly giving me the evil eye. And Clayton, who couldn’t make sense out of my lack of financial savvy.

Leon smacked the table with his left hand as he laughed. His spectral right hand followed suit, only it pummeled the table with much greater force than its counterpart. Spectral blood flew, spattering the white tablecloth covered in cross-stitched cornucopia, doe-eyed pilgrims, and smiling Indians.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a protective white bubble around Leon’s arm.

"Are you warm, honey?" asked Shirley. "You want me to open a window?"

I was about to tell her not to bother, when I realized that I felt the prickle of sweat along the back of my neck. "Yeah, okay," I said, as I shrugged out of my flannel shirt and let it bunch on the seat of my chair. I was glad I’d taken the time to find a T-shirt without any holes or stains on it.

I took a deep breath and looked at Leon’s ghost hand. It quivered like it was hooked up to an electrical wire. Like that frog in the biology class whose legs kick when you give it a shock. No, I hadn’t been absent that day. And yeah, I’d puked. Me and Janet Neiderman.

"I’ll be right back," I said, knocking my chair into Jacob’s as I scrambled to make my way toward the upstairs bathroom. There was a half-bath on the first floor, but I figured that everyone at the dinner table really didn’t need to hear me retching if I couldn’t bring my gag reflex under control.

Why did I have to go and think of that goddamn frog?

I dodged past Jacob’s old bedroom--now Shirley’s very own sewing room--and nearly skateboarded down the upstairs hallway on a pink and blue rag rug. Darting into the bathroom, I slammed the door shut behind me. It had a hook and eye lock on it, which might keep Grandma out, or maybe Clayton, if he didn’t lean on the door too hard.

I breathed, and I looked around. It was a normal enough bathroom, more colorful than mine, with blue and yellow sunflowers on the shower curtain that kind of matched a border going around the top of the painted walls, but not quite. I pulled open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet in hopes of finding a nice bottle of cold medicine, or maybe some valium. Neither one would make Leon’s nasty ghost arm go away completely, but they’d sure make me care about it a whole lot less.

The right side of the cabinet was filled entirely with old lady perfume, facial cream, nail polish, and hair mousse. The left held cheap plastic razors like I use, aspirin, foot spray, a stick of green deodorant, cotton swabs, and antihistamines.

Of every drug that had ever been invented, Jacob’s parents owned the only two types that affected my talent less than antibiotics.

I pawed through their drawers in hopes of finding a stray muscle relaxant or even an expired tube of motion-sickness pills. I found a bunch of washcloths and some sunblock. Sunblock. In a small rural Wisconsin town on the border of Minnesota that saw the sun maybe two hours each winter if it peered closely enough between the snowflakes.

I looked underneath the sink and found a pair of rubber gloves and a bunch of cleaning supplies. Damn it.

I tore the medicine cabinet doors open again, hoping to find something that I’d missed before. And then my eyes fell on the nail polish remover.

I turned the bottle around and read the back. Acetone was the first ingredient. And the seminar I’d attended fourteen years ago called Inhalants, the Silent Killer was as fresh in my mind as if I’d just taken it yesterday.

And here I thought I hadn’t gotten much out of the Police Academy.

I wasn’t a habitual huffer, not like the anorexic girl at the Cook County Mental Health Center -- the institution that’d housed me from seventeen to twenty-three -- who’d shown me how to get the most bang for my buck with a can of cooking spray or a plastic baggie and a jar of rubber cement. No, I didn’t enjoy killing my brain cells randomly, but I was a pragmatist. The arm wasn’t going to go away all by itself. And I really needed it to stop waving at me if I wanted to make it through dinner.

I could saturate a wad of toilet paper and hold it over my mouth and nose, but acetone’s a stinky chemical, and I’d end up reeking of it. Instead, I set the bottle on the rim of the sink and plugged one of my nostrils, sniffing it carefully in hopes of zapping the specific neurons that enabled me to see Leon’s damn spastic missing arm without leaving me stinking like a Chinese nail salon.

I felt a little floaty and had developed a sharp headache over the top of my skull by the time anyone came to check on me.

Luckily, it was Jacob.

Since he didn’t need to know I was huffing his mother’s nail polish remover, I put it away and washed my face before I answered the door.

He leaned in the doorjamb, looking incredibly sexy in a long-sleeved, chocolate brown silk knit that clung to every muscle like it’d been painted on him. He crossed his arms and gave me his most earnest you-can-trust-me face, pouty and a little doe-eyed.

"Everything all right?"

"It’s...um. I dunno."

"You went a little pale at the table."

It wasn’t so surprising that Jacob noticed it when I saw something. Maurice Taylor, my first partner, used to tell me sometimes that I’d disappear if I got any whiter, and he hadn’t been joking about my ethnicity.

My eyes stung from the acetone I’d just sniffed, and I pressed my fingertips into my tear ducts to try to relieve the itch. If I knuckled my eyes like I really wanted to, they’d get all red and I’d look totally high. "Your uncle Leon seems like a cool guy."

"He is."

"But...I can see his arm."

Jacob stepped into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He sat down on the rim of the tub and took one of my hands between both of his, and he waited.

I avoided his eyes and stared at a tile on the floor that was set a little crooked. "I’m trying really hard to be a decent boyfriend," I said. "But I think I might not be cut out for it."

"Stop it."

"No, it’s true. I don’t know how to have a family. And evidently, I can’t function without having a buzz on."

"What are we talking about?" Jacob asked. "Are you breaking up with me or telling me you want to start going to Narcotics Anonymous?"

My heartbeat, already racing a little from the acetone, did an unpleasant stutter when Jacob said the words "breaking up" aloud.

"I mean, you know. Come on."

"No, I don’t. What’s going on?"

God damn. I’d started hugging myself without realizing I was doing it. Ugly habit. Ugly, ugly habit. I forced myself to try to stand normally, but I felt like my arms and legs weren’t screwed on right. "I just wanted to...you know...be with you and your family for the holiday."

Jacob nodded slowly. "Okay. And that’s what we’re doing. If you need to leave, I’m trusting you to tell me so."

"I don’t want to leave in the middle of dinner." I stared up into a painted-on sunflower. "I thought the house was clean," I said.

"And I had no idea that Leon’s arm would qualify as a ghost. If you don’t want to go, we can move you, say that you need to sit by the window."

"I’d rather sit across from Leon than Barbara, arm or no arm."

Jacob smirked. "Can’t say I blame you."

I thought about that damn bloody limb performing acrobatics that were totally out of synch with what Leon’s face and body language were telling me. "This is gonna sound stupid," I said. Which I can pretty much use to preface anything that comes out of my mouth. "But I wonder if it knew I could see it and it was showing off."

Stupid or not, Jacob considered the idea. "Maybe it’s got a spiritual equivalent to a cellular intelligence. Who knows? But if amputated limbs can be present in the spirit world, it explains why they still cause pain for some people and not others just as much as the idea of a bunch of neurons misfiring."

Could people have their phantom limbs exorcised? It was possible -- or at least they could have them scrambled with electrical interference, once the technology of Psych science caught up with the psychology and biology of it.

"If I just had some Auracel, everything would be okay." I take prescription Auracel to block out the visions. Or I used to take it...until I stopped. Which was fine, inside my apartment. I guess I’d conveniently forgotten about the real world outside it. Only certain pharmacies in big metropolitan areas carried the drug, so even if I could call The Clinic and have them fax a prescription, chances were we’d have to go to Minneapolis to have it filled.

Jacob stood and pulled a little paper cup from a cutesy holder mounted on the wall beside the medicine cabinet, and filled it with tap water. "How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many Auracel?"

I realized he was digging in his pocket, and it was as if the clouds broke open and a beam of sunshine landed right on him.

"You have some?"

He smiled at me. He’s got a special grin that’s all mine. It somehow manages to be reassuring and to promise that he’ll fuck me halfway through the mattress later, all at once. "I’ve got to tell you: I’m relieved this is only about Auracel." He handed me the paper cup.

"How many do you have?"

"Ten."

"Wow. You’re prepared."

"I was a boy scout."

"That’s creepy. And hot. At the same time."

Jacob pressed a tablet of Auracel into my mouth, running his thumb back and forth over my lips after he did. I turned away to swallow some water. In fifteen minutes or so, the pill would start kicking in. My relief was greater than my disappointment, but just barely. "I really wanted to do this without the meds."

"Which was your idea, not mine."

That was so not fair. My life was perfectly fine until suddenly I had this live-in boyfriend who wanted to interact with me, and I realized that I was almost always high. Maybe it had been my idea to go cold turkey, but I’d done it because of Jacob.

"Talk to me," Jacob said.

"You’re gonna decide I’m too much trouble, someday."

"Uh huh," he said with absolutely zero conviction, flipping my hand over to press a kiss into my clammy palm. His goatee tickled at the base of my thumb.

I felt the first effects of the Auracel kicking in, a little dryness to my tongue, and a tingle in my fingertips that was only intensified by the feeling of Jacob’s hot mouth grazing my skin.

"Stop it," I said. "I’m not going back downstairs with a hard-on."

I felt Jacob grinning into my hand, and then his tongue traced my life line.

"I mean it."

"So you want me to suck you off in my parents’ bathroom?"

Dirty. Dirty, dirty, dirty. Jacob talks dirty so well, and I always love it. My cock stirred a little. The promise of the Auracel high made me sluggish, though, and I had enough self-control, even with a sexy hunk of manmeat going down on my thumb, to save it for later. "After dinner."

Jacob let go of my hand and pulled my T-shirt up over my stomach. He pressed a kiss into my solar plexus. "Dessert," he said, breathing the word against my bare skin and pulling a long shiver up my spine. "I’m looking forward to it."

And here I’d been expecting pumpkin pie.

Jacob went downstairs first, promising to tell his family that I reacted to my medications sometimes. Which was technically true. He wasn’t saying that I’d had such a reaction at the table, after all. Jacob knows all about being technically truthful. His partner, Carolyn, is a telepathic lie detector.

All eyes landed on me as I tried to low-key it back to the table. Jacob refilled my glass with orange soda and his mother pulled my plate out of the microwave and set it back down in front of me. "Everything all right?" asked Jerry.

"It’s fine," I said. "I’m good."

"Nothing wrong with taking a pill when you need one. Y’know, I need to take pain pills for this arm," said Leon. "Crazy, isn’t it? Arm’s not even there, and it hurts."

"You never told me that," said Shirley.

"It’s true." Leon dug a capsule out of his pocket with his corporeal hand, while his ghostly hand twitched on the tablecloth. "Arm’s acting up today," he said. "I think I’ll take one right now."

"You don’t need to do that to make me feel better," I said.

The ghost arm waved a "pshaw" at me.

"Bob down the street lost a foot in Korea," said Jerry. "He still feels it, too."

"What about skeletons?" Clayton asked me. Do you see skeletons?"

"Skeletons are nothing supernatural," Barbara told him. "They’re inside everyone’s body. Everybody has one."

"But I seen this movie."

"Saw," Barbara corrected him.

"Or zombies," said Clayton, ignoring her. "Are zombies real?"

"No," I said. "When bodies die, they’re dead."

"But what about in the hospital, when they take that electrical shock thing with the paddles, and they yell, ‘Clear!’ and they shock you...." he jumped in his seat as if he’d been hit with a thousand volts. "And you were a flatline, and then your heart starts beating again?"

I thought about it. Not that I was worried about giving a fifth-grader a scientifically accurate answer; I was thinking about electricity, and how the most knowledgeable paranormal expert I knew said that ghosts were made of electrons. "I don’t know," I said. "Maybe those people aren’t all the way dead, and the machines aren’t accurate enough to tell."

"You should see how it works the next time you’re at a hospital," said Clayton. "Then you’d know."

"I don’t go to hospitals," I said.

"Never? What if someone shot you while you were being a cop? Then where would you go?"

"I have a special...um, doctor."

Everyone had craned to the edges of their seats again. You could hear a pin drop.

I sighed to myself and decided I might as well talk about it, since everyone seemed so eager to know. Even Grandma. "Actually, now I see this panel of two doctors and a psychiatrist, and they all have to be in the room at the same time to make sure that nobody’s doing anything they shouldn’t be doing...."

Last Call by Felice Stevens & Christina Lee

“Hey. You don’t believe him, right? He doesn’t know the real you.” Gray wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. Wordlessly I sought his mouth, needing his solid warmth. Electric sparks showered through me when he crushed our lips together, and I slid my hands through his hair, clutching the silky waves between my fingers.

Heat rose between us as he took my face between the palms of his hands and sucked hungrily at my tongue. I molded my body to his, my dick aching and hard. Our breaths mingled, and I licked at the scratchy, tender skin of Gray’s neck, drinking in the tang of his scent. So strong and warm and male.

A hand touched my back and Emery kissed my neck, then sucked my earlobe into his mouth. I could feel the push of his cock, and I became a trembling mass of sensation, each stroke ramping up my desire.

“The truck is still in the driveway, full of liquor.” Emery panted against my ear.

“Fuck the liquor.” Who could think when Emery’s lips trailed hot kisses down my neck?

“I’d rather fuck you.”

Hannah's Big Night by Mary Calmes

“Where are you going?” I asked my older brother as I walked into his room.

“You’re not supposed to just come in here,” he snapped at me.

“Yeah—yeah,” I said dismissively. “Where are you going?”

He sighed irritably, which was my cue to leave it alone, leave him alone, but he was climbing out his bedroom window onto the roof above the porch, so I had to know.

“Go to sleep.”

I scowled at him. “It’s ten o’clock at night; in what realm of your dodgy imagination am I going to bed this early?”

“Stop,” he groaned. “You’re not British.”

“Are you sure, guvnor?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re especially not Eliza Doolittle. Being her in one play does not make it so.”

I shot him a look, one he knew, and took a deep breath. I was tired of the run around from my brother, Kola Kage, so I filled my lungs to make sure the yell would carry when I let it out.

“No—no—no,” he gasped, darting across the room, grabbing my hand and pulling me down beside him on his bed. “C’mon, B, you gotta let me go out and check on Anthony.”

“Who?”

“Anthony Mascaro.”

“Oh, that’s your friend who borrows your bike.”

His scowl was back. “What?”

“Ugh, really? This is me you’re talking to.”

He considered his audience for a moment, but come on…

“How do you know he borrows my bike?”

“’Cause every morning at around four, he parks your bike behind the house so you have it to ride to school with me and Pa.”

He grunted.

“And last night it wasn’t there, and that was a whopper of a lie you told Pa about leaving it at the park last night.”

Kola squirmed. “I feel bad.”

“You should feel bad ‘cause Pa’s not getting you a new one ‘til after Christmas, and now you look like a scrub walking while we’re both riding.”

His face scrunched up. “A scrub?”

“Just—that’s what Melody Thompson said.”

He thought a second. “How come Melody Thompson already wears make-up?”

“I wear make-up,” I said, sticking up for my friend.

“Only when you’re in a show,” he reminded me.

I nodded. “She wants to be pretty.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that.”

I dropped my chin and then looked at him because really, we both knew he was full of poop. “Really?”

He groaned.

“Just tell me what happened already,” I pressed him. He was my brother, he couldn’t keep anything from me, I could always get it out of him. “The bike’s gone and you think something happened to Anthony?”

“Yeah.”

“Then tell Daddy,” I told him.

“No,” he said, looking scared. “Anthony said if he gets in trouble, he’ll get taken away from his Mom and she’ll have to go back to where she lived before and he’ll have to go to Foster Care.”

“What’s that?”

“If you don’t have any family, that’s where you go?”

“Who doesn’t have a family?”

“Lots of people.”

“Yeah but,” I was trying to figure it out. “If you don’t have a family, where do you go on Thanksgiving?”

“Anthony says they eat at a shelter.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding, finally something I understood. Last Thanksgiving, me and Kola, Daddy and Pa had all gone to a shelter and served food for the homeless people. “I didn’t know they let kids go to the shelter.”

He nodded. “They do.”

I took a breath. “Yeah, but how come this is about your bike?”

“Well, at night Anthony rides around his neighborhood on my bike and watches for police cars. If he sees one, he makes a call on his cell phone.”

“He has a cell phone?” I was so jealous. “How come?”

My brother shrugged.

“How come he doesn’t use his own bike?”

“It got stolen.”

“Oh, that’s sad.”

“Yeah so now they told him if he doesn’t watch out for police, he has to deliver stuff to people.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. It’s better than riding a bike in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, but he’ll have to make his deliveries during the day.”

“And then he’d miss school.” I said, putting it all together. “I see.”

“So, could you please help me?”

“How?”

“Just stay here and if Riley comes upstairs, you––”

“Nuh-uh,” I said, shooting him down. “I go with you.”

“But I gotta find Anthony and the bike.”

“I can help you; I’m good at finding stuff.”

“B––”

I took a deep breath again.

He shoved me over on the bed. “Fine, whatever, just don’t yell.”

“Okay,” I said, so happy he was letting me help him. “Where does he live?”

He made a face. “Kinda far.”

“How far?”

“Like we need to take Pa’s bike.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Just let me change.”

“B,” he whined. “Come on, we gotta go before Daddy and Pa get home from dinner.”

I snorted. “They went to that awful place with the real napkins; they’ll be gone for hours.”

“But you don’t need to––”

“Silence,” I commanded before telling him to go downstairs and tell our cousin Riley that we were going to watch a movie. Not that she cared; she’d be talking to her boyfriend all night, but it was always better just to say something. Misdirection was key. Daddy said that’s what you did when you were undercover, which, technically, we were.

“Oh God,” Kola groaned when I got back to his room.

“What?”

“Why are you wearing that?”

“Why wouldn’t I wear this?”

“We’re not stealing the bike from anyone.”

“How do you know? Maybe somebody stole it and we’ll have to steal it back.”

“Yeah, but you know that cat burglars don’t actually wear cat ears,” he said snidely. “And there’s still glitter on them from Halloween.”

“Shhhh,” I ordered before climbing out the window.

He was right behind me. “Be careful,” he said, and his voice went up high because it was crackling lately.

VL Locey

USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.

V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, Torchwood and Dr. Who, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a pair of geese, far too many chickens, and two steers.

When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in one hand and a steamy romance novel in the other.

Susi Hawke

I'm a happily married mom of one snarky teenage boy, and three grown "kids of my heart." As a reader and big romance fan myself, I love sharing the stories of the different people who live in my imagination. My stories are filled with humor, a few tears, and the underlying message to not give up hope, even in the darkest of times, because life can change on a dime when you least expect it. This theme comes from a lifetime of lessons learned on my own hard journey through the pains of poverty, the loss of more loved ones than I'd care to count, and the struggles of living through chronic illnesses. Life can be hard, but it can also be good! Through it all I've found that love, laughter, and family can make all the difference, and that's what I try to bring to every tale I tell. 

Jordan Castillo Price

Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. Her paranormal thrillers are colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison.

Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.

With her education in fine arts and practical experience as a graphic designer, Jordan set out to create high quality ebooks with lavish cover art, quality editing and gripping content. The result is JCP Books, offering stories you'll want to read again and again.

Felice Stevens
I have always been a romantic at heart. I believe that while life is tough, there is always a happy ending around the corner, My characters have to work for it, however. Like life in NYC, nothing comes easy and that includes love, but getting there is oh so fun and oh so sexy.

I live in New York City with my husband and two children. My day begins with a lot of caffeine and ends with a glass (or two of red wine). I practice law but daydream of a time when I can sit by a beach somewhere and write beautiful stories of men falling in love. Although there are bound to be a few bumps along the way, a Happily Ever After is always guaranteed.

Christina Lee
Once upon a time, I lived in New York City and was a wardrobe stylist. I spent my days shopping for photo shoots, getting into cabs, eating amazing food, and drinking coffee at my favorite hangouts.

Now I live in the Midwest with my husband and son—my two favorite guys. I've been a clinical social worker and a special education teacher. But it wasn't until I wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper that I realized I could turn the fairytales inside my head into the reality of writing fiction.

I write Adult, New Adult, and M/M Contemporary Romance. I'm addicted to lip gloss and salted caramel everything. I believes in true love and kissing, so writing romance novels has become a dream job.

Mary Calmes
Mary Calmes lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and two children and loves all the seasons except summer. She graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Due to the fact that it is English lit and not English grammar, do not ask her to point out a clause for you, as it will so not happen. She loves writing, becoming immersed in the process, and falling into the work. She can even tell you what her characters smell like. She loves buying books and going to conventions to meet her fans.

VL Locey

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE

NEWSLETTER  /  FB GROUP  /  PINTEREST

SCOTT & LOCEY MM HOCKEY ROMANCE

B&N  /  INSTAGRAM  /  AUDIBLE

KOBO  /  SMASHWORDS  /  GOOGLE PLAY

iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

Sean Crisden(Narrator)

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE

AUDIBLE  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: crisden@seancrisden.com

Susi Hawke

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE

NEWSLETTER  /  FB GROUP  /  BOOKBUB  /  AUDIBLE

INSTAGRAM  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

FB-SUSAN HAWKE  /  NEWSLETTER-SUSAN HAWKE

AUDIBLE-SUSAN HAWKE  /  BB-SUSAN HAWKE  /  INSTA-SUSAN HAWKE

AMAZON-SUSAN HAWKE  /  GR-SUSAN HAWKE

Jordan Castillo Price

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  FB FRIEND

WEBSITE  /  NEWSLETTER  /  KOBO

SMASHWORDS  /  LIVEJOURNAL  /  B&N

AUDIBLE  /  JCP BOOKS  /  PSYCOP

iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

EMAILS: jordan@psycop.com

jcp.heat@gmail.com 

Gomez Pugh(Narrator)

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  AUDIBLE

AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

Felice Stevens

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  FB FRIEND

WEBSITE  /  NEWSLETTER  / FB GROUP

AUDIBLE  /  B&N  /  KOBO

PINTEREST  /  INSTAGRAM  /  TUMBLR

iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: felice@felicestevens.com 

Christina Lee

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE

NEWSLETTER  /  KOBO  /  B&N

FB GROUP  /  PINTEREST  /  AUDIBLE

GOOGLE PLAY  /  INSTAGRAM

iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: christinalee04@gmail.com 

Mary Calmes

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE

BLOG  /  NEWSLETTER  /  FB FRIEND

GOOGLE PLAY  /  AMAZON  /  iTUNES  /  B&N

BOOKBUB  /  AUDIBLE  /  INSTAGRAM

DREAMSPINNER  /  KOBO  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: mmcalmes@hotmail.com 

Two Man Advantage by VL Locey

iTUNES AUDIO  /  GOOGLE PLAY

KOBO  /  GOODREADS TBR

Point Shot Trilogy Box Set(ebook part of a set) by VL Locey

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  GOODREADS TBR

Cinnamon Spiced Omega by Susi Hawke

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK

AUDIBLE  /  GOODREADS TBR

Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  B&N
AUDIBLE  /  JCP BOOKS  /  iTUNES
KOBO  /  iTUNES AUDIO  /  SMASHWORDS
BOOKS2READ  /  GOODREADS TBR

Last Call by Felice Stevens & Christina Lee

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK

AUDIBLE  /  GOODREADS TBR

Hannah's Big Night by Mary Calmes

NOVEL APPROACH  /  GOODREADS TBR